Meet Spencer James | Standup Comedian

We had the good fortune of connecting with Spencer James and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Spencer, what’s your definition for success?
I think just asking this question is so much more important than any answer I could give, especially when it comes to standup comedy. I ask everyone I come in contact with, “What’s the goal?” because if you don’t have somewhat of an idea on what that is then it’s just going to create more questions.

A common one I hear is, “I just want to make a living at it.” Great, so how much money do you need to make to earn that living? What’s the dollar amount? How much do you think you’re expenses are going to be? What are your other responsibilities? How much free time does that require? How much time are you wanting to dedicate to this? Do you want to travel or do you want to stay home?

The more specific you can make your answer the better hope you have of seeing the obstacles that are going to get in your way in order to complete that goal.

I firmly believe that you are one of two people in this world; you either have a dream and are chasing it, or you don’t have a dream and you are just happy in the living.

If you are a mix of those two I believe it only breeds unhappiness and anxiety. If you are a person that only speaks about a dream and never takes the risk, or if you are a person that is constantly scrambling to find meaning to your life, then I feel you are just spinning wheels.

I find success in the happiness of the work required to achieve a task or goal. I can’t guarantee a result. I can guarantee the effort that I’m going to give in that pursuit. If you are enjoying the journey then you’re doing exactly what God intended when he woke you up this morning.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Standup is dying. The art of it is being at least marginalized. When I say that, I mean the craft of it in its truest form. Can you walk into any environment and get a laugh? Not one where the room is filled with your social media fans or one where they saw you do your first five minutes on Netflix with seven others that were handpicked.

The essence of standup is to experience it live. I wanted to be good at someone saying to me, “We aren’t going to tell you who or what is in that room, now go get laughs.” Everyone can be funny in optimal conditions. Can you be funny when the mic goes out or when there is a wall separating your audience? Can you get past the slot machines in the back of the room or the tv’s on at the bar that the venue refuses to shut off?

It was explained to me that to be good at this, you had to be broke and hit the road for ten years doing “hell gigs.” Dive bars, crap hotels, no money, bed bugs, etc. Can you survive that with no guarantee any of it being successful? If you can answer ‘yes,’ well then we’ll see.

Ten years almost to the day when I decided to make that my pursuit I got my first real decent paycheck from standup. The amount of “hell gigs” are too many to go into detail here, but what I would like anyone who cares to know is that I kept to who I am and I feel I did it the right way.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh man, this is Vegas lol. It depends on who they are but if its open ended, lets start with the food. Gorilla Sushi is the best for that. Unlimited sushi for $25 and delicious. I’d have to put the top down on the convertible and go up and down the strip to show them the lights at night, especially the Billagio fountains. Dinner would be BBQ from Jessi Rae’s, the best in the city. We’d go to one of the three comedy clubs on the strip and take in a show, and then maybe go to the Cosmo afterward to show them the secret passageways that people never know exist in there.

Top it all off with some “Secret Pizza” and then maybe get drinks at the Peppermill lounge area where they filmed some of the scenes from “Casino.” If they hike then we’d have to go to the Red Rocks, that drive is something else just by itself. If they gamblers then my favorite is the $2/$3 poker tables at the MGM or the Craps tables that have $5 minimums (hard to find these days). For a show the one that still is the best to me is Absinthe at Caesars.

There’s so much to do in this town and so much that I haven’t done; Mob museum, Pinball museum, 60mph go karts, the speedway, all of the shows, high end restaurants, etc. Night clubs, speak easies, live music. So much, but we’d start there I guess.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There aren’t enough words for everyone so I’ll just share this. I was once unceremoniously fired from a job in which I shouldn’t have been. I was young, it was a good job, and I had never not had somewhere to go in the middle of a weekday before. So as I was sitting in my car of the parking lot to the place I was just fired from, I picked up the book I had been reading and just, started to read it. Right there, just outside of the building of my former employment from 5 minutes ago.

As I was reading it, a passage floored me. The author wrote, “The only thing I can say of my corporate life is that a tie is a noose. Tho inverted it is, it will still hang you if you’re not careful.” That author was Yann Martel and the book was “Life of Pi.” It had been maybe a year of me not getting on stage to that point but that night I went to an open mic and decided that from that moment on I was going to do everything I could to become a professional standup comedian.

Website: www.spencerjames.com

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