Nina: I want to be perfect.
Thomas: [scoffs] Perfection is not just about control. It's also about letting go. Surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience. Transcendence! Very few have it in them.
I focus on performance. And being more dynamic as a performer. I used to do a thing, and I did it on my Lopez set, where when I was going onstage, I would give a friend of mine 200 bucks and for every time I smile onstage, you have to give me 20 bucks back. So I knew that if I wanted to get my money back, I would have to smile onstage.
It's like one of these things that's such a good practice. Because the first time I did it, I lost 120 bucks. But when I did it on Lopez, Lopez is easier, I did it and smiling helps. And I got my money back. So I do that, and I've been doing something recently where I watch the audience laughing, which I never did before. Laughing at my jokes, which makes you then laugh, and when you laugh you're more likable, and you're having more of a conversation with them. You're in the moment with them. Instead of just, "I am performing, we're having 2 totally different experiences now. You're having fun, but I'm working." No, it's like, "We're both having fun." So that's one thing.
And when I was in New York, I was working a lot with Aziz Ansari, and he has a really, really great work ethic when it comes to stand up. He listens to every single set he does. He'll write notes in his notebook about it, he'll change punch lines, he'll alter tags, and he's really really dogged, to the point of it being kind of weird to people. Because he'll be sitting at a table with a bunch of comedians, with his headphones on, just listening to his own stand up, but it really improves your (set). I remember when I was kid, I remember my brother Kevin and (Dave) Attell would tape their sets, and then when I was doing it I wasn't, and now I started, and I just know it makes you better. So I've been listening to all my sets. It's just also more positive reinforcement when you're listening to yourself get laughs right before you go on. So that's helpful also.
The other thing is you just need the flight hours. You just need the 10,000 hours, you need the reps. You have to do it, and do it, and do it, and do it. That's the thing with TV, you don't know how your body's going to react, you know. When I did Fallon, I wasn't as engaging as I was on Lopez because I didn't know what my body was going to do. My body tended to get a little small. Whereas on Lopez, I knew, "Hey, just so you know, Neal, you're body may get a little tight and small. So you have to counteract that." Which is why I did the smiling, 200 bucks thing.
Stone Mill Theater (Little Falls, NY)
Village Lantern
Kabin 4-Year Anniversary
Treehouse
Freddy’s Back Room
Broadway Comedy Club
Hog Pit
The black dude in me is like "Kramer, you motherfucker." I was hurt. And the comedian in me was just like "Whoa, nigger's having a bad set. Hang in there, Kramer. Don't let 'em break you, Kramer!"
When Fred Armisen is doing an Update bit that's not going well, that's probably the hardest to not laugh because he is the most fearless performer. Once he did his Native American stand-up comedian character, and the audience just wasn't going for it. But it's this great thing — you don't worry because he couldn't care less. I feel stressed when other people's [bits] don't go well, but with Fred, I've been trained to just go with it and know that for certain people, it's gonna be their favorite thing.
All modern movie comedies can be divided roughly into two categories: character-driven and joke-driven. The first category includes movies like “Beverly Hills Cop, ” “Meet the Parents, ” “Manhattan” and “The Hangover”; the second includes movies like “Austin Powers, ” “Blazing Saddles, ” “Bananas” and “Airplane!” The primary distinction lies in their respective relationship to reality. In character-driven comedies, funny people say funny things and fall into funny situations, but it’s all contained within the realm of plausible realism; nothing absurd or unbelievable occurs. Joke-driven comedies, by contrast, start with the absurd and unbelievable and go from there. Their jokes burst the boundaries of realism; in fact, they’re often about bursting the boundaries of realism. Character-driven comedy is Meg Ryan loudly faking an orgasm in a deli and an old woman saying, “I’ll have what she’s having”; joke-driven comedy is a woman (in “Top Secret”) being asked to translate a conversation and saying, “I know a little German, ” then turning and waving at a midget in lederhosen.
