Hey Buddy. Sometimes I have stand-up comedy shows to book. Not even that often, compared to some. I do these shows in a small-to-medium-sized city. They are not huge shows or ‘important’ shows. There is no comedy industry here. You will not be picked to go on Kimmel based on these shows. Netflix isn’t in the audience. These shows aren’t happening in comedy clubs most of the time, rather in bars and coffee shops and basements and attics. The pay is not great. Sometimes the show is free and no one gets paid.

So please, if I didn’t book you on my show, don’t take it personally. Time and space are real things that exist and factor very heavily into it being impossible to book everyone on every show.

Also this: Don’t ask me about it. It’s unprofessional. It makes you look whiny or catty or desperate or all three. Don’t ask ‘why?’ This is very very bad. Save that for your group texts with the other Unbookeds™.

Oftentimes I don’t get booked on shows I’d like to do. I’d like to do EVERY show (so do you, isn’t that a given?). I’ve never Bothered a Booker™ in this way in 6+ years of people thinking I’m not funny and not booking me.

It sucks to hear these queries/complaints/accusations/last ditch efforts to be booked on a thing that already has a poster printed, because I am trying. Trying to be fair, trying not to overlook anybody, most of all trying to put on a Good Show™ that enough people will come to. I’d like for this basement chicken wing bar to let me do it again.

An uncomprehensive list of the reasons you became one of the Unbooked™:

1. I booked you a lot already and I enjoy variety.*

2. I wasn’t thinking about you at the exact moment I made the decision because I was distracted by horrifying yet horrifyingly frequent current events.

3. The audience/venue for this show isn’t one I’d pair you with.

4. My blood sugar was low/high that day, clouding my judgement.

5. You didn’t fit with the mix of comics also booked on the show.

6. I’m possessed by a demon who doesn’t like you. His name is gRSZiboth Jr.

7. There’s part of your act (or your whole act) that routinely bums crowds out or walks people from the room. (I deal with businesses who want to make money off of comedy, and even though I’m operating at a loss I do enjoy making the $30 bucks I’m going to get for this show. I’m going to spend it on diet coke and dry-erase markers). I get to work with venues based on people enjoying the show and sticking around.

8. I let a small mouse run a maze, and at the end of each solution is a name. I choose that name.

9. You need to write better jokes and consistently do better when I see you on stage.

10. I need glasses/actually typed your name, autocorrect failed and I am too embarrassed to fix it.

11. Learn how to talk into the microphone properly, people can’t hear you.

12. I’m also bad at resource management games like Settlers of Catan or Gainful Employment.

13. I’m saving your booking for a different show that I like you for and now you are messing up the surprise by bugging me.

14. I’m in a secret club that wants to ruin your comedy career specifically. We made a Facebook group. We printed T-Shirts. We’re starting a podcast.

15. You just got booked by literally everybody else and I sometimes like to give spots to people who don’t get booked a lot but I think are funny instead of the most popular people. Turns out they are VERY GRATEFUL AND TRY HARDER THAN YOU, YOU LAURELS-RESTING, ENTITLED, SHOW-UP-LATE-AND-PHONE-IT-IN-POPULAR-LOCAL-SCENE COMIC…Woah, I just woke up from a fugue state, must be gRSZiboth Jr. doing the talking again. Also, I now am suddenly imbued with the knowledge of how every comic in my scene will die. Why must I bear this terrible responsibility!**

16. I’m pregnant. This has nothing to do with the post, I just want you all to know I am pregnant and expecting in January, shower invite forthcoming.

17. Are you a Cis-Het-White Dude™? So am I. There are too many of us and we tend to be BORING (starting with me) and talk about all the same things on stage so you have to be VERY funny and ORIGINAL for me to book you. It’s hard not being on top for one second of our lives, isn’t it?

I shouldn’t have to say any of this, should I? Book your own thing sometime and you’ll notice that these decisions are hard and it’s impossible to make everybody happy or put everybody on a show.