Life works out

Tarun talks about turning down jobs to do standup

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
What's up everyone? Welcome to anotheredition of Tharren's Thoughts when I Starren Shetty.
These are my thoughts. Hope youguys are doing well. I'll confess
to you guys, I've been.I've been drinking dailies the past. I'm
not an alcoholic, but it definitelydoes help the days. I'm only telling
you guys this because sometimes I mightsay stuff which kind of buzzed. Maybe
that's why I'm sharing too much information. I'm in this Sundance writing class for

(00:25):
like, you know, I signedup for this class that I applied for
and it's like a zoom thing Ido every week with a bunch of other
students, right, and the teachersare great. That's why I signed up
for it because I took another classthrough Sundance and I was really happy with
it. But it's interesting for mebecause I get to work with other students

(00:47):
in the class, like share feedbackand stuff. And comedy is such a
lone wolf profession. I mean,there's so many times I just go to
the clubs by myself, hang outby myself. Even look, when I
do stand up comedy, I knowI'm talking about people, but it's like
I'm talking to this one monolithic massof people and there was interaction. I'm

(01:08):
in like comedy mode. I don'treally you know, share thoughts or ideas.
It's not this conversant art form.Years and years ago, as I've
said, I was an intern.I was a writer's intern on the show
called Spin City. And I usedto like go in every three times a
week and I used to hang outwith their writers. And I wasn't that

(01:32):
good as a stand of a standup. I was like working the door
to comedy club. But I usedto think, man, this is my
future profession is writing with these guys. You ever like find something and you're
like, man, this it fitsso fluidly. And I just could see
myself as like a staff writer fora sitcom because I could always write jokes
really well, you know. Iwas I was kind of broy like I

(01:55):
was an athlete, and like alot of these guys were just cool dudes.
And I was like, just seemyself fitting in here and having this,
you know, nice profession. ButI do remember one day on set
and I was just bored out ofmy mind. I was delivering scripts and
I was on set and I sawthe actors rehearsing, and I saw the

(02:16):
writers off to the side, like, you know, just waiting around.
I remember thinking when I was like, man, do I want to be
a writer or an actor? Iremember thinking that very clearly, and I
thought to myself, you know,I want to be the guy who gets
credit for his jokes. Like Iremember thinking this when I was like twenty
years old, and I think fromthat moment on, I decided. You

(02:40):
know, Spin City offered me ajob to drop out of school. Actually
they were like, hey, ourscripts supervisor left or something, do you
want to, you know, takethe job? And I said no because
my mom would have freaked out ifI dropped out of school. And then
when it went to LA, I'msure I could have. You know,

(03:00):
when I graduated, I could havecalled him up, the producers who I
knew, and I was like,hey, can I get a job?
But I decided to stay in NewYork because something told me, Hey,
you know, let's see how thisstand up comedy thing plays out. But
I've gone to LA sooner and likegotten a job in television. I mean,
who's to say how my life wouldbe any different. But you have

(03:22):
these moments in your life like theseroads. And it's interesting for me to
look back at these decisions because Ireally had nothing to base this off of,
aside from my own intuition of like, hey, what feels right to
me? And even though I wasa horrible comedian and I would pretty much

(03:43):
bomb every night, I'm telling youI never lie about how I do.
I pretty much would bomb every night. Yet for some reason, I thought
this would be a better career pathand I wasn't getting paid barely any money,
like I started doing Indian shows likea few years towards when Russell Peters
blew up. Sometimes I'll get reallyfrustrated when I hear other comedians who are

(04:04):
like really famous and they'd be like, yeah, you know, I just
followed a thread and I got pulledalong and this led to this, this,
this, this, And I'll getmad because I'll be like, man,
I followed that threat. Maybe thisis the way it's all supposed to
be. Like maybe I'm too closeto the trees and I'm not seeing the
bigger picture. Because truthfully, thethings I'm doing now are writing wise,

(04:25):
it's all it's all because of mystand up, you know, And I
definitely would not have been able tobe here in Florida if I had,
you know, taken another route.I don't think you know. Life works
out as it's going to work out. It's really all I wanted to share
as I it's my Bailey's at threeo'clock in the afternoon. I hope you

(04:47):
guys are having a great day.Thanks for watching. Take care,