A big collection of Louis CK quotes and articles (mostly about his standup)

Nice to see that everyone loves Louis CK now. I've been hitting readers over the head with CK quotes/articles/recaps here for years – way before his FX show hit the air. So I decided to search through the 'ol Sandpaper Suit archives (lots of microfiche!) and bust out a COLLECTION POST of choice cuts. Most of these are about CK's standup though there's a few pieces on the FX show thrown in. Lots of good, meaty stuff in here for folks who care about the nuts and bolts of standup. It's neat how frequently and openly CK discusses his approach. OK, enjoy. (Ya can click through on the links to read the full piece. Any unattributed quote is from CK.)

Highlights from the great commentary on Louis CK's "Chewed Up" DVD
"Now I tend to just keep glomming onto something and adding more and more layers and pieces and then taking away stuff that was weak...It's like the way they make Samurai swords. They fold a piece of steel and bang it until it's thin. And then they fold it again and bang it again until it's thin until it's just compact and all the air and impurities are just leaving and it's just this pure, dense steel. So that's what I try to do."

Great Louis CK interview on XM Unmasked
"When you bomb, it's like a murder happened to you. And you've got data. You've got evidence. It's like forensics. You walk around poking things with a pencil and go, 'Well, if you hadn't said this after that, it wouldn't have gone so bad.' And you learn. You have a huge wealth of information."

Louis CK on saying the things that are gnawing at his head
"I decided I'm not gonna come up with jokes anymore. I'm not going to try to think of funny things to say. I'm going to say the things that are gnawing at my head. Any thought that I've been having a lot, I'm just gonna say it. And all of a sudden, a huge amount of lifelong fear was just gone. I just didn't care."

What makes CK so good?
He gets off on walking that line. And those provocative topics and setups get people paying attention. Tell an audience that your young daughter is an asshole, and they're really gonna want to hear what comes next. When an audience is locked in like that, it's a lot easier to get laughs.

Louis CK at Comix = most impressive standup show I've ever seen
At one point, he lost his place (maybe intentionally?) and went in reverse describing the last 6 topics he'd discussed in order to remember his point. The crowd burst out in applause. His response: "People will clap at any list." And then that smirk again. Great.

The pros to writing onstage
"An audience is a target, it's a guide. You can't really generate stand up material without an audience. They gotta tell you how to say it. And then once it's been said in front of an audience, it lives. And every time I say it, it changes, develops or gets worse."

The fascination with hecklers
"I usually respond sincerely to hecklers. It doesn't happen to me very often but when someone yells something out, I usually grind the show to a halt, focus on them, and I say very seriously 'It really makes it hard for me to do the show when you talk. will you please stop?' They usually get very very embarassed and stop talking."

Louis CK tees off on heckler
CK says, "When you talk, I hear it in my ear and it fucks up my timing and it makes my job hard. So could you not talk during my act please?" Guy decides to go back at him. Big mistake. CK rips him. Crowd boos the guy. CK: "People that don't know you hate you. That can't feel very good."

The evolution from clever to truth teller
Myq Kaplan: "louis CK did ridiculous, absurd jokes for years and years, and he was a genius at That, long before he started doing what he's doing now"

Ted Alexandro on letting jokes breathe
Ted Alexandro: "I learned a lot from working with Louis CK that being interesting, being intriguing, and engaging the listener is as important as being funny. "

"When you perfect, you go in the same direction as everybody else"
CK explains how his show is made up of first drafts. "I like this show to feel like it's right out of my gut or brain or balls," he says.

CK on writers’ rooms
"'Everybody wants to improve the material, so they will comb over it, take out abnormalities,' he says of the traditional writers’ room. 'It’s like certain kinds of food: You like them to be chunky and irregular. And they’ll just keeping puréeing and puréeing till it’s perfect, and who the fuck wants it?...They get to this place where it gets really madcap, and I just smell a roomful of writers getting off.'"

Carlin on deliberately crossing the line
Includes a great speech CK gave honoring Carlin.

Louis CK on "brushback pitch" jokes
"I like jokes that are brushback pitches. There's a mix of laughter and people going, 'Oh, Jesus!' But that turns into laughter. I like taking people to an area in their minds or their culture that they don't think they should be thinking about or laughing at, and then getting them to laugh there. That's a great thing to be able to do that. Take people to a place they're afraid of and say there's something funny here."

The advice Louis CK and Chris Rock gave to Hannibal Buress
"Louie would tell me not to curse so much," said Hannibal. "He'd say, "Take out the 'fucks,' you're six less 'fucks' away from being a millionaire."

CK: “I never write anything down"
“I never write anything down… I think comedy’s a spoken form, and if you’re writing it down you’re putting a bunch of filters on it.”

The Bill Clinton speech that Louis CK calls "one of the greatest things I ever saw"
"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."

Chuck Klosterman on Louie's 'brilliance"
Klosterman: "What’s so distinctly compelling about this season of Louie is how everyone seems to collectively realize that what C.K. is doing is not only cool, but also authentically artful and unnaturally profound."

Behind the scenes as Louis CK films a new TV pilot
He did some Q&A with the crowd while cameras were setting up. I asked him what the narrative of the show was and he replied, "You want me to tell you the entire story now, you motherfucker?" Oddly, that word seems almost like a term of endearment coming from him.

A highbrow justification for telling dick jokes
Adam Wilson: "If you can stomach the scatology, you’ll see that these jokes are meant to make you laugh, but more so to open a candid investigation into corporeality; into what it’s like to live in a body that disobeys, decays, and will one day cease to exist."

Tapping into shame and indefensible ideas
"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."

Chatting with CK after one of his sets
It was striking to me because so many comics seem so obsessed with hierarchy BS that they won't even talk to comics who they think are "beneath" them. Or they'll just crack on them. Yet Louis, who's got HBO specials, didn't give a shit. He just came over and said hey and was a regular guy willing to talk, even though we're just three comics starting out.

It has to be a calling

There's a kerfluffle in the lit world about whether writing is just an awful pain in the ass not worth the effort or something to be celebrated (Elizabeth Gilbert says writing allows you to “get to live within the realm of your own mind”).

It all began when Philip Roth told a young writer this:

“I would quit while you’re ahead. Really. It’s an awful field. Just torture. Awful. You write and you write, and you have to throw almost all of it away because it’s not any good. I would say just stop now. You don’t want to do this to yourself. That’s my advice to you.”

Similar convos happen around comedy. My take on it to folks who ask: I think it has to be a calling. If you can do something else, do it. Trying to do standup is such a grind that it just ain't worth it unless you just HAVE to do it. It's for people who have no choice. But if that is you, there's a deep, meaningful satisfaction that you can get from it. (Thx Lawson for the link.)

Joan kills it

Now that's how ya come out firing.

Talking about stakes and being a chameleon vs. being one-dimensional

I've talked a lot about stakes here before...

Stakes
Judd Apatow on adding stakes
Marc Maron on stakes and emotional risk
Storytelling tips from The Moth

...and here's me discussing 'em in an interview. Also covers why I think being a chameleon makes things tougher.



It's from Capture Your Flag's Erik Michielsen latest interview with me. Third year in a row we've done a Q&A like this. Here's the full playlist from this year's interview at YouTube. And here's Year 2 and Year 1.

Phil Davidson's interviews with comedians (Mulaney, Brennan, etc.) at Splitsider

Phil Davidson is a comic who lives up in Vermont and runs some fun shows there. I got to do a set with him in Burlington recently and beforehand we were discussing some of the interviews with comics he does at Splitsider. Subjects include Ted Alexandro, Rory Scovel, Anthony Jeselnik, Patton Oswalt, and lots more. They're worth checking out. Smart, detailed interviews that dive deep on standup and the process.

In Talking to John Mulaney About SNL, Standup and Growing Up a Comedy Nerd, Mulaney talks about why he goes for personal stories over jokey jokes ("because you believe what you’re saying and it doesn’t feel as detached").

With your stand-up, a lot of the material is personal stories. Is that something that evolves over time? It seems like the personal stuff is common among the more established comics. As a comic, is that where you eventually want to get to?

