I realized that what these guys had been picking up on the whole time was people trying too hard. It was exactly what Keith and TuRae had told me I needed to stop doing. And because these guys were predators—trained to sniff out and pounce on the slightest vulnerability—they were more attuned to weakness than even the most discerning comedy crowd. I was surviving this only because, for the first time in my short comedy career, I wasn’t trying. I was just being.
