Kathy: I’m still waiting for some materials from HR but otherwise - oooooh!
TIM enters with a cake
SUSAN and KATHY: Ooooh, cake!
SUSAN: What’s the occasion?
TIM: Nothing special, I just found a new recipe I wanted to try and I thought we could use a little mid-week pick me up!
KATHY: I can ALWAYS use a pick me up.
SUSAN: ESPECIALLy on Thursday.
ALL: UGH, Thursday.
KATHY: It’s like, why isn’t it Friday already?
SUSAN: If it wasn’t for must-see TV, what would even be the point?
KATHY: Is that even a thing anymore?
SUSAN: *Shrugs*
KATHY: So what kind of cake is it? Vanilla? Chocolate?
TIM: Poison!
KATHY: Oh!
SUSAN: Oh. Poison?
TIM: Yep! Poison cake.
SUSAN: Is that some kind of… “cultural” recipe? Like Greek “poison” cake or something?
TIM: Oh no, no. It’s just a poison cake. Nothing special.
KATHY: What kind of poison?
TIM: It’s a blend!
KATHY: Huh!
TIM: Yeah! It’s a bit of cyanide, a whole lot of arsenic and a smidge of warfarin.
SUSAN: TIM, are you sure this is appropriate?
TIM: What do you mean?
SUSAN: You can’t just bring poisoned food into the office.
TIM: I know the company policies on bringing in food, and I assure you there are no nuts in this cake. I even sterilized the counter to remove any traces!
KATHY: Oh that is so thoughtful.
SUSAN: No! It’s not thoughtful! It’s poison!
TIM: I don’t see what the problem is. I got the recipe from Jamie Oliver.
KATHY: He is so good.
TIM: Right? It’s like, you want to hate him but he makes great stuff.
KATHY: I know! I made his arugula pesto and…
SUSAN: TIM! I want this out of the office right now.
TIM: But I made it for everybody!
DARREN (passing through): What’s up everybo - hey is that cake?
TIM: Yeah, it’s poison cake. Do you want some?
DARREN: Yeah, I really do.
TIM starts slicing and plating up the cake.
SUSAN: Didn’t you hear him, DARREN? That cake is poison.
DARREN: Sure, but it’s Thursday.
TIM, KATHY AND DARREN: UGH, Thursday.
DARREN: Without a treat today is just going to DRAG.
TIM: Here you go!
DARREN: Thanks!
SUSAN: DON’T DO IT.
DARREN starts eating
SUSAN: That’s it. I’m getting security.
SUSAN leaves
DARREN: Oh man that’s good. Is this a spice cake?
TIM: No, it’s poison.
DARREN: Really? I could swear there was nutmeg in this.
TIM: Oh, that’s the warfarin. It’s got a sort of tang.
KATHY: How do you feel?
DARREN: Pretty good! Enjoying this cake. I’m getting a bit of a cramp, though, is there dairy in this?
TIM: No, just poison. I remembered you and Karen can’t eat dairy.
DARREN: Oh, thank, you. A lot of people forget. Even if it’s just in the icing. I mean, I can scrape off the icing, but who wants to do that?
TIM: The icing’s the best part!
DARREN: I don’t like a lot of it, but I LOVE a little of it.
KATHY: I’m the same way.
DARREN: Okay, the cramps are getting pretty bad now.
KATHY: But is it good?
DARREN: Oh, it’s so good. Is this a Jamie Oliver recipe?
TIM: YES!
DARREN: SO good.
KATHY: Should I be bad?
TIM: Yeah, be bad.
KATHY: I’m having some.
Susan returns with SECURITY GUARD.
SUSAN: That’s him. Escort him from the office.
SECURITY GUARD: Okay bud come with - is that cake?
TIM: Yeah, it’s poison cake! Want some?
TIM serves SECURITY GUARD cake
SECURITY GUARD: Yeah, I’m crashing. I could use a little energy boost.
SUSAN: It’s poison cake! He’s poisoning the office!
KATHY: Yeah, but he brought cake! I love cake!
SECURITY GUARD: Is there gluten in this? My wife has me on this whole thing.
SUSAN: Arrest him!
TIM: I actually managed to avoid wheat flour and almond flour by making it almost entirely out of poison.
KATHY: Is that why it’s so moist?
TIM: Yeah! It’s a really nice texture.
