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at the Improv comedy club being complimented by one of the stars who had inspired me. Billy Crystal was hanging out with a friend and remembered my act from seeing it years earlier in New York. Still scared about having made the big move West, I was amazed to hear Crystal telling his friend how funny I was. He asked if I was going to perform that night. I explained that I didn’t have a spot, that getting stage time was very difficult in Hollywood. I was so excited that such a big talent was a fan of mine, I felt his support could perhaps turn into something very big. I knew he was good friends with Rob Reiner, the very successful film director. I felt I wasn’t so out of line when I volunteered, “I have a demo tape. Can I give you that?”
    Suddenly Crystal’s whole mood shifted. “You pushed it,” he said as he turned his head away from me. I sheepishly slunk away from him.
    That experience was exactly the sort of novice mistake I dreaded—and was destined to make in those first few months after arriving in Hollywood. I couldn’t help but be desperate and anxious. The pressure of being a relocated actor in L.A. is enormous. In New York, no matter how dissatisfied I felt with my life or career, I always knew that there was the possibility of Hollywood up ahead. But once you actually move to Hollywood, it means you’ve finally broken the piggy bank of hope and exhausted all possible resources. If it doesn’t work, where do you go? Some people put off that scary last stop as long as possible. When I finally made the move I was already thirty.
    Getting stage time at the comedy clubs was a lot tougher than in New York. On any given night the likes of Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, or Robin Williams would pop in and bump us unknowns off the show. My Letterman and Brenner credits really didn’t mean much. Also, a lot of club owners became managers of comics, and if you weren’t managed by one of them, it made it that much more difficult. I wasn’t able to make a living on the outskirts of town like I did in New York, so to be able to afford to stay in L.A., I had to leave town and work on the road. William Morris did have a department for road work, but that agent never helped me that much. When I’d call and tell him I needed work he’d say, “Look, no one’s knocking on your door.”
    “Well, isn’t it your job to knock for me? Build me up? Tell them I’ve been on Letterman and cable?” I was trying to restrain myself from smashing my phone against the table with the frustration of the stupidity I was dealing with. I’d soon regret pushing him to earn his 10 percent and actually do some work. I’d work at comedy clubs across the country where crowds would stare at me sometimes as if to say, “I didn’t know Hinckley escaped.”
    When you headline on the road, you need nearly an entire hour of material, and I quickly realized my style and cadence didn’t lend itself to keeping an drunk audience’s attention for an hour. The breaking point for me came at Laff’s Comedy Club in Tucson. The job started off horribly when the club’s cook, who was supposed to pick me up at the airport, forgot. The phone number of the club was 97-FUNNY, which made it all the more unsettling to be seething mad spelling out the word “funny” on the pay phone every ten minutes, badgering him to come get me. I was practically pushing the keys through the phone.
    I already knew that my first show didn’t go well. I didn’t need the owner to show me all of the negative remarks from the patrons who’d been encouraged to voice their opinions on the comment cards at their tables. “Wasn’t fast enough.” “He sucked.” “Didn’t make me laugh and I hated him.”
    The worst part after bombing that first night was having to go back to the depressing “comedy condo.” Like most comedy condos, it was in a section of town nowhere near walking distance to anything except perhaps a 7-Eleven. The club owners bought these condos so