I've got PDX-SEA-BC dates coming up

I'll be Pac NW-ing over the next week:

Friday, September 6
9:30pm
Fly Ass @ Brody Theater (Portland, OR)

Saturday, September 7
10:00pm
Mixology @ Curious Comedy Theater (Portland, OR)

Sunday, September 8
7:30pm
Weird and Awesome @ Annex Theater (Seattle)

Monday, September 9
8:00pm
Bogarts Comedy Showcase (Seattle)

Tuesday, September 10
8:00pm
The Grotto - in the basement of the Rendezvous (Seattle)

Thursday, September 12
7:30pm
Level Up! @ The Capitol Club (Seattle)

Friday, September 13
8:00pm
Heckler's (Victoria, BC)

Saturday, September 14
8:00pm
Heckler's (Victoria, BC)

All shows listed here.

Portlandia director on why he wants a guerilla operation

Interview: ‘Portlandia’ writer/director Jonathan Krisel. He talks about the advantages to doing a (relatively) low budget show.

It definitely is a guerilla operation. That’s the way I wanted it; I would not want it any other way. You can change gears easier, since the show is totally improvised. I mean, there are scripts (later described as a loose outline), you can meander and it’s nice to have the ability to go, “Something came up in that last take, let’s maneuver to change the story a little bit”. That’s nice, to have sort of a nimble crew and options available, that we can sort of be inspired in the moment and be able to actually do something about it, as opposed to, “Oh, that would have been great, but we can’t actually do that.”The Portland crew is really essential to that; I felt like the people up there are more interested in making artistic things. There’s a real value in it. There’s not as much value in, “Is this going to come in exactly on budget?” or, “We got the day done!”, it’s like “Well whats the creative… what do you guys really need, what do you want?” and there’s a real satisfaction from everyone when we go, “That was really funny and we got it."

It's part of why I like the run and gun style we use when shooting Vooza. Flexibility gives you more room to be funny. The bigger the budget = the more people want you to stick to exact script and production schedule = it gets tougher to capture those funny moments that just pop up. Guerilla style means you can wing it instead of feeling ball and chained.

Frank Zappa defends freedom of speech

They're just words.



(via SvN)

Wired UK profiles Vooza: "'Spinal Tap for startups' Vooza uses satire to smuggle advertising"

Wired UK wrote a big piece on Vooza: 'Spinal Tap for startups' Vooza uses satire to smuggle advertising. (Does "smuggle" mean something different in the UK!?)

Ruby admits that Vooza's real journey was not dissimilar to the journey of the very startups it mocks. "Although we make fun of startups, there are a lot of principles we embody: we make something, put it out in the world, see if the audience is there, see if we get traction and then pivot a little," he says, adding, "I can't use these words with a straight face any more."

Here'a a recent episode:

I'm learning about feminism from Jezebel

Learning about feminism from @Jezebel! "What Miley is doing amounts to minstrelsy, as BigTittieComittee points out…" pic.twitter.com/6kzO41Ol13

— Matt Ruby (@mattruby) August 27, 2013

HOT SOUP tonight (8/27) with Hanley, Branum, and more

HOT SOUP is at Irish Exit again tonight (8/27) and every Tuesday at 8pm. The lineup:

Phil Hanley
John Flynn
Jon Rineman
Guy Branum
Tommy Pope
Gary Vider
Matt Ruby

Full event details at Facebook.

What Jackson Browne taught Glenn Frey about songwriting

Bill Simmons wrote a crazy long piece about The History of the Eagles documentary.

In the doc, Glenn Frey explains how living above Jackson Browne taught him about the hard work required to write a song.

Around nine in the morning. I’d hear Jackson Browne’s teapot going off with this whistle in the distance, and then I’d hear him playing piano. I didn’t really know how to write songs. I knew I wanted to write songs, but I didn’t know exactly, did you just wait around for inspiration, you know, what was the deal? I learned through Jackson’s ceiling and my floor exactly how to write songs, ‘cause Jackson would get up, and he’d play the first verse and first course, and he’d play it 20 times, until he had it just the way he wanted it. And then there’d be silence, and then I’d hear the teapot going off again, and it would be quiet for 20 minutes, and then I’d hear him start to play again … and I’m up there going, so that’s how you do it? Elbow grease. Time. Thought. Persistence.

Sounds like what it takes to put together a great comedy set. Or anything else really. Elbow grease. Time. Thought. Persistence. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Another part of the doc I loved was Frey yelling at the Eagles' bass player for not wanting to sing "Take It to the Limit" in concert.

I confronted him. I said, ‘Randy, there’s thousands of people waiting for you to sing that song. You just can’t say “Fuck ‘em, I don’t feel like it.” Do you think I like singing “Take It Easy” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling” every night? I’m tired of those songs. But there’s people in the audience who’ve been waiting YEARS to see us do those songs.’ We just got fed up with that. ‘OK, don’t sing it. Why don’t you just quit?’”

I just love the idea of a coked up Frey BITCHING about having to sing songs with laid-back titles like “Take It Easy” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and then yelling at his bass player to quit. Talk about unintentional comedy. "You think I like singing Peaceful Easy Fucking Feeling every night!? No, But I goddamn do it! I hope you quit! OK, now I'm gonna sing 'Take It Easy'..." So great.

Nate Fernald's "Crush City Setlist"

Nate knows how to kill it. I like the last item on the initial list too.

HOT SOUP comedy with Finnegan/Lawrence/Donnelly/more

Every TUESDAY night at IRISH EXIT, get your fix of HOT SOUP comedy. The show is FREE and there's a great drink special: an OPTIONAL open bar from 8-10pm during the show for only $15.

:: THIS WEEK'S LINEUP
Michael Lawrence
Ahmed Bharoocha
Sean Donnelly
Christian Finnegan
Jennie Sutton
Mark Normand

Hosted by Matt Ruby

RSVP to confirm your spot:
http://www.irishexitnyc.com/forms/comedy-show-rsvp

:: TIME
Seating: 8pm
Show: 8:30pm

:: PLACE
Irish Exit @ 978 2nd Ave (at corner of 52nd St)

:: PRODUCERS
Produced by Mark Normand, Matt Ruby, & Gary Vider

:: STAY IN TOUCH
Sign up for Hot Soup email list: http://eepurl.com/sX5j5
"Like" Hot Soup on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hotsoupcomedy

Tips for finding your voice

Comedy folks are always talking about "finding your voice" but it's a fuzzy topic. Connected Comedy offers some interesting advice in this “How do I find my voice?” piece. One of the tips: "Your Voice Needs To Be Consistent."

In order for your voice to really connect with people you need for it to be consistent. You can’t have an anti-establishment outlook on the world in one bit and then suddenly be pro-establishment in the next or else your voice will seem disjointed and nobody will be quite sure what to think of you. For example, if your comedic voice is that of a “nerd,” then it’s unlikely that bits about how you were a cool kid in high school are really going to fit your voice. This is another reason why it’s important when considering what your comedic voice is to choose carefully because it will ultimately impact your material and every other decision you make about your career.

I've learned a similar lesson when doing characters onstage. Play a certain role and it becomes much easier for the audience to know exactly who you are, where you're coming from, and the "filter" that all your jokes go through. The bad part: Being a fully, fleshed out human being with nuanced views doesn't fit this mode that well.

You may be tempted to give an audience all your different sides, but a caricature is easier for 'em to figure out. Especially in a short set.