DARREN: Okay, I have to get back to work. But first I think I might curl up under my desk and die where nobody can find me.
KATHY: Aw, like a cat!
DARREN: See you guys.
SUSAN: Is he going to be okay?
TIM: Oh, he’s definitely dead.
KATHY: God, I can’t stop eating - and it’s not even my cheat day!
SECURITY GUARD: I know! My wife is going to kill me.
TIM: No she’s not!
KATHY: Ugh, my stomach. Serves me right for being such a pig!
SECURITY GUARD: I think my ulcer’s acting up.
TIM: It’s been great working with you guys!
KATHY and SECURITY GUARD start clutching at their stomachs, keel over and die.
SUSAN: Are you quite pleased with yourself?
TIM: Honestly? Kind of.
SUSAN: Well I hope you don’t mind taking on their workload.
TIM: That’s no problem - I’ve had a lot of free time lately. I spent most of yesterday looking at recipes.
SUSAN: Okay, get to work.
TIM: Okay Susan. Got any plans for the weekend?
SUSAN: Don’t ask me about the weekend until it’s Friday.
TIM: UGH, Thursday.
SUSAN: Go, go.
TIM leaves, SUSAN surveys the wreckage.
SUSAN: Oh, whatever. I deserve a break.
SUSAN picks up a fork and has a bite with a flourish
Claire stifled a yawn and rubbed her eyes with her sleeve, being careful not to get cocoa in her eyes. The gourmet creme eggs were a disaster.
"Whatsa matter Claire?" said Brad in his usual good cheer, even though it was so late that they were the only two still working in the Bon Appetit test kitchen. "Can I get you some wourder?"
Claire's eyes flashed at Brad as she swept her shock of white hair behind her ear. "No Brad, I don't want any WATER." But as frustrated as she was, she had to admit, Brad's childish enthusiasm was infectious. She was glad he was still here - and with just the two of them in the kitchen she noticed as if for the first time just how TALL Brad was... and strong. Despite herself, she imagined being swept up into his arms and her porcelain skin flushed with embarrassment. "Fuh- forget it" she stammered.
"Well, I'm here if you need me" said Brad, his boyish demeanour suddenly changing into something more serious. "I've always been here."
Claire could sense what was under those words, what had always been under them. But she knew it was a terrible idea to give in to what they both felt. As much as he felt like the loveably cheerful and hunky kid from down the street, Brad was her boss after all. "Thanks Brad," she said, "I'll let you know if I need your help making these."
"All right" said Brad with just a hint of disappointment. How long had they been playing this game now?
As Brad walked away, Claire focused on her workstation. Oh no! Her chocolate hadn't tempered correctly again! She smeared it off the greased parchment paper. What should have been stiff and glossy was soft and messy. This was her third attempt that day! She fought back the water in her eyes. Her workstation was a mess, covered in failed fondant yolks and cracked chocolate shells. She was so frustrated.
Claire looked up at Brad's strong back, over at the fermentation station where he was burping his assortment of krauts, kimchis and kombuchas. That was it.
She needed a win.
Claire strode over to Brad and tapped his back. He turned around and she reached up to kiss him... but stopped halfway. She wasn't tall enough to reach his lips! Undeterred, Claire started unbuckling his belt. THAT she could reach.
"Claire!" exclaimed Brad, shocked but somehow not surprised. Claire just looked up at him with her wide eyes and a little smile, a move that she knew drove men wild - until suddenly, she was flying! Lifted up into the air, held tightly against Brad's chest where he kissed her deeply. There they lost themselves in a maelstrom of new tastes and touch. Claire woke from her revery, feeling a press against her thigh from below Brad's waist as her feet dangled above the floor.
"I think It's Alive," she smirked.
I love watching movies while travelling. When you’re locked into an eight to thirteen-hour plane or bus ride it’s easy to lock into watching things that you wouldn’t normally have the patience for.
I was recently in Australia, and thanks to the limited selection on the planes I was taking I was able to catch a bizarre double-feature: Toni Erdmann and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Both are comedies. Neither is funny.
Of the two, Toni Erdmann is the one that’s not supposed to be funny. It tells the story of a German retiree who is estranged from his daughter, who works for an oil company in Bucharest. When his dog dies he flies to where she works and visits her. It’s awkward and weird. What makes it worse is that Winfried (the dad) is a notorious prankster, often donning a pair of fake teeth and trying to convince people he’s someone else. He is never, not once, funny.
