Hey. I’m Matt Ruby (matt@mruby.com), a New York City-based standup comedian. I also write and make funny videos. This is Sandpaper Suit, a comedy blog I started in 2006. It's a how-the-sausage-gets-made look at doing standup and where I post videos, jokes, podcasts, etc. MattRubyComedy.com has a bio, videos, and show info.
Made With Love: CNN calls it "a fictional cooking show where the couple's relationship is crumbling just like the cookies." Also featured at Huffington Post, NY Magazine, and TruTV. Starring Matt Ruby and Brooke Van Poppelen.
The movie is about “the concept you can talk about these things your ashamed of, and more often than not, you find a deeper connection with people,” Birbiglia tells EW. “The one thing you’re most reluctant to tell, that’s where the comedy is.”
Heard Howard Stern say the same thing before too. Howard's version: If he felt like he shouldn't talk about something on the air, then he knew that's exactly what should talk about.
We're All Friends Here - Friday 1/27 Special time slot for this month's We're All Friends Here. And some groovy guests:
Jim Tews Ilana Glazer Emily Heller
Friday, Jan 27 - 10:00pm We're All Friends Here The comedy chat show with boundary issues! FREE The Creek and The Cave 10-93 Jackson Avenue Long Island City, NY Facebook invite
Seaton Smith Brooke Van Poppelen Dan Goodman Matt Ruby ...and more
Sunday, Jan 29 HOT SOUP! at UCB-East 155 E. 3rd Street (at Avenue A) Doors at 8:45pm, showtime at 9pm. $5 tickets. Produced by David Cope, Mark Normand, and Matt Ruby.
Note: This will be our last Sunday show at UCB-East. Next one will be Friday, Feb 10 at 9pm.
Montreal JFL Showcase - Tuesday 1/31 I'll be doing a spot at the Montreal Just For Laughs Comedy Festival showcase at The Creek. It'll feature comics bringing their A game and should be a really fun show.
Tuesday, Jan 31 - 8pm FREE Montreal JFL Showcase The Creek and The Cave 10-93 Jackson Ave Long Island City, NY
I'm not into drugs any more. I quit completely, and I hate people who are still into it. Well.. I do take one drug now - for fun - and, maybe you've heard of it, it's a new thing, I don't know if you have or not. It's a new thing, it makes you small. [ indicates size with fingers ] About this big. And, you know, I'll be home, sitting with my friends, and, uh.. we'll be sitting around, and somebody will say, "Heeeyyy.. let's get small!" So, you know, we get small, and uh.. the only bad thing is if some tall people come over. You're walking around going, "Ah hahaha..!" Now, I know I shouldn't get small when I'm driving.. but I was driving around the other day, and I said, "What the heck?" You know? So I'm driving like.. [ extends arms high in the air like he's reaching up to a giant steering wheel ] And, uh.. a cop pulls me over. And he makes me get out, he looks at me and he says, "Heyyy.. are you small"? I said, "No-o-o! I'm not!" He said, "Well, I'm gonna have to measure you." They have this little test they give you - they give you a balloon.. and if you can get inside of it, they know you're small.
...Same thing with most of Ellen's early material too.
Sometimes the way you lie is more real than the truth. Or at least more interesting.
Also, it's interesting how well this material holds up over time. I find that Martin album way more listenable than almost anything else from that era. Most comedy ages like cheese in the sun, but these jokes have Happy Meal-esque shelf lives.
It probably gets fatiguing to lie like that all the time though. Perhaps that's why both of these comedians eventually moved away from standup?
I'm back from LA. Great time out there. I think my fave place there was the coffeeshop in Hollywood I camped out at for a bit. There was a woman on phone loudly discussing "teamwork" and using Eddie Murphy/Brett Ratner leaving the Oscars as her example of "loyalty." She left and was replaced by a social media consultant teaching an aspiring actress how to use Twitter. I kept looking for a camera. Some photos...
LA!
Shot of Greg Fitzsimmons at packed out Comedy Bang Bang show. Super crowd and great show. Also saw Greg tape his podcast live there a few nights later with Nick Swardson. There's a phone call during it that is phenomenal. Check it when it goes live.
