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.