Yeah. When I started off, I was very premise-based and I would say an outright lie about my life just to get to a joke. I would do that kind of stuff at open mics. A couple things happened. One was I realized I’m not a great pure joke writer like a Dan Mintz or Anthony Jeselnik, let alone like Emo Philips or someone. So I was like “well, I can’t sustain this.” And more, I have things that I think are funny and it’s more of my take on them that appeal to me. I knew I wasn’t going to write an hour of very tight, impersonal jokes. The second thing was I was opening for Mike Birbiglia a lot. He took me on the road in 2005 and I opened for him on and off for like two years. Opening for him was huge for me cause I was going across the country every week. He and I did 30 days on the road together straight on a bus. I had to do stand-up every night, sometimes two shows a night. I was doing 30 minutes in places like Columbia, MO and I wasn’t ready to do a half-hour. Those things were big for me. Watching him and how he was able to dissolve mining real life for comedy, I just liked it. And then watching Paul F. Tompkins at Bumbershoot in 2006, I remember seeing him tell just three stories from his half-hour set and how many jokes he pulled out of those stories. Just the amount of jokes from the set-up to the whole story, it was packed. That really appealed to me. So I just started doing that. And then it becomes just more comfortable on stage because you believe what you’re saying and it doesn’t feel as detached. I still talk about TV shows and bullshit, though.

In Talking to Neal Brennan About 'Chappelle's Show', Standup, Podcasts and More, Brennan explains how standups are a hybrid of entertainer/writer/philosopher/pastor.

Where you do want to go with stand-up? Do you have an end goal in mind?

I would like to do theaters. That’s my goal. I said this to [Parks and Rec creator] Mike Schur, who’s an old friend of mine, when he asked why I was performing so much. I said “Cause I’d rather make Bring the Pain than The Hangover.”

Why is that?

It’s more personally satisfying. Bring the Pain means more to me than The Hangover does. Raw and Delirious mean more to me than 48 Hours and Trading Places and The Nutty Professor. The other thing with movies is, if George Carlin’s act was a movie, it would be a dystopian post-apocalyptic thriller. There’s something about movies that’s so cooperative and so fake. There’s something about movies where they’re upholding Judeo-Christian values that I just think is corny. I like movies, but with stand-up you can really affect people’s thought process. You’re not just an entertainer, you’re a writer, you’re a philosopher, you’re a pastor, you’re so many things. Dave’s act, Chris Rock’s act, Billy Burr’s act, Stanhope, Attell, shit is dark, man. But it’s a real reflection of the world that you just don’t get anywhere else. So that’s what I like about stand-up. If someone said to me you could be a really successful comedian or you could be a really successful TV and filmmaker, I’d pick stand-up every time…I just think stand-up’s the coolest thing ever. That’s the bottom line. I love Chappelle’s Show, but I think what I love most about it is how much it’s like stand-up. Stand-up’s just really interesting. So hopefully I’ll be in theaters based on this mixtape.

More of Phil's interviews at Splitsider.

HOT SOUP with Conniff/Heller/List/Vatterott and 1/2-off drinks

Next HOT SOUP is on Wed at Ella. Hmm, Wed at Ella...Maybe we should call that Wella. As in wella, wella, wella, ugh, tell me more tell me more...like that song in Grease. Maybe not. Anyway. Great venue, funny comics, & 1/2-off drinks. C'mon.

LINEUP
Frank Conniff (Mystery Science Theater 3000)
Nick Vatterott (Conan, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)
Emily Heller (Comedy Central)
Joe List (Comedy Central)
...and more!

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

If you RSVP with 4 or more people, everyone in your group will get a FREE DRINK at the show.

Doors: 8pm
Seating: 8:30pm
Show: 9:00pm sharp

Ella Lounge
Downstairs room
9 Avenue A (between First and Second Street)
FREE
RSVP: FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Produced by Mark Normand, Matt Ruby, Gary Vider, and Sachi Ezura. (Can't make it? Our next show after this one is at Ella on Wednesday, Feb 20 at 8:30pm.) Sign up for Hot Soup email list.

The first cut of Spinal Tap was 7 hours long

There's a fine line between stupid and clever.

"The greatest ending line in movies" just popped out

In this interview, Billy Wilder discusses his writing partner I.A.L. Diamond and how they came up with the final line of "Some Like it Hot."

We had a great deal of trust in each other. But sometimes with writing you just can’t tell, especially if you’re writing under pressure. Diamond and I were writing the final scene of Some Like It Hot the week before we shot it. We’d come to the situation where Lemmon tries to convince Joe B. Brown that he cannot marry him.

“Why?” Brown says.

“Because I smoke!”

“That’s all right as far as I’m concerned.”

Finally Lemmon rips his wig off and yells at him, “I’m a boy! Because I’m a boy!”

Diamond and I were in our room working together, waiting for the next line—Joe B. Brown’s response, the final line, the curtain line of the film—to come to us. Then I heard Diamond say, “Nobody’s perfect.” I thought about it and I said, Well, let’s put in “Nobody’s perfect” for now. But only for the time being. We have a whole week to think about it. We thought about it all week. Neither of us could come up with anything better, so we shot that line, still not entirely satisfied. When we screened the movie, that line got one of the biggest laughs I’ve ever heard in the theater. But we just hadn’t trusted it when we wrote it; we just didn’t see it. “Nobody’s perfect.” The line had come too easily, just popped out.

The easy stuff that just pops out seems like it's not worth as much. But sometimes it's the effortless stuff that's actually gold. And maybe it just seemed easy but your subconscious was grinding on it for a while.

Btw, the "let's put it in for now" into "that's actually really good" turn of that story reminds me of how John convinced Paul to keep an odd lyric in "Hey Jude."

I finished it all up in Cavendish and I was in the music room upstairs when John and Yoko came to visit and they were right behind me over my right shoulder, standing up, listening to it as I played it to them, and when I got to the line, 'The movement you need is on your shoulder,' I looked over my shoulder and I said, 'I'll change that, it's a bit crummy. I was just blocking it out,' and John said, 'You won't, you know. That's the best line in it!' That's collaboration. When someone's that firm about a line that you're going to junk, and he said, 'No, keep it in.' So of course you love that line twice as much because it's a little stray, it's a little mutt that you were about to put down and it was reprieved and so it's more beautiful than ever. I love those words now...

Time lends a little credence to things. You can't knock it, it just did so well. But when I'm singing it, that is when I think of John, when I hear myself singing that line; it's an emotional point in the song.

Key & Peele director was ready to quit rather than put laugh track on show

Comedy folks hate laugh tracks. Yet every highly rated (I'm talking Nielsen ratings, not indie cred) comedy throughout history has had a laugh track. (Remember how Chappelle show had Dave introducing sketches and playing 'em in front of a crowd?)

But maybe the spread of YouTube videos and shows like The Office & Curb are a sign of the laugh track's decline? Peter Atencio, the director of Key & Peele, discusses the big push from Comedy Central to begin using audience laughs over the show's sketches.

Finally, about a week before we went to air, and the night before our final sound mix on episode 201, they relented. I can’t say what exactly changed their minds, but I suspect it was mostly the collective passion on the subject from the creative team. While we were certainly not unanimous in how much we were opposed to the choice (I was ready to quit entirely, others were more willing to just make the network happy), we all agreed that is was not going to feel like the same show we had aired the first season...

for me, it was a lesson in standing up for what you feel is creatively the right decision. Would the show be getting better ratings with laughs on the sketches? Perhaps. But it would no longer have been the same show for me personally, and I would not have returned for our third season, which we’re currently in pre-production on.

Related: Louis C.K. and the Rise of the Laptop Loners ("Not only does Louie's audience not know when to laugh, they don't even know if what they're watching is supposed to be funny.")

When hunting for the truth, the first thing you have to kill is your own ego

In second half of this clip, I talk about inward vs. outward material and the difference between "here's why you're a jerk," "here's why we're all jerks," and "here's why I'm a jerk."



It's from Capture Your Flag's Erik Michielsen latest interview with me. Third year in a row we've done a Q&A like this. Here's the full playlist from this year's interview at YouTube. And here's Year 2 and Year 1.

Nick Griffin is so damn good

I don't think Nick Griffin gets enough props. Soulful, honest, observational, personal. He does it all. And with immaculately crafted jokes too. Not a single wasted word. This Letterman set is a thing to behold. So tight.

Breaking Bad creator explains why bleak topics need humor

Breaking Bad showrunner Vince Gilligan talks about putting humor in drama in this interview.