Staring at footprints outside Mann's Chinese Theater. Cheesy but still cool.
Fuzzy Hannibal at Tiger Lily. Did a bunch of shows with him while out there and, man, he destroys everywhere.
DC and Dominic onstage at Magic Bag. Seems like there are lots more cool venues/theaters to choose from out there since space isn't at such a premium like it is in NYC.
The Frolic Show in Little Tokyo.
I know how this dog owner feels. I named my cat "Dirty Slut" and she almost never responds when I call her name.
If it's just clever or loud or has all the right software or something, I'm not that interested. I'm looking always for soul. If I'm not moved at that level, if I'm not feeling at some point that it's possible that this could move me to tears or to dancing or to something where I've slightly surrendered to it – if that doesn't happen, it just stays on the shelf. It's an experiment until then.
As applies to comedy: I think that's what the talk about stakes, emotional risks, authenticity, etc. comes down to. The search for soul. That someone is giving themselves to you a little bit.
As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. And the instructions were these...Never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.
Never lament casually. If you're going to complain, make it beautiful. Part of why I like comedy so much: I think it's the most beautiful way to complain.
Went to a Moth storytelling slam in NYC the other week. Packed! Hundreds of people. So supportive of each other. Felt like a bizarro version of the standup world where everyone is polite and pays attention and is encouraging to each other. I kinda hated it. But it was interesting.
Have some stakes. Stakes are essential in live storytelling. What do you stand to gain or lose? Why is what happens in the story important to you? If you can’t answer this, then think of a different story. A story without stakes is an essay and is best experienced on the page, not the stage.
Start in the action. Have a great first line that sets up the stakes or grabs attention.
No: “So I was thinking about climbing this mountain. But then I watched a little TV and made a snack and took a nap and my mom called and vented about her psoriasis then I did a little laundry (a whites load) (I lost another sock, darn it!) and then I thought about it again and decided I’d climb the mountain the next morning.”
Yes: “The mountain loomed before me. I had my hunting knife, some trail mix and snow boots. I had to make it to the little cabin and start a fire before sundown or freeze to death for sure.”
Here's a sample Moth story from a comic: Colin Quinn - Toast. ("When asked to perform at Robert DeNiro's birthday party, Colin finds himself in over his head.")
And Hustlin': Inside the Podcast Renaissance is an article by Gaby Dunn about comedy podcasts that includes some quotes from me. Also included in the piece: Marc Maron, Pete Holmes, and Molly Knefel.
I'm in LA this week. Y'know, the life of a west side playa where cowards die and it's all ball, etc. Got a great week of shows lined up. Come on out and say hey.
Sat 1/14 - 8:00pm - Hand Shucked @ Moving Arts Theater (1822 Hyperion Ave) Sat 1/14 - 10:00pm - Magic Bag @ Underground Theater (1308 N Wilton) Sun 1/15 - 8:00pm - French Toast @ Taix (1911 W Sunset Blvd) Mon 1/16 - 8:00pm - What's Up Tiger Lily? @ Hollywood Studio Bar & Grill (6122 Sunset Blvd) Mon 1/16 - 10:30pm - Keep It Clean @ Public House (1739 N. Vermont Ave.) Tue 1/17 - 8:30pm - Comedy Bang Bang @ UCB-LA (5919 Franklin Ave.) Wed 1/18 - 9:00pm - The Frolic Show @ Far Bar (347 E. 1st Street) Thu 1/19 - 8:00pm - Josh and Josh Show @ Bar Lubitsch (7702 Santa Monica Blvd)
Louis CK has jokes because he is ashamed of his body, ashamed of his thoughts, his culture, his whiteness, whatever. Every joke seems to be about shame in some way. Ashamed of the things he doesn’t do that he knows he should. Ashamed of the things that he does do that he knows he shouldn’t. Ashamed of his privilege, and ashamed of how he doesn’t do anything to help others who don’t have it. All of these things are about the way Louis lives his life (or the stories he tells about how he does), but they’re also about the lines we draw, the tension of those meeting points of acceptable, common, and desirable behavior, and when our thoughts or actions only meet a couple of those qualifications. For instance, in his newest special, Louis talks about how mind-numbingly boring it is to play board games with his daughter and how much he wants to yell at her for it. Common impulse? Yes. Desirable? Probably, on a very base level to diffuse frustration. Acceptable? Nope. So, we’re ashamed by the those dark thoughts, and Louis is there to give the shameful inclinations credence through his routine. We laugh because we know, and we hear others laugh, so we can hear how we are not alone. The thought gets aired, so there’s less shame to feel...Someone once asked Allen Ginsberg how one becomes a prophet, and he simply replied, “Tell your secrets”...
