What Opening For Demetri Martin Taught Me

Imagine:

You're a mechanical engineering student at Stanford University - one of the most elite colleges in the world. On a typical weeknight, you're powering through your homework problems for Compressive Flow/Turbo Machinery, studying for an upcoming exam in Fluid Mechanics, building a solar power race car, presenting a camera mount (that you designed) at an engineering fair, or meeting with one of the four student groups that you're a leader of.

Oh, and you do stand up comedy. You run an open mic at the campus coffee shop on Fridays where you perform in front of an audience of maaaaaybe 10 people. By the time the mic is over, there will be 3 of them left. One, an old man who lives in a trailer and plays his saxophone on the campus quad, comes every week just to heckle you - specifically you - about how your jokes aren't funny. Whenever you get a chance, you make the forty-minute drive up to San Francisco to hit up an open mic (an open mic that isn't much more popular than the one you run) and then you make the forty-minute drive back to campus.

One night, you get an email. Demetri Martin, one of the most famous headlining comics in America, is coming to your school. He's going to be performing in front of an audience of 600. And you get to open for him.

That's what happened to my friend Phill.

Phill Giliver is a student and open mic comedian based in the San Francisco Bay. This is the story of how he threw his hardworking college-student life out the window for one week so he could perform the set of his life.

A lot of people say you shouldn't meet your hero because you'll just be disappointed when you encounter them in the flesh. Phill found out what it was like to meet his. And he says, "do it."

Article: http://acomediansnotebook.com/2016/10/opening-for-demetri-martin/