You need a much humour as possible in a show like this. That was something I leaned from working on the X-Files. I learned so much from Chris Carter, who was the creator of Millennium about serial killers. It was hard to watch, and depressingly dark and I knew for Breaking Bad - a bleak show with cancer and criminality - that it would need to be leavened with humour. So we go for moments of absurdest humour but the moments have to feel real and derive from behaviour that the characters would perform.

So Gilligan is saying that something really bleak needs to be leavened with humor and absurdity. Is the opposite true too? Does something really silly/absurd need to be brought down with some bleakness in order to be full-bodied?

Reminds me of an Apatow quote I mentioned recently: "All great drama has some comedy and all great comedy has some drama."

WED 1/23: HOT SOUP at Ella Lounge with Kaplan/Vatterott/Lemon/Klein & 1/2 priced drinks

HOT SOUP down your throat one more time – half-off drinks too...

LINEUP
Myq Kaplan (Letterman, Conan)
Nick Vatterott (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Conan)
Damien Lemon (MTV)
Jessi Klein (VH1, Comedy Central)
...and more!

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

If you RSVP with 4 or more people, everyone in your group will get a FREE DRINK at the show.

Doors: 8pm
Seating: 8:30pm
Show: 9:00pm sharp

Ella Lounge
Downstairs room
9 Avenue A (between First and Second Street)
FREE
RSVP: FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Produced by Mark Normand, Matt Ruby, Gary Vider, and Sachi Ezura.

(Can't make it? Our next show after this one is at Ella on Wednesday, Feb 6 at 8:30pm.)

Photos from last night at Caroline's

Amazing time last night at Caroline's. Thanks to everyone who came out and packed the place. It was a blast. Most fun I've ever had doing standup actually. And thanks to Jonathan, Kate, and Sagar for ripping it up before me. Comedy!

Comedic integrity as defined by Colin Quinn

Comedic integrity - the ability to critique all the hypocrisies in society but also to be real enough to see you're as guilty as everybody else in the game

(as defined by Colin Quinn)

The solution to Lance Armstrong and steroids in sports

I'm fine with Lance Armstrong doing all those steroids.

My theory: Performance enhancing drugs should be fine in sports as long as the athlete is also doing performance worsening drugs. Go ahead, you can do steroids as long as you are ALSO on shrooms. That way it all evens out.

Is that version of Lance Armstrong really gonna win the Tour de France – or is he going to stare at his own shadow for 3 hours? Tough call.

Is a tripping Barry Bonds gonna jack all those home runs? It's pretty tough to hit a major league curveball thrown by a DRAGON. That's a real flamethrower.

Imagine Ray Lewis on SHROIDS. His coach is yelling at him and he's crying and saying, "Coach, I was gonna tackle that guy and then I realized: We're the SAME PERSON. There is no end zone...it just keeps beginning!"

I HEADLINE at Caroline's on Broadway Tue (Jan 15) at 7:30pm

Love. Death. Religion. Sex. Drugs. Diseases. Kids. The Internet. 

Those are just a few of the things I'll discuss next Tuesday (Jan 15) when I HEADLINE at Caroline's on Broadway as part of the club's Breakout Artist Comedy Series. Gonna be a fun night.

I'm psyched to be able to do a full 45+ minute set there. I rarely get to do a set that long in NYC so if ya ever wanted to see me dive deep, here's your chance. Plus, it's only $5 if you use the promo code "BREAKOUT" at this link: http://tktwb.tw/Ypvd0F

Also on the lineup are these funny folks: 

Kate Hendricks

Jonathan Morvay

Sagar Bhatt (hosting)

Will be a grand ol' time and we'll do drinks after nearby. Giddy up. And if you know anyone else in NYC who might be into it, please do forward the info along to 'em.

Details:
Tuesday, Jan 15
Caroline's on Broadway
1626 Broadway (Directions)
Doors: 7pm
Showtime: 7:30pm

$5 tix if you use the promo code 

"BREAKOUT" at this link.

Two jews and a mormon walk into a podcast

Fun podcast: Hang out with Myq hanging out with Ryan Hamilton and Matt Ruby.

The advice Patton Oswalt gave Joe DeRosa that changed his whole perspective on writing jokes

In this You Made It Weird with Joe DeRosa, Joe explains some advice he got from Patton Oswalt (48min in to podcast) after running a bit by him in the green room at Caroline's a while back. The bit was about how much Joe hates people on reality shows. Joe paraphrases Patton's response:

I don't see what the purpose of the bit is...All your doing is just saying that to the audience. You know you think that. You know they think that. What's the point?...What I think you need to do in bits is – and what I try to do is – have a moment of discovery. I try to have that moment in the bit where I go, "I used to think this but now I realize it's that."

Derosa then comments:

Which if you watch Patton, he does that a lot. "When I was 35, I used to think..." and he hits the funny from that side and then he goes, "Now I'm 42 and let me tell you people, I was wrong!"...From that moment on, I realized that I don't want to be the guy who gets up and just barks at the audience...I have a lot of bits where I try to turn it on myself and ask why do I feel that way? Oh, it's because here's my flaw that makes me see the situation like this.

Here's a Patton bit about moving away from the world of drugs/alcohol.



This idea reminds me of Eddie Brill's advice to comics: "It's never 'you suck.' It's 'we suck.'" If you're discovering something, it puts you in the same boat as the audience as opposed to talking down to 'em.

Soup's on

HOT SOUP with Lawrence/Sandford/Hawkins & half-priced drinks tonight (Wed) at Ella Lounge. Full details at Facebook event.

"When you perfect, you go in the same direction as everybody else"

In clip below, Louis CK explains how his show is made up of first drafts. "I like this show to feel like it's right out of my gut or brain or balls," he says.



In David Chase Doesn’t Care About the Russian, the Sopranos creator describes a similar approach when discussing why that show ended the way it did.

“It just seemed right,” he suggests. “You go on instinct. I don’t know. As an artist, are you supposed to know every reason for every brush stroke? Do you have to know the reason behind every little tiny thing? It’s not a science; it’s an art. It comes from your emotions, from your unconscious, from your subconscious. I try not to argue with it too much. I mean, I do: I have a huge editor in my head who’s always making me miserable. But sometimes, I try to let my unconscious act out. So why did I do it that way? I thought everyone would feel it. That even if they couldn’t say what it meant, that they would feel it.”

Viva el gut.

This Patrice Oneal documentary is great

"You can't fuck with the truth. Be the truth. Always."

Tue 15 Jan: I will headline at Caroline's

$5 tix if you use the promo code "BREAKOUT" at this link.

I'm everyone on Facebook

Hey! I'm everyone on Facebook. I'm grateful for how amazing this year was. I use a photo of my child as my profile picture. My identity is wrapped up 100% in this other human being and that is totally healthy. Kimye!!!! Gun control!!!!! Jay Z talking to an old lady on the subway!!!! Exclamation points!!!!!!

Here's what I'm listening to on Spotify. I have GOOD TASTE. Did you see that proposal where the guy hired a marching band? I cried! I bet that marriage will last FOREVER because the best way to show you truly love someone is to use them as a prop in your bid to make a video go viral since your improv group didn't really go anywhere. Watch this documentary on animal dictators. We NEED to do something about that issue I just forgot about. I don't understand economics but here's a link to a Paul Krugman editorial.

LOOK AT ME. At a wedding I went to. At a vacation I went on. At dinner. With my girls doing karaoke last night! I heart karaoke because it's like being a performer and people pay attention to you but you don't have to work hard or be talented. Afterward, we all commented on each other's photos: "You look gorgeous." "No, YOU look gorgeous." I just changed my status to IN A RELATIONSHIP. I hope people who rejected me in the past see that and feel bad. I am THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY. There is an icon of a heart next to my name now. That is the same as love.

I am OFFENDED by what someone said. Delta airlines lost my bag. I have OPINIONS about the news. This is my good side. Baby photo! Go local sports team! Beyoncé. The Elders of Zion are meeting at the Denver Airport. I just invited you to an event. Breaking Bad!! I find privacy settings confusing. I am a human being desperate for connection. Instagram wants to sell my photos to Al Qaeda.

I am SO grateful to you. I have edited out all the bad stuff from my life and presented the rest here. I am a Disney version of myself. Tag me! LIKE me! LIKE THIS! I'm worthwhile! Validate me, internet! VALIDATE ME! I am TRYING. Happy New Year!!!!!!

