O Captain, My Captain
Thank you Robin Williams for Morking me when I was a child, for helping me find a voice, a grail, maybe a vocation, and for visiting in Iraq over a decade later, when all the world was going insane, and you assured us it would get better, somehow, someday. I wish you listened to yourself more closely. Be at peace.
Humor Fuels Democracy
Brazil’s Vinegar Uprising
By VANESSA BARBARA
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — LAST week I watched a video of a man arrested for possession of a bottle of vinegar. The man, a journalist named Piero Locatelli, was covering the protests here when a policeman asked to search his backpack. Like other demonstrators, he had brought some vinegar. The idea is that breathing through a cloth soaked in vinegar neutralizes the effects of tear gas, though this doesn’t really seem to work. The police claim that the product can be used to make bombs, but this is even less true.
Mr. Locatelli was released two hours later. But the damage had been done. Over the next week, as the protests spread to cities around the country, the arrest became a mocking rallying cry. Someone started a campaign on Facebook to legalize vinegar. Another created a “V for Vinegar” page, a reference to the graphic novel “V for Vendetta.” The “Salad Uprising” had begun...
I personally stood with the leaders of the March for Vinegar Legalization, about which there have been many jokes on social media. One person wrote that, if caught in the act of handling vinegar, you should confess to being an avid user, and say you’re trying to quit.
On June 16, pressed by public opinion, the government agreed to authorize vinegar possession for both revolutionary and gastronomic uses. Perhaps as a result, the next day, another protest in São Paulo was peaceful. Around 65,000 people marched (some, like my mom and me, carrying bottles of salad dressing). We were campaigning against all sorts of things: police brutality, government corruption, lousy public services and “funk alto no busão” (roughly: loud boom boxes playing atrocious funky music in the bus).
Another common cry, which garnered much praise despite having little purpose, was, loosely: “The people/united/are a gigantic bunch of dudes” — though the real version included a rowdy profanity.
Crowds were also criticizing the federal government for spending billions to host the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016 (with projected budgets of $13.3 billion and $18 billion, respectively). One demonstrator wrote on a sign: “When your son is ill, take him to the stadium.” Some shouted, “Any good teacher is worth more than Neymar,” in reference to a highly paid soccer player.
The bigger issue behind the dissatisfaction, however, is that Brazilians are still getting used to democracy. Two decades of fierce military dictatorship formally ended only in 1985. We still have a military police force to maintain public order. We still fear them. That is why these protests are so important.
Not all Brazilians agree. Many think the demonstrations lack focus, are useless or even harmful. The press sometimes calls the protesters “vandals,” “delinquents” and “terrorists.” And there have been some acts of vandalism by the crowds. But that is no excuse to stay home.
On Monday night we walked more than six miles, occupying avenues usually clogged with cars and buses. We lay down in the middle of Paulista Avenue and painted all sorts of wise messages on placards, like: “I’m so pissed off that I wrote this sign.” One boy was exhausted by the walking and just wrote, “for the right to stay in one place.”
Most of the protesters were in their teens and 20s, and I felt very ancient in my 30s. I am sure we seemed as ineffective and foolish as our bottles of vinegar against a bomb of tear gas. But we have the right to be ineffective and foolish — we’re still learning how to protest.
On Thursday night one million Brazilians poured into the streets of some 80 cities around the country. “Bring your salad. Salt and olive oil are optional.” That’s our message.
Rule 12: Don't Call a Heckler "Dumb B*tch"
From the Huffington Post.
There's no shortage of videos about comedians dealing with hecklers... In Scott Moran's latest episode of "Modern Comedian" we see an interaction between a comic and a heckler deconstructed in a way that is enormously revealing about the art of comedy. It's also fairly gut-wrenching.
Joe DeRosa, the subject of the episode, is one of those performers who has the metaphorical scars to prove he's paid his dues. He's unflinchingly true to his own voice and mines his personal life for material in a way that is both searching and brutal. After his mother was hospitalized for an illness, he began working on jokes about his experiences in the hospital with her. While performing that material at Broadway Comedy Club in New York, he was met with an extremely angry reaction from one audience member.
What often sets people off in comedy clubs is the fundamental misunderstanding that laughing at an objectionable opinion is tantamount to agreeing with it. Comedians, generally speaking, don't tell jokes so that you'll agree with them, they tell them so you'll laugh. The comic's job is to be self-aware and make his or her perspective relatable in some way, no matter if it's agreeable or not.
In the video, we see that scenario played out in the extreme. The footage of the show itself is tense and unsettling; we see the room change from the vibe of a comedy show to an "incident". And we see DeRosa, with raw emotion at the surface, lose his cool and stop making jokes all together, only to slowly pull the room back together at the end.
