Interview of Megan Gailey, November 8 2021

Megan Gailey, transcript, November 8, 2021

Note: Chapters linked in Acknowledgments below

EH: My name is Emma Holzhausen, a sophomore global leadership student at Belmont University and today I will be talking to Megan Gailey, a female comic based in LA. Megan, thank you so much for being here. 

MG: Absolutely!

EH: To get started, could you give us a small low down of how you would define your career and, like, what that entails?

MG: Yeah, so I am a stand up comedian and then writer and so I spend, um, a good amount of time working on scripts or working in development, coming up with new ideas and then trying to sell those to networks, and when I am not doing that, or sometimes at the same time, I am writing on television shows. So I have been lucky enough to write on a bunch of award shows and then I am currently staffed on an HBO show called "Pause" with Sam J and I got into all of that through doing stand up comedy which I have been doing for about 12 years and still do around the clubs and bars and sort of anywhere that are venues out here and then end up traveling the country less than I used to but still traveling and doing road shows as well. 

EH: Awesome, that is so cool. What, like, what brought you to this position? Have you always been working towards being a comedy writer or have you, kind of, ebbed and flowed in that? 

MG: Yeah so, I did not really even know that stand up was a job until probably college. And, when I was growing up I wanted to be an actress, I did think that I wanted to be performing in some way, for a while wanted to- my degree is in sports broadcasting and theatre- and so I wanted to work in sports. I knew that, like, a 9 to 5 was probably not what I wanted to do. Then when I started doing stand up after graduating college I was like "oh, ok, this is what I want to do" and really loved it and started in Indianapolis, then moved to Chicago, was there for almost 6 years and then lived in New York for 2 years, and then have been in LA for 5 years and through doing stand up and then getting managers and agents in the business they ask you sort of "would you like to write" and try and find you jobs that pair well with your skill set. 

EH: That is really-

MG: and, and I really enjoy it, it is much more structured than the stand up world. It is kind of more similar to a regular job and now I am a married woman and expecting a child and so that sort of fits better with my lifestyle now than being on the road all the time. 

EH: Definitely, congratulations that is awesome! 

MG: Thank you! 

EH: um, I was going to ask about how, um, well, Belmont is a very music oriented school, and so, there is a lot about how divisive a career in music or a career in entertainment can be because it is so job based, or gig based. How did you make the move from Indianapolis, was that a scary transition because it was so up in the air? Or, were you feeling more ok with that? 

MG: You know, all of them were leap of faiths for sure. I had a day job in addition, when I was in Chicago I was a bartender and waitress and also worked at a retirement community. And so, there was never a time really where I was just able to make a living from stand up, I had to subsidize and then when i was in New York, it is so expensive there, and so I was a nanny the whole time I was there. And at this point, I did my first late night set and was still nannying at the time. And so I flew out to LA to do Conan and then flew back to go to my nannying job. So it was, sort of like, yeah it is just what it was and it was kinda funny but you know, you do not get paid a bunch of money, it is not like that then changes your life. It is a great opportunity, but it is not life changing money. And then when I started to get my first writing job in New York, and then I got cast on a TV show and so I left the nannying job and was able to live off of that. Then when I moved to LA I had very cheap rent because I was staying with a friend and was sort of just living off of the money that was coming in at that point. I am always like in the back of my head like "ok if i did need to go work somewhere I could always go waitress again, I could like work in a creative way in this way" like i have not had a "day job" that i did not want or was not in the creative field in probably now like 6 years, but you do not, that fear never leaves. Like you know it may, phhf, especially with the last year and a half that we have had, the world changes, your life changes, and you have to pivot and adjust. 

EH: Yeah, definitely. So you definitely have to be very flexible for it. 

MG: Yes! 

EH: And you have to be very ready for any change

MG: And remove some ego, too, because you get to a certain point in your career where you think "oh well i do not need to do that" and you do. You do not really get to be the decider sometimes. 

EH: You were kind of talking about how you like that change and all that, what gets you the most excited about your job? 

MG: I really love seeing live performances. And so, even when people are like "have you seen this new special" it just does not excite me in the same way as just being at a show and getting to see my friends, my peers, my colleagues, people that I have never heard of, people that I have never seen before doing stuff in person and so now that we have had such a break from being able to do live performance that when it came back it was like wow this is actually really, really, special that we get to work in a field like this. 

