We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joe Scrocca a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Joe, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I just never had the give up attitude. I keep pushing along. In stand up comedy you never know what will work until you try it. Even if you get laughs from one audience does not guarantee consistent laughs from all audiences. Learning how to read a room and change up a set mid set is something I force myself to do. I love doing stand up it’s a feeling that I imagine is what a good high feels like to a drug user (which I am not unless you consider stand up a drug, it is addictive). My attitude is I am having fun and when I can get a great response from the audience I know I am delivering and doing my job well. On a bad night I figure out where I missed and I adjust for the next show. I have a video of a show I did in February. My first two bits hit well. The third was dead silence. I did not miss a beat and went to the fourth bit and got laughs again. I see some comics get shaken if they don’t hit on a joke or a bit. My attitude is just keep going, don’t miss a beat and you will read the crowd and know what makes them laugh. The trick is to never get shaken. Every stand up comic has a bad/off show. If you let that get to you don’t do stand up.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am 62 years old. I will be 63 in April 2024. I started doing stand up comedy on 12/14/2023. I had no experience, never took a course or read a book on how to do stand up. I just found an open mic and did a 20 minute set. I was not nervous until I got on stage and realized the venue was a biker bar and my mind went right to the Mad Max movies. I am a widower. My beautiful wife Renee passed away in March 2014. We were married for over 31 years and had a great life together. I dated but just did not find anyone worth spending a lot of time with. I literally woke up in early December 2023 and said I wanted to do something fun and I decided to try stand up comedy. As I write this it is 4/12/2024. So I am just shy of my 4 month anniversary of doing stand up. To date I have performed in 35 shows (open mics, comedy contests, feature and head lining shows). I have performed at the famed Rodneys Comedy Club in New York City (formerly Dangerfields), I made the semi final round of the Funniest Person in Delmarva comedy competition and I have been selected to perform 3 shows at the 2024 Meadowlands Comedy Festival including a show at the famous Copacabana in NYC. I have been interviewed on several podcasts and radio shows. Your readers can see my show schedule on my social media pages. linktr.ee/joe_scrocca_comedy.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I grew up in a diner. My family owned the Wildwood Diner in Wildwood NJ. I learned the quality of hard work in the diner. I learned prudent money management from my parents and I think every skill is developed from on the job training. Textbook/class room learning is helpful but you have to get in the trenches and work and learn from successful people doing the job(s) you want to pursue. My best advice is work hard, ask questions, find the most successful people who are doing what you do or want to do and see what makes them tick. I find that very successful people in any career are laser focused and don’t get distracted. Don’t ever be jealous of successful people try to copy what they are doing to make themselves successful.
In stand up I love my peers I support them and promote them any way that I can. They do the same for me. To be cliche a rising tide lifts all boats. If someone that I support makes it big I am sure they will remember the love and support that I gave them during their climb and will do what they can to pull me up to a higher level of stand up.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
My son Joey who is 33 has been a huge asset in my stand up career. He coaches me, he critiques me and he forces me to write and get better every day. He gave me a Christmas card this past Christmas and he wrote “Merry Christmas you are doing to do Great!”. I keep the card clipped to the note book that I always have with me.
I recently broke up with a woman who not only did not support my stand up but wanted me to give it up completely.. I really liked her but I felt that I love doing stand up more and she could not understand that. It was not an easy or quick decision but I feel I made the right decision. The reason that I added this is not only do you have to recognize the people that support you and help you, you have to cut ties with the people who are negative and don’t support you goals and dreams.
I would be negligent not to mention my friend who was my initial inspiration to start doing stand up. She is a wonderful person who has supported and encouraged me to pursue stand up comedy. I miss her but she has too many demons for me to get involved with her but I think of her every time I am up on stage.
Contact Info:
- Other: linktr.ee/joe_scrocca_comedy this link will take you to my Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Tik Tok sites.
Image Credits
Black and White photos: Inspirephotos, Devon McCabe and Hector Vazquez. Color live shot photos: Joey Scrocca
