Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tai Nguyen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Tai, thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I started watching and admiring comedians like Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, and Jerry Seinfeld. I never thought I would have the skillset nor courage to become a stand up comedian. I didn’t pursued stand up until I turned 27 years old. At the time I was working customer support at AT&T, I would crack jokes at work and impressed my co-workers. They told me I should do stand up comedy. One day during work I looked up comedy open mics in Austin, TX then I drove to one after work. The first time was a very nerve wracking experience but it showed me it was possible to make people laugh. I started going to open mics consistently after work and got better from there. The first 2 years were the toughest.
Knowing what I know now, to speed up the learning process I could have learn how to promote myself better as a stand up comedian. I could learn more about online marketing and networking with the comedy clubs to get more gigs.
The skill that are the most essential to stand up is the ability to edit your jokes. Knowing the words you can change in a joke to get bigger laughs. The audience are your editors. You go up there tell your jokes and the audience let you know what’s funny and what’s not. It’s a repetitive process until you get all the wordings correctly that’ll make a joke work.
The obstacles that stood in my way of learning more is my limiting beliefs and self sabotaging habits. I didn’t belief that I can make a career out of stand up comedy. I would self sabotage by not performing my best materials onstage.
Tai, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I provide incomparable stand up comedy performance to people in all walks of life, as long as they speak English. What sets me apart from others is my unique voice and my perspective on things.
I solved the problems which most human faces today. The feelings of feeling unconnected. My comedy connects people together through evoking humorous emotions.
I am most proud of my ability to get onstage and perform an hour of stand up comedy without any sweat. I dropped two stand up specials, the first one is Pigeon Confetti, the second one is Sorry For Ruining Dinner, I’m currently working on the third stand up special which is untitled at the moment.
I want potentials fans to know that I’m here to provide laughter to them in time of needs. I also perform comedy rap songs, they can check out my current one titled Pville Anthem on Youtube.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I was booked to perform two shows at a comedy club in San Antonio, TX, one on Friday and one on Saturday. The club owner didn’t enjoy my performance on Friday so he bumped me from being a headliner to a feature for the Saturday show. I didn’t argue or get mad at the owner. I show up to the Saturday show as a feature (which did less time than a headliner) and killed it!
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is whatever emotions come to you, you can turn that emotion into art. Whether your art medium involves writing, singing, rapping, painting, or drawing, you can conveyed your emotions to the audience via your artwork. Your art can really help somebody get through their day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/pigeonconfetti
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tainguyenz/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tainguyen512
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/crookedtbeats
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/crookedtbeats/