On the evening of June 28, 1976, after rehearsing in front of friends for weeks, a twenty-two year-old Jerry Seinfeld walked up onstage at the Catch a Rising Star comedy club in New York City to give his first public performance as a stand-up comic. Seinfeld took the microphone, looked out into audience, and froze. When he finally found his voice, all he could remember were the topics he had prepared to talk about. He rattled them off (“the beach… cars…”) without pausing and then hurried offstage. The entire performance lasted about ninety seconds. As Seinfeld later recounted his first moments
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