Episode 17: It’s Never too Late to Be a Beginner with Comedian Ivy Eisenberg
Join your host Betsy Bush as she speaks with Ivy Eisenberg, an award-winning writer, comedian and storyteller. They discuss how she writes from her life experiences, her love of working which fuels her love of shopping and a look behind-the-scenes of being a comedian.
Mentioned:
Transcript:
Betsy Bush (00:51):
What do you do when you're fired at 56? For so many of us that might mean forced retirement for my guest today, she took the opportunity to pursue a dream as a standup comic. Let's listen in at one of the sessions at the New York comedy club.
Ivy Eisenberg (01:21):
I'm almost 60. At this very, very moment. Something hurts. I used to be a peer of shape. I have a friend who was an apple, another one who was a rhubarb. That's what we do, women. We categorize them as produce. My mom would drag me to the department store and she'd been asked the sales girl, excuse me. Can you tell me when Chubby department is? Chubby girls, but like most women I got for 10 minutes, just long enough to trick my husband and I have every diet book ever written eat right for your type. My type is six foot four dark didn't work. I didn't want to be alone. And I remembered that old adage. If you can't stick with the one you love, when you with goodness seduce the sweet to me when JD now I can't find anybody to cut my curly hair and I'm like, I cut hair. And that was a total lie. I mean, cut my baby sister's hair once. And she looked like Florence Henderson from the Brady bunch in the sixties. I cut my best friend's sideburns and cut her ear lob.
Betsy Bush (02:56):
That was hilarious. I love how you're upfront about your age in your routines. And in fact, my sense of it is that it gives you content. It really gives you something to, to bring to your act. And it really, you really see the audience responding. Tell me about that.
Ivy Eisenberg (03:19):
Interesting you should say that because I think the longer you live, the more material you have, yes. The more that happens in your life that doesn't work for you. The more failure you have, the more rejection you have. It's great for comedy, I will say. So. Yes, I do make no bones about my age. And one thing is when you're on stage, you can't hide the fact of how large you are, how dumpy you are, how old you are. And rather than try to pretend it doesn't exist. You just own it and you make jokes about it.
Betsy Bush (03:56):
So a lot of people have dreams of doing exactly what you're doing, ditching the day job and trying to launch a career, some kind of show business career. Maybe it's stand up, maybe it's music or something else. But tell me what it was like for you at the age of 56. You were--maybe some people would say like an office, drone an office assistant. You described it as,usomewhere between, you know, the Dilbert comics and The Office, you know, series that you've had so many, you've had a long life in those office situations. And then to be suddenly, let go at 56, must've been devastating.
Ivy Eisenberg (04:41):
So I always loved to work, which is convenient because I also like to shop. And so I need to support my habit of shopping by working. So I've always worked full time. In the back of my mind I've always been funny even when I don't try to be. So people tell me, I'm funny. I had a boss who told me that my self-effacing affect in meetings is very good for comedy, but not good for the meeting. So I need to cut it out, but I have always loved to work, but deep in my heart, I really also like to perform where I might be sort of stiff and an okay worker in the, in the drone and the drone and the day job. I feel like I come alive when I'm on stage.
Betsy Bush (05:33):
I'm sure a lot of people kind of have that dream of, oh, I'll be my real self, my authentic self when I'm in this role. And I can kind of shed this outer shell that I wear when I'm around other people in a corporate situation or a professional situation. And I can be my real self, what goes in to doing comedy. Cause I think some people would be very surprised at what is involved in coming up with the kind of routine that you you can perform. And, you know, five minutes of great comedy is there's a lot of work involved. Isn't there.
