Tag: comedy

Back Home from Home: I am back in Washington. Thanks to everyone in Philadelphia who came out to the show -- always nice to hear friends and family laughing in the audience. I hope you got your money's worth. Among the many pleasant aspects of the weekend was a chance to meet one Mr. Doogie Horner, the emcee for the weekend. Doogie has a very distinctive comedic voice, and also a hellacious beard. He's also the guy who did the cover art for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters). Plus he has a book in the works that will fully mine the comedic value of flow charts. He's a very, very interesting dude. Do yourself a favor and google his name -- you can see a few of his charts online. More Fun With Automobiles We had some snow in Philly -- just enough to make the housing development where my parents live almost undriveable. I was struggling to get to a main road, tires spinning a bit, and suddenly the "ABS" light starts beeping on my display panel. Apparently, my car noticed that I have been lax on my sit-up routine. We all try to stay in shape -- and I was definitely inspired by "Jersey Shore" -- but sometimes exercise gets lost in my busy schedule of sleeping and not working very hard. This was more upsetting than December, when the small "oil lamp" light turned on, indicating that my car was low on magic genies. As they must be imported from the Middle East, genies are not cheap. Another possible explanation, floated by the Jetta manual, is that ABS stands for "anti-lock braking system." But that would probably cost a lot of money to fix. So I stuck with my original diagnosis and made my way into downtown Philadelphia, flexing muscles as I drove. And sure enough, the light magically went out after about half an hour. I have been attempting to learn more about my car, so that I can perform my own diagnosis and repairs. But it is very difficult when you don't know the terminology. For example, do you know what a solenoid is? Apparently it's very important. My current guess is that it's a very cool, suave black robot which somehow improves the sound of R and B on my stereo. If this isn't the case, I don't want to know, because I like my version just fine. (February 1, 2010)

In honor of my 7-year comedy anniversary, some advice to myself: OK, you. Knowing this stuff won't make things any easier, but it's still important stuff to know, so listen up. Here we go: From a business standpoint, marketability is more important than being funny. This does not mean that all successful people aren't funny -- being good at your job is always a marketable trait. But people in charge of talent agencies and television networks aren't like German barons on an altruistic mission to underwrite true genius. You are evaluated as a means to earn other people money. In the current entertainment climate, that usually means filling a market niche. It takes time and money to build someone up to a national audience, but it's much easier to market an entertainer to a narrow segment of the population that readily "identifies" with whateverqualities they might have. In a lot of cases, that's a nakedly cynical marketing effort based on race, youth, gender, drug use or politics. You can question the wisdom, fairness or artistic merit of this situation, but showbusiness is about making money. Mid-level or generic talent with marketability is more valuable, businesswise, than hard-to-categorize brilliance. (They might polish up the mid-level talent and CALL it brilliance in the commercials, but that's part of the marketing, see.) If you're marketable, you have a good shot at success; you might obsess over the nature of funny, but most audiences are thrilled just to see someone who looks or acts like they do. If you're marketable AND you're really funny, you'll probably do great. If you're just really funny, it's going to be much harder. You'll have to market yourself, but remember ... The Internet can be a mirage. With YouTube and MySpace, it was a nice thought a few years ago that you could "beat the system" and become a star while sitting in your bedroom. Guess again! You might be able to reach a broader audience via the Internet, but since there are no barriers to entry, so can everyone else. You will be drowned out. There is the elusive potential of a "viral" outbreak, but Web users are swamped with tons of mediocrity and people treat the content as disposable. Why shouldn't they? It's free! There will be exceptions to this rule, but in general, the Web (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, etc.) is just one of the marketing tools you will be using. Your best bet is still gathering info (e-mail addresses) from fans at live appearances, and then turning those people into your unpaid army of press agents as they forward your content out their friends. Also, it was nice to think that the Web was going to make geography irrelevant -- basically, New York and L.A. wouldn't matter anymore, since "the industry" could see anyone, anywhere. Well, no. TV stuff and management stuff are still centered in New York and L.A., and when "the industry" uses the Internet, it's as a way to compile free (to them) content that they can repackage and distribute. And remember -- most people seem to get jobs in showbusiness through their friends. One person gets a break, then they drag along the people they hang around with. If you aren't in the Big Two, you probably aren't hanging around on a social basis with the lucky bastard who gets the break. You can develop greatness from anywhere in the country, but proximity to lucky bastards matters. Next issue ... The "Big Deals" aren't always that big. There were stories from a decade ago about people doing "New Faces" at the Montreal Comedy Festival, then coming off stage to find executives waiting with development deals in hand. Because they had a good 7-minute set! Festivals and contests are important and good, for sure, but it's not quite like the fabled days of yore. None of that stuff is a guarantee of future success, as you can see from, oh, the list of people who have been in festivals or won contests, and then had nothing happen. Same deal with TV shows. They're important. It's better to have TV credits than not. But be realistic about it. Being on Carson's "Tonight Show" meant a huge swath of America was watching you. Being on "Premium Blend" or "Live at Gotham" means that a few thousand people are seeing you. Plus, hundreds of people have been on those shows by now -- it's not exactly a distinguished credit. Even if you were on "Late Night," the number of people staying up to see the comedian at 1:27 a.m. isn't phenomenal. TV is something to strive for; it certainly is a huge tool for helping people succeed. But it's not some golden ticket to instant, massive success. Big "gets" are worth pursuing, but don't be all crestfallen and mopey if they don't materialize. You have other options. And try not to complain too much, because ... Complaining doesn't help you. Showbusiness is awful. Hilarious people can work their butts off and go nowhere, while someone's pot connection gets booked as part of a 24-city tour. You'll sometimes see people spend years working on material and consistency and presentation, and then they'll be judged and dismisssed based on a 2-minute audition (while a person with exactly 2 minutes of material gets to emcee that 24-city tour). For every nice, genuine person who succeeds, there are 10 nice people who don't, and 15 unhealthy jerks who get their own episode of "Comedy Central Presents." A lot of managers are swindling comics and clubs (while pretending to help them!), some bookers are really bad at "smart" booking, few people seem to have long-term vision for cultivating new talent, and sycophants with no serious future in the business suck up a LOT of the work -- and in doing so drive down the prices the serious people can ask. But it was probably that way in the 1960s, too. It's not changing. So stop worrying about it. OK, me. Big finish. The point of all this advice sn't to make you sour, or to make you feel justified. The point is, think about how you want to define success. Success should probably be defined only as making people laugh. If you make fame and fortune the measuring sticks, then there's about a 95 percent chance that you're going to fall short. You might never get the recognition you think you deserve from "the industry," but you can always know that you're good at what you do if the audiences seem to leave happy. If you can be satisfied just knowing that you're very good at what you do, and take the neat opportunities and lucky breaks as a bonus ... It's not the easiest mental trick to pull off, but it's worth the effort. Sketch Artists In the last few years, I feel like I've seen a lot of trans-genred comedy. Meaning: sketch comedy trapped in a stand-up routine. Stand-up can definitely be used to paint elaborate, whimsical scenarios (my stand-up hero, Woody Allen, was great at this, and many of his routines were translated into movie scenes). But that's very hard to do well. I feel like many people come up with neat sketch concepts, but it's hard to get a sketch troupe together or film a video, so instead the concepts just become rambling, abstract routines. More power to you if you make it work, but "abstract" and "stand-up" aren't always a match made in heaven. Sketch (which can be great in its own right) sometimes lacks the personal touch that makes stand-up distinctive and cool. (August 8, 2009)