Gary Vider, Joe List, Thomas Dale, and Andy Sandford on We're All Friends Here podcast

We're All Friends Here podcast has been going strong! (Btw, next live one is Aug 30 at The Creek.) Recent episodes:

Episode: 24
Gary Vider
Comedian Gary Vider is one of Mark and Matt's favorite people--and his father was a con man! Gary lays down all the nutty stories of helping his old man, and what it takes to be a businessman in comedy.

Episode: 23
Joe List
Comedian Joe List is straight from the heart of Boston--so he obviously has an STD or two. Mark and Matt get the backstory from one of America's funniest guys!

Episode: 22
Thomas Dale
Comedian Thomas Dale is having a great year. A writer and featured performer on CHELSEA LATELY, he also crushed it on THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON back in November. Thomas talks to Mark and Matt about the darker, more difficult aspects of growing up gay in a straight society, and how he dealt with his own coming out in a tough, New York family.

Episode: 21
Andy Sandford
Comedian Andy Sandford hails from Atlanta, where apparently you can get held up at a backroom poker game and can live to tell the tale. Andy shares the crazy stories from the dirty south on this week's episode!

Download here via iTunes or stream it at Cave Comedy Radio.

Why I'm ok with more Americans dying from terrorism

Wanted: A petition that says, "I'm ok with the possibility of more deaths from terrorism if it means we stop restricting our lives and liberties." I'd sign it.

I'll take more us dying if it means 1) America stops spying on its own citizens, 2) we don't have secret courts, 3) we never torture people, and 4) we get to hold onto all the other things that make (made?) America better than the people who hate us.

It's such a bummer to see Obama doing the ol' 4pm-on-a-Friday-in-August press conference – the best way to bury news you don't actually want people to talk about – explaining what's up with our internal spying. "Because the safety of the country depends on it...blah blah blah...America’s war on terrorism MAY one day end...blah blah blah."

C'mon. This is a war that will NEVER end because the enemy is a FEELING. We can not defeat terror just as we can not defeat fear as we can not defeat jealousy. Terror will be with us forever. This is a forever war and those are wars you are guaranteed to lose.

Our politicians think they must do anything possible to prevent another attack. And no one ever disagrees. That's on us. We need to stand up and say we're ok with more deaths. Of course people dying sucks. But a country that sacrifices all the liberties that made it great in the first place sucks even more.

And us New Yorkers especially need to stand up on this. Why are people in Utah and Nebraska deciding what we should do about terrorism anyway? Al Qaeda ain't going after 'em. Here's how voting on terrorism issues should go:

Work at embassy abroad = 3 votes
Live in NYC = 2 votes
Live in other major US city = 1 vote
Other = stay out of it

And I loved this headline: "President Obama orders intelligence chief accused of lying to Congress to lead NSA review." Sweet. After that, let's appoint the CEO of Goldman Sachs to lead a review on what's wrong with Wall Street. And after that, we can have a husband appoint his mistress to find out whether or not he's having an affair.

As a nation, we're losing our minds. We're acting like a bunch of hysterical, whiny babies that are scared of everything. When did we become such pussies? This formula is actually being sold to us...

Problem: Terrorists hate us for our freedoms.
Solution: Take away our own freedoms.

…and we're buying it. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

For the past 12 years, we've watched what America stands for slowly erode. And all this is EXACTLY what Osama Bin Laden dreamed would happen after 9/11. His plan has worked perfectly. We've invaded a country under false pretenses, gotten American troops mired endlessly in Afghanistan and Iraq (cost: 4,500 American soldiers dead, 32,000, over a trillion dollars), restricted our own liberties, and are now irrationally living lives based on fear. We shouldn't be worried about what happens IF the terrorists win. We should start realizing they've already won.

Woody Allen on the power of the unconscious mind

Woody Allen Interview in Esquire. [via YP] Woody talks about how a good writer surprises himself along the way...

What people who don't write don't understand is that they think you make up the line consciously — but you don't. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it's the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don't think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I've said. And I laugh at it, because I'm hearing it for the first time myself.

...and then he says, "The best you can do to get through life is distraction."

It's just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don't have to really face up to the fact that, you know, we're just temporary people with a very short time in a universe that will eventually be completely gone. And everything that you value, whether it's Shakespeare, Beethoven, da Vinci, or whatever, will be gone. The earth will be gone. The sun will be gone. There'll be nothing. The best you can do to get through life is distraction. Love works as a distraction. And work works as a distraction. You can distract yourself a billion different ways. But the key is to distract yourself.

FYI, Blue Jasmine is great. Blanchett is something else in it.

"I didn't even get an audition"/thinking about jealousy

Andy Sandford wrote a nice piece on What Jealousy And Bitterness Can Do For Your Comedy Career.

There is very little value in everyone knowing what level you deserve to be on as soon as you have reached that level. You shouldn’t want to get seen by industry people just because you “can” hold your own with the big dogs…it is much better to get as good as you possibly can under the radar so that when you do get seen, you blow everyone’s mind and are more than ready for whatever big break that might come your way. No one owes you anything for your hard work. The only benefit of your hard work is how good it has made you. This is why “years” in stand up almost means nothing. People progress at different rates, and sometimes someone has a breakthrough many years in; or maybe it just took a while for people to be able to appreciate their style. If you have the time to make a note of every thing that some undeserving peer got, then you have the time to put a little more effort into your act, which is the only thing that speaks for you, or should speak for you.

Well said. I think jealousy is a normal feeling. It's what you do with it that matters. You can bitch about stuff and let it bring you down and turn it into negative energy. Or you can use it as motivational fuel to fight harder. Once you're undeniably good, it'll all work out.

HOT SOUP on 8/6 with Soder/Gethard/Skinner/St. Germaine

Standing room only at HOT SOUP last week! We're back at Irish Exit again on Tuesday (8/6) and every Tuesday. The lineup:

Dan Soder (Comedy Central)
Dan St. Germaine (Conan)
Eliza Skinner (Fashion Police with Joan Rivers)
Chris Gethard (Comedy Central)

I'm hosting. Full event details at Facebook.

Comedian bios always suck but this one doesn't

I enjoyed Joe Zimmerman's bio at the Comedy Central site.

Joe Zimmerman is a comedian who has worked with the likes of every other comedian, including the ones who passed away before he was born. You may have seen Joe on every television show, with the painful exception of Alf, and you may recognize his voice as the stand-in voice-over for Morgan Freeman on National Geographic's March of the Penguins and Sigourney Weaver on the BBC’s Planet Earth.

"Electrifying!" - The Rolling Stone (in reference to a 1994 U2 concert)

"Hilarious!" -Joe Zimmerman, talking about the movie Kung Fu Panda

"Hands down the best live show I've ever seen." -Joe again, on Kung Fu Panda

"Well I don't care if it wasn't live, it FELT live!" -Joe (still talking about Kung Fu Panda)

Well done, Joe.

Oscar Wilde on fashion, etc.

Oscar Wilde quotes. Like this: "And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months." Or: "Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast." I like people who did standup before standup was a thing.

Related: Thinking like a comic: Fran Lebowitz, Steve Albini, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, etc.

Colin Quinn: "Move around and sell it a bit"

Colin Quinn’s Keynote Address at Montreal’s Just For Laughs 2013.