EH: That is really cool, that is kind of, that is what drew me to Belmont. Was, like I love live interactions in any sort of performance, I just think that it is so unifying between people. So how do you feel about touring? I know you talked about how you are more, like, settling down, more into writing for people  rather than writing your own stand up stuff, but what sorts of things, for you, when you are, because you are the main character almost, you are the performer, what sort of leadership things do you need to do. How do you go about delegating, planning, and organizing a tour or a show?

MG: So before I had representation it was all me. And when I lived in Chicago it was so centrally located in the country so I was really able to drive to a lot of places and at that point I was opening for people so I was considered a feature. So I could go and I would get to do like 25 minutes before the headliner. And I was young enough so that sort of lifestyle was totally fine with me and it was exciting and that is when I first started making real money doing standup. And now, you know, when I go I am the headliner and it can be extremely isolating because you are by yourself and you are in a city that you do not know and unlike other people that travel for work, it is new people every day. You are on stage alone and you are hoping that they like you. And that, you do probably 5 shows a week like that. So one of my biggest concerns about that is, it is just a safety issue. It is less safe for a woman to be traveling the county at night in a place she does not know. And so I, there are things that when I was younger I would be totally fine with staying at, there is stuff called "comedy condos" where multiple people have keys and you know everyone knows where it is, and sometimes i would being staying in the room over a man I did not know would be staying. And now, I definitely stand in my age and experience and am like I need to be escorted to and from my hotel, I need to be, if I am doing morning radio, I would like it to be someone who is not rolling a joint while they are driving me. You know, just basic things that would exist in other industries but since stand up does not have an HR, there is not a process of reporting when you feel unsafe in your work environment, you really have to take so much of it onto yourself and communicate with the club and communicate with your representation of like "hey these are the things that I need to feel safe while I am doing this" and some places just are not able to do it or do not get it, so you have to go "ok well then maybe that is not the place I am going to go again". 

EH: Definitely. You kind of touched on how that excitement really overpowered the knowledge and fear of those things when you were younger, what would you say to upcoming artists or artists and comics who are in those places right now would you, obviously it does not seem like you would do it again but what would you say to people in those situations? 

MG: Hmm, it is really tough because it is an industry where it is just like if you do not want to do it, there is 700 people behind you that want to. So I am happy and proud that I did it but I am like whoooooh some of those instances could have ended really poorly. So it is less what I would say to them, and it is really, the pressure is more on us, the older, more established, and I see female comedians above me too that I think are very vocal and very like "this is not ok". It is kind of on us trying to make sure the industry cleans up because we do have a voice and we do have a team behind us, When you are unrepresented, young, hungry, wanting to do stuff, you have no leverage. So it is a very difficult, frightening situation to be in and you end up, you know unfortunately in stand up I know it ends up leaving a lot of women out. That go, I cant do x anymore so they just are not able to do stand up anymore and it is really not, it is not fair. Because if they were a man, they probably would not be pushed out in that way. 

EH: Absolutely. Do you think that because this is such a new industry that, do you see that this can change or do you see that it is just going to stay the same because it is such a male dominated field? 

MG: I have  seen some positive change, um, and it is so funny when you hear people be like " me too went too far" and then you are like well you should go to a comedy club because I do not  even think it has gotten there yet. And so you do see, you know, you go to clubs sometimes and they have a female owner, a female booker, a female running it and you are like ok so that is someone that is at least understanding of the point of view I am coming from. I think a lot of female comics have gotten a lot more vocal, I think social media gives people an outlet to say "hey I saw x and it is not ok". You know it is also an industry where there are predatory men that are able to continue working which if you were an accountant, you would not be working side by side with an accused rapist and we do. And I think that is something that really is difficult for a lot of us to swallow because, truly no pun intended, because this is our workplace. So it is not as simple as listen they sell tickets, the fans, but the fans are not necessarily the ones in harms way. We are now putting our trust in bookers and owners of venues that are willing to book a man with predatory charges or predatory accusations against him, and then we are going to go the next week and that man is in charge of our safety? Well, that is asking a lot, that is asking a big leap of faith on our part that men just do not have to deal with. And it does seem unfair for us to be taking that on. I end up, now that I am married I try to have my husband come with me sometimes. I have definitely brought my mom to a lot of clubs. For a while I was opening for a famous male comedian and that was the most safe and well taken care of I have ever felt because i thought "well nothing bad can happen to me because then he is going to be mad" so there are some ways to protect yourself but you are having to go out of your way to do it. 