COME TO MY SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. I forgot to mention: Someone famous DIED recently. I am SAD about this and this is my way of making it ALL ABOUT ME.

P.P.S. Whoops, forgot this too: Please vote for me in this online voting contest for a publication/corporation that is using me as a shill to increase its page views/social media exposure. Also, don't forget to donate to my Kickstarter project where I ask you to support my "art" that no actual consumer is willing to pay for. Thanks! You guyz rock!!!!

Saturday We're All Friends Here, Wednesday Hot Soup

Saturday (12/22): We're All Friends Here
9:30pm at The Creek and The Cave in LIC - FREE

It's the comedy chat show with boundary issues! In the hot seat this time:

Nick Vatterott
Kara Klenk
Charles Gould

Hosted by Matt Ruby and Mark Normand.

Listen to the podcast.

Wednesday (12/26): Hot Soup
8:30pm at ELLA LOUNGE - FREE

Twas the night AFTER Xmas and all through the East Village all the creatures were laughing and even a mouse and whatever the rest of that is ANYWAY we have a comedy show that night and it'll be a good way to laugh off that holiday ham. Half-price drinks too!

LINEUP:
Michael Che (Letterman)
Sean O'Connor (Conan)
Andy Haynes (Fallon)
...and more!

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Doors: 8pm
Seating: 8:30pm
Show: 9:00pm sharp

Ella Lounge
Downstairs room
9 Avenue A (between First and Second Street)
FREE
RSVP: FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Produced by Mark Normand, Matt Ruby, Gary Vider, and Sachi Ezura.

(Can't make it? Our next show at Ella is Wednesday, Jan 9 at 8:30pm.)

Why Seinfeld still performs all the time

Jerry Seinfeld Intends to Die Standing Up talks about why comics need to get up all the time...

When he can't tinker, he grows anxious. "If I don't do a set in two weeks, I feel it," he said. "I read an article a few years ago that said when you practice a sport a lot, you literally become a broadband: the nerve pathway in your brain contains a lot more information. As soon as you stop practicing, the pathway begins shrinking back down. Reading that changed my life. I used to wonder, Why am I doing these sets, getting on a stage? Don't I know how to do this already? The answer is no. You must keep doing it. The broadband starts to narrow the moment you stop."

...and why he thinks small bits are harder to make...

Seinfeld likens his fine-bore interest in jokes to his longstanding infatuation with Porsches, of which he owns “a few dozen.” “People ask me, Why Porsches? A lot of it is the size, same as with bits. The smaller something is, the harder it is to make, because there’s less room for error.” In high school he took shop classes, even after a counselor told him that collegebound kids didn’t need to, because he wanted to know how machines fit together. “I have this old ’57 Porsche Speedster, and the way the door closes, I’ll just sit there and listen to the sound of the latch going, cluh-CLICK-click,” Seinfeld said. “That door! I live for that door. Whatever the opposite of planned obsolescence is, that’s what I’m into.”

...and how there are different kinds of jokes in a set.

“There’s different kinds of laughs,” he explained. “It’s like a baseball lineup: this guy’s your power hitter, this guy gets on base, this guy works out walks. If everybody does their job, we’re gonna win.”

The baseball analogy reminded me of Louis CK discussing "brushback pitch" jokes.

It's worth checking this accompanying video too. In it, Seinfeld describes the anatomy of a Pop-Tart joke and shows his longhand writing process.

Chris Rock on bullet control

Turns out that US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan introduced a bill in 1993 to the Senate that would have levied a 10,000% tax on hollow-point bullets. The bill would have raised the price from $20 a box to $2,000.

Six years later, Chris Rock offered up a similar idea in this classic bit:



[via Kottke.org and @joffley]

Video: Turning the crowd against a heckler

So the comedy gods gave me a texter/heckler (teckler?) the other night at HOT SOUP at Ella Lounge. She thought I was ugly. I had some fun with that. Then the rest of the crowd shouted at her to leave. Here it is on tape.



BTW, next HOT SOUP will be Wed, Dec 26 at Ella Lounge at 8:30pm. Details.

Chris Rock's real wife vs. his comedy wife

Chris Rock is interviewed by Judd Apatow via email in Vanity Fair. He argues that comics were better when they had to perform in front of all kinds of crowds.

Do I think comedians are better now? Hell fuckin’ no. Show me one guy or woman as funny as Rodney Dangerfield or as good as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, or Joan Rivers. There are a lot of good comics out there, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics. What we have now is black comics that work only black crowds, gay comics that do only gay crowds, and southern comics that only work down South, and so on with Asian, Latino, Indian, midgets, etc. The previous generation’s comics were better because they had to make everybody laugh. Richard Pryor could do The Ed Sullivan Show and play the Apollo. Seinfeld can work any crowd. Ellen can work any crowd. Lopez can work any crowd. And a few more, but the rest of them are just situational comics.

He also talks about his real wife vs. his comedy wife.

What isn’t O.K. to say onstage? Any of your family’s personal business. No experience that is just theirs. I don’t really worry about what they are thinking. Anything I say about women, I try to make sure that at least five or six friends of mine are going through a similar situation. That way I’m not picking on my wife. We like to say I have my real wife, who’s a lovely woman, mother to my children. Then I have my comedy wife, who’s a crazy bitch.

Interesting split. Seems like the tricky part would be getting real wife to be ok with comedy wife. [via JH]

PFT and Aziz on observational material vs. more personal bits

Paul F. Tompkins and Aziz Ansari discuss the qualitative difference in the laughs/connection you get from observational material vs. more personal bits. On the latter, PFT says, "There's a deeper connectivity there that's very rewarding."



Neat to see PFT doing a longer interview format. I like when he talks and wish people would pay him to do it more.

A collection of Judd Apatow podcasts, articles, and quotes

It's Judd Apatow podcast season! Apatow seems to hibernate from media until he's got a new flick (this time: This is 40) and then hits the interwaves to plug it and drop comedy knowledge. Good for us since he's a fascinating guy to listen to discuss comedy. For example, I keep thinking about a (paraphrased) line he used in a recent interview: "All great drama has some comedy and all great comedy has some drama."

A rundown of some of his recent appearances:

Adan Carolla Show: Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow's podcast appearances on Earwolf
Fresh Air Weekend: Judd Apatow
Fitzdog Radio: Judd Apatow
Nerdist: Judd Apatow

Making jokes work
He also called this Chicago Tribune piece "a very good article that shows how Leslie and I work together." It's interesting because it feels like he brings lessons learned from honing a standup set to editing a movie.

They had test-screened cuts of the movie the previous evening at a San Fernando Valley multiplex, running two different versions in separate theaters and recording the audiences' reactions throughout. Now White was cueing up versions A and B of a scene in which Annie Mumolo, who co-wrote the Apatow-produced “Bridesmaids” and here plays the best friend of Leslie Mann's lead character, Debbie, describes the after-effects of losing all feeling in a certain lower region of her body.

In one version Mumolo cites two examples of her numbness before a punch line that involves a shower head. In the other version, she offers more and more examples before reaching the payoff. As the editor played back the scenes synced up to the test-screening laugh tracks, it was clear that the audience responded more enthusiastically to version B, the one that took more time to set up the gag.

“We can actually look at the joke when we showed it this week and when we showed it two weeks ago (at an earlier screening) and see if we've either made it work better or actually hurt the joke by surrounding it with different variations of lines and stuff like that,” White said.

Sounds like a familiar process. “I know where to give a pause and let the audience’s laughter die down and not bury the next line,” he once said. Once a standup, always a standup.

There's no sound for drama
That doesn't mean it's all just about getting the funny stuff though. The drama matters more. But it's also trickier for a basic reason: Good drama doesn't make an audience erupt aloud the way comedy does. He explains in this interview:

“We feel the movie's working when it's getting laughs, but that's actually not true,” said Apatow, who turned 45 Thursday. “The audience is actually following the drama, and sometimes we have to think hard and go: ‘It's OK that they're not laughing here because this is a heartfelt moment or a devastating moment.' It's still not my strongest suit understanding all of that. I always say I wish there was a noise people made that let me know that drama was working.”

Don't obsess over likability
He also explained that the audience doesn't need to like a character.

With Mann and Apatow both using the word “crazy” to describe Pete and Debbie's behavior at times, the movie is willing to make its leads unsympathetic in the quest for some greater truth, if not humor.