Ivy Eisenberg (06:12):
Yes. So a lot of people think that it is takes nothing that you can just get up there and shoot the breeze. And you're funny. And most people who try that they are woefully sadly unfunny because it takes a lot of time and a lot of preparation, they say it takes about 80 hours to come up with a good three minute routine. And believe me, three minutes is an interminable amount of time. And for those three minutes, maybe one minute or 30 seconds survives. So that's like a 0.002% success rate. And that's if we keep at it and a lot of people don't keep at it. So as much time as it takes to be a medical doctor, 10 years, it takes about 10 years to get good at comedy. I am by no means good at comedy. I'm not great. I make mistakes. I'm a little stiff. I'm not comfortable. And the other thing is, if you're a little uncomfortable, often the audiences and forgiving, they often turn on you and they heckle you, so you have to get up there and own the audience. And when you're starting out, you're not playing big, pretty clubs. You're playing these dumpy little clubs in the middle of nowhere. New York is fortunate because there are a lot of opportunities for you to get up there and work on your comedy and sort of, you know, find your voice. But you're doing so in like in the middle of the night, like at midnight, you know, in front of maybe eight people, six of them, or don't speak the language because they're tourists. And then there's another guy who's a pervert and somebody else who owns the bar and you're trying to make people laugh. And imagine being 56 years old with two kids headed off to college, not earning a living, having to collect unemployment for the first time in your life and trying to tell jokes about dieting. I mean, it's the most ridiculous thing. Like what have my life come to? It was crazy.
Betsy Bush (08:37):
But, but you had the support of your family or did you have the support of your family? What did they think about that?
Ivy Eisenberg (08:44):
I did have the support of my family. So first of all, my husband assumed that this was my dream. And he said, look a lovely guy. I make a lot of fun of him on stage, but he is a nice guy. Don't tell him I said that because then they'll hold it over me. But anyway, so yes. So he said, look, don't worry about that you lost your job. We'll make too, I work. He does work. He's not as driven as I am because he doesn't like shoes as much as I do, but he works and he's like, we can, we'll sell the house if we have to. Well, you know, we'll scale back and I'm like, I don't want to sell the house. I don't want to scale back. I don't want to do this. So actually, although I said, this is what I want to do. I want to pursue comedy. I never really stopped working. I actually do consult in a day job. I'd pretend to be normal. I, I, I put on work clothes. I mean, right now I'm wearing a t-shirt because it's the pandemic, you know, and I'm working from home. But I, I actually sort of pretend to be normal enough to function in the salt mines, what we call the salt mines. So the bowels of corporate America and I get work done. I manage projects. I sit in meetings with people and you know, I take notes and I parrot back what I need to say. And so I do, I work and I, and I earn a living. I don't want to sell my house because I liked my house because I don't like going out. I mean, this pandemic has been the best thing for me because I don't have to go out of the house and I could sort of have my opinions and comment about the world without having to interact with people, which is a lot of fun, sort of my nature.
Betsy Bush (10:32):
So you're something of an, of an introvert who goes on stage and tells jokes. And it's, it really does seem to be, you know, maybe a disconnect there, or maybe that's what makes it work. I don't know.
Ivy Eisenberg (10:47):
I am an introvert and not every comedian is an introvert, but I am an introvert. And it's interesting because people don't think that because when there's a distance and when I'm on stage and also what I'm giving a speech, even if it's a straight speech, I'm warm and I interact with people, but it is sort of from a distance and it is sort of a safe space, a safe distance. Whereas when you're interacting with people one-on-one, or in a small group, that's when I'm very uncomfortable or, you know, it's difficult for me to find my words. So, you know, I race to go back to the back of the you know, the back of a room or I can't wait to get home and just sort of be be on my own.
