Jim Gaffigan on his first drive-in standup show
What's your job like now? The reason I ask is because this "CBS Sunday Morning" thing isn't my only job. Don't get me wrong – I love doing these segments! But like many of you, I have a couple jobs. Well, I HAD a couple jobs.
See, in addition to doing these things, I'm also a writer and an actor. Well, I WAS an actor. Then again, during the pandemic I have been acting like I'm NOT going crazy.
Heh-heh.
My main job, or my day job, is actually a night job. I am a standup comedian. For the past 30 years, 300 nights a year, I perform standup comedy. I've performed everywhere: clubs, bars, laundromats, theaters, arenas. I even performed at a rodeo, 'cause I have a good agent.
Then boom! COVID hits. Getting a group together during a highly contagious pandemic is not a good idea.
So, what's a comedian to do?
A comedian needs an audience; standup is a conversation. There's no fourth wall. Sure, the conversation is kind of one-sided; only the comedian has a microphone, and the audience communicates by laughter, but it's a communication. The laughter of the audience is not just enjoyed by the comedian, it's enjoyed by everyone. There's a sense of community that's built.
Can stand-up be performed virtually via Zoom? I suppose. But nothing beats the in-person experience.
But how?
Well, last Sunday in the parking lot of a horse track in New Jersey, I performed my first drive-in standup show
That's right; I performed standup comedy to close to a thousand cars! People were sitting inside their cars, or socially distanced on top of their roofs. Was it ideal? No. Were the laughs as loud? Definitely not. But it was a show.
And for a couple of hours, through my jokes and through the flicking lights and faint laughter and beeping horns, a community was built. Did that community look like a traffic jam? It sure did! But I'll take it.
Story produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: Chad Cardin.
See also:
- Week 1: Family life under lockdown
- Week 2: Life in quarantine is like a sitcom
- Week 3: Spring arrives!
- Week 4: Lessons of "distance learning"
- Week 5: Kids, quarantine and sanity are not compatible
- Week 6: Consuming all news, all the time
- Week 7: Jim Gaffigan discovers he misses strangers
- Week 8: On sharing dinner with the masses
- Week 9: On living in unprecedented times
- Week 10: Are we REALLY all in this together?
- Week 11: On not knowing what comes next
- Jim Gaffigan on what dads REALLY want on Father's Day
- Jim Gaffigan on getting the whole lockdown thing wrong
- 2020, please turn your notifications off
For more info:
- jimgaffigan.com
- Follow @JimGaffigan on Twitter
- Watch "Dinner with the Gaffigans" on YouTube
Story produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: Chad Cardin.