Everyone is standing there, ironically, not moving. Move around! You're going for your life right now. The only who can pull that off for more than 10 minutes without boring people is Todd Barry. Everybody else needs to fucking move around and sell it a bit. It's not hack to sell the shit you've been writing and slaving over. It's not a hack fucking move!" "One out of every 300 drunken audience members is thinking, 'Hey, he's a good writer.' Just move. Walk. Fucking open up your body. Yell once in a while. Get out there. Look them in the fucking eye. I'm trying to save your god-damned career. You know, I did it for years. I stood there in fucking monotone for 10 years. Oh. All the comedians thought I was amusing, but I was fucking dying every night.

Move it or lose 'em.

7/30 HOT SOUP with Bargatze/Kaplan/Logan (now every TUE night at IRISH EXIT)

Every TUESDAY night at IRISH EXIT, get your fix of HOT SOUP comedy. The show is FREE and there's a great drink special: an OPTIONAL open bar from 8-10pm during the show for only $15.

LINEUP
Nate Bargatze (Conan)
Myq Kaplan (Conan)
Jared Logan (Comedy Central)
Sergio Chicon (Comedy Central)
Gary Vider (Laughing Skull)
Matt Ruby (MTV)

RSVP to confirm your spot:
http://www.irishexitnyc.com/forms/comedy-show-rsvp

Seating: 8pm
Show: 8:30pm
Irish Exit @ 978 2nd Ave. at 52nd St.

Produced by Mark Normand, Matt Ruby, & Gary Vider

(Yeah, it was Wednesdays previously but now we're in on Tuesday nights.)

Voters re-evaluate a politician who decides to drop the mask

Guy who's usually "ok but not great" takes the stage. But this time something's different. He's pissed off about something in the news and he relates it to his life. He speaks up for something he's passionate about. And the crowd that's never really cared about the guy suddenly pays attention. They re-evaluate him. By going off his usual script and speaking with passion, he finds his voice.

The twist: It's politics, not standup. William C. Thompson Jr., the only black guy in this year’s New York City mayoral contest, rarely talks about race. But on Sunday, he spoke to a mostly black congregation in a storefront church about why he feels stop-and-frisk is racist and similar to the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case.

But, invoking the “dreams of our fathers” and “dreams for our sons,” he said he felt compelled to speak out after the acquittal of Mr. Zimmerman. “When the rules of society — that we call and honor as the law — allow even one of those dreams to be snuffed out in anger and fear without consequence or action, those rules fail us all,” He said.

Inside the church, where the mostly black congregants said they had anticipated a tepid speech from another politician, there was a mixture of surprise and admiration.

“I wasn’t expecting that at all,” said Karen Khan, 52, who teaches middle school in Brooklyn, and had never known Mr. Thompson to talk about race. “I thought it was going to be one of those speeches designed to pacify the issue. Sweep it under the rug — O.K., let’s move on.”

Several said in interviews that the speech had compelled them to re-evaluate his candidacy.

“He would get my vote based on the passion in his speech today,” said Khalid Douglas, 33, a structural engineer. “It improved my opinion of him.”

For Mr. Thompson the speech was a departure not just in tone, but in style. He spoke about “a chorus of common dreams” and “the stubborn stain of enduring racism.” He described the emotional experience of watching President Obama discuss the Trayvon Martin verdict, “stripped of that power, not as president, but as the black man he is, I am, and we will always be.” He wondered what moved this “dignified, calm, thoughtful man” to speak, almost sounding as if he could be referring to himself.

Passion is a good way to get votes. Probably equally true for politicians and comedians.

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
Bill Clinton riffs a lot
Dissecting MLK's “I Have a Dream” speech
The chain: Barack Obama to Chris Rock to Ice Cube

Vooza is "the right blend of straight faced, satirical, mockumentary style humor that’s in step with popular internet culture"

Pretty detailed look at the history of Vooza show we've been doing: "Vooza satirizes the startup community in their viral mockumentaries" at StartupsFM.

When Vooza launched, their idea was just to make something that would get people talking but which would also be sustainable. No one could have predicted that it would blow up this big, even to the point of attracting VCs’ attention. But that is exactly what startups are paying them to do now. While there are many companies who create their own spoof laden product videos, few can really hit the mark. It takes a professional comedian and self confessed comedy snob to create the right blend of straight faced, satirical, mockumentary style humor that’s in step with popular internet culture. Ruby and his fellow comedians have certainly captured the pulse of the startup community with their videos – here’s to more “Radimparency”!

Read the full piece.

Here's the latest episode about Vooza's office perks:

Shooting for the edit

Wistia offers some good advice on how to minimize editing time by shooting wisely. One good tip (originated by skateboarder videomakers): When you've got a good take, wave your hand in front of the camera so you can quickly go through your footage and find "the keepers" later.

Video: Anthony Jeselnik makes fun of Haiti at a Haiti benefit

"Yeah, I'm not a great person to have on a benefit." (As mentioned in this interview he did with Bill Simmons.)

Formats for writing packets and spec scripts?

A reader asks: "I've heard a lot about spec scripts, sketch packets, and late night packets over the years, but I've never been able to find the formats. Can you recommend any sites with this kind of information?"

Sara Schaefer recently wrote this: Things To Consider When Submitting To Write For A Late Night Show!

And I've posted about the topic here before: How to get a job writing for Conan (and Demetri Martin's 2001 submission packet) and What goes into a comedy writing packet.

Anyone got other good links to share? Leave in the comments.

Jessimae Peluso on WAFH podcast

We're All Friends Here podcast returns with Jessimae Peluso of MTV's Girl Code. It's a juicy one. Download here via iTunes or stream it at Cave Comedy Radio.

Jack Handey and pure humor vs. topical humor

Jack Handey gets profiled by the NY Times:

This idea — the notion of real jokes and the existence of pure comedy — came up again and again when I asked other writers about Handey. It seemed as if to them Handey is not just writing jokes but trying to achieve some kind of Platonic ideal of the joke form. “There is purity to his comedy,” Semple said. “His references are all grandmas and Martians and cowboys. It’s so completely free from topical references and pop culture that I feel like everyone who’s gonna make a Honey Boo Boo joke should do some penance and read Jack Handey.”

“For a lot of us, he was our favorite writer, and the one we were most in awe of,” said James Downey, who wrote for “S.N.L.” “When I was head writer there, my policy was just to let him do his thing and to make sure that nothing got in the way of him creating.”

“He was the purest writer,” Franken said. “It was pure humor, it wasn’t topical at all. It was Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.”

The humorist Ian Frazier, a friend of Handey’s, told me, “I see Jack as in the tradition of Mark Twain or Will Rogers. He writes jokes that just keep on going. They’re not gonna crash and burn because they’re about Don Johnson, and people forget who Don Johnson was. Jokes are by their nature perishable. If you can write a timeless joke, that’s an incredible thing.”

Take that, Don Johnson. Judging from these quotes, there seems to be a spectrum for jokes that goes from pure to topical. Create something timeless and you've made the "purest" kind of joke there is.

Reminds me of when Louis CK was on Howard Stern and called Howard a "zen master of comedy." I'd put Larry David, Woody Allen, and Norm MacDonald in that category too. People who don't have to TRY to be funny, they just exude funny. They can tell jokes but have moved past it. For them, it's less about jokes than existing in the world in a way that's comedic. And that makes everything around them seem funny too.

Forbes Magazine calls Vooza “viral video done right…an instant hit…comedic genius”

Forbes Magazine calls Vooza (the video comic strip about the tech startup world we've been producing) “viral video done right…an instant hit…comedic genius.” You can check out the videos at Vooza.com. And a big shoutout to the talented folks who make it happen, including Jesse Scaturro, Nate Fernald, Sagar Bhatt, Sarah Tollemache, Zachary Sims, Meg Cupernall, and Steve O'Brien. Here's a recent episode featuring Steve:

We're All Friends Here returns on Sat (7/13) night

We'll be doing a live We're All Friends Here at The Creek in LIC on Saturday night. Guests: Oni Perez, Scotland Green, and Andrew Short. Bang. Event details at Facebook.

