Page 132 - Katherine Ryan press pack

Gradually I got better, and then slowly I started getting more and

more paid gigs. It became a career by accident.

BROWN: Do you remember what your material was when you

started doing your first five minutes?

RYAN: I do. I remember speaking about my flatmate at the time and

the type of friendship that we had. I remember talking about my

family, talking about my mother giving me a rape whistle. I talked

about tickets to Dr. Phil—my mom gave me tickets to see Dr. Phil‘s

taping live in Toronto. I talked about how, “You know your life is

messed up when your mother gives you tickets to see Dr. Phil.” I

was fascinated by the audience that he had and the fact that his

producers put pretty young women up front so that they would be in

shots, and the women there just treated him like a rock star. It was

mostly about that. I tried to be edgy when I was starting out because

those are the type of comedians that I liked, but I didn’t really

understand what it took to be edgy. I had some things about race,

but really in retrospect they were not sophisticated enough to be

poignant; they were probably just offensive.