“I like when people don't try so hard to obsess over likability,” Apatow said. “I wanted it to be balanced. I wanted Pete and Debbie to have an equal amount of good qualities and bad qualities. But it was helpful working with Lena Dunham on ‘Girls' (the HBO series that Apatow executive-produces) while I was working on this, because she doesn't care at all if you like her character. It just doesn't even occur to her that that's part of what you factor in. And so just talking about the script with her — and she's such a great cheerleader of this film — put me in a good frame of mind to not polish things up.”

Talked about something similar here recently, but from a standup perspective: Trying too hard to please the audience. I don't think it's just a "greater truth" that results from this approach. Sometimes when someone doesn't care if they're sympathetic/likable, that just makes them that much more appealing. At least you know you're not being pandered to.

The gods of comedy
As for the neuroses that comes with making funny stuff, he feels the good and bad come together.

There’s a fine line between what’s healthy about being a comedian and what’s really sick and demented about it. And usually both of those things are happening at exactly the same time. When I’m doing good work, there’s a part of me that feels like it’s a positive contribution to society. I’m making people laugh and helping them think about their lives in a positive and life-affirming way. But at the same time, there’s a sick, wounded part of me that’s looking for acceptance, and just wants to know that there’s somebody out there who likes me. I serve both gods simultaneously.

The rest
But wait, there's more! There's a good rundown of his history at Brobible's 45 Unforgettable Moments from Judd Apatow’s Career. And he guest edited Vanity Fair's comedy issue (he did something similar with the book I Found This Funny a while back). And I've written about him previously in these Sandpaper Suit posts:

Judd Apatow on adding stakes
Judd Apatow's "most personal moment" on Freaks and Geeks
The three funniest "in theater" movies Judd Apatow's seen

The HOT SOUP Holiday Spectavaganza Comedy Show – Free at Ella Lounge Dec. 12

Hot Soup returns on Wednesday night with our big holiday show! We're at Ella Lounge, a super venue in the East Village - it's got a downstairs room perfect for comedy, half-off drinks for our audience, and a Bossa Nova band upstairs after the show. And it's all FREE. Come on out and we'll mistle your toe.

Lineup:
Janeane Garafolo (24, SNL, Reality Bites)
James Adomian (Comedy Bang Bang, Last Comic Standing)
Kurt Metzger (Last Comic Standing)
Jared Logan (Comedy Central)
Mark Normand (Comedy Central)
Matt Ruby (MTV, SxSW)



RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Doors: 8pm
Seating: 8:30pm
Show: 9:00pm sharp

Ella Lounge
Downstairs room
9 Avenue A (between 1st and 2nd St)
FREE
RSVP: FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Produced by Mark Normand, Matt Ruby, Gary Vider, and Sachi Ezura.



(Can't make it? Our next show at Ella is Wednesday, December 26 at 8:30pm.)

My Joke of the Week in Time Out NY

Joke of the week!



Thanks to the great Mindy Tucker for the swell photo. I told her to use her "soulful eyes" filter.

A screenplay and comedy-centric look at "making it" in the entertainment industry

Here's What People Won't Tell You About How to Make it In the Entertainment Industry But I Will by Mandy Stadtmiller offers up a screenplay and comedy-centric look at "making it."

As for making a splash online, think of something catchy, new, strong, simple, bold, authentic and calling-it-out true — like the viral gold standard “Stuff White People Like” — which is hilarious. Then do a Tumblr and Twitter of the same name and YouTube if you can. Boom, you just created your brand. Think: “Texts From Last Night.” One idea. Stick to that, and see if it’s fun and takes off. Nowadays anyone can become a brand or entrepreneur this way...

You can network your brains out, but if you haven't produced/created/completed/delivered the project -- as in, written the book, started the blog, written the screenplay, shot the video, staged the one-person-show or developed the tight five minutes of material of standup -- you'll get nowhere.

Concentrate on creating something that you are passionate and excited about, and you'll be blown away by what happens. Even if it doesn't land you the exact career you dreamed of, you'll have created something that you love. I know it'd be cooler if it were guaranteed that it would make your career, but creating something you love will change and influence you in ways you never dreamed of...

Podcasting is changing the industry; so is someone like Louis C.K. who is selling direct to fans. So is Twitter. As Seth Godin says: The way the industry is nowadays, no one is going to pick you. Pick yourself instead.

I agree with the idea that making something you think is great comes with some nice side benefits, even if it doesn't rocket you to stardom. Plus, the opposite is even scarier. As I've said before, there's nothing worse than selling out without selling anything.

Podcast: We're All Friends Here with Yannis Pappas

It's another WAFH episode. This time, one of our fave guests Yannis Pappas talks about his transgendered character Mauricia Rodriquez, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and inbreeding. Download at iTunes or listen at Cave Comedy Radio.

"Conviction" by Manolo Blahnik?

Tough to tell whether this is a shot of Lindsay Lohan doing a perp walk or an ad for fancy shoes in Vogue.

Easy vs. hard

Easy: Being cool.
Hard: Being nice.

Easy: Having "something to say."
Hard: Working at your craft.

Easy: Trivia.
Hard: Wisdom.

Easy: Fashion.
Hard: Style.

Easy: Curating.
Hard: Inventing.

Easy: Cynical.
Hard: Romantic.

Easy: 0s and 1s.
Hard: Analog.

Easy: Autotune.
Hard: Billie Holliday.

Easy: Snap to grid.
Hard: Drawn by hand.

Easy: Exciting!
Hard: Interesting.

Easy: Breaking the rules.
Hard: Knowing how to do it right (and then choosing when to do it wrong).

Easy: Texting.
Hard: Talking.

Easy: Internet bandwidth.
Hard: Emotional bandwidth.

Easy: "I have a disorder."
Hard: "It's my fault."

Easy: The part that fits in.
Hard: The part that's like no one else.

Easy: Stream of consciousness.
Hard: Spending time on it.

Easy: Being anonymous.
Hard: Putting your name on it.

Easy: Clever.
Hard: Soulful.

Easy: Making people think.
Hard: Making 'em feel.

Easy: Talking about it.
Hard: Doing it.

Easy: Lists.
Hard: Life.

The Bible vs. internet terms

A while back I talked about "nailed it" jokes. One to add to the list is Pat Dixon on the Bible:

The Bible is like those long disclaimers that you see on the Internet because nobody reads those either. You just scroll to the bottom and click, 'I agree.'

Reminded of it by Myq's podcast with Yannis and Ted Alexandro where they all commented on what a great joke it is.

Related: Pat Dixon on walking the line

Reboot of the We're All Friends Here podcast, first one up: Donald Glover

We've rebooted the We're All Friends Here podcast. It's now on Cave Comedy Radio (with the help of Mr. Marcus Parks). We're digging into the archives, picking out the best interviews, and posting 'em again (this time with just one guest at a time). Plus our iTunes listings give ya full details now so it's easy to listen to the peoples ya want.

It's the comedy chat show with boundary issues! Join hosts Mark Normand and Matt Ruby as they bring New York City's best comedians onstage to open up about their personal lives, sex, drugs, religion, race and more.

Episode 1 features comic/actor/rapper Donald Glover. I hear you mumbling, "So what? I can watch him on Fallon." Well ya won't hear him like this. We discuss why Jews are neurotic, why black people have good teeth, why he doesn't do well with black girls, and how people with AIDS can be assholes. See, different! (And fyi, we were doing this all way before Maron had a podcast.)

If ya never got onboard the WAFH train, now's the time. Other episodes are posted there too and more on the way.

iTunes listen/subscribe.
Listen to WAFH with Donald Glover at Cave Comedy Radio.

If ya dig it, please leave a comment/rating at iTunes. Thanks.

The three funniest "in theater" movies Judd Apatow's seen

This episode of Serious Jibber-Jabber is a great talk between Conan O’Brien and Judd Apatow. Apatow lists the three funniest "this film is destroying" movies he's ever seen in the theater: Airplane, Young Frankenstein, and There's Something About Mary.

He also talks about The Cable Guy and how this beatdown scene...



...created problems since the audience became scared of Jim Carrey's character and couldn't laugh at him afterwards – because they feared he might actually kill someone. According to Apatow, that's why the film plays better the second time you see it.