Early on, I took swipes at Tyler’s appearance; I made jokes about a chubby 16-year-old’s chubbiness. A friend reviewed one of these early recaps thusly: “Hilariously mean!” That struck me. I realized I was headed down a bad road. I long ago vowed, as Batman did before me, never to make fun of stuff that people couldn’t help. Because it’s (1) easy and (2) not fair. There are plenty of things that people have complete control over that are worthy of ridicule. So I concentrated on what people wore, how they mangled common phrases and idioms, and how they treated each other...
So from then on, I considered what I was writing more carefully, soon realizing that the hardest thing to do is make fun of contestants without being nasty. I eventually figured out the way in: Most of the contestants believed that they were excellent singers. Therefore, if they weren’t, I could totally make fun of them! Fantastic! I felt within my rights taking shots at people who crave the validation of strangers, since I’m a stranger-validation craver myself! (Take my very low opinion of recently ousted James Durbin’s parenting skills: His sob story included having no money for food and diapers—was entering a singing contest really the most responsible solution?)
That approach worked with everyone except the youngest contestants. Too young! Why did I get dealt the season where they let essentially children enter, to be judged by an entire nation? What is this, Charles Dickens tymes? I am a gentleman of the old school, and I consider it unsporting to ridicule children unless it’s in private and with good friends. How do I criticize them without being a bully? By turning on a more appropriate target (which, in my personal comedy code, is always the most powerful): the glorified sweatshop owners exploiting the dreams of these kids, the producers of this bloated cash cow. So as the weeks wore on, my jokes became less about the performances and more about the situation in which the contestants were placed.
I thought people wanted to hear outrageous things. My intention wasn't to provoke. It was to get laughs. To me, what's funny is something that's wildly inappropriate. There's kinda a parenthetical statement: "Wouldn't it be fucked up if someone said this?" And that is where I come from.
I got it from watching my dad make mistakes and say things he shouldn't be saying to strangers. And you see people and there's kinda like a hitch: Did he hear what he just said? Does he understand how that sounds?
And then too I had a guy throw a glass at me one time. And that sorta caused a reversal. It will begin to hurt your business. Clubs don't want to have people in who make people super angry.
If you have two emotions at the same time, pain and anger. In fact, those two are kind of inseparable. Relate to the pain and it will improve your comedy. Not the anger. Because if you're relating to the anger, it's harder for people. It's a bolder thing.
Even if you are talking about the anger, the pain has to be there. That's where the vulnerability comes in. And that's what I've never been good at onstage. To be like "This hurts. This is me. This is what's wrong with me. This is what I did. This is what I brought to it." It's always just "Here's five things that I hate about these people." And that's a losing formula.
One of the greatest things I ever saw was [Bill Clinton] at Coretta Scott King's funeral. Jimmy Carter, George Bush Senior, Hillary — all these people making speeches, and then Bill Clinton goes on and he says, "Let's all remember that that is a woman lying right there." And he points at her.
It was audacious. "That is a woman who had her dreams and her pain and her passions," and I think he said "lust." He said really personal shit about her and you immediately heard the black people go, "Yes!"
He says, "There's her family — think about what they're going through today, and everything that's happened to them since their daddy got shot. The burden that must have been hers."
Holy shit. I hope to have any of that skill as a comic. He just found this short circuit. You try to have this nature the way water does — finds the lowest place and spreads the fuck out. That's what he did.
Carmelo's first game. We went up to that fucking suite where all these people were eating — politicians and mobsters and Chloë Sevigny. There's this spread of food, and I'm like, "Let's fucking eat." Chris goes, "Nah, let's get down to the floor." I'm like, "You're taking this shit for granted, Chris. There's roast beef and a guy with a hat serving it." I wanted it so bad. I was starving and he's like, "Who needs it?" And I'm like, "Are you kidding me? I'll probably never get here again."