Articulating our impulses is dirty business, and maybe this is why Louis’ been able to tread in a territory others haven’t been able to navigate. As Fran Lebowitz said, “If you’re going to tell the truth, you better be funny. Otherwise, they will kill you.”
C.K. describes his approach as “deconstruction to a point where you’re left with a fucking mess of unanswered questions. It can be a bit painful and scary. That’s fun for me.” He doesn’t want to come off like some moralizing gasbag, of course, so he’ll throw in something “totally indefensible.” “I’m fucking around with a lot of big ideas, and I don’t have the authority to seriously talk about them. So when I make a joke about a baby with a tree branch growing out of its head being the same thing as a Chinese baby, I don’t expect you to believe any of this. I’m just being a dick.”
Basic cable channels tend to know their audience and then relentlessly target their programming at that niche (just look at the new Lifetime lineup, for example). Still, we can't help but peruseComedy Central's newly announced 2012 development slate, which features twenty potential series projects and seven stand-up specials, and wonder where all the comediennes are. Only one of those shows (and none of those stand-up specials) stars a woman, the Untitled Amy Schumer Project, and in a cinematic year filled with female-fronted comedies like Bridesmaids, Bad Teacher, andYoung Adult, that seems like an out-of-step move for Comedy Central to take. We can't be mad at any network developing shows for Wyatt Cenac, Matt Braunger, and Nick Kroll, but surely there are some comic actresses out there besides Whitney Cummings whom TV shows can be built around?
In the comments, Erin Judge writes, "It's simple. The channels that focus on comedy also focus on advertising to guys. Dudes, specifically." And she points to this article to back up her point.
The bull’s-eye for Comedy Central is the audience of males ages 18 to 34. Any younger, and the beer and car advertisers would be off target. Any older, and there are a dozen other channels advertisers could choose.
I have a new favorite comedy podcast: Pete Holmes' You Made It Weird (iTunes). We all know Pete's a great comedian but I didn't know he'd be such a great interviewer too. He's a self-described comedy nerd and he dives deep with the guests and their approach to doing standup, coming up with a persona, writing, evolving onstage, etc. You can tell he's got a genuine curiosity about standup and loves the whole process of creating laughter.
Also, he seems genuinely close with each interviewee so the conversations feel like old friends catching up. Plus, he always makes a point of discussing two topics with each guest that I find intriguing: 1) how to have a healthy relationship while doing comedy and 2) god/religion. Seriously, each episode I've listened to has been fascinating.
If you're looking for a starting point, I'd suggest the Jim Gaffigan, Neal Brennan, and Kumail episodes. Looking forward to more.
Mike Lawrence Nick Turner Mike Recine Matt Ruby David Cope
HOT SOUP! at UCB-East 155 E. 3rd Street (at Avenue A) Every Sunday. Doors at 8:45pm, showtime at 9pm. $5 tickets. Make reservations now Produced by David Cope, Mark Normand, and Matt Ruby.
Hicks thinks against society and insists on the importance of this intellectual freedom as a way to inspire others to think for themselves. “To me, the comic is the guy who says ‘Wait a minute’ as the consensus forms,” Hicks told me as we climbed the stairs to his dressing room. “He’s the antithesis of the mob mentality. The comic is a flame—like Shiva the Destroyer, toppling idols no matter what they are. He keeps cutting everything back to the moment.”
All that has a beginning by necessity must have an end. In destruction, truly nothing is destroyed but the illusion of individuality. Thus the power of destruction associated with Lord Shiva has great purifying power, both on a more personal level when problems make us see reality more clearly, as on a more universal level. Destruction opens the path for a new creation of the universe, a new opportunity for the beauty and drama of universal illusion to unfold. As Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram or Truth, Goodness and Beauty, Shiva represents the most essential goodness.
