This is a fantastic Youtube channel for anyone who is interested in what it’s like to be a comedian.
Here is one of my favorite videos of theirs about the late Mitch Hedburg. His wife Lynn Shawcroft shares stories about Mitch’s writing habits.
You can check out all the videos on the Modern Comedian channel here.
A few weeks ago, this article came out in the A.V. Club about how Sarah Silverman sides with college students when it comes to being politically correct in comedy. A lot of comics have come out and said that lately playing colleges just isn’t the same as it used to be. College students won’t laugh at certain “edgy” material because it isn’t politically correct (or more often, I think, doesn’t sound P.C.). Many top comics who used to tour colleges now totally neglect the college venues because of it. As a recent graduate who spent almost all of my previous on-stage time in front of other students, I know from first hand experience that there’s a difference telling a joke to students rather than a normal audience. A particular joke about chopsticks that I wrote while at school comes to mind as the type of material that often won’t work on a college campus, but is still a funny joke pretty much anywhere else:
I think Asians aren’t impressed by magic because a wand is just half of chopsticks.
There’s more to the joke, but even just this opening line can rouse boos from a college coffee house, just because it sounds racist. I’m not going to argue whether it actually is racist or not, but I’ll tell you that I think the joke is funny because it’s so obviously false and ridiculous, not because it’s making fun of Asians at all. The involvement of Asian people is totally tangential to the humor of the joke! But, the mere mention of Asians is enough to get a lot of students hot and bothered. Trust me, the joke does just fine here in New York City.
Continue reading “Is Sarah Silverman Right About the P.C. Wars?”
No matter how calmly you say it, telling someone to “calm down” has never done anything but make a person less calm.
One time when I was arguing with my my mom as a kid, I remember telling her to “calm down.” She did not react well. After that argument I had a lot of calming alone time in my room.
If you tell someone to “calm down,” the standard reaction is to frantically deny and accuse the opposite. “I need to calm down?! I’m COMPLETELY calm – I’m not the one who needs to calm down. YOU calm down! I’M PERFECTLY CALM!”
It’s tricky; you have to get someone to calm down without letting them know that you know they’re not calm. “Look. We’re both a little amped up. Why don’t we soothe things down with some Miles Davis.”
Otherwise, you’ve entered a yelling match about who is the most calm and you’re both going to look insane if you do that…
“If you were calm, we wouldn’t be arguing in the first place!”
“So I’m always the crazy one! Look at me, everybody! I’m so NOT calm! That’s me: the crazy not calm person!”
“All I said was to please calm down!”
“I was calm until YOU said that!”
Once I was in Seattle on a road trip with my friend Benji. We went to a park that ran along the bay. I got distracted looking at some sculptures and rocks on the beach, but I eventually kept walking to see that Benji had found a bench looking over the bay and had sat down. He had company with him. I walked over and saw that the man was having quite the in-depth conversation with Benji, although about what I couldn’t tell. The man was unshaven and lacked a jacket, but he didn’t immediately strike me as homeless. Benji gave me a look. I said “Hey Benji, you ready?” “Yeah, let’s go.”
I was at a crowded open mic on a Friday night – the last one of the night that everyone who doesn’t have a show goes to. A friend I had made a few days earlier (say, Jess) made her way up to the stage and started her three-minutes set. It was early in the night and so the majority of the comics were in the room paying close attention. She told a couple of new jokes that didn’t go over so well, so she asked the audience of comics “why isn’t this funny?” It was a genuine question, although it was definitely rhetorical. She was just wondering aloud.
“You’re not being silly!” Someone shouted from the back of the room. Everyone looked back. It was another comic known to be brash at open mics, let’s call him Ryan.
It was my last night in New York City. I had spent the whole summer going to stand up comedy open mics. I was leaving the next day for my hometown in the Chicago suburbs before heading all the way back for my last year of school in California just a few days after that. It was late at night, probably 1:00 in the morning and no one was out. I had just finished my final mic which started at 10:00 PM Saturday night at the Irish American Bar & Pub. My set was okay: I had a couple good jokes, but I went up late and everyone was tired. Typical. I always went up in the last group at that bar. At least, that’s the way it seemed. My friends and I had been sitting around the bar for three hours until all the comics had gone up and performed their sets. And we had gone to two other mics earlier that evening. As it turns out, that mic ended up leaving the Irish American to be hosted at another bar. And so it was not only my last mic in New York for the summer, but the last mic at the Irish American for anyone.
I was at Jamba Juice and I ordered a Peanut Butter Moo’d.
And the girl was like, “Ha! A moo for you!”
So I was like, “And my name is Stu!”
And she was like, “Uhh…”
And I was like, “Triple rhyme!”
And she was just like, “…have a nice day!”
This is why I never talk to strangers.
One night just before I graduated college, I got home late from an event or a function – I can’t recall which. My girlfriend at the time and her family were out of town, so I was taking care of her dog in my dorm room. Technically not allowed, but I’m a rebel. Especially when it comes to diabetic dogs.
Since I had been gone for most of the evening, I took the dog out to the front lawn so she could sit outside instead of inside for a while. She wasn’t a fan of moving. The energy of the campus matched that of the old dog; it was unusually dead for 2AM in the morning. There was no one around. It was peaceful and refreshingly breezy out.
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