The movie is over three hours long. It is, at times, painful. It’s also profoundly human and kind of beautiful. The movie sits in Winfried’s bad jokes. It stews in the awkwardness, the furtive glances, the deep need of everyone involved to be anywhere else than where they are, and in doing so it reveals just how much effort people put into propriety. It reveals the horror residing just under the social contract by showing someone breaking it, badly.
You can glimpse a similar horror in Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Another hugely popular but critically reviled movie from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions. The movie has become a punchline of its own by now, synonymous with Wal-Mart bargain bins and dumb comedy. Watching it after years of studiously ignoring it, I was surprised; it was better than I thought it would be. Kevin James is a hugely charismatic actor, and his enormous eyes let a whole host of emotions play across his face. Paul Blart, as a character, is remarkably well-realized as a result, and I was surprised by how much character work actually went into making Blart seem real.
He is also not funny.
All of the jokes in Paul Blart hinge on one thing: Paul is a nice guy and everyone in the world hates him. His boss shits on him constantly. Bully Steve Rannazzisi rips on him, letting loose the only verbal jokes in the entire movie. Otherwise, all the big laughs come from physical comedy, as Blart is put into headlocks (by a woman haha), slips, falls, and crashes into things.
I stopped watching the movie when Blart gets accidentally drunk and starts hitting on the (woefully out of his league but predictably intrigued) love interest of the movie, Jayma Mays, revealing that he’s not really such a nice guy after all. Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery noted in their Worst Idea of All Time podcast that Sandler’s Grown Ups 2 had a vicious, ugly worldview, where the weak are to be punished at every turn and the only thing separating the bullies from the good guys is... well, that the good guys are the good guys, i.e. the ones the movie is about. Paul Blart: Mall Cop is similar in this regard. We’re supposed to think Paul Blart is a good guy because he’s bullied, but we’re also expected to laugh every time he is bullied. The movie has no idea what’s funny other than being cruel; it assumes we are as cruel as it is.
Both movies, to my mind, reveal the horror of the failed joke. They reveal the pathetic desire of the comic to be laughed at, and the lengths we’ll go not to acknowledge that. Toni Erdmann uses that to tell a story about becoming real, as the father and daughter figure out how to actually relate (hint: the dad isn’t in the right!), while Paul Blart wants you to laugh at the fat man falling down. One reveals the horror implicit in the world, the other wills the world to be horrible.
Toni Erdmann is the anti-comic who knows how to wield discomfort like a scalpel, forcing the audience to examine themselves. Paul Blart is the shock comic who gets mad at the audience for not laughing, who was probably already mad at the audience for... something?
Both show that comedy is never too far from being horror, and that horror is tightly entwined with comedy.
I always thought I was a good writer. Okay, I still do – but performing stand-up comedy really showed me how much I had to learn about writing, and how much I still have to learn.
Most forms of writing happen in your own head. You hear your voice in your own cranium, and you craft a through-line as you write, looking ahead to how the sentence you’re writing now is going to contribute to the final product.
When you’re writing stand-up comedy, however, you have to write for other people – and as good a job as you think you did staring at your notebook or computer screen, your audience was always only really yourself.
Stand-up comedy is a test; it tests whether your writing works. That doesn’t mean if it’s grammatical, or if it makes a point. Stand-up tests whether or not your writing reaches an audience, and meets them where they are. When I realized that, I realized I had to focus on writing in different ways.
Clarity:
Stand-up needs to be clear. Obviously, that means when you say something, it needs to be obvious what you mean. If your audience is confused by your set-up, or worse, your punchline, they will not laugh. They’ll spend the time they should be laughing puzzling over what you meant. Even if they eventually get it right, even if they agree that the idea is kind of funny, the moment is lost forever.
However, not just your meaning has to be clear; one of the most surprising things I learned by taking to the stage is if the audience isn’t sure who you are, they will not laugh at your jokes. That’s why so many comedians open their act with self-deprecating jokes – they’re showing that they’re likeable, approachable, and not arrogant, but also they’re informing the audience who they are.
I noticed when performing that people would treat my set completely differently based on what I wore. I tried wearing a blazer once, just for kicks, and any material I did about feeling anxious or worried about my life direction didn’t do as well. It was far easier to sell that material when wearing a hoodie. Anything you say that doesn’t match what the audience thinks of you is a challenge, and a challenge they’re going to reckon with before they start listening further.