Also, the WAFH podcast is still coming at ya with most recent guests Kate Hendricks, Joe Pera, and Jeffrey Joseph. Download here via iTunes.

[New venue!] Tonight (Jul 10) = HOT SOUP at Irish Exit w/ Kurt Metzger

HOT SOUP comedy show is movin' on up(town) to IRISH EXIT. Great venue with a swanky showroom. As always, the show is FREE! We have a great drink special, there will be an OPTIONAL open bar from 8-10 during the show for only $15!!! We'll be there every week on Wed nights.

:: LINEUP
Kurt Metzger
Adam Newman
Joe List
James Adomian
Gary Vider
Mark Normand
Matt Ruby

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

During the show there is an OPTIONAL open bar for 2 hours from 8-10pm for only $15!!!

:: TIME
Seating: 8pm
Show: 8:30pm

:: PLACE
Irish Exit @ 978 2nd Ave (at 52nd St)
FREE SHOW – RSVP: FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

:: PRODUCERS
Produced by Mark Normand, Matt Ruby, & Gary Vider

:: STAY IN TOUCH
Sign up for Hot Soup email list
"Like" Hot Soup on Facebook

The therapy of making

In How Woody Allen Sees It, Woody gives a pretty nice explanation on the therapeutic effects of making stuff.

“You know in a mental institution they sometimes give a person some clay or some basket weaving?” he said. “It’s the therapy of moviemaking that has been good in my life. If you don’t work, it’s unhealthy—for me, particularly unhealthy. I could sit here suffering from morbid introspection, ruing my mortality, being anxious. But it’s very therapeutic to get up and think, Can I get this actor; does my third act work? All these solvable problems that are delightful puzzles, as opposed to the great puzzles of life that are unsolvable, or that have very bad solutions. So I get pleasure from doing this. It’s my version of basket weaving.”

Also enjoyable is this quote from Marshall Brickman, an old friend and collaborator, on Woody's domestic life: "From what I gather he's a good family man." Might wanna work on your gathering skills there, Marshall. When the list of nice stuff about Woody Allen gets printed up, "good family man" prob won't be cracking the top 10, ya know?

Selling it is part of the art of it

Neat talk from A.J. Jacobs on taking a "fake it till you make it" approach to creating things (title of the talk: "The Importance of Self-Delusion in the Creative Process").



The whole thing's interesting. One part that stuck out: When he talks about reframing the way you think about marketing (about 12:40 in to the video). The takeaway is you should view selling what you make as part of the creative process.

He quotes Jeanne-Claude, who was behind The Gates, when talking about how that project took 20 years to be approved by the government: "We like to see navigating the bureaucracy as part of the artistic process. We like to see the red tape as part of our art." [thx MK]

Podcast: We're All Friends Here with Joe Pera

Fun We're All Friends Here podcast is up with Joe Pera in the hot seat. Lotsa other stellar ones to check out there too. Next live edition of WAFH show is July 13 (Sat) at The Creek at 10pm. Va va boom.

Jerry Seinfeld's critique of Larry David's standup

Howard and Jerry! Mmm. Here's Jerry on Larry:

I loved his act. Standup takes a lot of work, a lot of talent, and an equal measure of temperament. You have to have the right temperament. Onstage, you have to have a resilience and a kind of an engine. He was a little fragile onstage. If it wasn't going well, which most of the time it's not, he fell apart. It's a tough thing.

And Jerry's take on why Seinfeld was given more seasons even though it struggled at first: It had the right demographic. "If you get rich people to watch your show, they'll keep you on the air."



[thx MN]

Single people are the ones who deserve tax breaks and health insurance

So I'm watching all the hubbub about gay marriage. Good for you, gays. BUT if gay people were being discriminated against because they couldn't have the special benefits of getting married then you know who else is getting screwed? Single people.

Our entire society is geared around this Disney fantasy of lifelong monogamy/attachment/wedded bliss and we just blindly ignore the fact that all these laws set up to boost marriage are discriminating against single people. And you know what? Us single people are already sad, lonely, and not getting laid. Aren't we the ones who deserve some love from the government? We sure as hell ain't getting it anywhere else.

Why should being married have ANY impact on insurance, taxes, and the rest of it? Who you bang and for how long should have nothing to do with this stuff.

And if it does, I'd argue single people deserve a break even more than the marrieds. Marrieds already have the joy of holy matrimony. Us single people have the sorrow of OK Cupid hookups. (If I have to trade emails with one more girl who's got a fake mustache photo and lists Amelie as her fave movie, I'm gonna join Al Qaeda.)

Tax benefits? Single people are the ones who need a tax break. You know how much it costs to drink alone at a bar five nights a week while you try to drown out the fact that you're unloveable? A lot. It costs a lot. I mean, that's what I've heard.

Health insurance? Single people are the ones who need to join up for health insurance. You know how much it costs to pay for STD tests every six months? Priced out Plan B pills lately? ("Next Choice" may be slightly cheaper but ya don't really wanna go with the generic option after sleeping with someone who was, well, the generic option.) Just sayin', a little Blue Cross action for singles sure would be nice.

And then there's the maternity/paternity leave thing. Breeders get paid leave to take care of babies while us single types have to just sit there and work straight through our entire (empty) lives. I'll cut you a deal on this one though: You get three months off to baby down BUT all us single people get three months of not having to deal with your lil' vomit machines. For three months, I get to walk on an airplane and kick all the babies off because it's my NON-PATERNITY LEAVE. For three months, I get to ban everyone I know from posting baby photos on Facebook and Instagram. Seriously, I open up that app lately and it looks like a nursery exploded inside my phone. (News flash: Your baby isn't cute because no babies are cute and, in fact, they all look the same and all that baby photo posting really just seems like a way for you to brag about yourself under the cloak of seeming nurturing and selfless. That baby pic is really just a selfie minus the self.)

Why is the government involved in this at all? Could it be that the government-industrial complex thinks marriage (and home ownership too) is a good way to lock people in place and prevents uprisings so it's decided to offer incentives that help convince people to surrender to a cultural norm that involves sacrificing freedom and participating in the charade that lifelong monogamy is natural/desirable while simultaneously ignoring the fact that marriage was actually created centuries ago as a system to bind women to men in order to guarantee paternity. Nah, that couldn't be it.

Anyway, my point: Let's separate love entirely from financial and legal benefits. Us single unlovables are already bitter enough...as you can see from this post.

Go crazy, Lenny

In Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with David Letterman, Dave and Jerry discuss Lenny Schultz. Here's a reel of Lenny doing his wacky thing. According to Dave, he kept working as a PE teacher in NYC the entire time.

A lesson on truth as funny from Charlemagne

Writing jokes is nice and all. But then there's funny that comes from just telling the truth (or at least the truth how you see it).

Check out this video of Charlamagne that Kurt Metzger posted at Facebook. (Everyone follows Kurt, right?) Charlamagne is talking about Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber getting involved in the "wrong activities." His advice to 'em: "Don't be a waste of good white skin."



Hilarious. Btw, ratchet pussy explained. (And no, there's nothing whiter than linking to the Urban Dictionary definition of ratchet pussy at your blog.)