Amazing Tales of Showbusiness: Last week I had the pleasure of performing at one of my favorite clubs, Philadelphia's Helium. It's in my hometown, and on top of that it's a really well-run club that attracts some pretty excellent crowds. I was matched up this time with a headliner who I will not mention by name. I will tell you that he's a comedic legend and apparently a regular Greyhound patron. All week he had been arriving at the club after the start of the show, so my instructions on Saturday were to go to the stage, perform until I saw a flashing light in the back of the room, then do 5 more minutes and leave. The light would signal that the headliner was ready to go. As I was walking off the stage following that sequence, emcee Lawrence whispered to me: "He's not here." I found the manager, who was waiting out front for the headliner, who had indicated about 10 minutes before that he was 5 minutes away. Hence the light. Now Lawrence was stuck stretching for a sold-out showroom that paid $25 a person to see the headliner. He did a truly fantastic job, but after about 10 minutes and with no headliner in the building, things were getting critical (the audience was still having a great time, but it's hard to stretch for an indefinite amount of time when you've intentionally crammed shortened versions of your best material into an emcee set -- you burned a lot of your favorite jokes already). There weren't any other comics hanging out, so we figured I had to get back on stage to fill more time. The problems: a) this is simply not done at comedy shows; b) Lawrence was on stage, so how could we indicate this arrangement to him? After Lawrence wrapped up a big joke, the manager told me "now or never." It wasn't elegant, but I walked along the wall up to the stage and started yelling, "Tag me in!" Then I stretched out my hand to the stage. Lawrence didn't miss a beat; he slapped my hand, and I hopped back in to the show. I explained to the audience that since I had done so well the first time, it was decided that I should come back; they all understood what was really happening, so they went with it. I think I did another 15 or so minutes, and then I got another light. I wrapped up, then introduced the headliner myself ... and he still didn't come on stage for about 15-20 seconds, during which time my eyes almost popped out of my head in disbelief. By the time he started performing the show had already gone on for about an hour. The amazing stuff: 1) The crowd didn't turn on us. Basically, if you paid $25 to see a star, you probably don't care about the rest of the show. After I walked on stage for the second time, I was expecting at least a few boos from general impatience. Instead, the audience just rolled with it and seemed to have a good time. Amazing. 2) A $25 ticket headliner takes the bus from New York on a regular basis. (Supposedly, his bus broke down earlier in the day, causing his lateness.) Huh. Also, he appeared to sell bootlegs of his own DVD for $25 after the show (you can get a legit copy on Amazon for $10). Double huh. 3) The headliner never thanked me or Lawrence for picking up the slack. His friend did, which was appreciated. But nothing from the headliner, who I'm pretty sure does not know my name. Showbusiness! There's nothing like it. Big props to the staff at Helium and Lawrence for making a potential nightmare into a funny story. (March 17, 2009)