Betsy Bush (11:38):
You had an interesting, I would say a breakthrough moment at a storytelling conference back in the nineties. Do you want to tell me about that? Because it was an interesting moment for you where think you realized that there was another path for you available, perhaps
Ivy Eisenberg (11:58):
Yes. This was when actually it was a writer's conference. It was the international women's writing guild and it was a writers conference and I had a new baby. So I had my baby in 1992. And though most women start doing nesting, like before they give birth. My form of nesting was I started to have a furious period of writing. I was doing a lot of writing and I was writing essays, humorous essays at the time I was doing as much as I can. I wanted to preserve every piece of the ridiculousness of pregnancy and giving birth and dealing with all of that as a modern woman who also works full time, like a fiend. I'm a workaholic too. I work many hours. So I had been doing all this writing. And when my baby was about two years old, I went to the international women's writing Guild conference at Skidmore college. It was at Skidmore college and the first night they have open mic night where people can get up and read what they've written. So I went with my best friend, Carol, and I said to her, I don't know, I have this essay "Ten tips to successful breastfeeding." Do you think I could do this? There's a lot of lesbians at this conference. And Carol says to me, Ivy lesbians, loft breasts, you're going to be great. Don't worry about it. It's a good essay. It's funny. So I get up and it was this big auditorium, maybe 400 people. And I get up and I read this and I brought down that house. Every single line landed, every line, got a huge laugh one right after the other. And it was amazing. And I got such a high and I had never had such success in my life. Um I never have success. I never win anything. I never come in first. I usually, I have a lot of sort of failure or at best I'm like, oh, honorable mention lady. Right? I had so much success. And then at the conference I was like the star of the conference. So all the instructors were inviting me to eat lunch with them in the cafeteria and people were like, passing me by and pointing like, oh, there's the one that was so great. And everybody thought, oh wow, she's cute. She's probably famous or something. It was amazing. And that's when I knew, it's like, wow, I really can do this if I want, that was 30 years ago. And I've still been writing. And I still haven't really sort of taken the plunge to do that. And that was writing humorous essays and reading them. I started doing some, some shows and performances where I would read my essays on the side, but really it wasn't until I got kicked to the curb from corporate America, 56 said, I decided, let me try some stand up and I'm still doing it, but I still consider it rather a side hustle because it takes a while to get good at it. And I'm only 64. So I have a couple of years left in me. I'm still out.
Betsy Bush (15:35):
Well, you know, some comedians go for a long, long time, right? George Burns went for ever. Does anyone ever compare you to Joan Rivers?
Ivy Eisenberg (15:44):
I wish no. Joan Rivers is great. I saw her about a week or two before she passed at the Westbank cafe. And she brought it. So as much as you bring it, when you're, you know, you're younger, you, she was still bringing it even when she was, I guess, 80. And if you've ever seen the documentary of her, she has stacks and stacks of little note cards with jokes and she works those jokes and she works on them. And in the live performance, she has sort of note cards on the stage to help her figure out what she's going to do. But every second of that show, she was on and she was working. And there's something that I think we talked about a little bit earlier is that it is really, really hard to be a good comedian. They get up there and they seem so relaxed. Then it's funny. And you think it's very light, but it is very serious, hard work. It is like comedy to storytelling is like poetry to prose. Comedy is like poetry. The language is very spare. You, you will rewrite a joke to put one word after the other, you know, the, the pace of the joke where you'll put something in your routine. And then the other thing that I didn't realize until I got into this a little more is that comedians will tell the same joke over and over and over again. I was trying to write fresh material every time I went out there, but really they'll tell the same joke over and over again. And then they'll know what works and they'll start off strong with what works and they'll have an idea of where they want to finish to get that big impact. And then if they want to try something new, they'll figure out where to slot it in the middle to test it out. And if it works one night, they'll do it the next, if it doesn't work one night, they'll change it around and it might work the other night. Now what makes it very challenging is that the audience is part of the success of this show. So what might work beautifully one night, you might do exactly the same way, but for some reason, the dynamic of the room the next night just doesn't cut it. And it just doesn't work. But over time, of course, the people who do this over time and they put in the work and they work themselves hard and they're very serious about it. They have a much, much better hit rate.
