Born Standing Up

Born Standing up: A comic's life / Steve Martin 207 pgs.

Steve Martin writes this biography of his career as a stand-up comedian that starts a little earlier than his first performance at age 10. He tells of the many years of barely making it and honing his craft where he moved from being a banjo playing magician to a banjo playing comic who sometimes did magic tricks. I always wonder if successful performers know they are good and going to make it but I guess that isn't a good question to ask...after all, maybe the ones how DON'T make it think the same way. Steve Martin is a very good writer and this book had many good reviews when it came out and it has been on my list to read ever since. My favorite line comes fairly early in the book when he talks about getting connected to a network of desperate Cub Scout troops seeking entertainment and the shows he did for the local Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs (this at age 15). He says, "I was now performing at the hectic pace of one show every tow or three months." Later, he thinks back at this time and wonders why the clubs would hire him, a 15 year old boy magician to be their entertainment...here he says, "Only one answer makes sense: out of the goodness of their hearts." Without that early encouragement and sweet $5 paydays, who knows, Steve might have finished that Phd in Philosophy and been a professor -- for real, that was his plan B!