Destruction that purifies. That sounds like a good way to get the new year rolling.
Jews love watching a movie and eating Chinese food on Xmas Eve. But I'm a self-loathing Jew, so I watched Passion of the Christ and ate Pork Fried Rice.
Ah, good times. Merry Xmas. Happy Hannukah. Blah blah blah. There are no Hot Soup shows tonight or on New Year's Day. We return on Jan 8. And I'll be in LA from Jan 14 - 20 doing shows so stay tuned for updates on that.
Also, this blog will be dormant until the New Year. You can handle it.
Press conferences in the sixties sure were strange. The vibe was less reporter/artist and more zoologist/caged-animal. No wonder that clever subjects decided to handle it by being funny, absurd, and/or combative. For example...
Paying your dues is overrated. Simply putting in the time is not enough. Martin’s story is one of a constant urge to innovate. He was trying to figure out the essence of “funny.” He then yielded these insights to move beyond the static structure of the punchline that dominated performance comedy at the time. This restless urge to understand then innovate led him to be outstanding. Without it, he would have just become another good comedian. Like hundreds of others.
Being Funny is an article where Martin summarizes his comedy philosophy.
What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh...
Now that I had assigned myself to an act without jokes, I gave myself a rule. Never let them know I was bombing: this is funny, you just haven't gotten it yet. If I wasn't offering punch lines, I'd never be standing there with egg on my face. It was essential that I never show doubt about what I was doing. I would move through my act without pausing for the laugh, as though everything were an aside. Eventually, I thought, the laughs would be playing catch-up to what I was doing. Everything would be either delivered in passing, or the opposite, an elaborate presentation that climaxed in pointlessness. Another rule was to make the audience believe that I thought I was fantastic, that my confidence could not be shattered. They had to believe that I didn't care if they laughed at all and that this act was going on with or without them.
With all this Xmas talk and the long beard I've grown, I'm feeling extra Jewy these days. Even got jealous of a friend's conversation I overheard. He's Italian and this is how it went down:
Friend: Are you Italian? Stranger: Yeah. Friend: Where's your family from? Stranger: Sicily? Friend: [raises fist] Paisan!
And then they high fived. Which all bummed me out. Because as a Jew, you never get to have an exchange like that. With us, it's more like this:
Jew 1: Are you Jewish? Jew 2: Yeah. Jew 1: Where's your family from? Jew 2: Poland. Jew 1: Oh. Um. Never forget.
Christopher Hitchens passes away. His views on debauchery reminds me of things I've heard Doug Stanhope say too; That basically, living a long life is less important than living an interesting one.
He also professed to have no regrets for a lifetime of heavy smoking and drinking. "Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation - is worth it to me," he told Charlie Rose in a television interview in 2010, adding that it was "impossible for me to imagine having my life without going to those parties, without having those late nights, without that second bottle."
It's the last Hot Soup of the year. And it's Andy's last show before he splits for the west coast. And after the show, Stephen Merchant, co-creator of The Office and Extras, will be performing standup at his own show. So do it.
Hot Soup lineup:
Matt McCarthy (“a Belushi-like mad man” -NY Times) Sean O'Connor (Conan) David Angelo (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) Andy Haynes (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) Special holiday guests
I'm hosting.
HOT SOUP! at UCB-East 155 E. 3rd Street (at Avenue A) Every Sunday. Doors at 8:45pm, showtime at 9pm. $5 tickets. Produced by David Cope, Andy Haynes, Mark Normand, and Matt Ruby.
"Comics who are green try to be more blue to appear less yellow." Andy Sandford quoted that line to me the other night when we were talking about cursing onstage.
It rang true for me. I used to curse onstage a lot when I started. But eventually it started to bug me when I realized a punchline was hitting because I threw a "fuck" in there. If I took the "fuck" out and it didn't get a laugh, I didn't feel like it was actually a funny joke.