I’m not far enough into a comedy career to be certain what my character is on stage, but one thing is obvious: whatever my character is, it can’t be ambiguous. The audience needs to make a fast decision about who you are, and why you’re funny. If they can’t do that, they won’t laugh.
I realized this is basically true of all writing. You need to signal who you are as a writer, and you need to make it plain, or else your readers will spend part of their reading time trying to figure out who you are, rather than reading what you wrote.
When you write in your own head, you think who you are is obvious. It’s not. And that’s why stand-up is a great test.
Write Good; Don’t Write Bad
The hard truth is most writing is bad – even if you’re a good writer. We all know drafts are important, and that it takes hard work to write well, but the time limit of stand-up means every word had better well be doing something.
I have a joke about cheating on my girlfriend with food. This is because one time she was out of town for a weekend, and I ate like I was trying to kill myself. I figured there was something adulterous about that, and I told the story on stage.
People seemed to like it – a close friend tells me it’s her favourite bit – but nobody would really laugh. I realized at some point I was being amusing, relatable, and even authentic, but not funny.
One day in the shower I was thinking about that bit and hit on a new way to say everything I needed to say in one joke: “My girlfriend leaves for the weekend, and instantly, I’m on the phone with Dominos: ‘Yeah, she’s gone, come over. I want you.’”
It’s much funnier than the long story I was telling and accomplishes the same thing in just a few words. Of course, the original story was true – but who cares? This new version is efficient and much, much funnier.
The thing is, I knew right away that it was better – but I also knew that the old version wouldn’t work, even as I was writing it. I tried it on-stage, because you have to, but deep down I knew it wasn’t there yet.
If I think about it, I’m surprised by how often I have a voice in my head saying “this isn’t good yet” – and I’m surprised by how often I don’t listen. Writing bad is easy; writing good is hard. But stand-up gives you one hell of a reason to put in the effort.
I’ve decided to start posting bad comedy show posters any time I see them.
This is never an indictment of the comics on the bill - I know most of these folks and they’re great - but the poster is immediately, obviously terrible.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: Designed to Fail, Built to Last
I’ve been thinking about joke efficiency lately.
If you want to do well on stage, the best thing you can do is whittle your bits down to their most crucial elements; jokes. Jokes that work. If a setup is too long, cut it. If a punchline isn’t getting consistent laughs, throw it away.
Focusing on this has been a breakthrough for me. But it does sometimes make me sad. The phrase for cutthroat editing is “kill your darlings,” so it stands to reason that a lot of what I have to cut I actually love. Usually I have to get rid of a joke because it’s based on a reference that too few people will get, at least in an average crowd.
This got me thinking about Mystery Science Theater 3000, both of today and yesteryear. One of the things I’ve always loved about MST3K is that the show makes really, REALLY obscure jokes.
One of my favourite jokes was on This Island Earth - a security guard reading a magazine is startled at his post. One of the bots says "I was reading it for the Kilgore Trout story!"
Kilgore Trout was Kurt Vonnegut's fictionally prophetic SF writer, and the joke is that he could only be published in porn magazines because he was too weird to be published anywhere else. So this quip was a roundabout way to say that the guard was looking at porn that also invoked, and complicated, the classic Playboy apologia, "I read it for the articles!"
It takes two seconds to resolve, and it takes a VERY PARTICULAR SORT OF NERD to get it. Everyone else would pass over it in silence. The fact that it made it into the episode (which they released as "MST3K: The Movie" - ostensibly their bid for mainstream attention) is bananas and I love them for it.
No reference is too nerdy, too Minnesotan, to get away with for Mystery Science Theater. So how do they do it?
I think it has to do with format. Joel, Mike, Jonah and the bots have to fill 80 minutes worth of movie with jokes. Everything that happens on screen needs a comment. Dead space isn’t a failed joke, it’s silence from the commentators while the movie marches forth without them.
This requirement, of constant riffing, has an interesting result: NOT EVERY JOKE HAS TO LAND. Which means that they can populate the film with one-percenter jokes designed for very particular audiences.
In a comedy club, that would mean the joke is a failure. But in a show like MST3K, that’s why you love it. Every time I got one of these as a kid, I felt like a genius. That feeling helped me create a real bond with the show, because I felt like I was part of the club.
