Flirting with Death

By Walter Shapiro/New York City

It has all the makings of a classic anxiety dream. I am in a dark comedy club. The tiny stage is adorned with just a microphone and a stool. I recognize friends sipping drinks at a few tables in the crowded club. The emcee is making an introduction: "Give it up for our next performer. You read his column in USA Today. A big hand for Walter Shapiro!"

This is the moment of existential dread. Naked onstage, with no props, no scenery, no place to hide. The audience is rapacious in its demands: loosen our inhibitions; make us laugh. Onstage, life is stripped to bare essentials. The voice, the timing, the jokes are your only weapons. Every second of uneasy silence is a little death. I launch into my monologue: "You've been reading about Kenneth Starr and grand-jury leaks. Well, I can't get one. I'm the Rodney Dangerfield of investigative reporters." A small laugh, less than a guffaw, more than a titter. But that's all I need. I'm launched.

Let others call it a nightmare. For me, this onstage persona has been my other life for the past 2 1/2 years. Several times a month I'm out there with my fresh-from-the-headlines political jokes, trying to become the Mort Sahl of the '90s. The New York Observer described one of my early performances: "He holds the microphone like a dead fish." Trust me, I've grown as an artist. I have a monthly gig, along with four other talented baby-boomer comics, at the Gotham Comedy Club in Manhattan. The Washington Post dubbed our performance LAUGH RIOT IN THE BIG APPLE. My sold-out one-man show in Paris prompted Le Monde to gush, "Jerry Lewis, move over." (O.K., I made that last one up.)

Why do I do it? Why is stand-up comedy my way of letting go of the rigors of producing a newspaper column on deadline? Am I a raging egomaniac hooked on the adrenaline rush of immediate public approval? I prefer more subtle explanations. How gratifying to discover and nurture a new talent in midlife. I relish the I'd-be-scared-to-do-that praise from weekend rock climbers and hang gliders who view me as a fellow daredevil. But, mostly, it's as fun to get laughs now as it was when I was cracking wise from the back of the room in fifth grade. I get a surge of pleasure each time I score with my New York Times shtick: "The Times still hasn't figured out how to handle gossip. What they need is a special page brimming with dishy detail called 'News We Disapprove Of.' Or, this being the Times, 'News of Which We Disapprove.'"

Every show-biz saga has a pivotal scene in which the pleasure of performing is undermined by the poison of ambition. For me that painful moment came earlier this month when I snagged a tryout for the Letterman show. My instructions from Dave's people were explicit: "You'll do seven minutes at the Gotham at 9:30 Tuesday night. We'll be watching." I was primed, since I had just done two killer half-hour shows at a Planned Parenthood benefit in Greenwich, Conn. In hindsight, perhaps I should have realized that contraceptive-loving wealthy suburbanites were not the best test market to prepare for late-night-TV comedy.

Alas, I was blinded by my own fantasies. I marveled at the fortuitous timing of my big break--just as Seinfeld was taking his final bow, Shapiro would be waiting in the wings. Armed with a kitchen timer and a surgeon's scalpel, I honed my best material to a cutting edge, remembering to allow for pauses to accommodate the surefire laughter. I'd open with my C-SPAN story, recounting my discomfort at being asked by an on-air caller, "You've criticized the President's sexual conduct. Will you swear on a Bible that you've always been faithful to your own wife?" They'd die when I got to my punch line: "Bill Clinton has interns out buying kneepads. How humiliating to admit on national TV that the most exciting thing about my life is hearing about his sex life."

On the big night, there was a metaphorical death--mine. The Gotham was packed with rowdy 23-year-olds on hand to cheer for the other would-be Letterman guests. I followed a young woman comic who recited intimate details of her sex life in Dr. Seuss rhymes. This audience thought C-SPAN was a new condom. The people weren't hostile, just puzzled and eerily quiet. Professional to the end, I got through my set and walked off to thunderous applause--from my wife and four loyal friends.

Afterward, I cracked more death jokes than a newsroom cynic exiled to the obit desk. But I couldn't brood for long, since my regular gig at the Gotham was slated for the next night. The same club with an older, more sophisticated audience equaled a boffo he's-back performance.

So, Dave, you know my number. But I gotta warn you, I think that's Leno calling from the Coast on my private line.