Plus, I've had to do clean shows (church show, opening for headliner who wanted me to stay clean, etc.) and it sucked to sit down and have to eliminate jokes. I don't want to have to think about which material I can or can't do at a show. If everything in my arsenal is clean, it's one less thing to worry about. Not to mention, it was disheartening to vet material before a show and realize a big chunk of my stuff relied on talking about sex or cursing.
Anyway, already discussed this a while back but the green/blue/yellow line was clever enough that I thought I'd bring it up one more time.
Btw, here's Stanhope's defense of cursing (“that’s just how I talk”) which I get; Being who you are offstage when you're onstage makes sense. But I'm not a guy who curses all the time in real-life so it feels like doing it onstage a lot would be solely for shock value.
You need to get on stage as much as possible and vary your stage experience as much as possible and not quit and take care of yourself and always question why you say the things you say and enjoy yourself...
i don't know about "Supposed to" I think there's a million ways to do things. there was a pitcher for the Yankees once named Orlando Hernandez or "el Duque" he was a cuban exile. A thing they said about him was he was hard to hit cause he had so many arm angles and release points. a hitter studies a pitcher and watches for the ball so he can time it, but with el duque, you don't even know where the fucker is coming from. Nine o clock? Eleven? And does he let go of it up top or out front? Impossible. I sometimes think of comedy in those terms.
The baseball reference reminded me of his talk about "brushback pitch" jokes a few years back.
Saturday 12/10: We're All Friends Here It's been requested for years. Now it's happening! Mark and I sit on the hot seat and answer questions from each other and guest co-host Neal Stastny. It's gonna be intense. Dan Soder does a set to open up.
Saturday, Dec 10 - 8:00pm FREE The Creek and The Cave 10-93 Jackson Avenue Long Island City, NY
...
Sunday 12/11: Hot Soup Harrison Greenbaum Phoebe Robinson Jessi Klein Bryson Turner David Cope
HOT SOUP! at UCB-East 155 E. 3rd Street (at Avenue A) Every Sunday. Doors at 8:45pm, showtime at 9pm. $5 tickets. Make reservations now Produced by David Cope, Andy Haynes, Mark Normand, and Matt Ruby.
Also, check out David Cope's new web series Strung Out, a comedy about playing harp in the big city. Here's the first episode, featuring Reggie Watts.
Soem guys write jokes and stand there and tell 'em. Some guys rely on physicality and act outs to get laughs. Here's what happens when the former impersonates the latter:
Ultimately, there are basically two criteria for who we sign to the label:
1. You have to be really funny. 2. You have to have a distinctive voice or point of view.
That’s it. Things like having a strong following or being on TV or in movies is great, but those two criteria are the main things we look for.
And he also discusses the recording process.
One of the quirks of this genre is that the audience tends to be the most important part of the recording, and how the audience reacts can drastically change how the jokes are perceived by the listener. Jokes seem funnier the harder people are laughing at them — this is the reason sitcoms customarily use laugh tracks — which may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised just how important it is.
By the time of the album recording, the comic has gotten so good at doing the material that the differences in delivery among the sets are usually minimal. But the difference between an intelligent, raucous audience in a packed room, and a sober one in a half-empty club is staggering. We’ll re-record shows if the audience isn’t good enough.
I hadn't really realized that CCR almost singlehandedly brought comedy albums, which hadn’t sold much since the late seventies/early eighties, back into vogue.
[Marc] Maron’s not the only male comedian who’s been talking about his food issues lately—a topic that’s culturally associated with, well, teenage girls. Louis C.K. talks constantly about his weight...Patton Oswalt talks about his struggles with weight on his latest album, Finest Hour—and on this recent appearance on Conan. Oswalt jokes about getting out of breath when he dances with his toddler daughter—and about joining, then leaving, Weight Watchers, because the meetings didn’t have the same frisson as AA gatherings. “They're very helpful, but all my friends who are drug addicts and drunks, their meetings are awesome—they have all these dark stories: ‘I T-boned a school bus.’” Meanwhile, the stories at Weight Watchers are about being embarrassed in a bathing suit and trying to avoid pie...
It’s still at least somewhat taboo for men to be seen as obsessing about their weight, so talking about this publicly is their way of pushing the envelope. When they were younger, rebelling meant challenging the ruling paradigm or the trappings of middle-class life. “Now the enemy is really ourselves, and the struggle between accepting ourselves or hating ourselves,” Maron said.
