New Year’s Resolution: Make 'Em Laugh

As a young adult, Julie Bayley was inspired by Whoopi Goldberg to try stand-up comedy. Julie loved performing late night sets, but found herself limited by “a really horrific habit: I had to eat three times a day.” Instead, she parlayed some of those skills into a career as a marketer.

Thirty years later, Julie’s creative resolution for 2014 is to get back onstage and perform a 5-10-minute stand-up set. “I think it’s my midlife crisis,” she tells Kurt Andersen. “I can’t afford a Porsche, I’m not going to grow a ponytail, so this is the next best thing." She admits that the challenge of making strangers laugh feels scarier this time around, but “I like the kind of fear that I’m feeling.”

Task #1: Write a joke a day.

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