Never heard this guy talk before but he sounds pretty brilliant to me. Funny as fuck just from spilling what he really thinks. I don't care about Miley/Bieber but after hearing this, I'd listen to Charlemagne talk about anything. Funny that comes straight from a truthful p.o.v. makes you crave more.

HOT SOUP with McCaff/Vatt tonight (6/19)

HOT SOUP is back EVERY WED NIGHT at Ella Lounge at 8:30pm. Free show + happy hour drink prices.

LINEUP THIS WEEK:
Tom McCaffrey
Nick Vatterott
Michelle Wolf
Seaton C. Smith
Mark Normand
Matt Ruby

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Full event details at Facebook.

Vooza: Weak Password

We've been busy cranking out new funny tech-related videos at Vooza. The latest deals with passwords and security questions.

80% right now

Funny or Die writer-director Jake Szymanski on the key to topical videos: "Sometimes it's better to do a video at 80% right now than 100% if it takes five days."

Kevin Hart roasting the Cavs in the Lebron era

Kevin Hart jokes around with LeBron James & his Cavs teammates (this is pre-Heat).



"Backstage after Kevin's show in Cleveland...LeBron James, Mo Williams, Delonte West, Danny Green, Sebastian Telfair & Leon Powe comes by and jokes around."

Wed 6/12 - Hot Soup with Shillue/Fowler/more

HOT SOUP is back EVERY WED NIGHT at Ella Lounge at 8:30pm. Free show + happy hour drink prices.

LINEUP THIS WEEK:
Tom Shillue (Comedy Central)
Jermaine Fowler (In Living Color)
Luke Cunningham (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)
Claudia Cogan (New York Magazine top new comedian)
Andy Blitz (Conan)
Mark Normand (Conan)
Matt Ruby (MTV)

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Full event details at Facebook.

Video of my set last week at UCB-LA

Here's me doing a set at UCB-LA last week.

Tom Shillue on where he gets ideas

Tom Shillue's answer to "How do stand-up comedians come up with content/ideas for shows?"

An idea usually starts with having an experience that triggers an emotional response- often anger, frustration, bewilderment, or more rarely, happiness. Then comes the hard part- they set about figuring how to communicate this to an audience of strangers in a funny way.

Sitting waiting for a bus may be boring, but "Waiting for buses sure is boring!" is not a great topic. But "do you think aliens wait for buses?", while not particularly funny, is a start. So, you write it down. Comedians have notebooks filled with things like "do you think aliens wait for buses?" Right now, my instincts tell me the idea is going nowhere, but you never know. 98% of a comedians notes will go unused on stage.

The 98% figure is the key I think. Want to write a great joke? Write 100 of them. One or two will be good. Probably.

Kurt Metzger on We're All Friends Here podcast

Kurt Metzger guests on newest We're All Friends Here podcast. Hosted by Mark Normand and me. Listen at iTunes or Cave Comedy Radio.

The big story here isn't rape culture, it's social media culture

The big story here isn't rape culture, it's social media culture. It's the way we're talking (or not talking) to each other. Online, everyone is outraged, offended, cruel, mocking, trolling, or attacking. But what they are TRULY communicating is this: Look at me. I'm lonely. I'm bored and hate my job. I'm craving human connection. I seek validation. I'll type anything to get someone/anyone to pay attention to me.

That's why people say nasty stuff online. It's not a sign of genuine misogyny or outrage. It's a sign that technology is eroding human connections. When we stare at screens all day, the threads that tie us together fray. And that is making us sad, afraid, and lonely. All this online negativity is our response. The medium is the message.

Also, follow the money. The real winners in any online "debate" are the companies who profit from page views (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Gawker, Salon, etc.). They are the ones converting all this emotional diarrhea into cash. These companies have no economic incentive to provide actual solutions or constructive engagement. They want us to keep yelling, provoking, and stirring the pot – as long as it makes people hit reload and they can sell your data to Bonobos and show you a "hot deal" on Tory Burch Reva Ballerina Flats from Neiman Marcus.

We didn't solve rape jokes six months ago. We're not solving them now. We won't solve them when this debate happens again in six months.

But hey, if you're bored at work and spouting off on all this helps you feel alive, then go for it. I mean, I get it...Why the hell do you think I wrote this!?

P.S. Please don't use YouTube comments to prove any point in your article/story/whatever. At that point, you might as well "quote" the gorillas at the zoo flinging their crap.

Birbigs on how to take something personal and make it relatable

In The Onion, Birbigs discusses what he learned from confessional comedians.

I watched people like Marc Maron and Doug Stanhope, and other confessional comedians who I admired. Also, my first manager was this guy named Lucien Hold, who has since passed away. He was the original talent booker for The Comic Strip on the Upper East Side, so he passed [i.e. let onstage—ed.] Jerry Seinfeld and Larry Miller and Chris Rock, and Eddie Murphy used to play there when he was 18 years old. He took me under his wing, and one of the things he said at one point was, “You should really write about yourself, because no one can take that away from you. No one can steal it.” That was very instructive toward where I went.

If you talk about something that only happened to you, no one can ever accuse ya of being hack.

One challenge of going personal is that it's tough to get people to identify with what you're talking about. Gay marriage or the differences between men/women or fast food are topics ripe for joking. Playing basketball in a Jewish youth league? Not so much. Here's how Gary Gulman deftly manages that...



...Below, Birbigs talks about how to take something personal and make it relatable.

When you’re writing something, no matter how specific and personal it is to you, you need the audience to feel it’s about them. That is the balancing act of writing something personal, is that you need to get really specific with yourself and somehow make that feel really specific to the audience. I’ll give you an example of that. I’m trying to come up with an analogy right now for the stage. Last night I performed at Union Hall, and I’m doing so many talk shows and personal appearances that I want to be able to say things in a comedic way about making the film that people will understand, that’s relatable. But making a film is actually entirely unrelatable. There’s nothing relatable about it, it’s nothing like anything anyone has ever done, except like, 100 people in the world. You need a million dollars to do it. Not only do you need a million dollars, you need to be willing to blow a million dollars. It’s a small subset of the world, and fortunately it wasn’t my own million dollars.

So I came up with an analogy this week that I think is going to work, and it worked last night onstage. Directing your first film is like showing up to the field trip in seventh grade, getting on the bus, and making an announcement, “So today I’m driving the bus.” And everybody’s like, “What?” And you’re like, “I’m gonna drive the bus.” And they’re like, “But you don’t know how to drive the bus.” And you’re like, “Well, I’ve been watching the bus driver, and I’ve been playing close attention. I’ve been watching other people’s bus rides. I know what I like, I know when I think a bus ride is good, and I have a notebook of things that I’ve written down that I’ve observed about other bus rides.” Sometimes you drive the bus to the location, sometimes you drive off a cliff. That can happen. So it feels very risky, but then if you get to your destination, it feels like it pays off in such a big way.

Related: Start off learning how to "cook rice"

Food jokes (aka another Eater video)

I'm in Eater's WE LOVE FOOD, Episode Three. And it goes a little something like this...

I'm in LA this week at French Toast, Tiger Lily, and Put Your Hands Together

Come see me, LA. Links below have more info.

Sun 6/2: French Toast
Mon 6/3: What's Up Tiger Lily?
Tue 6/4: Put Your Hands Together (RSVP here)

HOT SOUP is back on Wed (5/29) with Dan St. Germain and more

HOT SOUP is back EVERY WED NIGHT at Ella Lounge at 8:30pm. Free show + happy hour drink prices.