Funny to me how this piece describes talking about weight as pushing the envelope. Was it pushing the envelope when Louie Anderson did it decades ago?
(Love this line: "When I go camping, the bears put their food up in the trees.")
I'd argue that "pushing the envelope" and "fighting taboos" is only a tiny part of why comics talk about being fat, single, balding, ugly, or other self-effacing stuff. They do it because 1) it gets laughs since it's the opposite of how people usually present themselves and 2) it disarms an audience.
I think it's tough to underestimate that second reason. I feel like being mean to myself onstage gives me more room to be mean to others too. After all, I'm willing to point the finger at myself so why not at the rest of the world too? Without self-effacing material, you start to seem like a pretentious, know-it-all asshole who thinks he's better than everyone else. Show some flaws and you humanize yourself.
For me at this point I do all the jokes for me, not in a self-indulgent way, but there's nothing I say just to get a laugh. I do a joke because it's funny or clever or meaningful to me.
That hasn't always been the case. For years it was a mixed bag. I did some jokes just because they worked and gave me that oxygen we need. I was looking to get hired, which is a terrible motivator for an artist, but I've evolved, hopefully.
The greatest thing I ever heard related to this was in the Curb Your Enthusiasm pilot. Someone, it may have been Jerry Seinfeld, said that Larry had unwavering convictions as to what he thought was funny. That's essential to becoming unique/original and it's hard to stay true to in an environment where the audience's laughter is (wrongly I feel) considered so important in measuring a performer's talents.
The members of Firesign Theater said it all when they named their 1974 album “Everything You Know is Wrong.” That's the attitude you have to take. You need to question everything around you. You can't just accept things as they are; you need to consistently challenge the status quo. That doesn't mean you have to be an outcast from society; it just means you need to look at things differently.
R.I.P. Patrice O'Neal. First Giraldo, now this. Fuck. Can we please stop losing the BEST comedians around!?
I actually talked to Patrice a few months back for the first Sandpaper Suit Podcast. (Unrelated note: The hibernating podcast will be reemerging soon.) It was a great conversation about dating and relationships, a topic he always had fascinating opinions about. You can listen or download it at iTunes.
A Shot of Yager interviewed Patrice in October. He talked about how he weaved from material to riffing.
To be able to go off the cuff, you have to have a synergy with the crowd and they gotta love you, but then at the same time you have the structure of your act that helps you go off to the left. It's like having a GPS. It's a place where you generally know where you're going and you take a left or a right. You don't have to be that worried you won't get back on the road.
If you don't know where you're going, you gotta rely on the GPS. Meaning you rely on just going off the cuff or just being funny, you can wind up in a bad place. Ad you got no place else to go because you took a wrong turn and you gotta be able to have your professionalism and your preparedness and material to get you back on the road.
I love doing crowdwork because I think people are interesting. I've gotten a lot of material from audiences. I've gotten a response I didn't think I was gonna get and you really embrace that response.
The GPS analogy is great. It's also interesting to hear how often Patrice used the word synergy in the interview.
If you haven't checked out Patrice's terrific Elephant in the Room special, stream it on Netflix. Still nothing like seeing him push buttons live though. It was joyous watching him fuck with people. His presence will be missed. Don't know what else to say. Damn.
"At first I would get mail saying, 'Oh, you must be a Christian because the movie so beautifully expresses Christian belief'," the film's director Harold Ramis recently told The New York Times. "Then rabbis started calling from all over, saying they were preaching the film as their next sermon. And the Buddhists!"...Professor Angela Zito, the co-director of the Centre for Religion and Media at New York University, told me that Groundhog Day illustrated the Buddhist notion of samsara, the continuing cycle of rebirth that individuals try to escape. In the older form of Buddhist belief, she said, no one can escape to nirvana unless they work hard and lead a very good life...
[Rabbi] Niles Goldstein recently said that there was a resonance in Murray's character being rewarded by being returned to earth to perform more good deeds, or mitzvahs. This was in contrast to gaining a place in heaven (the Christian reward) or else achieving nirvana (the Buddhist reward). He is considering using the film as an allegory when he speaks to his congregation. "The movie tells us, as Judaism does, that the work doesn't end until the world has been perfected," he said.