EH: Do you think that, so there is a big stigma around the comedy world because I think that there is a lot- well, there is comedy on both sides of any spectrum- but I think that there is a really big stigma around progressive comedy and political comedy in general, do you think that kind of adds to the stigma that women are like "well I am not going to do this" because I feel that women are often given these stereotypes because they wont do something or they wont say something, do you think that that is seen in this situation too? 

MG: I think it really depends on the part of the country, you know I have done shows in the south where I was like "everyone here is on the" you know, it is not even, it is not north south east west, it is just that there are certain places you go and you go "oh they do not even like the tenor of a womans voice", so you go "ok well maybe I am not going to go to Staten Island again". Or, you know I am using that as an example to not drag places that I have really been. That you are like "ph i do not need to do that anymore" but it does get, you know, everyone is so charged right now. Everyone feels really on the brink and so you hear people going "when I go to a comedy show I do not want to hear any politics" and it is like listen that is your prerogative but we are also people and we are also saying what we want and you have the right to not laugh but you also do not have the right to tell us what we can and cannot do.  I do not necessarily even think of myself as a political comedian, I think you definitely know my politics after seeing me perform, but it is not like I am saying certain names or calling out like congressional laws that I want. It is just, there are people that are like "I am not doing any material on covid" and great, God bless em! But then there are people that are like "this is the reality I have been living in for the last year and a half" and stand up is also as we have  learned so much in the last two years, it is really our way of dealing with things. And so to have to limit what we are allowed to talk about and our coping mechanisms, it is just not really fair to us. Sometimes I will be like listen I have given stand up so much at a bare minimum it owes me to be able to work through something on stage. 

EH: I think stand up, too, is funny because it is real and it is about real life. I have always felt like the expectation to not talk about things that are touchy is just, it is asking too much. But it is funny that you said that people are so charged because there is a thing called charged humor. I am not sure if you have heard the term, but it is basically, stand up based on injustice, calling out racism, sexism, things like that. And a lot more women, statistically, will practice charged humor. I would love to know your, which you have kind of brought up a little bit, more on the idea of charged humor and the difference between using humor as almost an excuse to say something risky, to be like oh well it was just a joke, or using humor to enact change. 

MG: You know, sometimes, I am like God, we really take ourselves so seriously. In the stand up community when there are a lot of people I know, we are not modern day philosophers, and so there are moments where I think we are looked up to too much. A lot of us are just trying to be silly and have a good time and probably have unhealed trauma. We maybe do not need to be the Greek chorus for everybody. But, we do hear people, and I have obviously seen people say stuff or have a joke and I am like "oh, that changes the way I thought about something" and so that is extremely powerful, it is also very hard to do. I think now, you know we talk a lot about, we say it is something called "clappter" you know it is not people laughing at things it is just people being like "good point" and well is that stand up or is that a ted talk? Because I think stand up should be funny, is every joke for every person when I am up there doing stand up? No! There are going to be jokes that women connect with better, that married people connect with better, and I just would like at the end of the day for my own personal stand up to be funny and if I can get a message through while it is also funny, great. I have a joke about my grandmothers Alsheimers, and people would not necessarily think Alsheimers is a funny thing but it is one of my favorite jokes and I have had people go "oh this made me think differently about Alzheimers" and I have talked openly about addiction that is in my family and it is, you know you get reactions from people being like "thank you for saying that I never thought of it that way, that made me feel better about x,y,z" so those are the type of things that are very impactful to us, but I did not necessarily write those jokes to, I did not set out to do that. It is just what my human experience has been, that is what I am trying to pull humor from. I did not set out to be like I am going to make an addiction joke that moves people but if that is a side effect of it, great.