Which led me to think: It'd be great if there was a podcast/talkshow where film and tv directors talk about flaws in their work. Everyone's always hyping everything. Let's hear about what could have been done better or what went wrong.

Best man wedding speech from Mitchell and Webb

So good.

Ken Burns on storytelling: "All story is manipulation"

Burns says a great story is one where 1+1=3. Sounds similar to the A-C thinking that makes good punchlines.

Ken Burns: On Story from Redglass Pictures on Vimeo.

Rush Limbaugh and "speaks so well"

Silly Rush Limbaugh said Repubs should get more credit for minorities like Condi Rice, and mentions that she's "well-spoken."

But we're not getting the votes that Obama got last night because we have Condoleeza Rice – and she is a pinnacle of achievement, and intelligent, and well-spoken...

Matt Taibbi comments:

He again asks the "isn't it enough to have Condoleeza Rice" question, and here even supplies an answer – it should be enough, because, get this: she's not just black and a woman, she's WELL-SPOKEN! He actually plays the "well-spoken" card.

Cue Chris Rock's great bit on why saying someone "speaks so well" ain't much of a compliment.

Patrice O'neal's (last?) interview

Jay Mohr and Patrice O'neal wrestle over integrity and getting paid. Pretty fascinating.

Schtick or Treat (year 5) photos are up

Schtick or Treat photos are up! Great job, as always, by Mindy Tucker.

We're All Friends Here has a new podcast home and a show on Sat night as part of The New York Comedy Festival

Saturday night show
Got a special blockbuster edition of our We're All Friends Here show (the talk show with boundary issues) coming up as part of The New York Comedy Festival. It's hosted by Mark Normand and yours truly and has this sweet lineup:

Kurt Metzger (Comedy Central)
Jeff Dye (MTV's Money From Strangers)
Myq Kaplan (Last Comic Standing)

We're All Friends Here
Saturday, November 10 - 8:00pm
The Creek and The Cave
10-93 Jackson Avenue in LIC
$10 - Advance tix are available here

The podcast gets a reboot
And big podcast news, we're rebooting the WAFH podcast on the Cave Comedy Radio Podcast Network.

We've dipped into the archive to bring back some of the best interviews. (We were doing this before WTF was a twinkle in Maron's mustache.) Each episode is just one guest so it's a faster listen and you can cherry pick your faves.

First one is the Donald Glover ep and we discuss AIDS, handicapped people, sex tips, Blacks, Asians, and Jews. We really covered it all! The others have more along those lines. Here's the first four episodes which are up now:

Donald Glover
On this, the first episode of We're All Friends Here on CCR: we travel all the way back to 2009 as Mark Normand and Matt Ruby ask comedy superstar Donald Glover about the most personal and embarrassing moments of his life before the man was famous. More episodes from the archives of famous peeps to come!

Ali Wong
On this WAFH: Ali Wong talks about being a dirty, dirty girl in as many different ways as she can.

Michael Che
On this WAFH: Michael Che sits down to talk about growing up the Lower East Side, how having older siblings shaped his sexual views, and bad vaginas.

Erik Bergstrom
On this WAFH: Erik Bergstrom talks about growing up above a porn store in Minnesota, the time he was dumped for a dude in a band called Angel Spit, and much more.

Listen/subscribe at iTunes or at Cave Comedy Radio.

Schtick was a blast

Gotta be honest. We were worried that Sandy would kill Schtick or Treat's mojo. But the rescheduled version last night at Littlefield was a blast. Great pics from Mindy Tucker coming soon.

Partial lineup of what went down...

Adam Conover - John Mulaney
Adam Newman - Rob Schneider
Bill Stiteler - Seth Galifianakis
Chesley Calloway - Amy Schumer
Gonzalo Cordova - Tig Notaro
Greg Stone - Rodney Bane-gerfield
James Adomian - Louis CK
Jason Saenz - Joey Gladstone
Jay Welch - Redd Foxx
Jeff Wesselschmidt - Martin Lawrence
Jessica Watkins - Lily Tomlin
Jim Van Blaricum - Matt McCarthy
Joe List - Kenny Bannion
Joe Pera & Dan Licata - George Lopez & Pitbull
Josh Gondelman - Todd Barry
Kate Hendricks & Jamie Lee - Chelsea Handler & Kim Kardashian
Katie Hannigan - Ricky Gervais
Mara Herron - Dana Carvey
Mark Normand - Krusty
Matt Maragno & Charles Gould - Joe Rogan & Woody Allen
Matt Wayne - Tim Allen
Matt Ruby - Daniel Tosh
Michelle Wolf - Kathy Griffin
Myq Kaplan - Pete Holmes
Nick Vatterott - Darrel Bluett
Peter Moses - Jim Gaffigan
Reformed Whores - Flight of the Conchords
Robbie Collier - Norm MacDonald
Robert Dean - Mike Birbiglia
Sachi - Weird Al
Selena Coppock - Lisa Lampanelli
Tony Zaret - Steve Harvey
Travis Irvine - Bill Hicks
Zach Broussard - Katt Williams
Abbi Crutchfield - Wanda Sykes

@curlycomedy @marknorm @mattruby @misstrionics One of my favorite shows of the year. Great job, Wanda!

— mindy tucker (@withreservation) November 5, 2012

Schtick or Treat was a blast tonight.Thanks @marknorm and @mattruby!The most fun!

— Robbie Collier (@CollierRobbie) November 5, 2012

And faux Birbigs (Robert Dean) had a video...

Seth Meyers, steroids, and global warming

Seth Meyers had a great segment on Fallon the other night (the one with no crowd). In it, he made a great analogy between global warming and the steroid era in baseball (at 1:55 in)...

None of the debates did they mention climate change. And I feel like every six months the worst thing that’s ever happend in the world happens weather-wise. And I feel like we’re going to look back on this time the way baseball fans in the 90s were like “No, nobody’s using steroids.” We are in the Steroid Era of storms and yet there are more people in Congress who probably think this is because, like, gays are marrying… Than the fact that the world is just dying.

Maybe that influenced Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, who offered up a baseball analogy in this It's Global Warming, Stupid article.

We can’t say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther. Now we have weather on steroids.

Btw, I kinda enjoyed the crowd-less late night shows. Felt more human and less AMPED UP!!!

Schtick or Treat rescheduled to this Sunday!

This is a Schtick up(date)!

Sandy rained us out the first time but we're going for it on Sunday at 8pm at Littlefield.

Showtime: 8:00PM (Doors: 7:30PM)
Littlefield
622 Degraw St (between 3rd and 4th Ave) in Park Slope, Brooklyn
Tickets: $8 advance/$10 at door
Advance tix are available here.
Facebook event

A highbrow justification for telling dick jokes

Louis C.K. and the Rise of the 'Laptop Loners' is an interesting, if perhaps overly smartypants, look at why CK's show succeeds. Warning: Professorial references to Raymond Carver, Fellini, James Joyce, David Lynch, and Thomas Pynchon ahead.

It also includes this rather highbrow justification for telling shit/dick jokes:

Short clips from C.K.’s standup are intercut with these vignettes: C.K. describing his life as a “48 hour cycle of diarrhea,” or the way he “rain[s] sweat” on women during sex, or the woman who committed suicide two years after performing oral sex on him because “that’s the gestation period of suicidal shame that comes from having had my penis in your mouth.” The current season opened with a monologue on needing reading glasses in order to masturbate. If you can stomach the scatology, you’ll see that these jokes are meant to make you laugh, but more so to open a candid investigation into corporeality; into what it’s like to live in a body that disobeys, decays, and will one day cease to exist.

Next time someone criticizes your jerk off joke, explain to them it's merely "a candid investigation into corporeality."

Halloween lovers

Cracks me up when people say, "My favorite holiday is Halloween!" Oh really? Your favorite holiday is the one that's not religious at all, involves wearing masks and sexy outfits, and everyone goes out and gets shitfaced and loses their inhibitions? I'm not exactly shocked ya prefer that to Easter. It's like saying, "My favorite book is getting a massage."

Obama does Foxworthy

Ha, the prez is doing bits now. Romnesia in place of redneck.

"The Place Where It All Comes From"

In Finding Inspiration in Improvisation, musician David Yazbek talks about "The Place Where It All Comes From, the place that Buddha and Jesus and these days Oprah talk about — The Now."