LINEUP THIS WEEK:
Greg Warren
Maddog Mattern
Kevin Barnett
Dan St. Germain
...and more!

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Full event details at Facebook.

"All head, dead from the neck down"

From Brian Eno: A Sandbox In Alphaville by Lester Bangs.

No. I think the trouble with almost all experimental composers is that they’re all head, dead from the neck down. They don’t trust their hearts, I think, and tend to take themselves with a solemnity so extreme as to be downright preposterous. I don’t see the point, really. I’ve always abandoned pieces which succeeded theoretically but not sensually.”

In theory, theory is a waste of time. At least that's how I feel. Well, I think I feel that way. But now we're back to theory. Hmm.

George Carlin describes how Bob Dylan and other musicians guided him to being more than just a comedian

George Carlin describes when he learned “not to give a shit.”



Found it at How the Great George Carlin Showed Louis CK the Way to Success. More Carlin goodness: 101 Greatest George Carlin Quotes (example: "If it requires a uniform, it’s a worthless endeavor.").

Just watched "Back in Town" again recently. He is so amped up and does not let up for the entire show. Astounding level of intensity.

On camera, everything has to be tiny

An interview with Brooke Thomas on casting. Here she describes bad behavior she sees and why you need to be "tiny" for the camera.

Not listening, not taking direction, over-acting. You’re on a camera, everything has to be tiny. You can’t act, you have to just be. People want to act, and I get it – you’re an actor, you want to act – but it just doesn’t work for camera. I can’t take time to work with them, though. “Thank you. Next.” You have three minutes with each actor to put on camera. So my thought is, if you don’t have commercial training, please don’t go out on commercial auditions. It seems ridiculous, like, “How hard can it be to do a commercial?” But it’s a skill. You’re reading a cue card, while trying to relate to the camera, and you have 30 seconds to come across. Don’t think that because you have an MFA from Yale that you can come in and do a commercial. You might not be able to. It’s a skill you need to learn. It’s fast, you have to be prepared, you have to be confident, you have to listen, it is not easy at all.

The more I do video stuff (like Vooza), the more interested I get in the differences between what's funny on camera vs. what's funny on stage. The camera magnifies everything. A subtle look or reaction can make a bit fly onscreen but would get lost onstage. And the hard push you need to sell a bit during standup can come across as desperate when filmed.

Oh, and here's a related recent tweet:

Comedy is made up of people who constantly mock commercials yet are dying to be in one.

— Matt Ruby (@mattruby) May 16, 2013

Interview: How Fear Can Be a Motivational Tool

My big motivator: Fear.



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.

Great standup tips on crowd work and more from John Roy and Jared Logan

John Roy's "Entirely Free Comedy Class" is a great way to get off the ground with your standup with tips from a truly funny comedian. I especially liked guest "teacher" Jared Logan's explanation of how/why to do crowd work.

Try the socratic method. The great philosopher Socrates used to ask questions of people and then re-state their answers back to them, often with hilarious results (seriously, most of Plato is like one big long comedy routine). So do that. Ask the person anything, like what’s your name? what do you do for a living? where are you from? — and then repeat their answer back to them, in your own words. Repeating the answer in your own words not only starts to create the tension that will provide laughs, but it also helps the rest of the audience follow along. As you progress, the questions are naturally going to get more complex, because that’s how a conversation works. If you ask a person what they do for a living, they can just say “human resources manager” but your next question is naturally going to be more complicated. You might ask “What does a human resource manager do?” or “Do you enjoy it?” The person has to consider these types of questions more deeply and give a longer, more interesting answer. Then you repeat their answer in your own words. If you are honest, and let a bit of your own point of view start creeping in to your summary of their answer, you will get laughs. If the answers they give don’t make sense to you, don’t worry! That’s a golden opportunity! Re-stating something you don’t understand is funny. Be honest and summarize it in a way that sums up what you think they were trying to say.

This is really all there is to it. But you have to commit! Keep going until someone says something funny. Don’t get nervous and bail early because you’ve asked a couple questions, they’ve answered, you’ve restated, and nobody has laughed. Good crowd work takes patience. If you’re being honest and keeping it positive, something funny will happen.

One of my favorite things is doing crowd work and just telling the truth about how you feel about the situation and getting a big laugh off it. Moments like that are when I feel most like a funny person instead of a guy telling jokes.

5/15 HOT SOUP Comedy Show with Drucker/Zimmerman/Sims

HOT SOUP is back EVERY WED NIGHT at Ella Lounge at 8:30pm. Free show and ya get happy hour drink prices too.

LINEUP THIS WEEK (5/15):
Mike Drucker (Fallon writer)
Joe Zimmerman (Beards of Comedy)
Zach Sims (Moving to LA!)
...and more!

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Full event details.

Poke life and something will pop out the other side

Steve Jobs in 1994:

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is: everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know, if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

Passive vs. active. What's it gonna be?

Hot Soup tonight (5/8) w/ Katz/Machi/Smith/Lucas Bros.

HOT SOUP is back EVERY WED NIGHT at Ella Lounge at 8:30pm. Free show and ya get happy hour drink prices too.

LINEUP THIS WEEK:
Louis Katz
Joe Machi
Lucas Bros
Doug Smith
...and more!

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Full event details.

I'm a guest on Offstage podcast

I'm a guest on the newest OFFSTAGE W/ CHRISTIAN POLANCO PODCAST.

Matt Ruby is a comedian and writer who recently wrote a powerful essay about spending the last days with his dying father. It got a tremendous response across the internet and he came by to talk about it, amongst other things.

Listen as they cover relationships with fathers, supporting the comedy community, and preferring women who are strangers over being introduced.

Was a fun chat. Check it out.

Watch me make fun of Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's, and Canadians

Eater's WE LOVE FOOD, Episode Two.

Does drinking help or hurt?

"My manager was concerned, he said 'Mitch, don't use liquor as a crutch.' I can't use liquor as a crutch... because a crutch helps me walk. Liquor severely screws up the way I walk. It ain't like a crutch, it's like a step I didn't see." -Mitch Hedberg

Mitch is also the guy who needed to down a bottle of Jack moments before hitting the stage at Letterman. Unfortunately, we all know how that turned out.

A Slate article asks, "Hemingway, Fitzgerald: Did alcohol help or hinder the great writers?"

The great comedic actor W.C. Fields had a similar realization. Fields initially started drinking onstage and on set because he thought it loosened him up and improved his comic timing. But since he had a naturally high tolerance for alcohol, it took increasingly large quantities to keep him loose. (Fields once estimated that he imbibed “eight or ten cocktails, possibly a bottle of champagne, and a half dozen or more bottles of beer and ale per day.”) He insisted that drinking had never interfered with his work—until shortly before his death, when he told a friend from his hospital bed, “I’ve often wondered how far I could have gone had I laid off the booze.”

Being fucked up a lil' has helped me at times onstage. Loosens me up when I'm feeling stiff. But I started backing away from it a few years ago because I hated the idea that it might be something I'd NEED to do before performing. The idea that I have a big set so I'd have to go out and pound some shots first creeped me out. That's not a sustainable approach. You have to be able to bring your A game sober. Otherwise you're on a dangerous path.

Hot Soup tonight (5/1) w/ Bargatze, Wang, and more

HOT SOUP is back EVERY WED NIGHT at Ella Lounge at 8:30pm. Free show and ya get happy hour drink prices too.