As Ramis has been told by Jesuit priests among others, the film clearly also contains themes found within the Christian tradition. Michael Bronski, a film critic with the magazine Forward and a visiting professor at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, where he teaches a course in film history, said: "The groundhog is clearly the resurrected Christ, the ever-hopeful renewal of life at springtime, at a time of pagan-Christian holidays. And when I say that the groundhog is Jesus, I say that with great respect."
Pretty special when a story can speak to so many different types of people on a spiritual level. Reminds me of Joseph Campbell's discussions of the need for modern myths and the storytelling formulas that show up throughout different times, places, and cultures. If you're not familiar with Campbell, check out this interview he did with Bill Moyers on Netflix. It's fascinating.
Oh, and to bring it all full circle: I got turned on to Campbell by my mom, who had him as a professor decades ago.
Saturday 11/26: We're All Friends Here Chris Distefano Adam Newman Justy Dodge
Saturday, Nov 26 - 8:00pm FREE The Creek and The Cave 10-93 Jackson Avenue Long Island City, NY Hosted by Matt Ruby and Mark Normand
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Sunday 11/27: Hot Soup Gary Gulman (Comedy Central 1-hour special) Myq Kaplan (Letterman, Comedy Central presents) Ryan Hamilton (Last Comic Standing) Karl Hess (Montreal's JFL Festival) Mark Normand (Last Comic Standing)
I'm hosting.
HOT SOUP! at UCB-East 155 E. 3rd Street (at Avenue A) Every Sunday. Doors at 8:45pm, showtime at 9pm. $5 tickets. Make reservations now Produced by David Cope, Andy Haynes, Mark Normand, and Matt Ruby.
Yet in Dangerfield, there has always been something else in addition to the comedian. This is a man who has failed at everything, even comedy. Rodney Dangerfield is his third name in show business; he flopped under two earlier names as well as his real name. Who is really at home inside that red, sweating face and that knowing leer? The most interesting thing about "Back to School," which is otherwise a pleasant but routine comedy, is the puzzle of Rodney Dangerfield. Here is a man who reminds us of some of the great comedians of the early days of the talkies - of Groucho Marx and W. C. Fields - because, like them, he projects a certain mystery. Marx and Fields were never just being funny. There was the sense that they were getting even for hurts so deep that all they could do was laugh about them. It's the same with Dangerfield.
This is exactly the sort of plot Marx or Fields could have appeared in. Dangerfield brings it something they might also have brought along: a certain pathos. Beneath his loud manner, under his studied obnoxiousness, there is a real need. He laughs that he may not cry.
Speaking of W.C. Fields, Ebert discusses his appeal in a different piece too: "It is the appeal of the man who cheerfully embraces a life of antisocial hedonism, basking in serene contentment with his own flaws. He is self-contained." Cue Groucho...
"I knew Fields well," Groucho Marx told me in 1972. "He used to sit in the bushes in front of his house with a BB gun and shoot at people. Today he'd probably be arrested. He invited me over to his house. He had a girlfriend there. I think her name was Carlotta Monti. Car-lot-ta MON-ti! That's the kind of a name a girl of Fields would have. He had a ladder leading up to his attic. Without exaggeration, there was $50,000 in liquor up there. Crated up like a wharf. I'm standing there and Fields is standing there, and nobody says anything. The silence is oppressive. Finally he speaks: This will carry me 25 years."
How does it feel being described by (WTF Podcast host) Marc Maron as one of the only comedians “more unhappy than I am”?
Yeah, that’s true. I’m working on that. I don’t know — I mean, look, I get the blues and I write a lot about it and I try to make my comedy as personal as possible. I am a kind of a depressive guy, but hopefully it comes out somewhat joyful on stage, at least for the people to hear. Comics in general are pretty miserable people. The nature of comedy is to look at the world and find out what’s wrong with it and tell everybody. So you spend 23, 24 years doing that and you’re going to get down after a while.