It’s no surprise to me that MST3K is back for more, albeit with a new cast and crew. And I feel certain that everyone working on the new version loves the show in part because they were people who responded to these buried jokes, the ones designed, it seems, for no-one else but them.
I’ve been on comedy hiatus for a few months while working on some other projects, but have still been honing and editing my set, just without performing. It’s been feeling pretty good!
This was a great set for a receptive crowd. I started with a new joke that landed really well here, but I’ve been having troubles making work everywhere. I love the quick switch in tone of saying “if I had a town named after me, I’d want it to be called ‘Fuck Zone.’” I’m working on building that out, because I thnk it’s a strong premise, but I don’t have a through-line yet.
I aimed to only do eight minutes, but this set caps off nicely with Bittersweet Ending as a closer to make it ten. That bit (which is in my earlier recorded set on this blog) works nicely as a close for a longer set. I dip into a sad tone with it, and people are way more willing to go along with me if I’ve warmed them up with efficient jokes.
I’m happy to say my wine/weed tasting material is working great everywhere!
It’s a loaded question; if you answer it honestly, it is usually going to say something about what you’re trying to do on stage. If someone says “Bill Burr,” they’re at least a little bit invested in poking holes in the audience’s hypocrisy, whatever they perceive it to be. If they say Tig Notaro, they’re probably trying for an absurdist approach with a social edge. Brian Regan – they’re interested in joke-craft and a clean approach. And maybe the most fun is that you can usually guess what someone’s going to say when you see them on stage, emulating their hero in an imperfect, developmental way.
My fave is Kyle Kinane. Immediately. Obviously. I love lots of comics, and respect a great many more. But Kinane speaks to me deeply, because he speaks the language of shame.
Kinane’s character is, in my read, “the enlightened dirtbag.” He comes across as the drunk buddy you left behind in high school, the lovable ape who just was never able to get his shit together. You’re a bit embarrassed of him and for him, but what’s great about Kinane is that he’s even more embarrassed of himself.
That’s why he’s enlightened - he knows who he is, and he’s constantly shocked by it. There’s a joke in Whiskey Icarus where he outlines the racist ideas that pop into his head before he can even condemn them: “I don’t know why that’s in here” he says, pointing to his head. “I’m more upset about it than you are.”
Most of Kinane’s jokes are structured like confessions. “This is my life” is the subtext of most of what he says. “I should know better. I do know better. But this is my life.”
His second video special, I Liked His Old Stuff Better has a joke that never fails to make me cringe in beautiful sympathy. Kinane puts himself in opposition to his brain: “Today’s going to be a great day, I can feel it” says Kinane. “No it’s not,” says his brain, “because remember that time when you were six and dropped a brick on a frog?” He acts out the resulting shame spasm, at killing a creature out of thoughtless innocence, with his entire body.
I know that feeling. I know that feeling hard. Moments of regret that can pull you out of the present and send you hurtling to a past you can never erase, that nail you to a self you used to be and have tried ever since to distance yourself from.
Shame is very important to me. I was raised Catholic. So was Kinane. I don’t know if that’s the magic bullet that makes him speak to me so directly, but it sure helps.
I’m not a dirtbag, not really. I enjoy some drinks but I’m rarely, if ever, “that guy” at the party anymore. But I identify with the pattern of disappointing yourself and love the economy that Kinane is able to bring to expressing that through his character.
I’m still working on figuring out who I am on stage. I tell people I do “mild absurdism and gentle self-deprecation” and I think that’s true, but I need to figure out how to get that across faster.
Beyond the basics for first-timers, like “you get five minutes, maybe three depending on the venue” or “when they flash the light at you, that means you have one minute left,” I’m not qualified to offer much other than “if you want to, do it.” But there is one piece of advice I do feel comfortable handing out:
Get over deciding people aren’t funny as soon as possible.
I say “as soon as possible” because you’re going to do it. Everybody does. When you enter a scene, any scene, you start making decisions about who you like, who you don’t like, and where you fit in this whole mess. It’s a way of interpreting the lay of the land and developing a sense of identity in it.
You’re going to go to an open mic and start picking your favourites - and you’re also going to pick the ones who “shouldn’t be there.” And it’s going to feel great.
