Calvin Cato

Today I am interviewing Calvin Cato, a comedian born in Brooklyn, NY who has been doing comedy for three years. To find out more about Calvin, please visit his website.

Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

I actually got into comedy because I wanted to be a writer. At the time, I had written a lot of short stories with a humor slant to them and I figured, why not just cut out the plot and leave the punchlines? I figured being on stage would be the express path to success (boy was I wrong). Anyway, I had always liked stand-up comedy and in high school I watched a lot of specials (from Comedy Central to the, I think defunct, New York metro channel). In college, my friends and I had a stand-up comedy group where we’d find a venue on campus and perform on stage. It was ridiculously fun and I thought I should take this on the road. I came back to New York City and started committing to it.

I came to New York thinking it was going to be all Mary Tyler Moore: I thought I would just spin around a lot and throw my hat in the air and people would hire me because of my quirkiness or whatever. Again I was totally wrong (seeing a trend here?). It’s a tough city and I run into a lot of unfriendly cliques a lot, but I keep doing because I like the art form. I like the rush that you get when you connect with a crowd. And also, for all the high school politics, I love dealing with so many talented people with a real passion for the stage. It is really rare to see people pursuing their dreams and I was always drawn to that "I'm not going to just settle for a boring job" aspect of things. I really enjoy the performance aspect of it all; it’s quite a high.

Have you ever reached a low point in your comedy career and how did you deal?

Wow, there’s been more than a couple. There was the time I was doing a show in Brooklyn for these uber-privileged hipster kids. They hated everyone else who went up but I was sure I was going to win them over with my jokes about Harlem and homelessness. Cut to me being stared at in silence for seven minutes. Ugh, and the one guy who did well was completely worshipped. I remember after the show, a small group of girls came up to the guy who did well as I was talking to him, totally interrupted my conversation with him, and kept chatting with him about how awesome he was and how much the other comics sucked. And at one point, one of the girls turned to me and said “Oh I didn’t realize you were still here.” Whatever.

One of the worst ones was when I was supposed to do two shows in Connecticut. I was driving up there and I lost control of my car and nearly skidded into a guardrail. While I was stopped and trying to make sure I wasn’t in fluffy cloud heaven, my temp agent called me to fire me from my crappy job. I made it to the show and was so angry that I just flat out bombed. Like, I resorted to calling someone a Neo-Nazi for no reason and went off on a tangent about dildos. It was terrible. But oddly enough, after that something snapped, and I was like, I have to keep doing this.

Basically, I deal with bad shows by reminding myself of all the good shows I have, and by taking mini-breaks every once in a while. I think a mistake most new people make is forcing themselves to go up 5 times a night every night of the week. You should only be performing if you know you’re going to get something out of it; you shouldn’t perform because of the stamina factor. It’s so easy to burnout or make yourself sick and bitter in this business. Sometimes, you have to take a step back and assess where you are and where you want to be. I try to maintain an active social life outside of comedy which does wonders for my self-esteem and my sanity. I still have bad days and bad shows but now it’s seasonal, like comedy PMS. You go through cycles.

What is the one thing you can't live without besides comedy?

What can’t I live without? As of right now, it’s chocolate croissants. Before that, it was napoleons. My God, I’m so bourgeois with my tastes: I sound like a buppie and I live like a transient, but it’s true. I’m a pastry whore, what can I say?