Good news: Comedians take sadness and convert it into joy, like a tree takes CO2 and turns it into oxygen. Bad news: Do this long enough and it will make you miserable. (Or is there a way to avoid the "you're going to get down" part?)
P.S. Griffin is headlining at Gotham this weekend.
Joe Derosa (Comedy Central Presents, Bored to Death) Murderfist (ECNY award winner for Best Sketch Comedy Group) Damien Lemon (MTV2's Guy Code, Russell Simmons Presents) Michele Billoon (Chelsea Lately, Craig Ferguson) Dan St. Germain (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, World of Jenks) Andy Haynes (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) David Cope (Bumbershoot)
I'm hosting.
HOT SOUP! at UCB-East 155 E. 3rd Street (at Avenue A) Every Sunday. Doors at 8:45pm, showtime at 9pm. $5 tickets. Make reservations now Produced by David Cope, Andy Haynes, Mark Normand, and Matt Ruby.
We assembled a crack team of comedy nerds to compile an authoritative, definitive list of the 40 best comedy albums of all time.
Top spot goes to Bill Cosby's "To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With." Overall, a pretty good list. But of course, there's plenty to argue with (e.g. "Bigger & Blacker" over "Bring the Pain"!?).
I imagine you've listened to (or intend to listen to) the WTF episode last Thursday with Chris Rock. There were quite a few interesting things that happened in that interview, but one item in particular stood out to me. Around 30 minutes into the episode, Chris Rock is talking about Eddie Murphy's writing process, and Rock says that people pitched in tags, but didn't have writers. There's debate in the scene sometimes about whether it's okay to incorporate tags from other comics, so it's nice to see two high profile, highly regarded comics weighing in on the issue saying it's a friendly, benign thing. Maybe their opinions could make less established comics more comfortable with it.
Here's a rough transcript of the relevant portion. Starts around 29:50 into the episode.
Maron: Was he [Eddie Murphy] writing all his own material? Rock: He was writing all his own material, yeah. Maron: And did he have people around, throwing shit in? Rock: People, you know, for tags. Maron: Yeah. Rock: But that's what friends are for, for tags. Maron: That's right. Rock: It's only when they're not your friends that they go "Oh, I should get a writing credit for that tag." Maron: Yeah. Right, right. Rock: That's what comics do. It's like, "Hey, that thing you did--" Maron: I said something to you once, and I don't know if you remember it. Rock: Didn't you give me a tag, like, in the Comedy Store parking lot one night? Maron: Oh, maybe I did, yeah I think I did. Yeah. I can't remember what it was, though. Rock: I can't remember what it was, but I remember talking to you in the parking lot of the Comedy Store. Maron: Yep, yep, I can't remember what that was. It was, uh, Rock: About a particular joke. Maron: Yep, yep, you were working on something. Rock: That's what we do. Maron: Of course, of course. Rock: It's like you got something, "Hey, did you ever think of this?" Maron: Did you ever think of that angle? Rock: Yeah. Maron: Yeah. Right, yeah, you gotta fill your head with something.
Re: "Oh, I should get a writing credit for that tag." Weird, I'd never expect someone to give me credit for a tag suggestion. Maybe that sort of kvetching is what happens when you get to a Rock-y level of fame.
I think this convo is also about the difference between tags and premises. If it's an idea for a premise, you hold on to it because it's your seed to grow. If it's a tag idea for someone else's premise, let 'em have it. What are you going to do with it anyway?
Plus, tags are often the easy part. Another comic once told me, "Premises are everything." I don't know if I'd go that far, but it does feel like coming up with an original, truthful, and surprising premise is the biggest challenge comics face.
In 2010, I did a lengthy interview with Erik Michielsen for Capture Your Flag, "a knowledge video library built upon repeating annual interviews."
A year later, Erik asked me back to discuss standup more and see if/how things had evolved over the past year. I'll be posting some of the clips here (like the one below on the arc of a standup comedy career) or you can view the full 2011 interview at YouTube.
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.
The community thing is tough in standup because it always feels like a pack of lone wolves. (If that phrase doesn't make sense...well, exactly.) A collective, like the Blerds in Chicago used to have, seems like it would pack more of a punch than just a guy going at it alone.
Permalink | 1/27/2012 | 0 comment(s)