I’ve known clearly for years that that is where all my best work comes from and that 9/10th of my life is devoted to avoiding getting there. But I also know that when I can stop distracting myself and get there — writing or recording music — I’m a complete version of myself, open to an infinite source of creativity, and I’m happy.

I’m always looking for a ticket to Nowsville. These days what gets me there has something to do with what feels genuine and truthful, art as opposed to artifice. I’m not finding too much of it in modern music: the posturing rock, the stale classical institution, jazz, which mostly has its head way up its own rear, as does most musical theater, which really needs to open some windows and breathe some outside air. Exceptions like Jack White are few and far between, and I’d go anywhere to hear music that thrills me in a genuine way.

Weirdly, TV has been a reliable source of inspiration for me the last several years. Lately, it’s been Louis C.K., whose show is able to elicit sober introspection as easily as explosive laughter. He’s using his deep craft and gut instincts to make these exquisite half-hour movies and he’s almost always creatively in-the-zone...When Louis C.K. smashes us in the face with comedy that isn’t merely distracting, we’re all getting a giant hit of real art. Some of us will go home with that buzz and use it to help tap into our own creativity.

More on Yazbek.

The Financial Times on Vooza

Heh. Vooza, the video comic strip we're making, got The Financial Times to run a headline that says, "It’s like Spotify meets Grindr except for rental cars..." Plus there's a nearly full frontal photo of Nate Fernald (along with Meg Cupernall and Steve O'Brien). Ya can read it online here.

Jay Leno's standup war stories

Leno describes a bunch of hell gigs and also talks about why he still does 160 standup dates a year.

Comics can't go in the basement and write an act. Maybe some can but I can't. The audience gives me another 40 percent. I'll write a joke and then when I get out there in front of an audience I'll say it and suddenly it's tighter and more concise because they're looking at me and I'm just thinking fast. Y'know, when you're writing, you're thinking slow. And when you're onstage, you think fast. And when you think fast, that's when the funniest stuff comes out.

Here he is back in 1976. Helluva hat.

Trying too hard to please the audience

TSJ interviews Gary Gulman:

I think when I first started I was very precious and aware that I could be liked onstage. I cultivated that; I was much sweeter onstage than I needed to be. And I think a lot of comedians try to please the audience when they start.

It's a strange thing to want to be more likable onstage (or offstage for that matter). Trying really hard to be likable is, well, rather unlikable. It seems pandering.

Meanwhile, the guy who doesn't give a shit whether you like him or not comes off as confident. Apathy can be awful sexy.

Sometimes they don't want you to please them. They just want you to be who you are, warts and all. People dig warts.

Wall Street doesn't like Obama's tone!

Just read this: Why Do America’s Super-Rich Feel Victimized by Obama?

So let me get this straight, Wall Street. You got bailed out entirely, no one went to jail, and now you're making more than ever yet you're pissed off about Obama's "divisive, polarizing tone"!?

That takes some balls. "Sure you loaned me $700 billion...but I didn't like your tone while you did it." When someone helps you get away with murder, just say thanks and mosey along.

Man, I so wish there was a group arguing for the other side that didn't involve a people's mic.

Lesser jokes get in the way of really good ones

This Cheers Oral History is a fun read if you're a fan of the show.

In it, David Lee (writer-executive producer), talks about the trap of going for laughs per minute or jokes per page.

On some shows, [the producers] say, “Oh, you gotta have 10 jokes per page.” Glen and Les would go, “You know, it’s better to get rid of the ‘Fifty percenters,’—the jokes that are just chuckles—and be satisfied with the hundred percenters.” If you have enough lesser jokes in the way, you actually start diminishing the value of the really good ones.

Interesting idea that a light laugh actually detracts from the bigger ones.

John Ratzenberger (Cliff Clavin) also explains how he improvised his way into the role.

I'd spent ten years in London, writing and performing my own comedy shows. They gave me the Cheers [scenes], and I thought it was the springboard for chatting about the show, because in England, that's what you do. So I walk in, and I'm looking around, and Jimmy Burrows said, "What are you looking at? You're not here to have a conversation; you're here to audition." At that second, I felt all the blood rush out of my body. I did a horrible job. As I was leaving, the casting director says, "Thank you, John," and my eight-by-ten was already in a wastebasket. But the writer part of me turned around and said, "Do you have a bar know-it-all?" Because in the bars in my neighborhood where my father hung out, there was always a bar know-it-all. Glen said, "What are you talking about?" I just launched into an improvisation of what [became Cliff].

"How's life treating you, Norm?"
"Like it caught me sleeping with its wife."

The 5th Annual SCHTICK OR TREAT will be Nov 4 at Littlefield!

Announcing...
The 5th Annual SCHTICK OR TREAT
Halloween comedy tribute show
Hosted by Matt Ruby and Mark Normand
2011 ECNY nominee for Best Comedy Event

Sunday, Nov 4 (rescheduled!)
Showtime: 8:00PM (Doors: 7:30PM)
Littlefield
622 Degraw St (between 3rd and 4th Ave) in Park Slope, Brooklyn (map)
Tickets: $8 advance/$10 at door (Buy now)

This show features dozens of NYC's top comedians performing as their favorite comedy legends! Each comic gets up to three minutes to do a set as a famous comic and then it's on to the next performer. It's pretty much the most fun comedy show ever and if you don't believe that, check out the photos/videos below...



Mindy Tucker's great photos from the shows in 2011 and 2010.

Videos from previous editions of the show:





This year's edition will feature FAKE versions of:

Wanda Sykes
Rob Schneider
Seth Galifianakis
Dennis Miller
Tig Notaro
Pete Holmes
Martin Lawrence
Maria Bamford
Chelsea Handler
Ricky Gervais
Dana Carvey
Mark Twain
Reggie Watts
Joe Rogan
Flight of the Conchords
Groucho Marx
Norm MacDonald
Mike Birbiglia
Lisa Lampanelli
Steve Harvey
Katt Williams
...and more!

The art of accounting for artists

This piece on Grizzly Bear looks at the accounting of being in a rock band. Hey, at least comedians don't have to pay for guys to run sound/lights.

The band’s hesitant to talk about money at all. And after I talk to solo artist and former Hold Steady sideman Franz Nicolay about the rigors of his job—constant low-level panic over never having more than a couple of months’ worth of cash, rarely having health insurance, having to tour so often that you can’t take a break to write and record another album to tour for—he sends a quick explanatory e-mail: “I want to make clear,” he says, “because a lot of the response musicians get when they talk about the difficulty of the lifestyle, especially touring lifestyle, is of the ‘oh, boo-hoo’ variety, that I’m not complaining about any of it in any way that anyone wouldn’t grouse about their job. The smart lifer musician goes into it with eyes wide open, assuming it’s going to be a rewarding but difficult way to make a living.” When I go to a Williamsburg bar to meet Frankie Rose, veteran of a string of much-discussed rock bands, she’s just back from touring a solo album—her first stint without a day job—and already talking to the bartender about finding work. “I feel like if you’re in this at all to make money,” she says, “then you’re crazy. Unless you’re Lana Del Rey or something, it’s a moot point. You’d better be doing it for the love of it, because nobody’s making real money.”

If you're in it for the money, well, there are easier ways to make money. Sounds familiar. The article also discusses one musician who decided to escape the grind.

Travis Morrison is one person for whom it ended—an ex–professional musician. From the mid-nineties until 2003, he fronted the D.C. band the Dismemberment Plan, which had a rabid following and briefly signed with a major label; after they split, he embarked on an ill-fated solo career. “I was making absolutely no money,” he says. “It forced my hand into some major life choices, which in retrospect I’m really appreciative of.” He’s now the director of commercial production for the Huffington Post and finds himself enjoying music in ways that vanished when it was his full-time job. “You get popular for a while,” he says, “and then you get kicked out of the game. That’s what happened to me, and if I have reason to complain about it, then so do tens of thousands of people who had some kind of success and then it ended.” As for the money: “You know how some people say, ‘I would really like to make a middle-class living doing the arts; I feel like I deserve that’? Honestly, I never felt that. I never felt like artists deserved a living. I feel like getting a million dollars for my songs is just about the same as getting it from playing a card at 7-Eleven.”

Bands tend to blow up faster than comics do. The downside of that: They can fade a lot faster too.

