Actually I was booked to perform standup on the Carson Daly show for all of 45 minutes earlier this week.
On Tuesday I got a call from a comedy manager that I’m friends with and he said that the Carson Daly show wanted me and that he could get me a spot on the show next week. I was shopping for printer ink at Staples at the time so I said, “Cool, set it up and call me tomorrow. Thanks.”
Later that afternoon I went home and I received a link to this article from my girlfriend — http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1127073carson1.html — via email.
To save you the time of reading it, the article is from the SmokingGun.com and it shows a copy of an email that Carson Daly sent out recently asking friends and acquaintances to leave him jokes on his voicemail that he could play on air.
You see, there’s a writer’s strike going on right now and the Carson Daly show has decided to go back on the air this week in spite of it. They can’t use writers to come up with the monologues jokes, so this was the show’s brilliant solution to the problem.
As much as I’d really like to have a standup tv credit and as little as I have personally invested in the strike (I’m not a member of the Writer’s Guild although do sympathize with their plight) I couldn’t bring myself to selfishly take a spot on a tv show that was not only breaking the strike but also so blatantly mocking its participants with this kind of hare-brained, douchebag stunt.
Here’s the email that I sent manager after I read the article:
Dude, I don’t really give a shit about the WGA strike one way or
another but this is pretty retarded:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1127073carson1.html
I don’t think I can perform on the Carson Daly Show until the strike is over.
It seems like the only reason they’d be so eager to sign a nobody like
me do be on it right now is because they probably can’t get any
legitimate or known comedians to come on because of the strike.
This could potentially be a boon for me and help me publicize my tour,
but it also seems kind of tacky and wrong. The “joke line” thing above
is just retarded. Fuck, he had Harvard graduates writing for him when
the show started and he still couldn’t get laughs with the material
they wrote for him. I doubt recordings of his podiatrist’s knock-knock
jokes will fare any better.
If they really want me to do the show tell them I’d be more than happy
to perform on it once the strike is over. My guess is that they
probably won’t.
I really appreciate the opportunity but I wish it weren’t under such
inconvenient circumstances. I have faith that I’m talented enough that
similar opportunities will arise sometime in the future (probably
distant) if I keep working at my craft.
Thanks for your help. I’ll talk to you soon.
–dan
So, long story short, you won’t be seeing me doing standup on the Carson Daly show next week. It’s kind of a bummer. But I still think I made the right decision.
I hope I’m right.
What a swell week.
Hello Everyone,