It takes bravery to put something like this out. Stand-up comedy is not an easy art-form. If a painting doesn't work, no one has to see it. But a comedian can't work his or her material without an audience. Most of the time (although less and less so lately thanks to camera phones) no one outside of the club sees a comedian's set that goes wrong. We only see the ones that work.
But watching DeRosa's set here as well as his reaction immediately thereafter (and again two weeks later) says more about the work and the emotional frustration that goes into a great act than a thousand perfect sets.
Watch the full episode here. Don't be dissuaded by the running time... it's absolutely worth every second.
There's no shortage of videos about comedians dealing with hecklers... In Scott Moran's latest episode of "Modern Comedian" we see an interaction between a comic and a heckler deconstructed in a way that is enormously revealing about the art of comedy. It's also fairly gut-wrenching.
Joe DeRosa, the subject of the episode, is one of those performers who has the metaphorical scars to prove he's paid his dues. He's unflinchingly true to his own voice and mines his personal life for material in a way that is both searching and brutal. After his mother was hospitalized for an illness, he began working on jokes about his experiences in the hospital with her. While performing that material at Broadway Comedy Club in New York, he was met with an extremely angry reaction from one audience member.
What often sets people off in comedy clubs is the fundamental misunderstanding that laughing at an objectionable opinion is tantamount to agreeing with it. Comedians, generally speaking, don't tell jokes so that you'll agree with them, they tell them so you'll laugh. The comic's job is to be self-aware and make his or her perspective relatable in some way, no matter if it's agreeable or not.
In the video, we see that scenario played out in the extreme. The footage of the show itself is tense and unsettling; we see the room change from the vibe of a comedy show to an "incident". And we see DeRosa, with raw emotion at the surface, lose his cool and stop making jokes all together, only to slowly pull the room back together at the end.
It takes bravery to put something like this out. Stand-up comedy is not an easy art-form. If a painting doesn't work, no one has to see it. But a comedian can't work his or her material without an audience. Most of the time (although less and less so lately thanks to camera phones) no one outside of the club sees a comedian's set that goes wrong. We only see the ones that work.
But watching DeRosa's set here as well as his reaction immediately thereafter (and again two weeks later) says more about the work and the emotional frustration that goes into a great act than a thousand perfect sets.
Watch the full episode here. Don't be dissuaded by the running time... it's absolutely worth every second.
Stories in Stand-up
Some notes from a writer and literary critic on a particular way to tell a story that should resonate with would-be stand-up artists:
Telling tight, concise stories, which are attentive to timing, rhythm, and the comedic element, works.
Stories with half-assed ornamentation that attempt to instill in the audience a particular impression of the comedian generally fail.
As Aristotle tells: "if one wishes to become master of an art or science, go to the universal, and come to know it as well as possible."
Many writers fall prey to the quintessential American notion that bigger is better. They overload their sentences, adding more adjectives, more descriptions, more component phrases, tangents and appositives to form sprawling, syntactical centipedes (like this one) whose many segments and exhausting procession repeat themselves and say the same thing in different ways, with different words, and exhibit an entire ideology: that prose’s sensory and poetic impacts exist in direct proportion to the concentration of words.So too with the audience, who come wanting to laugh.
Brevity often invites speculation and facilitates a dynamic interaction between reader and writing.
Telling tight, concise stories, which are attentive to timing, rhythm, and the comedic element, works.
Stories with half-assed ornamentation that attempt to instill in the audience a particular impression of the comedian generally fail.
As Aristotle tells: "if one wishes to become master of an art or science, go to the universal, and come to know it as well as possible."
Devin Durden (Jan 7, 1991 - Oct 4, 2012)
Devin Durden treated us to his unique perspective on life this past Spring in a routine he called Hard Jobs...
You ever think about the gimmicks car dealerships use to get you to stop in? Like the popcorn machines? “Hey, come check out our cars and we’ll give you some popcorn!” Do they think that’ll work? Do they think there’s a couple out there who’ll fall for that one? Are they picturing the guy looking around and then spotting the popcorn machine and stopping dead in his tracks and grabbing his wife and saying, “Oooh! Babe, they’ve got Orville Redenbacher over here! Let’s buy a car!”Speaking of hard jobs, how about a stripper? It’s bad enough you have to dance nekked in front of people, but what if you don’t look that good? You’re pulling the day shift. The only guys coming in are toothless farmers. You’ll be dancing and they’ll be throwing quarters at you, ‘cause that’s all they’ve got. That’s gotta hurt. Then if you give ‘em a lap dance they’ve got all those snaps and button fasteners on their overalls that you gotta watch out for. If they just came in out of the field who knows what they’ve got on them overalls. Burrs and thorns, manure. Pretty soon your ass is all pocked and pimply and there goes your bread and butter. No one wants a stripper with a pock-marked ass. I get that. Having a clean, smooth ass is a big deal for a stripper, but here’s something I don’t understand: what’s the deal with doing coke lines off strippers’ asses? Have you seen this in movies and videos? Am I the only one who’s new to this? Is that like some match-made-in-heaven, peanut-butter-and-jelly thing that I don’t know about?