EH: I really like the way that you put that because I feel like humor really does circle back around to just the human experience, being a human is funny and I think that stand up comedy shows, all of that just points out the funny things and so obviously there are funny parts in politics. You kind of touched on this a little bit, the difference between pandering and charged humor because I feel like a lot of times, obviously you need to know your audience and I feel like a lot of times people will make a joke or a jab at someone knowing full well that their audience wants to hear, that they will agree and I think there is a big difference between charged humor which is more like activism rather than preaching to the choir. Kind of changing the topic a little bit, you touched when we were talking about touring how it is just you standing there hoping the audience likes you. I would love to hear about how your mental health, or comedians in general, does not have to be super personal, but how mental health is taken into account with that and what sorts of coping mechanisms even because that cannot be great.

MG: I think we are a community that has a lot of really unique and amazing people in it. It also has a lot of people that struggle with mental health and struggle with addiction. I have known many people that have died, of suicide, overdose, the things that you know are semi common of our age group but definitely happen at a much higher rate. Stand up is a tool of coping but it also cannot be the only thing and sometimes people are so so so funny and deeply deeply disturbed people, you see them being funny and audiences are like "omg they are so great" and the audiences do not know this is a person who has deep dark demons that make them, you know a difficult person or a tragic person or a very angry person. We see that because these are our peers and so it can be troubling and it also can be frustrating when there is a disconnect when they are celebrated for their humor but behind the scenes we know that they are a shitty person. And whether they are shitty from trauma they have had or sometimes it is people that are the meanest on stage are the nicest people. We get asked questions "what is so and so like" my moms always asking me like what people are like and you have to be honest sometimes they suck and sometimes it is like "oh no that persons really great you saw them have a bad set" or whatever but I do think we are, it is. I think there is also a difference between men and women that are drawn to stand up but overall it is, we are people seeking something. It is approval and acceptance and when a crowd does not give that to you, ugh, you will see people spiral and it is just a business where you go through true peaks and valleys and you get a lot of no. I was worried last week I got a no on something and I used to cry, you know it would deeply affect me, and this was truly water off a ducks back and I was like "have I gotten too comfortable with being rejected?" because you still want to have some sort of reaction but it is just it is a brutal business that is not for everyone and that is not me being on a high horse, it may not be for me forever there may come a time when I am a mother when I am like I do not need this shit because it is not easy. When people ask me now I want to do stand up it is like ugh ok. There is nothing I can tell you to do. The only thing I can tell you to do is go do it. And that is the advice and there is no secret but you also do need to keep your mental health in check and unfortunately I know for me personally periods of true depression in my life have led to some of my funniest breakthrough moments. I am like "oh my god I remember this time in NY I was so depressed I was so broke and it was the funniest I ever was". We tend to glorify these low points, we need to be able to find a way to be mentally well and also feel funny and a lot of times it is hard to find that. People are always like "if you are happy you are not funny". So it is a different way to go through life. 

EH: I think, I do not know how involved on tiktok you are but there is a trend where it says "what if i lose my sparkle" because the idea is "well I am really sad or I am really messed up with this but I am funny" or this thing happened or it is great and I think that, comedy has become such a big thing in my generation especially. So I would be interested to see how you feel like that is affecting the younger generations in ways of treating your mental health and keeping yourself emotionally, physically, mentally healthy in that. 

MG: You know people are always like "do not read the comments", I read the comments. That probably means there is something wrong with me and people are really mean on social media, so it can be extremely encouraging and helpful but in all of the good that there is, there is an equal to if not larger bad and so I see that increasing with- because there are comics that are tiktok famous so we do not know who they are. We have never seen them on stage but they are famous and it is like oh gosh and thats, it is not less tangible but what happens when that type of fame goes away? Do you have the skills to become a writer? To try and create your own show? To do stand up? I think it can be really really dark and really difficult when you start to see your fandom go down or if there is some type of scandal and you feel like you have lost all your followers, at the end of the day if you can do stand up you still have a skill that you can probably use for the rest of your life. If you are an incredible tiktoker, we do not know yet if that is a skill that is going to be worthwhile in 30 years.  

