We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mike Vinn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mike, appreciate you joining us today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

It’s May 2006. I had been running around doing open mics for almost a year and a half, was part of an improv troupe and studying theater at Grossmont college. I had been primarily living off of the GI Bill and doing odd jobs because anything steady I was picking up kept scheduling me on the night of the Comedy Store’s open mic, which at the time was the only comedy club in town so there was no way in hell I was missing the Store’s mic. The semester was over and I hadn’t signed up for summer classes so I wasn’t going to be receiving the GI Bill for a few months. That’s about the time reality stepped in and was like, “Hey… how are you going to support yourself till the fall semester kicks in?” Uh oh… how was I going to support myself? Well, a theater friend of mine found an ad from a hypnotist that was looking for a comedian to go with him on tour and warm up his shows. Me being the young gun-ho go getter said to myself, “THAT’S THE ANSWER!” So I answered the ad and he called me to meet with him and out of all the other comedians he met with, I got the job. I had even beat out a comedian on the Comedy Store’s Best of San Diego list, which was a spot I had been trying to achieve for over a year. (Side note, currently I am the one who passes comedians from the open mic to the Best of list.) Now I am officially going on my very first tour. I was opening up for Dr. Scott Lewis, Vegas Hypnotist on his county fair tour of central California with a few stops back in Vegas so he could keep doing his residency at the Rivera hotel and casino. I felt like I had just hit the winning shot in game 7 of the NBA finals. Mind you, all of the other comedians I had started doing stand up with had all been passed to the Best of San Diego list and I still had to grind it out on the open mic. But not this summer. This summer I was on tour. Not only was I on tour, I was the first of my peer group to go on tour. I had finally been recognized as a real comedian. The tour went great. I did have to revamp my set to be more kid/family friendly for most of my performances but I was on the road. I was living out of hotels doing 10-12 shows a week. I had met and hung out with Smash Mouth, I had lunch with the Temptations (who jokingly called themselves Otis and the Replacement Temptations because Otis was the only original member) and I had made enough money to sustain myself from the end of the tour until I was able to return to school in the fall.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Now, aside from being a stand up comedian, I am the booker and marketing manager for the La Jolla Comedy Store. As the booker, I pick the open mic comedians that deserve to move up the ranks to the best of list as well as set the line ups for the Best of San Diego showcase and the Friends and Family showcase, I hand pick the off night promoter shows to make sure the quality of the show can uphold the Comedy Store’s reputation and I bring in the top comedians to headline weekend shows. As the marketing manager, I control the club’s social media pages, I send out the biweekly email newsletter and if you hear a comedian on morning radio or see them on the morning news pushing their shows that weekend, I booked those spots for them and am more than likely in the studio with them.

I still perform all the time and can be found at the La Jolla Comedy Store closing out Tuesday’s Friends and Family show or on Thursday’s Best of San Diego, I host an annual Toys for Tots benefit show at the Comedy Store every December and I occasionally go on the road featuring for headliners like Vicki Barbolak and Steve Trevino.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Comedy can be brutal! Normally when you bomb in front of a crowd you don’t ever get a chance at redemption in front of that same exact crowd. It’s like a 99.9999999% chance it never ever happens. I was headed to Santa Maria CA with Vicki Barbolak (2019 AGT finalist and the pride of Vista) and along the wat to grab the opener she tells me that he hasn’t done stand up in 10 years and this is his first set back. Then she tells me that she needs me to do 10 minutes up top, bring him up for his 10 and then go up after him and do my 30 minute set. This is not normal. This is the only time in the 15 years I’ve been in this industry that I’ve ever seen or heard about this happening to anyone else. So on the way up, I break up my set and plan out a 10 minute set that is funny and should get things going and a 30 minute set with all my heavy hitting jokes to have a killer 30 minute set. Well, that didn’t happen. I kicked off the show and I was bombing… HARD! Nothing I said was landing. I was crashing and burning. It was going so bad that I starting pulling the jokes that never fail from the 30 minute set to try and break the audience open. Nothing… all the heavy hitters failed. People were so silent I could hear the glares of disappointment coming from their eyes. I wanted to leave and hide and never show my face there again. My 10 minutes were up and I brought up the opener and he killed. He killed like he had never stopped doing comedy. Now I have to go back up there and do 30 more minutes, in front of a crowd that already HATES me and I got nothing left. The opener says good night, I head back to the stage and say to myself, “They already hate me so fuck it, who cares.” I get back on stage, start talking and I hear, “ugh, this guy again? Why is he back on stage?” So I lit him up. I started talking about his skunk looking hair do, the people that he was with and the crowd started laughing. So I continued doing crowd work with other people in the audience, pulling in set jokes when they fit and completely redeemed myself on stage with one of my best sets ever. It was so good that after the show, people came to me and asked if I purposely bombed my 1st set just to kill my 2nd set. I just said yes to avoid awkward conversation even though it was the furthest thing from the truth. As a stand up comedian, you’re going to fail. You fail over and over and it hurt… bad. And it’s supposed to hurt. It’s meant to weed out the weak and groom you to be resilient and get back on that horse and ride it no matter how hard it bucks you off.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative is seeing the joy it brings other people.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @mikevinncomic
• Facebook: @mikevinncomic
• Twitter: @mikevinncomic

Image Credits
Myself and Shaun Baker