Betsy Bush (18:28):
Are there enough venues for people to be working at, to, to refine this material? I mean, I think about, you know, the golden age of comedy, when you had the, you know, the hotels at the Catskills and you had people who could work those venues every single night to, to kind of refine that material or the different clubs that used to be around that maybe just aren't there anymore. You know, the live entertainment world, even for, you know, rock bands, you know, we were talking about Malcolm Gladwell's essay about 10,000 hours and how you need 10,000 hours to really perfect your craft, whatever kind of performer you are. If you're a musician, he uses the Beatles as a, as an example, because they were busy. They played this Hamburg rock, the cafe where they would play live music for like 10 or 12 hours a day. And there was just on all the time and they perfected their craft, but it sounds like comedians really need that time to hone their craft. And I'm wondering if there are those places around where they can be up in front of a live audience.
Ivy Eisenberg (19:43):
That is so true. And you're bringing up such an important point. The most important thing you need to do as a budding comedian is to get stage time. So just like driving and just like giving birth, it's not about the written test. It's about getting out there and doing it. So in New York City and in a lot of places around New York city, there are these open mic opportunities where you can get stage time. You often have to pay $5 or buy a drink, and then you can go and practice your set. Now you might be in a room with 20 comedians and you each have five minutes and it's interminably long because you're often following guys in their twenties talking on and on every last one, talking about their male genitalia. And then you get on and talking about being a, you know, a 60 year old lady with overweight issues, but nevertheless, you still have to get out there and do it.If you're not in the city, there are plenty of small stages where you do that. And for comedians that are up and coming, it's not just playing the big clubs like Caroline's comedy, a Gotham comedy. It's about playing colleges all across the country. A lot of them go on the road. There are bars that have comedy shows. There are colleges that have comedy shows. Sometimes restaurants might have comedy night and they have that all over the country. New Jersey has a big comedy scene. There's a lot of stages in New Jersey. There were a lot of stages in long island. There's almost nothing here where I live in Westchester. You know, I, it's just not the thing up here, but there are a lot of places to do it. Now, when you're at the bottom of the barrel, what you're doing is you're paying to perform for five minutes. So remember, it's like a residency it's like going to college, you have to pay to do this. If you're lucky, you'll get on a show. That's called a bringer show where if you bring five people that will pay for a ticket and buy two drinks, they'll give you five minutes to get up there. Imagine how many friends you have to have and how many people you have to go through to have people constantly coming up to see you. But I know there are people who go from show to show like some people will do three or four shows a night trying to get more stage time, just so that they can get out there. There is no shortcut to being able to get good at it. You just need to get out there and keep getting out there and honing your material. You need to be able to handle hecklers. So in a way, being an introvert and sort of not being a good relater of people in a way, sometimes the heckling doesn't bother me as much. I was never the girl that needed to be popular in high school. I never worried about, you know, having a zit because I wouldn't be pretty because I wasn't pretty anyway. So it doesn't really matter. I don't in a way I don't care as much what people think about me. So definitely stage time is key. It's very, very important. It's all about being able to execute
Betsy Bush (23:03):
You're also involved in a, in storytelling workshops. That's is that related to the comedy or is that kind of a, that's a different thing? Is that a, does that have a different tenor to it? A different approach, different contents?
Ivy Eisenberg (23:20):
The storytelling Is very different. So they're both forms of communication and they're both opportunities to bring insight with using words. And in some senses may be in performance, but storytelling is a whole genre or altogether. So I do storytelling. I do story coaching and I produced stories shows also, again, all of this is a side hustle work as an information technology consultant during the day.