EH: Absolutely, I think most of my, I am a CEI student, most of my classes have, we have gotten on the subject of tiktok fame and how insanely temporary it is. How it is just simply not translated in person, so it is going to be really interesting in the next year/year and a half because I am sure tiktok is a trend. When it goes down it is going to be really cool to see where all those people go. 

MG: Yeah because there were vine stars who would sell out clubs and some of them were able to pivot and some were not. 

EH: I think that is going to be really cool. You touched on how you said that men and women are often drawn in different ways to stand up. Do you want to talk about that a little bit more? 

MG: Yes- this is very stereotypical- but we tend to say that men are drawn to stand up because of insecurity and there are going to be people that are like "f-you bitch!".  I am not saying that is everyone, I am married to a male comedian, who was drawn to it from insecurity. I would say a lot of the men I know I would say are drawn from insecurity, drawn from wanting to get girls, or you know whatever. And the women that are drawn to stand up I think tend to be more like "I have something to say". You have to be very confident and a little delusional to be a woman that is like "I am going to go on stage in front of people given the society that we live in". You just have to- I think there is more you are like "yeah this is going to suck but I am going to do it anyways" and I think for men it is not as "this is going to suck I am going to do it anyway" it is more like "I do not know, I will see", you know. The driving force can be different. 

EH: So you would say that women need to be more driven in it and they need to be more like I want this?

MG: I think you have to be very confident in who you are and that is a very tough thing to- I started out when I was 23. I was actually not a very confident person but I was able to fake it and I at least knew how to be on a stage but I do not think it came from "I am going to get men this way" it was "I think I have a unique point of view and I would like to try and be funny"!

EH: Going kind of back to our tiktok conversation and how comedians on and off of tiktok and social media can influence the world around them. How, I feel like this is a very divisive word, so how do you feel about the word influencer? Do you think this applies to you? 

MG: You know, it is really, I think that there are you know I am from Indianapolis, and so I always joke that there are Indianapolis influencers I follow because it is like somebody I went to highschool with and what a wild world, they have- you know these are moms, stay at home moms who are really pretty and have pretty houses and pretty clothes- they have ten times as many followers as I do and I have been on TV! What? That is a very specific type of influencer so when you say the word that is what pops into your head. LA is obviously full of influencers and full of lots of really funny places that they love to line up and take photos. I think there can be really talented people that can start as influencers and be discovered that way. My husband works in sports creative and sometimes there are young kids that are really good at making videos and there is a company that sees and is like "we want you to do this for Gatorade" and it helps catapult people out of a not great situation. I think those are the success stories and then there are also people that are just rich and hot and have always been rich and hot their whole life and now you are just watching them be rich and hot and you are like well why am I not rich and hot. There is a- it is not reality a lot of times so that is what is difficult to remember is like this is filtered this is that, so when you are older I think that is easier to do. Maybe not actually because we do not even know all the cool tools you guys have like when I see a photo I am like that is what they look like and people are like no it is not that has been changed 25 times. I think my friends that are not in this business would consider me an influencer, I would not. Have I been sent products for free and asked to post them? Yes. And I guess when that is the case, especially when you are a comedian you are like "God I hope I can do this with enough of a wink that people are not like what is Megan doing" because in this world to be non authentic is really like a kiss of death even though all of us are pretending to be something onstage. There are comedians that start to go more influencer, more hashtag ad, more into that lane and you see other people in the industry poo poo them for sure. 

EH: That makes sense. You were talking about how people say you need to be so genuine in an industry and obviously, I feel like we all put on a persona of who we want to be. I fully believe that we all change depending on who we are talking to, even just a little bit. How important do you think it is to be genuine in the industry when you are, when you are talking to audiences, when you are writing, when you are doing stand up, that sort of thing? 

MG: I have a tendency to be too open and too-my husband will be like "oh I did not know we were talking about that on stage"-as in we like me. So I think I ere on the side of overt honesty and some people really connect with that, some people are very, it makes them very uncomfortable. That comes from a place of- I got advice very early on to tell jokes that only you could tell. I think that works in writing too, telling stories that only you could tell. That really stuck with me and then you try and write. Even if my husband and I are talking about a situation and he will be like "well my take on it would be x" and I will be like "well you know I do not talk that way". So it is even just your cadence and your speech pattern and the words you use. I try and not, sometimes I record my sets and listen back and I am like "God I said like and um a bunch again" but that is how I speak and I do like my stand up to sound conversational. Sometimes people will ask "how do you think of all that off the top of your head" and I am like well obviously it is very scripted and I have been doing it for a long time. But I like that it seems like I am speaking extemporaneously; but then there are people in stand up that are very formulaic and the fewer words the better and you have to hit this and this and this and there has to be a certain amount of laughs per minute. That is very Harvard lampoon and there is a formula to it that if you figure it out you can be very successful. That is just not the way that I like to perform. So some of it is just me trying to have fun and what is the way that you can enjoy it and have fun and still want to be doing it at 12 plus years in. 

EH: What do you want someone, this is kind of more, I guess we have gotten on the topic of stand up but I like it. What do you want someone to walk away from one of your sets with? Do you ever have intentions of wanting them to think this or I want them to love this or be thinking of this or are you like I just want them to have had a good time? 

MG: I am really, you know I am a straight woman, straight white woman who is married and who is pregnant now. That is a very represented demo in the world and on TV, it is a very underrepresented demo in stand up. I like to be like, oh to be telling jokes and connecting with people that maybe feel like other stand ups have not connected with them. 

EH: Yeah that is awesome. 

MG: The people that do, like I would like to do well in every room. I used to do all black clubs. I am from Indy and I will go to Indiana and sometimes they do not like me. Super clubby, super alt rooms, I do like to stay true to myself and try to do well in every type of situation. 

EH: Do you have anyone who you think has been a great influence or mentor to you? How have they impacted you? 

MG: Joan Rivers was a huge idol of mine, still is, I think to be performing until you know the day she passed is truly incredible, Carol Burnett, those were women who were like "oh you can be a funny woman onstage who is not necessarily being sexualized?!" And then I had a female mentor, a woman named Jamie Tarsis who at one point was the, she was the first female president of a network, she was the president of ABC back in the 90s. I worked with her on two different shows and she was just a massive influence on me because she was someone who was truly idolized in this business. She was a mom and a down to earth, kind person who was really sharp and really good at her job. But also did not seem to take it too seriously, we would go on pitches with her and we would leave and you know execs, you pitch a show that is a comedy and they are not  laughing. You are just like "what do they not like it" and we would leave and she would just be like "I hate when they do that, they tell them not to laugh. I would always tell people to laugh, have a good time even if it brings even if we are not going to buy it, it makes them feel better". She passed away about nine months ago and it was really, you know very heartbreaking and she was someone who touched my life and my career so much and when she passed it was like oh my, there are so many versions of me, she did this for so many people. It was really extraordinary to see and it made me want to carry on in her legacy and try and help people in the way that she did too. 

EH: That is beautiful, so cool. You were talking about a lot of really big names in the industry, what does the future look like for you? I know you talked about how you kind of are open ended with that, do you have a plan or specific goals in your career or are you just kind of going with it? 

MG: You know, you have goals, they shift for sure because my first goal ever was "I just wanna make a living doing this" and then when I got that I was like "well that was a really bad goal because making a living with this is not that great sometimes". You know I really love being able to write on stuff and being able to work with people I like. I have now sold two different shows that both did not get made, and so that is a difficult thing. That is a hard thing to understand outside of the industry, people will say "omg when is your ABC show coming out" and you are like it is not. You know I got an article, I wish there had been an article like "we are not doing it anymore". I would love to continue to develop, I would love to-I love sports- I would love to have my own sports show in some version. I have worked on a lot of mens sport shows that are truly less qualified than me and I am like "when will it be my turn". That is something that I will continue to work on, I would love to be on camera more and love to keep doing stand up in a way that is enjoyable for me. I do not know what that is necessarily going to look like post motherhood but I love being able to do stand up and talk about the experiences that I am going through at that certain time. Being able to talk about my pregnancy has been a whole new chapter for me and I know motherhood will be that, just being able to have stand up to express whatever thing is happening in my life is a blessing. I do not know if I will go until Joans age doing stand up but I would like to continue to do it and do it well for as long as I want to be.

EH: Well, thank you so much for talking to me! I really appreciate it.