How Did I Never See This?

I've been busting my ass at this writing thing for nearly two years now and only today, sitting in the basement, being a lazy bastard watching Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Tour: The Movie did I realize the parallels between stand-up comedy and freelance writing.

Listen - I never claimed to be smart.

The movie itself was meh; some funny bits, some useless bits, overall a 6 out of 10. Listening to one of the comics (Sebastian Maniscalco) talk about how once the tour was over he had to go back to waiting tables and how much that was going to suck balls was just like BING! The light bulb finally went on.

Again - I never claimed to be smart.

Shitty day job to pay the bills? Check.
Would much rather be doing the thing you love than anything else? Check.
Parents a little bit disappointed when you wanted to be a starving artist? Check.

Sarah even decided that I'm the "nicer, more cleaned up" version of one of the guys on the tour, John Caparulo. I gotta say that I think she's right.

We both swear about as often as we blink. We visited some friends yesterday afternoon and it was the hardest thing I've done in a while going and hour and half not swearing because their kids (6 and 2) were in the room. Honestly, if I could, I would use fuck every third word. I'm not fucking kidding.

Then there are the obvious physical similarities. Cappy is the dude pictured above.

No, that isn't me.

I'm not the only chubby, baby-faced white guy who wears his hat a little bit crooked and all bent to shit.

Anyway, I don't know why I never thought of this before and why it strikes me as such a revelation now that I'm been smacked in the head with it, it just does.

Maybe it's seeing other people with passion for their craft who have busted ass and grinded away ending up with varying degrees of success that's hitting me, making me feel spurred on and validated in my decisions.

Or maybe I'm just over-analyzing because the movie wasn't that good to begin with...