Betsy Bush (23:50):
This is amazing. I don't know where you get the time in the year. I do well, you should see my house. So that's where,
Ivy Eisenberg (23:57):
And I'll order in, like I order and it's embarrassing. I'll order in grub hub or Uber eats. Like, I, I love to cook, but I, if I don't have time, I'll just be sitting in my office from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM and I'll be ordering and dinner like a lunatic anyway. So storytelling, I love talking about storytelling. So storytelling is a way to communicate from human beings, one human being to another, through a narrative of transformation. So you tell a story, your true, personal story. That's the type of storytelling I'm into not fables or legends, but true personal storytelling, a story of your own life. When I say things they happen to come out funny, or I have a funny point of view, I have a twist. So a lot of my stories are comedic stories, but not always. Some of them are serious. So I discovered storytelling because I was writing a solo show about reinventing myself in midlife. And I found a storytelling teacher at UCB, which is upright citizens brigade. It's no longer the they training organization in the, in the city is no longer here, but I was T I took a storytelling class and I heard about The Moth it's about 10 or 11 years ago. And I had never heard about The Moth. And I was just transformed by that. So I started to do storytelling, write stories, perform stories, and now I do story coaching. So the story coaching is people who just want to get up and be able to tell a good story. And I use, I do personal storytelling coaching, and it's also people who want to communicate more effectively for nonprofit organizations, in education settings, and even in corporations. So if you've ever heard a speech, a lot of times, your mind will wander and it'll be a little boring, but then when the person brings out a personal story, you perk up. [Absolutely.] And it's all about the story. There's a great book called wake me up when the data is over and it's how to use storytelling when presenting data. That's a great one. And I often give talks, actually I have one tomorrow morning in Synagogue about The Torah portion into the week. And often I'll bring in a personal story and it'll be the story that sort of illustrates the point. Nice story. That illustrates the point. So storytelling is just so wonderful. There's a lot of crossover. A lot of comedians have started to do storytelling because it's a little less soul sucking. And so storytelling audience are generally sort of with you. They, they're sort of emotionally behind you in there with you and you can be vulnerable, right?
Betsy Bush (27:09):
Are you a fan of Garrison Keillor? Cause that's the sort of storytelling that he would do. Maybe it's not in your wheelhouse at all.
Ivy Eisenberg (27:18):
I love Garrison Keillor. I love Garrison Keillor and I love David Sedaris. Who's a writer and he tells some stories. He's wonderful. Absolutely. There's genre of personal storytelling that's been popularized by the moth, which is men on NPR. And now it's a whole program. It's a moth main stage show. They do. They also do workshops. They do these story slams. That's a little more popular and wide ranging people from all walks of life who aren't necessarily storytellers are performers, right? A policeman, a plumber, a midwife, you know, a stay at home mom, a convict, an ex-con they'll tell their own stories. So that's the kind of storytelling it's --Garrison Keillor has wonderful stories. He's very polished and he's a storyteller. And he talks about real life. And I love those real life, personal local stories. There are a lot of them out there and it's so wonderful. It's just how we connect to each other. How we make the world a better place.
Betsy Bush (28:36):
You're bringing storytelling into a corporate setting. And I'm wondering if storytelling is really the new way that we're going to start relating to each other, as opposed to, you know, the, the data driven sorts of, you know, you must buy my product because it will do X, Y, and Z, as opposed to a storytelling sort of, you know, marketing approach to things.
Ivy Eisenberg (29:02):
I think that there is a greater trend to storytelling. It's a fad in some senses it's sort of a fad or a buzzword, but in other senses, I think on a deeper level, it is more an emerging trend. And I think one of the things is that we were all rocked by this global pandemic. We all felt isolated. We all felt afraid. We were all felt powerless. And I think that shook us into craving more human communication. And I think that storytelling helps put the communication, the connection and the emotion behind whatever it is that a corporation is trying to sell. So storytelling is used in brand and it's been used in brand brand storytelling. Storytelling has been used by chief executive officers to sort of talk about their personal journey, to sort of inspire and motivate and also to present their company. Well, and storytelling is also now being used internal and external communications to talk about their employees as real people. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we are returning to this world where employees are seen as real people, not just expendable entities now, ironically, that we, you know, we are, we're in this gig economy where it's not a cradle to grave job that you have, but at the same time, people I think are learning to treat others as real people. Because I think, as I said, we've all gone through this period where we've been so incredibly vulnerable.