LINEUP THIS WEEK:
Nate Bargatze (Conan)
Sheng Wang (Comedy Central)
Aparna Nancherla (Totally Biased on FX)
Sean Donnelly (Comedy Central)
Matt Ruby (MTV)
Gary Vider (Laughing Skull)
and more!

RSVP to confirm your spot:
FREECOMEDYWEDNESDAYS@gmail.com

Full event details.

Doing only one kind of room makes you a weaker comic

Ben Rosenfeld interviews Danny Browning about road work.

Then again, any comedian that does one thing too much, whether it’s colleges or corporate events or strictly bar shows on the road, doing only one thing makes your act get weaker in other venues. If you work thirty colleges a month, and do nothing but colleges, then your act will become very college friendly and a lot less club friendly, I think. I knew a guy who used to be an excellent club comic, then he started doing corporate comedy, now there’s certain clubs that won’t hire the guy because he’s become so crisp and corporate clean. There’s no sharpness or edginess anymore. Working in NYC could be the same way. If you do too much New York work, you might develop an act that works in New York City: you might have seven minutes of riding the subway which would kill in NYC but not in Indianapolis. People in North Dakota wouldn’t give two dog shits about the New York Subway experience. Once you get out on the road, you have to find something else to talk about.

It's like lifting weights. If all you ever do is lift with your right arm, your left arm will...eh, you get it. Anyway, this is prob why CK says, "Go on stage ANYWHERE."

The story should drive the jokes

Comedy writer Mike Scully on story vs. jokes:

I was recently cleaning out a garage in my house and found some of my first spec scripts that I remember thinking were quite brilliant at the time, and they were just horrendous. They were all basically a bunch of jokes thrown together with little story. So what I learned over time was how important it is to have a good story and conflict between your characters and that the jokes have to come out of that. My initial go was to let the story be driven by the jokes, which is not a good way to go. You’re entertaining yourself a lot when you write it, but when you read it, it’s really awful.

That reminded me of this bit from Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling: "You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different."

One thing that's nice about narrative is that it can replace laughter as a hook. When people want to know what's going to happen next, they're still engaged and ok with not laughing for a little bit. But if there are no laughs AND no "edge of the seat"ness going on, that's when they start to drop out.

HOT SOUP is now EVERY Wednesday night at Ella Lounge

HOT SOUP is back on Wed (Apr 24) and we're now going weekly EVERY WED NIGHT! As always, ya get 1/2-off drinks too.

LINEUP
John Roy
Chris Distefano
Joe Pera
Amber Nelson
Garret Richardson
Mark Normand
Matt Ruby

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: 9pm

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.

Sign up for Hot Soup email list.
"Like" Hot Soup on Facebook.

Dove, AXE, Unilever, and "real beauty"

Re: Dove's "Real Beauty" ads...

Dove is owned by Unilever which owns AXE which puts out ads that objectify women and perpetuate those same beauty standards that Dove attacks in its ads.

Unilever doesn't care about beauty standards. It cares about maximizing profits. It's trying to make money off idiot teenage boys who buy that AXE “Bow Chicka Wow Wow” bullshit while at the same time profiting from women who are disturbed by those same images.

The whole thing is greasy. It's like watching Steubenville football players raise money for battered women. Don't give Unilever credit for attacking a problem it helped create.

Btw, Unilever also owns Slim-Fast. Y'know, the weight loss option for fans of "real beauty."

We're All Friends Here - The 4/20 edition

In the words of The Creek: "There will be a private party this Saturday. If you know the hosts and wish to attend, email greenguffaw@gmail.com!"

As part of it, we're doing a special WAFH late night show...

The lineup:

Mike Recine
Jason Burke
Ashley Brooke Roberts

11:30pm at The Creek on 4/20 and you get it. More details at Facebook event.

Feminism and comedy

Wound up taking in all of this in the past week. Looking back, it feels like the curriculum to an interesting Women's Studies class.









Also:
The feminist comedy of Louis C.K. [Slate]
Are Comedy and Feminism Enemies? [Daily Beast]
George Carlin - On Patriarchy [YouTube]
Makers: Women Who Make America [PBS]

Coming clean about what Vooza's up to and why

Big reveal on Vooza (the show about startups I've been making) at TechCrunch, a popular tech blog: "Spoof ‘Startup’ Vooza Gets Serious About What It’s Really Up To — A New Kind Of Web Advertising."

Startups and other advertisers have been paying Vooza to include them in videos that take the piss out of the whole “startup” scene...It’s something that’s been pretty darn successful. So far, Vooza’s clients have included email newsletter startup MailChimp, app analytics platform Tapstream, branding firm Eat My Words and others. The companies pay to have their brand worked into a segment written by Vooza’s writers and featuring its cast of characters — the video then goes out to Vooza’s own audience, and can also be used by the company in any way they wish.

It’s a business model that can be classified as branded content or sponsored product placement, but Ruby says that he thinks of it more as “a throwback to the old school TV advertising model when the stars of a show would do the ads, like Johnny and Ed schilling for Alpo."

It’s a fresh angle that could be hitting at a good time for its niche…Founders nowadays know it’s good for business to be funny. It’ll be fun to see what comes out of Vooza in the future.

And some more press at Young Entrepreneur: "Embrace Your Zany Side: Offbeat Ways Startups Win Over Hard-to-Reach VCs."

Nothing has generated interest among the VC (and entrepreneur) community like a series of about 30 mockumentary videos about a company called Vooza...The weekly videos surfaced in 2012. Rife with subtle sarcasm, the two-minute clips provide "insights" that actually lampoon startup culture — particularly the culture surrounding technology startups.

Also, Gründerszene said Vooza is “Absolut sehenswert!” I think that's good?

More info about Vooza at the site. And here's the latest video, featuring one of Vooza's designers (played excellently by Sarah Tollemache) explaining how she draws inspiration from nature.



You can get notified when new videos come out by signing up for the Vooza email list.

Amber Nelson on We're All Friends Here podcast

Amber Nelson guests on newest We're All Friends Here podcast. Hosted by Mark Normand and me. Yes. Listen at iTunes or Cave Comedy Radio.

I'm watching my father die

I'm watching my father die. It's rough. He's on morphine to deal with the pain. Sometimes he starts talking in Hebrew. He grew up in Israel but no one here speaks Hebrew.

He looked through a set of family photos today. He still looked proud when talking about how beautiful his wife was. "There's my model." "Here she was almost at the peak of her beauty." "I was astounded by how good her maternal instincts were." He keeps cracking jokes too. "Everybody else here looks so sad that I'm starting to think I should too."

He wanted a strawberry ice cream soda because he remembered that when he was a kid he used to love them. I went out and bought the ingredients and concocted one. He could barely get the straw into his mouth. But when he did, his eyes lit up. "Delicious!"

My sister, Tamara, and her 6 year-old son, Asher, are here too. My sister is amazing and strong throughout this entire process. We feel like warriors in battle together. One day we all decide to take a break and go for a hike near the ocean. I comment that it's beautiful. "No, it's not," says Asher. He is pissy today. I ask him, "Well what do YOU think is beautiful?" "The only things that are beautiful are Mommy and a rainbow."

My dad likes playing a game called Smartmouth with his Grandson. They each yell out words and are impressed by the other's ability to come up with surprising answers. They also both love Jeopardy and trains. He explained to his grandson why railroad tracks are built on stones. So they don't drown when it rains. The water needs somewhere to go. That's why the rocks are there – to raise up the tracks.