So we go down, and I'm watching Carmelo, and I hear the song "Louie Louie" and I look up and I see my own face on the Jumbotron. And Chris says, "You know what, man, you've got your own show, and I'm on Broadway, and we're on the floor at Madison Square Garden. How fucking great is this?" And we high-fived and we just felt so good. Both of us, we're in our 40s — this shit could disappear instantly, never to return. And it will.
00:00 Mark Normand and Matt Ruby Intro
01:02 Yannis Pappas
27:24 Mark Normand and Matt Ruby
28:44 Jesse Popp
42:15 Mark Normand and Matt Ruby
43:17 Dan Soder
78:12 Mark Normand and Matt Ruby
79:19 Finish
Our editor is full of quotes. Bill Kerr. He has his whole theory called “the angry villagers.” Which is basically if the movie starts out and the jokes aren’t funny or they aren’t laughing, they become angry villagers and they want to burn the whole town down. And we’re always like, “Okay this is an ‘angry villagers’ moment” where, like, two jokes in a row didn’t work and now people are going to start losing trust in us. Because that’s all you have at the end of the day as a filmmaker, is the trust of your audience.
You think the same way when you go see a drama or a horror movie or something and the director is just letting stuff like jump out at you and scare the shit out of you in like, a cheap way, then you’re like, “Okay, I don’t trust this director anymore, so I don’t trust this movie because it’s just going do easy shit to make me jump.” Then you almost don’t want to deal with it anymore if that’s not the experience you went for, but there’s a way to scare people, truly, or just be the little kid who hides in the laundry and scares the shit out of mom. And that’s a cheap way to do it.
The same caveat applies to the famous advice given to all neophyte writers, “Write what you know.” The implication is autobiography in some form: memoir, fiction in which you are the main character, stories about your family, your background, someone you know well. But the advice is too banal to be useful to a young writer without an obviously compelling story to tell.
What if you are unlucky enough not to have endured the Holocaust, witnessed Apartheid, or been sexually abused by your father? What if you feel that the world you know, although thoroughly unpleasant, is also very dull? Or has been written about so well by another that you have nothing to add?
“Write what you know.”
But what do you know? Is it compelling? I don’t mean to your readers. To you. You will keep company with your writing longer than anyone else. (Unless you’re Tolstoy and your wife copies all your manuscripts by hand seven times over.)
If your subject doesn’t involve emotions, ideas, truths and lies that delight, frighten, soothe and enrage you, how can you expect it to fascinate a stranger? Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longings and disappointments...
Don’t write what you know.
Don’t write what you love to read.
Don’t write what publishers are looking for.
Don’t write what critics are hailing.
Don’t write what your creative writing teacher claims is the only form of literature that is still dynamic.
Write what horrifies you, write what charms you, write what repels you, write what you love, write, to be aphoristic, what you cannot stop yourself from writing.
Yes, you will have to find “your voice,” and yes, you will have to learn the craft of writing, which is endlessly demanding and so varied that you will probably never feel you are more than a clumsy student. And don’t limit yourself to study only the craft necessary to produce your particular kind of writing. Also learn how the writers you have contempt for do what they do; you may discover something useful for your work.
But all of those necessary skills are servants to your Lord and Master: write what you cannot stop yourself from thinking about, even if it disgusts everyone you know. Readers read to subsume their consciousness, for a profound but limited time, into another’s. Some want reassurance, some want challenge. Some want pleasant lies, some painful realities. You may be unlucky and be fated to have a small audience. That’s too bad. (By the way, it is the fate of almost every writer.)
Over time, if you work hard and write what obsesses you, there will be readers who will want to live in your peculiar universe, and precisely because what you have provided is rare they will be all the more grateful for your creation.
Based on deep and extensive research, Sims discovered that productive, creative thinkers and doers—from Ludwig van Beethoven to Thomas Edison and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos—practice a set of simple but often counterintuitive experimental methods—such as failing quickly to learn fast, trying imperfect ideas, and engaging in highly immersed observation—that free their minds, opening them up to making unexpected connections and perceiving invaluable insights. These methods also unshackle them from the constraints of conventional planning, analytical thinking, and linear problem solving that our educational system overemphasizes at the expense of creativity.