Betsy Bush (30:52):
Yep. Agreed. Agreed. Do you have any thoughts on what they're calling the big quit, where a lot of people are saying, I'm not going back to that corporate job. I'm not going back to the bowels of the office building. I know you say you, you like it a lot, but a lot of people are saying, I don't want that. And maybe are using this opportunity to do some reinvention. Do you have any ideas about, about that?
Ivy Eisenberg (31:19):
Sure. I don't know personally how big the trend will be. As I mentioned, it's been more of a gig economy. I have kids that are in their late twenties now. So I know that they don't have that same mentality. You know, of getting a job. They're like, we're basically screwed. I cleaned up the language for the podcast, you know, no matter what happens, we're never gonna be able, they don't see that they're ever going to be able to save for the nest egg or, you know, on property though. My oldest son wisely bought a co-op and so they don't have that same feeling of the value of a company. They are moving around a lot. Kids are moving around a lot. They're taking different jobs in terms of people saying, I'm never going to go back full time. I'm going to use this opportunity to reinvent myself. I think once you get out there and realize how hard it is to actually do something new and different and creative, I think that's, I don't know if that's going to be a longterm condition, a longterm change personally. I don't think there's going to be a longterm change. And what may one of my pipe dreams was, oh, I'm going to open up a bed and breakfast. And then I realized how much time it takes. And I remembered, I hate people. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want to sit and have breakfast over, you know, eggs Benedict or anything with other people. And then I'm too lazy to clean my own self. And it's like, I would like to buy all the stuff to furnish a bed and breakfast, but I don't really want to do the work. It's a load of work. I'm not going to get as much money as working just for, you know, just doing that kind of stuff. I do. It's just verifying data and looking at spreadsheets and running meetings, whatever PowerPoints, I like that stuff. I liked it. I liked the salt mines. Like I said, one of the things I do think is changing is the, the environment where you were. I, I'm not the expert. Everybody is saying the same thing. People are not going to be going into offices nine to five, Monday through Friday. So flex work, teleworking technology enabled connections. That's really that I think has some permanence.
Betsy Bush (33:39):
Yeah. Ivy I always end my podcasts with asking if you have three pieces of advice for anyone who might be interested in following the route that you have laid out for us, reinventing yourself as a stage performer or a standup comic, whatever, any ideas?
Ivy Eisenberg (34:02):
Sure, sure. Okay. The first thing is to remember those moments in your entire life, when you felt happiest, remember what accomplishment you've been most proud of, whether it was in kindergarten, whether it was in college, whether it was on a vacation, whether it was in work and understand what that was that made you so happy and go after that to sort of recreate that moment. That's where you're going to find your greatest happiness. And then the second is don't listen to people who say something can't be done. If there's something you want to do, you just find a way to do it. And then the third is don't be ashamed if what you enjoy doing is not something that sounds good and sexy. I mean, we talked about standup comedy and re-inventing myself and getting on stage, but I really like Excel spreadsheets and pivot tables and taking data from one system and looking at another system and figuring out where the discrepancy is. I like doing that and I don't care if it doesn't sound sexy, it's what I like to do. And it's part of what makes me valuable to the company I'm consulting to.
Betsy Bush (35:30):
Wow. Yeah. Why not? That was maybe not the entire answer I was expecting., but that was your answer No, no, no. I love that. That was your answer. And that's, that's unique to you
Ivy Eisenberg (35:45):
And fantastic can be another three if you want to. Also, you're never too old to become a beginner at something. And to start something new, I'm in to that From a fairly new podcaster too, to you who has done so many, many interesting sorts of things, Ivy Eisenberg, this has been a fantastic conversation. And I so appreciate your taking the time to talk to me. I know you're, you're extremely busy with all the different things you're doing and best of luck with your future career and keep us posted. Cause we will post updates on our show page for sure.
Ivy Eisenberg (36:30):
Thank you. Thank you. Great to speak to you.