I need to call myself out for something here.
I’ve mentioned in the blog before something along the lines of, “I’ve wanted to be in the Jon Stewart family for years,” etc. etc.
And it’s true that I threw my hat in the ring writing for an internship in multiple different semesters (even after I already had a career and had kind of crossed the intern level… And I’d kind of do some asking around or whatever to friends to see if there were any ins or anything. I tried a little. I won’t say I didn’t try, because… I tried…
But.
It wasn’t like this huge thing. I didn’t even think out my plan to get into Busboy (the Jon Stewart TV plan) as much as I thought about my 7-point plan to become theater president in high school!
I just kind of assumed no one would ever leave or I’d never know anyone with an in, and I’d have to start at the intern level.
But had I reeeeeeeally really really wanted it…
I could’ve potentially tried multiple things:
1) I could’ve used my off time to go to New York, and while there, I could’ve hung out at the ‘Daily Show bar’. (There’s a bar close to TDS where the Daily Show people go pretty often. It wouldn’t have been all that hard to fine. At Nightly Show, we all went to White Oak ’cause it was basically across the street.) I actually heard this advice on a recent google hangout. Find out where show people drink and see if you can chat ’em up at the bar (respectfully, of course, if they happen to be open to it).
2) I could’ve utilized twitter more… In my defense, I didn’t really start using twitter until somewhere in 2012. And I started my trajectory of being on TNS somewhere around late 2014ish (maybe early 2015). So, there wasn’t a humongous window… But still. Twitter’s a great tool. And I didn’t super utilize it.
3) Daily Show people have other stuff they do! I think there’s a group of writers who perform at UCB. I could’ve gone to that show. I could’ve supported the side projects of Daily Show people…
There are ways to meet people working on the shows you want to work on.
Of course, you don’t wanna get all crazy and accidentally annoy people into never wanting to let you work there… But still, I could’ve been a good deal more persistent and thoughtful without crossing any lines.
So… I think it is indeed true that of course I wanted to work on TDS. And it’s also true that I did try in some ways. But I didn’t pull out all the stops. I didn’t try as hard as could be. So, I just didn’t want to oversell my work to get into the Jon Stewart crowd.
I 100% could’ve done more.
…But uh, hey, I got on The Nightly Show! So, ultimately, things worked out pretty nicely for me!