Editor's Note: The following real live email came into the inbox here at SHECKYmagazine.com HQ. I decided to turn my response to it into a column.

Dear SHECKYmagazine.com: I am researching the role of a comic and/or comedian as an occupation and have some general questions. I truly love to make others laugh but have no information at all regarding what it would be like to be a full time and paid comic/comedian. Before I "quit my day job" it seems prudent to ask an expert some basic questions, which is the purpose of this email.

1. Any idea about how many people are working as part time comics and comedians? One obvious reason for this question is I want to know if I will be competing with 20 million other comics, or just a few hundred thousand.

2. Once a person becomes a "proven" comic (one who can and does make people laugh on command), how do they find places to work?

3. What is a typical day like for a comic who makes his living making, or trying to make others laugh?

4. Basically, what will I be getting into if I decide to become a full time comic?

5. Of course, what about the dollars, dinero, jelly, geeters, yen, peso's and so forth... There are obviously some big time comics around who are funny and famous, some famous but not funny, and some funny but not famous, but how much money can a typical comic (if there is such a thing) expect to make? I am not too concerned about Letterman or Leno or Chris Rock at this juncture, but more concerned about the comic working the clubs at the local Improv, etc.

Of course, any other general information you could provide that you feel might be of interest to me would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your time.

Sincerely,

Dennis Miller

Dear Dennis:

Allow me to take your questions one hunk at a time.

I am researching the role of a comic and/or comedian as an occupation and have some general questions. I truly love to make others laugh but have no information at all regarding what it would be like to be a full time and paid comic/comedian. Before I "quit my day job" it seems prudent to ask an expert some basic questions, which is the purpose of this email.

There isn't much information out there. You've come to the right place. It is very prudent to "ask an expert" before you "quit your day job." So far, you exhibit some qualities-- intelligence, curiosity-- which will be very handy if/when you decide to attempt standup comedy. You exhibit other qualities-- caution, prudence-- which balance the other good qualities out. So, it's a wash so far.

1. Any idea about how many people are working as part time comics and comedians? One obvious reason for this question is I want to know if I will be competing with 20 million other comics, or just a few hundred thousand.

We get this question all the time. From the press, from other comics, from curious audience members. The answer? Who knows. It could be 2,000, it could be 5,000. You do seem to grasp that there are a lot of them out there, so you know that you'll be one of many. Exactly how many is subject to speculation. What you must do is figure out a way to make yourself stand out among all of those others. But, if you do that, and if you do that well enough, it won't matter if there are 20 million comics or just a few hundred thousand, right? Think of how many professional baseball players there are right now, as compared to 30 or 40 years ago. Do you suppose that if Ty Cobb were playing today, he wouldn't succeed? Of course he would. One word of caution: Try to be a little bit less of a jerk than Ty Cobb was.

2. Once a person becomes a "proven" comic (one who can and does make people laugh on command), how do they find places to work?

An amusing concept, this notion of a "proven" comic. Even the best of us has those occasional evenings where we have great difficulty making people "laugh on command." The only proven comic is the one who is getting laughs right now. Once those laughs die down, I'm afraid he has to prove himself all over again with the next joke. Such is the unforgiving nature of the comedy audience. The excellent comic is the one who realizes the unrelenting nature of this challenge and summons the energy and the wit to meet it as many times as it takes to appear as though he can make those folks "laugh on command." To put it another way: It never really gets easy. I've often heard it likened to golf. I doubt Tiger Woods would ever shoot a round of 67 at August National and say to his caddy, "Well, that was easy!" No one doubts Tiger's greatness, but Tiger would never doubt the difficulty of shooting great golf. (If you're looking for anything other than sports analogies, I'm all out!)

3. What is a typical day like for a comic who makes his living making, or trying to make others laugh?

There is no typical day for comic who makes his living in this biz. I trust that you've been reading SHECKYmagazine.com for some time. In the pages of this magazine, we've featured people (all of them comics) who make their living in a variety of ways. I know you probably want to know what a typical day is like for a comic who travels from club to club, city to city, several weeks out of the year, because this is probably how you imagine most comics operate. However, I urge you to widen your focus, broaden your idea of what a funny person might do to make a living and save yourself a lot of time and frustration down the line. If you manage to get a taste of that and you like it, go for it. But bear in mind that there's a thousand different forks in that road.

Mitch Hedberg tells a joke in which he explores the exact opposite side of the situation I describe above. He says he got into standup to do standup. He expresses his frustration at the number of people in this business who seem to want him to do something else besides standup. "All right. You do standup, but can you write?" he says, exasperated. "This is not right. This is like if you were an excellent chef and somebody said to you, 'You're an excellent cook, but can you farm?'" I guess I bring that up to tell you that, no matter what you do, there will be pressures to do something else. So, it comes down to what you want to do. If you discard the notion of what constitutes a "typical" comic, you'll have that many fewer constraints on what you do and how you do it.

4. Basically, what will I be getting into if I decide to become a full time comic?

You'll have at your disposal an arsenal of double-edge swords. Along with all the perks, there will be corresponding responsibilities. You'll be self-employed, which means you'll have a lot of freedom. Which means that you'll be your own boss. Which means that you'll have to be a model employee. Or at least you should be. Nothing worse than having the boss pissed at you-- when you're the boss!

5. What about the dollars, dinero, jelly, geeters, yen, peso's and so forth... There are obviously some big time comics around who are funny and famous, some famous but not funny, and some funny but not famous, but how much money can a typical comic (if there is such a thing) expect to make? I am not too concerned about Letterman or Leno or Chris Rock at this juncture, but more concerned about the comic working the clubs at the local Improv, etc.

"Expect" to make nothing. You'll be pleasantly surprised when you make any! But, seriously, it is a lot like a lot of other occupations: The potential for great reward is there for those who are willing to take risks, put in the hours and gather and use the intelligence. There are no guarantees. In fact, there may be fewer guarantees than in any other walk of life.

I know that sounds a lot like some sort of motivational speech leaking out of a Holiday Inn function room, but it's all true. To put it in a less Tony-Robbins kind of way: This is show biz, kid. If you're looking for heart-pounding amounts of money, this is the place. If you think that those bales of cash will come easier than bales of cash might come to someone who is in real estate or selling Mary Kay cosmetics or practicing as an attorney, you are mistaken. It's fun, to be sure. But don't let the fact that it's fun obscure the other fact that it's a lot of hard work and there's always something more to be learned.

And, one more thing: Change your name. Yours is already taken.