I'm Dying Up Here

Heartbreak and High Times in Standup Comedy's Golden Era

By: William Knoedelseder

Narrated by: William Dufris

I'm Dying Up Here chronicles the collective coming of age of the standup comedians who defined American humor during the past three decades. Born early in the Baby Boom, they grew up watching The Tonight show, went to school during Vietnam and Watergate, migrated en masse to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, and created an artistic community unlike any before or since.

They were arguably the funniest people of their generation, living in a late-night world of sex, drugs, dreams, and laughter. For one brief shining moment, standup comics were as revered as rock stars. It was Comedy Camelot but, of course, it couldn't last.

In the late 1970s, William Knoedelseder was a cub reporter assigned to cover the burgeoning local comedy scene for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote the first major newspaper profiles of Jay Leno, David Letterman, Andy Kaufman, and others. He got to know many of them well. And so he covered the scene too when the comedians--who were not paid for performing at the career-making-or-breaking venue called the Comedy Store---tried to change an exploitative system and incidentally tore apart their own close-knit community.

Now Knoedelseder has gone back to interview the major participants to tell the whole story of that golden age and of the strike that ended it. Full of revealing portraits of many of the best-known comedic talents of our age, I'm Dying Up Here is also a poignant tale of the price of success and the terrible cost of failure - professional and moral.

©2005 William Knoedelseder (P)2009 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Knoedelseder skillfully layers powerful dramatic details." ( Publishers Weekly)

Great book, Great narrator

For all those who talked bad about the narrator... I couldn't disagree more. loved the book. loved the narration. I will listen again. I am a comedy need, a standup comedian (www.whitedewaynecomedy.com), and a comedy instructor, so this was very interesting for me the obvious reasons.

great depiction of real stand-up.

I loved it! I'm a borderline obsessive fan of stand-up. this book fed my osession.

Well-researched and delivered

The happy-go-lucky lilt of the narrator was perfect for this kind of tale, which basically was funny people in an ever – increasingly unfunny situation. Definitely was not a “happily ever after” story, but one that has been lost in the annals of time, which made it an enjoyable and revealing read. Those who wondered how the comedy boom got its roots will find out here – although in the end, they may regret learning about the components of the dark underbelly of it.

Great Book

If you ever wanted to know why the Comedy Store is so relevant to the history of comedy this is a book for you. Most of the comics famous today have a Mitzi Shore story of some sort and this explains why. Being from the Midwest I had no idea who Steve Lubetkin was and am sad now that I didn't.

A phenomenal listen

As someone during that time who spent a lot of time at The Comedy Store in La Jolla and got to know a handful of the comedians there, I thought I already knew the backstory. Turns out I barely knew any of it.

I'm Dying Up Here is incredibly well-researched, full of details I’d never heard, and the narration is spot-on. It’s one of those rare books where the deeper you get into it, the more you realize how much groundwork went into telling the story right.

Overall: a fantastic listen — informative, immersive, and surprisingly personal if you’ve ever been around that world. Highly recommended.