Jay Welch

Today I am interviewing Jay Welch, a comedian from Eastern Shore, MD who has been doing comedy for about a year. To find out more about Jay, please visit his website.





Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

When I was in law school, I started first performing and then writing for a law-themed musical comedy show in my spare time at the school. I really enjoyed that, and once it ended, I wanted to still be involved with writing and presenting comedy, although I still thought that I would be a lawyer. At one point, I saw an interview with a comic who said that he wrote down funny notes to himself so he wouldn't forget them and could maybe use them later, and I started collecting notes
like that.

My third and final year of law school I had the comedy bug and a lot of free time, so I started going to lots of low budget stand-up shows at night like the ASSSSCAT at UCB and Eating It at Luna Lounge. I started getting really excited about the whole universe of the NYC indie comedy scene. My school was near the old Boston Comedy Club on W. 3d St. (which changed its name to the Comedy Village and then closed). One spring afternoon in my final semester of law school, I was walking past the club with a fellow writer from the musical comedy show, and we saw a sign there advertising a new talent showcase (I didn't know it at the time, but it was basically just a bringer show). I said something to her about trying to do it, and she thought it was a pretty good idea, so I emailed the people and they said to bring four people and I could do five minutes on their show. I went through my notes, and thought about some anecdotes I had had that were pretty reliable laugh-getters, and I developed all of that into about five minutes of material. I did the show, which went pretty well, and I absolutely loved the experience.

Over the next few years, I took the bar exam and started a career as an attorney. Though I tried to do stand-up here and there, my career didn't permit me the opportunity to do comedy very often. After a few years as an attorney, I realized that the bug had never gone away, and that I needed to try pursuing comedy properly, which is what I'm now doing.

What do you love and hate about stand-up?

I love coming up with jokes that make me laugh, and I love watching other people get those jokes. There's a real rush of power/control when you're doing well, and it's exhilarating. I also love hanging out with comics and riffing or talking about comedy.

I hate bombing, of course. That's the big one. I'm not a fan of dealing with the massive and sustained amounts of rejection, though I'm trying to develop a thicker skin about it. Practice is helping! I am also not a huge fan of the current supply/demand problem that comedy has employment-wise.

Can you tell me one weird thing about yourself?

I'm not sure exactly how to answer this question. Let's go with this: I love to sing along with the music in my headphones, but it's obviously rude and socially unacceptable. Also, it's an easy way to tell muggers that you're not particularly aware of your surroundings. So I've made a deal with myself that I can sing along with my headphones, but only after midnight, and only when I'm walking on avenues, because they are sufficiently well-trafficked so as to minimize the chances of a mugging, while still being sufficiently lightly-trafficked to mean that I'm not so much annoying frazzled commuters as adding a touch of local color. Also, I try to only sing along to songs that would be an amusing entry if I saw it posted on Overheard in New York, so as to further reduce the amount of irritation to strangers. This means that when I sing along to my headphones, it's generally showtunes or Morrissey.