You always remember your first time

The first time I ever did stand-up was at the Knott’s Berry Farm employee holiday party. The talent show was billed as the must-see attraction of the evening. Each of the 1,500 employees brought their families and a guest. The crowd promised to be huge. I had just moved to California from Peabody, MA seeking the limelight and I really wanted to know what it was like to perform for an audience of thousands. I was living rent free with my mother and stepfather and the stipulations for room and board was me getting a job and enrolling in college. It was a good deal.

The amusement park was close to their house, and was hiring. I got a job on the Sweeper Crew. We were the lowest rung on the Knott Berry Farm’s employment prestige ladder. Our job was to traverse the grounds with dustbins and brooms and cleaned up after the guests. We were the Mary Poppins chimney sweeps, except we didn’t dance, we were really happy, and actually, the only similarity was that we did a dirty job. It did turn out to be a fun place to work. I met one lifelong friend, and some other aspiring actors who helped me get into an acting class in Hollywood. Who knew acting was a thing you needed to study…

With auditions looming, I failed to muster a crew from my would-be-actor friends to perform a Monty Python skit for the talent show. So, I decide to write some jokes and try stand-up. The first joke I ever told on stage was, “I’m a Sweeper,” which got a surprisingly big laugh. “There are only two requirements for becoming a Sweeper. One, you have to have lots of enthusiasm, and the second is not being able to spell enthusiasm.” There were waves of laughter. I had never felt anything like it.

My second joke was, “I go to Fullerton Junior College, but it’s not like I’m dumb or anything. I didn’t have to go to Junior College, it’s just that I took my SATs with a number one pencil.” My third joke was about going to the bank with an out-of-state license. After listing all the acceptable forms of second ID, the helpful teller pleaded, “do you have anything with your name written on it?” I was wearing my high school football shirt, so I turned around and showed her my name on the back of my jersey. She said, “but we need a picture ID.” I turned my back to the audience and looked over my shoulder with a big mugging smile. I killed, won the show, and then was quickly fired by Boss Sweeper for telling the “enthusiasm” joke.

After becoming persona non grata as 1985 Knott’s Berry Farm’s most controversial figure, I went looking for an agent to help mold my new rebel persona in to stardom. At the time, the Screen Actors Guild offered an alphabetized xerox sheet of legitimate agents. I started with the A’s and was determined to knock on every door until I found someone to represent me and help me. I got to an agency that, I think, became the 3A agency. (I did some internet research but couldn’t remember who it was — but they were big). There was nobody sitting at the reception desk, so I just kept walking into the corner office. I knocked as I poked my head into the door.

“Who the fuck are you?” came a booming voice.

“Kevin Myers. Who the fuck are you?” I shot back in my thick-as-chowder Boston accent.

“Who the fuck am I?” the agent fire back, half amused and half pissed. “I’m the guy whose name in on the agency!”

“The agency has three names,” I said. “You’re all three guys?”

He laughed. “You’re alright Kevin Myers! Tell why the fuck you’re in my office?”

“I wanna be an ack’ta.” I said in my think accent.

“A what?” he asked with a contorted face.

“An ack’ta. A movie Stah!”

“A movie star! Don’t you think you ought to learn how to fucking talk first?” he said as a group of nervous employees gathered in the doorway to see what was going on.

“I can do accents if I need to,” I said. “I can sound normal.”

“Well, you got all the right answers so far.” One of the younger agents gently took my arm and told me it was time to go.

“Isn’t he your boss?” I asked. “He’ll tell us when it’s time for me to go.”

“Kevin fucking Myers! You’re something else! I’m going to remember that name.”

“Well, why don’t you just be my agent. Then you wouldn’t even have to try that hard.”

Everyone laughed. He came from behind his desk and put his arm around my shoulder and told me if they handled actors, he’d make me his client. He said they only handled personal appearances and we had a brief discussion about what that meant. Turned out, among other things, he handled stand-up comics.

“I do that,” I said.

“Of course you do. Is there anything you don’t do? Don’t answer that — ”

He had the young agent, who wanted to kick me out, give me his card and told me to call him the next time I was performing. I drove from the agency to the Comedy Store to see about stage time. Monday night’s amateur show was the only way for me to perform. I let the agent know and got there two hours before sign-ups to be sure I got a spot. I was first up. It was still bright outside, they were still seating people, and the room was loud. I bombed. It was miserable. The agent didn’t show up and that was probably a lucky break.

I assumed every time I stepped on stage that I’d be a little better — but my second time was a precipitous drop. People were smiling, but the only laughs were coming from the back of the room where Sam Kinison and Louie Anderson were laughing at me, not with me. I wanted to crawl off stage and into a hole. I can’t remember a time when I felt more disappointed. Kinison greeted me as I came to the back of the room, patted me on the back and said something like, “that’s a tough spot,” and laughed. There was a very genuine sense of camaraderie, like bombing initiated me into a club. “There weren’t a lot of laughs, but they liked you. That’s more important. The laughs will come. Stick with it,” he said and left the room.

Kinison was on his way to becoming a huge star, but he took time to offer his support. His encouragement felt better to me than all the compliments I got after doing well my first time. I had been a fan of stand-up my whole life, but I didn’t understand it as an artform. I stayed and watched the rest of the amateurs, and then the more established acts, and then Sam. He didn’t have a great set that night. It didn’t occur to me that Sam Kinison could have a bad night. This stand-up thing was way more complicated than I had imagined. I was hooked. I became like an addict trying to figure out how I could recapture that first high.