Rob Delaney on the Craft
From robdelaney.com, some advice on "how to make it in comedy:"
I don’t know how to make it in comedy. I’ve made my living solely through comedy since September of 2010, so I’m a novice; a “whippersnapper,” if you will. But due to my egregious, unwarranted number of followers on Twitter, people think I am more successful than I am and write me every day now, asking me how they can make it in comedy. I used to reply, but I don’t anymore. So I will set down here what little I know and if you want, you can follow it, or print it out and stick it up your ass.
1. Read all the time.2. Write all the time.3. Perform all the time.4. Move to New York, Los Angeles or London if you have the means. There are more opportunities in these places so why not infinitesimally improve your odds?
5. Find a community, like the UCB, the ImprovOlympic, the Groundlings, Second City, etc. Yes, you’ll learn stuff and be exposed to more comedy, but just as importantly you’ll meet the people who will one day hire you.
6. Don’t quit. This one’s hard, but patience is a indispensable ingredient.
7. Work harder than anyone around you.
8. Be nice.
That’s it. Do it or don’t.
My favorite comedy has elements of alchemy, in turning painful life things into funny, relatable stories... By telling the truth, even if you squeeze it into a funny mold, its essence is still stuff that you really care about.
Read the NYT ArtsBlog on Delaney's new project here.
Phyllis Diller: 1917-2012
Excerpts from The NYT Obituary of Phyllis Diller:
Although Ms. Diller used writers to help create her act, she estimated that she wrote 75 percent of the jokes herself. Her approach to humor was methodical. “My material was geared towards everyone of all ages and from different backgrounds, and I wanted to hit them right in the middle,” she explained in her autobiography, “Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy” (2005), written with Richard Buskin. “I didn’t want giggles — I could get those with my looks — I wanted boffs, and I wanted people to get the joke at the same moment and laugh together. That way I could leave everything to my timing.”
She liked jokes that piled on the laughs in rapid succession. A favorite of hers was this one: “I realized on our first wedding anniversary that our marriage was in trouble. Fang gave me luggage. It was packed. My mother damn near suffocated!”
There were precious few women before her, if any, who could dispense one-liners with such machine-gun precision or overpower an audience with such an outrageous personality.
One chestnut: “I once wore a peekaboo blouse. People would peek and then they’d boo.”
Another: “I never made ‘Who’s Who,’ but I’m featured in ‘What’s That?’”
Ms. Diller’s hard-hitting approach to one-liners — inspired by Bob Hope, who became an early champion — was something new for a woman. Her success proved that female comedians could be as aggressive or unconventional as their male counterparts, and leave an audience just as devastated. She cleared the way for the likes of Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres and numerous others.
Read the full article here.
Gallagher Retires
After suffering his second heart attack while performing, prop-comedian Gallagher announced his retirement, after 32 years performing, citing the strain of “baby-sitting people who can’t handle alcohol.”
Here's a short tribute...
Here's a short tribute...
If You Work Clean, You’ll Work Anywhere
Craig Sailor, staff writer for The Olympian in Tacoma, WA, caught up with comic Dave Coulier prior to his appearance at the Tacoma Comedy Club:
For eight years in the late ’80s and early ’90s, America knew Dave Coulier as “Uncle Joey” on the hit ABC TV sitcom “Full House” – the stand-up comedian with the funny lines, voices and impersonations.
Sailor: Uncle Joey was a nice guy, you perform “clean” comedy, and you’ve hosted a lot of shows that require tact and diplomacy. Are you really that nice of a guy or is it all an act?
Coulier: You’d have to ask my friends and the people who actually know me. The thing about my stand-up is it’s not a conscious choice to be clean. That’s just the way I work. You never know who is sitting in the audience. I’ve always been aware of that with my humor. People just want to laugh and not have the filthy F-bomb aftertaste.
Sailor: Why do you think there are so many foul-mouthed comics out there?
Coulier: Unfortunately, that’s become part of our comedy vernacular. I’m not a prude. I love the Richard Pryors, Lenny Bruces and George Carlins of the world. But when those guys were using that language, it was coming from a real place. Jay Leno said something to me really smart when I was first starting: (doing a Jay Leno voice) “Ah... Coulier... you know if you work clean, you’ll work anywhere.” I’ve never forgotten that.Read the interview here.
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