Explain yourself Kentucky!

Audio from a set at Comedyland in Astoria a few weeks back. Earlier in the night, a comic got into a really detailed conversation with an audience member about where they grew up in Tennessee and Kentucky.

Labels: audio/video, ha, riffs

Permalink | 9/26/2008 | 0 comments

"This is a roomful of people who would like for you to stop talking"

The scene: Sound Fix in Williamsburg. Open bar for an hour and then the show begins. It's a good crowd for the most part but a few people in the back, who were probably just there for the drinks, keep talking.

I'm the third comic up. I decide to try and plow through the din. It's going pretty well and most of the crowd is digging it. But the talking doesn't stop (the main culprit is this guy at the bar who's talking to a girl and ignoring the stage).

So I decide to say something. The guy doesn't realize I'm talking about him though. So I start pretending I know what he's saying. The whole crowd loves it. Finally he realizes what's happening. Good times.

Here's the video:

Labels: audio/video, ha, riffs

Permalink | 9/08/2008 | 1 comments

I get heckled by Limp Bizkit's one remaining fan

So I'm at a mic at The Pit. Late night, kinda dismal, tired crowd. I get up onstage and girl is talking in the front row. I comment on it and move on. Then I start in on this joke about a band I saw. I say they sound like Limp Bizkit but less talented and I'm getting on to the rest of the bit when the girl starts talking again.

Turns out she likes Limp Bizkit. I ask her if it's the lyrics or Fred Durst's charm she likes. She also likes Linkin Park. And Nickelback. I told her that made sense. If you like the smell of shit, you'll love the smell of farts. I then ponder if she's a teenage boy who likes to lift weights. Here's the audio:



I dove right in because I was happy to have something in the moment to riff on. It was the sort of room where written stuff wasn't gonna fly very well anyway. So I chose to view her talking as a gift, not an insult.

She kept talking throughout the night and someone else yelled at her hard later. It got applause but I don't think that's the way to go. I think anger usually equals fear. They smell the same to me. The calmer you are when handling a talker/heckler, the more you seem like a pro.

Besides, she fucking likes Limp Bizkit and Nickelback. Life has been tough enough on her already.

Paul F. Tompkins on dealing with hecklers:

When I first started, I had enormous difficulty dealing with hecklers. Any time anyone in the audience said anything, I instantly went on the attack, and in a rather inelegant fashion. I just tried to shut people down with insults. What took me forever to learn was that you have to give these people enough rope to either hang themselves or show that they are not actually a threat.

Bill Burr's take is to just say whatever you're thinking:

I would just say when you’re getting heckled, just really go with what you’re thinking, because even if it isn’t funny, it’s going to be something hateful. If you just really tapped into how sad that person was making you, you could turn it into something. There’s no formula for it. I would just go with what the hell you’re thinking.

Labels: about standup, ha, riffs

Permalink | 8/27/2008 | 3 comments

Performing for foreigners and little kids

In the past week I did one show where there was a 3 year-old in the room and one where the audience was almost entirely foreigners. I don't really stop and think about my jokes as a whole until I wind up in situations like those.

With the kid in the room, I realized how not clean my act is. Tons of cursing, talking about sex and blow jobs, etc. Even when I tried to do a clean joke, I realized it ended with fuck and motherfucker in the punchline. And that's not to mention all the miscellaneous fuck and shits I throw in as asides.

A few comics I know have been doing camp shows this summer for 12 year-olds. I don't think I'm cut out for that. I guess I could just come up with different bits for that audience but I don't think it's worth it. Sure, stage time is stage time. But I really don't care what a bunch of fifth graders think about my act. If I did, I'd just go do another set at Nick's Comedy Stop. [Hi-yo!]

As for the foreigners, that's a show at a youth hostel uptown. Done it twice now. Makes me realize how many of my jokes are about American or language-specific things. Stuff that's funny to natives but not necessarily to people from around the world.

I tried to single out the universal stuff beforehand but it's tough to tell what's gonna fly. What works best there is crowd work stuff or anything in-the-moment.

Another comic told me his approach was to just tell his jokes and they either get it or they don't. Admirable in a way but I think you've got to listen to the audience and calibrate at least somewhat. Or that's what I like doing at least.

But like I said, the best reactions were to in-the-moment stuff. For example: It's a silly basement room at a youth hostel so there was a guy on a laptop, another guy texting, and a girl filing her nails. She was in the front row so I called her out on it and explained that filing your nails is the universal symbol for being bored. Audio below.



Now I just need to work on my witty comeback for when someone's clipping their nails in the front row.

Labels: about standup, riffs

Permalink | 8/20/2008 | 1 comments

Tiki riffing at Otto's Shrunken Head

I recently did the Shrink show at Otto's Shrunken Head, a venue that's also a Tiki bar. Here's a photo showing what the stage area looks like, Tiki heads and all. There was also a Mac laptop onstage showing photos. And there were flashing lights going too. It was rather distracting. Here's what I said about it: