Bringer 4

Date: 30 April 2012
Venue: The C-Word show, Comedy Store Belly Room.

You ever forget what you were going to say? Did you ever forget who you are?
Well, the MC forgot my name introducing me. It was a teensy bit embarrassing for me, though I'm sure she was a lot more embarrassed. Then to make her feel better, I forgot part of my set. There was about 10 seconds of forgetting/riffing about forgetting but it felt like 30.

Banned from Pasadena follows tattoos, Nick. You'll never forget that again. Which is weird because that story really happened to me; it's a part of me. Can I really forget small parts of who I am? If that's true, could I forget large parts of my self?

This set went well, and I got the biggest laughs when I played more to appearance than to myself as a person. Me as a person is complex, but if I play to my appearance people seem to "get" it faster. They already made a few unconscious assumptions about who I am the moment they saw me, so reinforcing them builds upon a premise they already bought. It saves time, because I don't have to say a sentence describing who I appear to be, they can see it for themselves. It's a premise traveling at the speed of light, realized in a microsecond.

The experts will advise you to not fight that initial reaction. If you're a bald guy with tattoos, a goatee and an angry look, there's an uncomfortable disconnect if you tell jokes that better fit the point of view of a happy-go-lucky teenager. That's an act that doesn't work because it doesn't seem authentic.


Building on what people assume to be real, what they assume you're like, is a wind-aided sprint. It sounds authentic because it looks authentic, and so it feels authentic. And we laugh because we don't feel like we're being lied to. You become an archetype if this is done thoroughly, famous because that person on stage was so authentic for so long that that persona presented to the audience night after night is indelibly connected with a name and a face.

All my previous Bringers were when I was in a relationship. I had the MC introduce me in a fairly generic way, but made a point to make sure he or she ended the intro with "sorry ladies, he's taken." I walk on stage. Cue laughter. I am the first joke. Come on guys, don't you get it? It's funny because my outward appearance is not what society has deemed as highly sexually desirable, so the humorous reversal of expectation is that the statement only makes sense if meant ironically. Ha!

The set I performed that night produced in me a bittersweet feeling. Yes, I'm awkward, if you go back about three inches from my wrist I have actually nothing between skin and bone, and with my hair that's now curly and my glasses, I look a lot like Andy Dick. But stage me played up an aspect of sexual inexperience that one assumes comes along with that whole constellation of traits of appearance. I'm not going to say nothing could be farther from the truth; I'm leaving the facts private as they ought be.

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, this is why I don't use my real name on stage. Nick Klaus is a character; he's a mask, a prosthesis. Under that outward appearance lies a different animal. Not very different, but enough of a gap that you shouldn't confuse one with the other.

And I'm okay with that. Not because having people treat you differently because of snap judgments they've made about how you should be thought of, how you ought be treated, and essentially who you are is a good thing; I'm not content with that state of affairs at all. But this is a universal and unconscious human trait that cannot be eradicated, no matter how much we teach people to not judge books by their covers. Judging based on appearance is a constant in the same way that gravity is a constant, so I kind of have to be okay with it.

But there is another very valid reason to accept the snap judgments of others. I am okay with it because that's the only way to stop yourself from going crazy. I flat-out don't have the build to be a linebacker. I could exercise as much as I wanted, try out mercilessly and eat and eat and eat; that wouldn't make up the difference. I don't have the genetics in my family to be any more than 6'2" (And I'm not even that tall) and my frame is so small that I can't put on the extra 150 lbs without doing serious damage to my body. No matter how viciously this hypothetical me could have refused to accept the judgment of the world that he would never be a linebacker, this was never a goal hypothetical me could have reached.

On the other hand, I have the build perfect for a long-distance runner; especially the 'doesn't weigh that much' part. Working with what I had, and starting from literally not running in years, I was ready to tackle a half marathon after a mere two weeks of training. And while 'become a good long-distance runner' was never anywhere near the top of my list of things I wanted for myself, the accomplishment still feels pretty badass. And even if what you're feeling good about isn't even relevant to your self-concept, you're still feeling good.

There is a very important however to this whole argument, a clause where this prejudgment can reverse itself, both comedically and in the real world. It's not perfect, and it's not the silver bullet or magic phrase that automatically gets you what you want. In doing this, you cease being a photograph, and instead become a mirror. This is an incredibly obtuse start, bear with me for a second.

One of the best sets I've seen came from a comic named Kurt. He's a large, bald man with a goatee. Contrary to appearance, he's a very nice guy.  And he has a killer bit about how he's a nice guy. But he's not fighting the appearance because the first thing he does in the bit is recognize what people see him as. And the rest of the set is about how ridiculous it is that people treat him like someone kicked out of Hells Angels for being too rough, and the even more ridiculous actions he has to get around that prejudice.

Instead of being what the audience thinks he is (the photograph) he's turning the focus of behavior back on the audience (the mirror). 'This is how you treat someone like me' still keeps the premise the audience had unconsciously accepted, but it's focused on the humor of the way that accepting the premise makes them feel and behave. It says 'look at yourselves; be aware of the response you have to my outward appearance'.

The act of recognition is why we're not locked into an identity like something from The Prestige, forever trapped in a charade that is its own existential terror. Well okay life is a little like being trapped in an existential terror, but it's not that bad. A lot of the pain I went through in my teenage years could have been solved by recognizing the things people saw in me that I denied were there: things ranging from "you look depressed all the time" to "your acne medication isn't working" to "dude, you should not wear a size large t-shirt. For reals."

It's not perfect. Recognition about the things one has no control over forces us to accept that there is something that we cannot get, and that we have to learn to be okay with that. And that's not a pleasant process to go through. Thankfully, recognition about the things one can change brings with it the hope that maybe, just maybe, a little bit of that mask can come off.

The bittersweet feeling that doing this set produced in me comes from embracing and emphasizing something that for years was something I hated about myself. Even now that the facts have changed, I'm essentially emasculating myself on stage and reinforcing that outward appearance that I've tried so hard to shake off. The mask is coming back on, thicker than before. And Nick Klaus is getting even Nick Klausier. There's no doubt in my mind or the mind of the audience that Nick Klaus is single.

Nick Muellerleile is also single, ladies.