I've been doing stand-up comedy for over 5 years. Feel free to ask anything related to stand-up comedy or the business of stand-up...

I can tell you from experience, the difference between seeing the stage as an audience and coming out as a comedian is like watching the guys jump from the high dive and hanging your toes off the high-dive board. When you look down, it's scary as shit! Here's the best 3 things you can do to minimize nerves and maximize laughs...

1) Prepare! Write your material down. I know, you're worried it'll kill your spontaneous, unique delivery. Fine, write down an outline. But you better practice, at the very least in front of a mirror or in front of your video camera because when your name is called and run out on stage, you'll be glad you did.

2) 90% of your first time doing stand-up will be determined by your attitude. You've written this stuff down and rehearsed it, now go out and make a connection with the audience. Focus on having a positive attitude and it will carry you through.

3) Never have you nor the MC tell the audience it's your first time. Why? Because audiences believe what you tell them. If you say, "he's great, he's funny," incredibly they'll believe it. When you reveal it's your first time, you will accomplish two things. You will substitute any potential future laughter for pity, and you could undermine the show, especially if you're in a booked show where the audience has paid for tickets and drinks. While you're telling an actual funny joke all they're thinking is, "why isn't this guy doing an open mic?"

There's two reasons to bring friends to see you perform. 1) Support 2) It will separate you from the other comedians...

With regard to number two, plain and simple, comedy show producers want to see people in the audience. This is show business and laughter doesn't pay the bills if tickets aren't sold and drinks aren't drunken. Most comedians are their own man or woman. If they were team players they'd be doing improv, so most comedians won't bring anyone. But why should you reveal you're self-centered and selfish right off the bat? You hold the door for a girl on the first date. How about after a month? A little bit goes a long way by bringing friends because it comes off as a self-less gesture.

With regard to support, there's a reason to bring, and then there's a reason not to bring. When I first started out, I had some material about my girlfriend, and I didn't want her to hear it. So I didn't bring her. Kinda goes without saying but, if you do material about someone and you think it'll hurt their feelings, don't bring them. You're there to make people feel good. If you get a paid gig out of it, find a way to let them know before hand.

Another reason not to bring, if your act is completely different from the real you and you think your friends won't get it. If you're a nice guy and you get on stage screaming like Sam Kinison, you should let your friends know ahead of time so they're in on your act. Otherwise, it'll be blank stares. Typically, if I'm trying out a different persona, I feel inhibited performing in front of people who know me. But, this is my personal preference. If you get off on shocking your friends, more power to you. Shock away.

The reason to bring your friends for support is to share in your victory or take comfort in your failure. If you have these kind of people in your life, congratulations, you're already ahead of half the comedians. Comedy takes endurance, and you'll want to have these people in your corner to keep you going.

This is hard! Here's why. Your brain and your behavior are two different animals. What you write on paper may not be the guy you are on stage. Imagine Eddie Murphy doing George Carlin's material or vice versa. Okay, you can't b/c Carlin's dead. The point still stands that material is unique for a given comedian...

The best advice I can give you to writing for yourself is to forget trying to figure out "who" you are. Save the Freudian analysis for your therapist. On stage, you won't know who you are until you get some experience. So, in the meantime, follow the simple rule, set-up/punch line. Too simple for you? You're above it huh? Until you get experience, you telling your "hilarious" story on stage is going to end with some combination of, "guess you had to be there" or "it was a lot funnier when I told it earlier." Yes you can be a great story teller. But when you start out, keep it simple. You wouldn't try a double flip your first couple jumps off the high dive, you'd grab your knee and squeal like a little girl until you hit the water, then you surface going, "Can opener, motherfuckers!"

So what is a set up? It's the shortest number of words you can say to describe a scenario so the audience can follow where you are going with what you are saying. The punchline is yanking the carpet out from under them, so just when they think they know what you are about to say, you switch it. Try it. Take any normal scenario and set it up. You'd be amazed to know that most jokes don't work, not because the punchline is weak, but because the set up is either under explained, so the audience doesn't know why the hell you're now doing an Arnold impression, or over explained, so the audience stopped paying attention before you even get to the punchline.