That’s the kicker - it feels really good to decide that someone isn’t worthy of being on stage, because it implicitly means that you’re better than they are. Even if you don’t really think so, even if you say “I don’t mean that I think I’m great or anything,” just being able to exercise that judgement is the cheapest ego boost around.
But, like most cheap boosts, it’s not good for you.
When you start, you go to open mics. You see a wide range of performances from a wide range of people you’ve never seen before. Some you will like, some you won’t like. That’s fine. But what you don’t realize right away is that open mics don’t indicate much; good comics might try stuff that isn’t working, new comics may be doing the best version of the set they’ve been doing for three months. One night, especially at an open mic, does not give a good sense of the development that happens outside of those five minutes on stage.
Stick with it, and you start seeing people going up, again and again. You get a better sense of where they’re coming from and where they’re going. People get better before your eyes - sometimes the people you least expected to push through. And you realize you have off nights - off nights where someone might have see you and say “they’re not funny.”
It’s a truism that comedy attracts fragile egos, and fragile egos like to judge. It’s easy to see someone bomb once and write that person off FOREVER.
That’s bad medicine.
To clarify, it’s okay to be critical. It’s fair to say “he’s muddying the punchline” or “she’s using the same joke structure over and over, and should change it up.” But when you start, you make character judgments because those are the tools you have at hand, and because the problem you’re trying to solve is “do I deserve to be here?”
The answer to that question is “sure! Why not?” But it also applies to everyone else.
Also: it’s easy to see why someone you don’t like isn’t funny. But it’s way harder to figure out why they ARE funny - even if they step on the punch, even if you disagree with their point of view. If you can figure out why they work as opposed to why they don’t work, you have more tools in your kit.
So yeah. You’re going to decide some people aren’t funny. I did. Everyone does. But get over it as quickly as possible.
It’s not that funny.
I just read The Comedians by Kliph Nesteroff. It’s a breezy history of stand-up from its beginnings in vaudeville to the present day, and I absolutely recommend it.
Kliph Nesteroff was actually a comedian in Vancouver until the mid-aughts, and then became a showbiz historian in the employ of WFMU (home of The Best Show!). He writes the blog Classic Television Showbiz, where he compiled the interviews that would help make up this book.
Some of my takeaways:
Stand-up is hosting: The performer who is credited with inventing the form of stand-up was Frank Fay, an emcee for one of vaudeville’s premier shows in New York. He billed himself as a “nut monologist” and would crack wise and rib the audience between acts if the other performers weren’t keeping up momentum. Of course, he was also a raging anti-semite with a brutal feud with Milton Berle, among others, but the historical link between stand-up comedy and hosting makes all the sense in the world.
It’s called “stand-up” because of the mob: After prohibition, gangsters made the move into the entertainment industry to make up for their loss of monopoly on illegal booze. Every comedian from this era seems to say “they were great guys! Unless you crossed them.” The story of Joe E. Lewis illustrates the downs and ups of this era: after booking a show for a rival mob, he was sliced up by goons who slit his throat. Miraculously, he survived - and because he didn’t squeal, he was set up for life as a performer.
Anyway, the term “stand-up” comes from this era. Gangsters would refer to “stand-up fighters” - boxers who could take some knocks and keep swinging. The slang migrated to comics who had nothing between them and the crowd other than a microphone and a wit.
You’re better in a community: Nesteroff doesn’t really make this point, but much of the history he tells centers on comedy “scenes” - locations where comedians can hang out and perform and soak up each other’s approaches. The Catskills, Lindy’s Deli, The Comedy Store - you get better by watching other comics grow. Sure, there are feuds and catfights, but I can’t help but think the cross-pollination that happened at these sites helped fuel people’s comedy and careers.
If you want to do something new, you need a place to bomb: The alt-comedy scene of the 90s was a reaction to The Comedy Store and other established venues where booking agents from The Tonight Show and other TV shows would go to find new talent, sometimes before they were ready. What we think of now as the beginnings of alt-comedy came from comedians who found alternative venues where they could perform, and bomb, for friends and indifferent audiences until they could find an approach that wasn’t “have you ever noticed.”
These are in no way the only items of note in the book, but they’re ideas I was drawn to and will be thinking about in the coming weeks.
The first bomb was instructive in a couple of ways. I was up second at an open mic that seemed to have a big audience. I say “seemed to” because most of the crowd was there to support their buddy who was going up for the first time. They were not there to see anybody else.