Carrie Brownstein on Nina Simone

In Great Moments in Inspiration, Carrie Brownstein of “Portlandia” offers up this moment:

It’s actually the footage of Nina Simone performing live at Montreux in 1976 - when I watch that, it’s like I never want to sit down again. I never want to do anything that doesn’t involve hunger and ache. You feel like you never want to be complacent or smug or entitled, and you want to ask and demand - not only of yourself but of the audience - to try harder, to feel more, to be bolder, to participate.

Some clips from that (more here):

I like biographies too much

More at Vooza.com.

Seth Meyers vs. groans

Fun to watch Seth Meyers test out jokes in front of a not amped-up/giddy crowd.

How jokes are like magic tricks

The Honor System is a really interesting look at Teller and the thief who tried to steal this trick from him:



The article mentions how Jim Steinmeyer, one of the greatest inventors of magic, compares jokes and tricks in his book Hiding the Elephant.

In it, he writes that the best tricks are a "collection of tiny lies, in words and deeds, that are stacked and arranged ingeniously." Like jokes, tricks should have little plots with a twist at the end that's both implausible and yet logical. You shouldn't see the punchline coming, but when you do see it, it makes sense. The secret to a great trick isn't really its method; the method behind most tricks is ugly and disappointing, something blunt and mechanical...The value of a trick lies mostly in how much it stokes that battle between your head and your heart, and how badly it makes you want for your heart to win.

I like the "implausible yet logical" concept. I often think of a great joke as being the hard-to-find combination of truthful yet surprising.

It was also interesting to hear Teller discuss how hard it is to hone a trick:

The real point of magic, Teller said during those lectures, is "telling a beautiful lie. It lets you see what the world would be like if cause and effect weren't bound by physics." It's the collision between what you know and what you see that provides magic's greatest spark.

So Teller rigged a thread in his home library, and he put Abbott's ancient instructions on a music stand — pages that had been miraculously saved from a trash fire years before — and he went to work on making the impossible seem real. Eventually, he decided that the ball shouldn't float but roll. That would look simpler, but it would be harder. He practiced some more at a mirrored dance studio in Toronto, and at a cabin deep in the woods, and on the empty stage in Penn & Teller's theater. After every show for eighteen months, he would spend at least an hour, by himself, trying to make the Red Ball obey. ("Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect," Teller says.)

"I have to screw around," he told those four audiences, "to sniff the scent of an idea and track it down like a wild boar in the forest.

"It's still the hardest-to-execute piece of magic I've ever tried. In six months or a year, it will start to settle into my bones. In ten years, it'll be perfect.

Telling a beautiful lie, eh? Reminds me of a tweet I wrote a while back: Comedy is the most beautiful way to complain.

Btw, Nate Bargatze talked a lot about how his dad was a magician during his great WTF interview. Here's a clip of Nate's dad performing. Funny guy!



Related:
Teller and the magic of surprise
The brotherhood of magic and comedy

Photos from the SF Comedy Contest

I'm back from doing shows in SF. Here's what that looked like:

Marin Center, San Rafael

Montbleu Casino (Stateline, NV)

Crow’s Nest (Santa Cruz, CA)

The Purple Onion (San Francisco, CA)

New video: Amish Cop Hasidic Cop

Two New York City detectives, one Amish and one Hasidic, lose their partners and are forced to work together to catch a bank robber. Make haste!

WRITTEN BY AND STARRING
Detective Singer - Matt Ruby
Detective Fisher - Mark Normand

ADDITIONAL CAST
Police chief - Dan Soder
Robbery Victim - Victoria Harrington
Gorilla - Robert Dean
Costume shop employee - Erik Bergstrom
Cop #1 - Nick Maritato
Cop #2 - Sean Donnelly

Director - Matt Lawrence
Editor - John Schlirf
Cameraman - Robertino Zambrano

"A few things in common"

Sometimes aspiring comics read this blog and then send me emails about doing standup. Here's an excerpt from one:

I'm writing to you because you seem like a good guy who genuinely would like to help new comedians and I have a few things in common with you. For example, I'm 30 and have already lost a lot of hair, I can't go out in the sun either, because I get a new permanent mole every 15 minutes, and I have a Jewish stepfather. I'm not Jewish and I don't have any jokes about Jews, but I've been racking my brains to think of one.

Nice to know we've got a lot in common! I told him there's no way to make it in standup without jokes about Jews.

Bill Clinton riffs a lot

What Bill Clinton Wrote vs. What Bill Clinton Said looks at Clinton's convention speech and shows how much he went off script (a lot) from his prepared remarks.

Most experienced public speakers know how to deviate and alter and add flourishes to their prepared remarks on the fly, but few do it as well as Clinton. (Even if you disagree with what he's saying.) As you can see below, from a purely rhetorical standpoint nearly all of his changes enhanced the text in some way and brought added emphasis to arguments. Notice his frequent changing of "should vote for Barack Obama" to "must vote." And his even more frequent use of "Now" and "Look" when beginning a point. Many of his best lines — like his "bloodsport" quote — were either ad-libbed or added in back in at the last moment.

Related:
The Bill Clinton speech that Louis CK calls "one of the greatest things I ever saw"
How Bill Clinton handled a heckler back in the day

Unfunny success

In a piece on slow comedy, Matt Shafeek relays some advice UCB instructor Michael Delaney once gave him.

“If you create a world with ridiculous characters, you may discover something funny in your scene. But I believe the stronger decision is to play real, grounded characters that are vulnerable and affected by the world around them. You take your time, perform at the top of your intelligence, and react realistically to what happens. Now, this won’t always lead to a hilarious scene. Sometimes you’ll have a scene that won’t be funny at all. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t successful. Sometimes you’ve just made some interesting theater. And if that sounds awful, know that the audience will not hate you like they will if you try to force something funny on them and it falls flat.”

Sometimes as a standup, I feel like laughter is holding me hostage. Like there's stuff I want to be talking about but I can't because it doesn't get laughs that are as big/frequent as stuff that I don't want to talk about. Should I talk about my mom's illness which can get tense or should I talk about sex stuff which hits hard? Your job is to get laughs and things can go south if you try to get to deep so it's tempting to take the path of least resistance.

Finding that balance between "interesting theater" and big laughs is a challenge. I guess it also depends on how you define success. Is it by laughs per minute or is it how engaged an audience is or is it how much they remember what you said afterwards or something else?

The ideal is to have it all. To create funny and interesting stuff that's deep, soulful, or whatever your ideal is. But if you do fail, it feels a lot better to fail talking about what you really want to talk about. There's nothing worse than selling out without ever actually selling anything.

See me at Comics to Watch, CSL, We're All Friends Here, SF/Boston fests, etc.

Comics to Watch
Tonight (Sep 5) I'll be performing at Caroline's on the “Comics to Watch” show.
Tickets are free and available here.

“Comics to Watch” is a live stand-up showcase featuring the very best new talent from across the country, hand selected by Comedy Central and the festival producers. This show was created to launch the careers of the next generation of comedians by putting them in front of industry executives and comedy fans.

CSL
Tomorrow (Sep 6) I'll be doing the CSL show at Kabin. Always one of my fave shows to do. Starts 9:30ish.

We're All Friends Here
Then on Saturday (Sep 8), We're All Friends Here returns...

Lineup:
Mad Dog Mattern
Jono Zalay
& Special Guest

Sat, Sep 8 - 8pm
FREE
The Creek and The Cave
10-93 Jackson Avenue
Long Island City, NY

Past episodes of the show available at iTunes.

More
After that, I'll be at the San Francisco Comedy Contest and Boston Comedy Festival...

9/5 - 8:00pm - Comics to Watch @ Caroline's
9/6 - 9:00pm - CSL @ Kabin
9/8 - 8:00pm - We're All Friends Here @ The Creek
9/8 - 11:59pm - Underground Americana @ UCB Chelsea
9/11 - 7:00pm - New York’s Funniest Stand-up Competition Audition @ Caroline's
9/14 - 8:30pm - Marin Showcase Theatre - San Rafael, CA
9/15 - Time TBA - Montbleu Resort Casino - Stateline, NV
9/16 - 9:00pm - Crows Nest - Santa Cruz, CA
9/17 - 8:00pm - Purple Onion - San Francisco, CA
9/18 - 9:00pm - Boston Comedy Fest @ Davis Sq Theatre - Boston, MA
9/20 - 9:00pm - Fresh Out @ UCB-East

All shows listed here. I also send out updates to my email list if you wanna sign up.