Chris Rock has become one of the most popular comedians in the world and, while there is no doubt he has great talent, his brilliance also comes from his approach to developing his ideas. the routines he rolls out on his global tours are the output of what he has learned from thousands of little bets, nearly all of which fail.
When beginning to work on a new show, Rock picks venues where he can experiment with new material in very rough fashion. in gearing up for his latest global tour, he made between forty and fifty appearances at a small comedy club, called stress Factory, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, not far from where he lives. in front of audiences of, say, fifty people, he will show up unannounced, carrying a yellow legal note pad with ideas scribbled on it. “it’s like boxing training camp,” Rock told the Orange County Register.
When people in the audience spot him, they start whispering to one another. As the waitstaff and other comedians find places to stand at the sides or back, the room quickly fills with anticipation. He won’t launch into the familiar performance mode his fans describe as “the full preacher effect,” when he uses animated body language, pitchy and sassy vocal intonations, and erupting facial expressions. instead, he will talk with the audience in an informal, conversational style with his notepad on a stool beside him. He watches the audience intently, noticing heads nodding, shifting body language, or attentive pauses, all clues as to where good ideas might reside.
In sets that run around forty-five minutes, most of the jokes fall flat. His early performances can be painful to watch. Jokes will ramble, he’ll lose his train of thought and need to refer to his notes, and some audience members sit with their arms folded, noticeably unimpressed. the audience will laugh about his flops—laughing at him, not with him. Often Rock will pause and say, “This needs to be fleshed out more if it’s gonna make it,” before scribbling some notes. He may think he has come up with the best joke ever, but if it keeps missing with audiences, that becomes his reality. Other times, a joke he thought would be a dud will bring the house down. According to fellow comedian Matt Ruby, “There are five to ten lines during the night that are just ridiculously good. Like lightning bolts. My sense is that he starts with these bolts and then writes around them.”
For a full routine, Rock tries hundreds (if not thousands) of preliminary ideas, out of which only a handful will make the final cut. A successful joke often has six or seven parts. With that level of complexity, it’s understandable that even a comedian as successful as Chris Rock wouldn’t be able to know which joke elements and which combinations will work. This is true for every stand-up comedian, including the top performers we tend to perceive as creative geniuses, like Rock or Jerry Seinfeld. it’s also true for comedy writers. The writers for the humor publication the Onion, known for its hilarious headlines, propose roughly six hundred possibilities for eighteen headlines each week, a 3 percent success rate. “You can sit down and spend hours crafting some joke that you think is perfect, but a lot of the time, that’s just a waste of time,” Ruby explains. this may seem like an obvious problem, but it’s a mistake that rookie comedians make all the time.
By the time Rock reaches a big show — say an HBO special or an appearance on David Letterman — his jokes, opening, transitions, and closing have all been tested and retested rigorously. Developing an hour-long act takes even top comedians from six months to a year. If comedians are serious about success, they get on stage every night they can, especially when developing new material. they typically do so at least five nights per week, sometimes up to seven, and sweat over every element and word. And the cycle repeats, day in, day out.
Most people are surprised that someone who has reached Chris Rock’s level of success still puts himself out there in this way, willing to fail night after night, but Rock deeply understands that ingenious ideas almost never spring into people’s minds fully formed; they emerge through a rigorous experimental discovery process. As Matt Ruby says of Rock’s performances, “I’m not sure there’s any better comedy class than watching someone that good work on material at that stage. More than anything, you see how much hard work it is. He’s grinding out this material.”
To quote Yogi Berra, “We were over-whelming underdogs,” but the book is currently in the top 200 of all books on Amazon (#1 for entrepreneurship on Kindle, #5 hard copy), and has received very good reviews and mentions including in The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and The Economist.