I did B material because I’m trying to work it up into A material, and got some smatterings of laughs, but barely. And honestly, compared to how most people did that night I don’t think I did THAT badly - but a bomb’s a bomb, and the goal is to get laughs come what may.
So what did I do wrong? I didn’t address the crowd.The group was bro-tastic, sitting with crossed arms and not ready to engage. They were a problem that needed to be solved, and I wasn’t going to solve anything by just doing material. Solution? I should have worked the crowd. I should have said “I don’t know what to do with you guys. From up here, you guys are a PROBLEM.” Asked them questions. Tested possibilities.
My sense is - if you have an audience who isn’t present, you have to MAKE them present. And crowd work is how you do that. I’m not comfortable doing that yet, but moments like that are how I’m going to get better.
The second bomb is what I’m going to call a “contained detonation.” I have a long story I want to tell on stage that has a GREAT punchline, but I’m not sure yet how to translate a story into stand-up; at this point I can tell a story, or I can tell jokes, but I’m not sure how to make sure the storytelling itself is full of beats.
So I went up on stage and told my story, and bombed. Bombed HARD. The difference is I knew I was going to, and didn’t let it shake me - I was comfortable in the silence. That’s a win of sorts. Plus, I did find a beat that is going to help me approach the writing of the story, which is an ACTUAL win.
My goal for my next open mic set is to actually have a scaffolding of jokes for the story.
This set was sort of a breakthrough. I’ve been doing all these jokes for months, but for whatever reason it clicked that night. This is the closest I’ve come to a killer set.
How close that is is up for debate.
The big change was the bit about yogurt, where I managed to improve my efficiency. The joke was actually born out of my dad having a heart attack a little less than a year ago - it was inspired by the line “this yogurt was so bad, I realized that one day my dad is going to die.”
Hilarious right? Okay, kind of dark and unfunny. I love that space where tragedy rubs up against humour, and I like moments of weird poetry. I like that knowing your father is going to die is a way more pressing way of discovering your own mortality. Death is somehow more real when it’s about people you care about than your own eventual demise, because you can actually feel the absence.
That’s what I was thinking about when I started talking about yogurt that had gone bad, but it usually soured (haha) the audience. So I cut it. This gave me a glimpse of the kind of efficiency you need to actually build momentum in a set. I love tonal swerves but need to realize that if they stop rolling laughter, they’re a problem.
I love comedy.
This is both new and old. I was a kid in the wake of the comedy boom, and I loved watching all the comedy shows produced during that time: Evening at the Improv, Two Drink Minimum, and especially the footage from the Just For Laughs specials. At the age of twelve, I wanted to be a comedian.
That was not true from ages 13-33.
A little over a year ago, I took a class in how to do stand-up. I’d been listening to podcasts for some time, and was rediscovering my love of the form through the comedy specials and albums of the last ten years, when a friend of mine took a class through Instant Theatre. It was 100 bucks for four two hour workshop classes - not so much a class as a relatively low-pressure way to try doing comedy for the first time.
Look. It’s cliché to say “I was hooked.” But I discovered a love of performance and making people laugh that felt like coming full circle. I could speculate why, but I won’t. At least not right now.
There was one problem: somewhere in the past twenty years, I became a goddamn adult. Do you see the problem here?
Comedy is, or has been, a young person’s game. If you DO comedy, you’re supposed to be out every night, grinding it out, getting good and living, breathing, and eating comedy. I can’t do that.
I have a girlfriend who is for all intents and purposes my wife. I love her, and for some reason she likes having me around in the evenings. I am finishing a PhD. That matters to me. I do not have the ability to drop everything to do one thing I love, because frankly, I love lots of things. Comedy is important to me, but it is not the only thing that is important to me. And I reject the idea that just because I don’t do it full-time, I’m not doing it at all.
So I’m faced with a question: how do I do comedy, get better at comedy, when I can only get on stage once or twice a week?
This website is part of my answer. Because even though I only get so much stage time, I think about stand-up all the time. You can go up every night, do the same jokes, and not get funnier - I’ve seen it. So how do you make sure you improve every time you perform?
Here, I will be thinking about my stand-up, testing new approaches, and inviting you to help me get funny.
I love comedy. But for better or worse, I have to love comedy part-time. This is me making the most of that time.
