AFTER THREE CONSECUTIVE open-mic nights of experimenting with material culled from his real life—mostly stories about his childhood, third-shift security work, stealing his education, and his superfluous hypochondriac business manager named Barry—Oliver woke one afternoon with what could only be considered an epiphany … he would tell the truth in his act.
Oliver opened to a fresh page in his notebook and wrote:
I, Oliver Miles, being of sound mind and body, do solemnly swear to tell the truth … the whole truth … and nothing but the truth … so help me God.
He eyeballed this resolution, freshly inked into his notebook, with equal amounts of anticipation and dread. If he actually followed this new decree, he would effectively reduce his life’s work to about three minutes of usable material. And the Downers gig was less than two months away.
For the next hour he studied his words. He edited, whittled, expanded, retracted, mentally wrangled, and eventually came up with this:
I, Oliver Miles, being of sound mind and body, do solemnly swear promise to tell the truth … (not quite) the whole truth … and nothing but the truth in my act … so help me God (PLEASE!!!).
This new version was more accurate, but lacked the zing of his original. So Oliver drew a big X through it all and tried a different tack:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot make funny; courage to use the things I can (in my act); and wisdom to know the difference.
After several moments of serious contemplation, he scratched that out too.
So far, he’d spent three hours working on his mission statement and zero hours on the actual mission. Finally, he remembered a rare but hilarious CD he’d picked up in a used record shop. It was by a guy named Rick Reynolds. And it was more of a one-man show than pure stand-up, called Only the Truth Is Funny.
So Oliver wrote that title down too. It was good but not terribly original, and—ironically enough—not entirely true. Finally, he opted for something much simpler:
When in doubt, tell the truth. Amen.
So that’s what Oliver would try to do.