He still wants to take a bath. He loves taking baths. Always has. Would spend an hour in the tub every day. He'd bring a newspaper in there. But he's taken his final bath. The pain is excruciating. He can't get out of bed. They say the cancer is spreading "like wildfire." It is eating away at his bones. He wants to be out of pain. He wants drugs, even if it means he can't think clearly.

When he was a child, he loved trains and going to the movies and taking a bath. My grandmother once told me this story about him: When he was about 12 years old, she came home and found water leaking down the stairs. She followed the trail of water and found my father sitting in the bathtub and reading. He was so consumed by his book that he didn't notice the faucet remained on. She told him he would have to clean up his mess. His response: "I can't. I just took a bath and I'm all clean."

He keeps thinking there is powder in his hands. "I want to put the powder in my tea." I get his mug of tea and place it under his hands. He dumps the invisible powder into the glass. He feels better. Later he offers me some powder. "It's for you." I take it. I carry away his invisible powder.

Earlier, when he was looking at the photos and he was beaming, it impacted me. I felt a glow. A power. Something I've only felt before while hallucinating. A strength of aura and presence. The glow of someone being while egos dissolve. He is a part of me and I a part of him.

I've never seen anyone die before. I was prepared for the sadness. The heartbreak. I wasn't prepared for the beauty. The purity. The clarity. The clear perspective. What matters is obvious.

He was in the Israeli military and served as a tank commander. I am convinced that sitting in a steel box in the middle of the desert drove his lifelong obsession with air conditioning. He was a man who could never have it cool enough.

He came to America to go to college. He knew hardly anyone in the US. He started off living at the YMCA. He worked at El Al airlines. He went to Columbia.

He then went to work as a journalist. He worked at Women's Wear Daily and in between covering his normal beats wound up covering the Six Day war in Israel since he was back home when it occurred. That job is also how he met my mother. My grandmother was a lingerie designer and my father went to interview her for a story. My grandmother said, "You should meet my daughter. She's learning how to type and she's seeing a therapist." That was enough of a hook for my dad. They met and realized they both loved some of the same music. Three months later, they were engaged.

When we asked him what he wanted to eat, he said, "Chocolate. Lots of it." At 2pm, he said he wanted to invite members of his song circle over to see him. At 8pm, the living room was full. Two dozen members of his song circle. They sang "Blue Moon" and "Amazing Grace" and "Country Roads" and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and more. They circled him and he sang along. Even though his mind is having a tough time, he remembered most of the words. Maybe lyrics reside in a different part of the brain. Not where the memories are, but where the melody is. Where the feeling is.

He is dying and it is sad but that is not all it is. There is a grace to him. He is trying to be brave. He is scared about what comes next. But he is more scared about staying here. The pain is too much. I told him that whatever happens next, I think it will be ok. He responds, "Me too."

There should be equal amounts laughter and tears, according to the death doctor. I don't feel sad all the time. Once in a while i cry. But mostly it seems alright. Like what's supposed to happen. It feels like a George Harrison song. Sad but beautiful and ok because it's the way things are supposed to go.

He's not eating anymore. He told us to understand if he doesn't want to fight anymore. He wants to let it happen. He is letting go.

When I help him drink through a straw or turn his body, it's the closest I've ever come to feeling like a parent. To taking care of a helpless human being. I feared it would be a burden but it doesn't feel that way. You don't even think about it. You do it because there is nothing else to do. And it makes me think about what you get in return for the act of caregiving.

The death doctor also says there are only four things that matter: Please forgive me. I forgive you. Thank you. I love you.

I keep thinking about those four things. My Dad expresses regret over not paying enough attention to his children. I tell him that I forgive him. And I ask him to forgive me for times when I've been a brat or hard on him. He grants me forgiveness. I tell him he was a good dad. I tell him his life had meaning and purpose. I thank him. I tell him I love him. I tell him I am proud of him. I'm proud that he is my dad. He says that he is proud that I am his son. I'm crying as I write this. I say what I need to say to him.

After that, my dad went to law school at NYU. He graduated and went to work in the D.A.'s office in Manhattan. He was an Assistant DA while there, working alongside Rudy Giuliani for a while. I think he saw some pretty awful stuff while working that job. NYC back then was a seedy place. He then went on to work at the U.S. Attorney's office working on white collar crime, racketeering, and stuff like that. Going after Wall Street types and mob guys and the like. After that, he went into private practice. I don't think he liked that nearly as much as putting the bad guys in jail. He eventually left the law entirely and went to work in the garment industry. But he always thought like a lawyer.

He and my mom had an interesting relationship. The prosecutor and the hippie. The teetotaler and the druggie. The logician and the artist. Surprisingly, they managed to make this civil war work. I think it may be because of their mothers. Both of them had intrusive, overbearing mothers that they rebelled against. A large reason their marriage worked is because they left each other alone. He'd be in the basement working on his model trains, she'd be in the garage sculpting. But we always ate dinner together as a family. I think that was important.

He wants to watch Jeopardy still. He used to shout out the answers. Now he just lies there and watches. Every once in a while he laughs. I hear the laugh from the other room sometimes and for a split second I feel like everything is fine. I've always heard that laugh. It bellows. But the moment passes and I recall that the laugh is vestigial. It's residue. Like the warm coals left after a fire.

He is less able to communicate. You can see it frustrates him. He spent is entire life stone cold sober. Maybe a Tom Collins every few weeks, but that was it. And now he's high as a kite on an insane amount of morphine and methadone. He is helpless. He asks me to sit next to him more. He said when I'm there he feels braver. Every day I'm there, I tell him I love him. And I say thank you. And I tell him he was a good parent.

The health care worker last night told him he had a beautiful house and that his wife was lucky. His response: "No, I was the lucky one."

I just learned today that he was on a show called Quiz Kids when he was a teenager. It was on the radio. He won. Even when you think you know it all about someone, there are more layers to peel away.

We are watching March Madness games. Well, they're on the TV and I am watching them and he is staring at them. I remember watching that classic Duke-Kentucky game years ago with him. The one where Christian Laettner made an amazing last second shot. I hate Duke but we both wound up jumping up and down and yelling about what an amazing shot it was.

Now here we are decades later. And it makes me think about sports and why they matter. I remember my dad driving me to AYSO soccer games every Sunday when I was a kid. I remember the drives to far away towns. And I remember him taking me to Friendly's after the game where I'd get a burger or an ice cream sundae.

And i think about when he would take me to see the Yankees. My favorite part was walking through the concrete tunnels on the way to our seats and seeing the glimpses of grass through each gate. That feeling of anticipation sticks with me more than the actual games. He couldn't care less about baseball. Sometimes he'd bring the paper and read it while I watched the game. But he'd go because he knew I loved it. And because it let us spend time together. Maybe the holy part of sports is how it brings fathers and sons together. A reason to connect. The way strangers talk about the weather.

He was from Israel but he didn't care about Judaism. I remember asking him if he cared whether or not I married a Jewish woman. He said, "If I cared about that, I wouldn't have moved to America." He didn't give a shit about religion or synagogues. He'd go along with it for my mom. But it seemed to have no impact on him.

He loved Jeopardy, trains, The New York Times, playing bridge, animals (especially his fish), crossword puzzles, WWII history, High Noon, Churchill, Reagan, John Wayne, the Marx Brothers, Abbot and Costello, Stephen Wright, Rita Rudner, MGM musicals, Twin Peaks, cable news, and singing.

At 3am one night, he begins battling the caregiver trying to change his sheets. She comes to get me. I sit by his side. He is out of it. He tells me he won't let her do it because she doesn't really want to do it. I explain it is her job. He does not relent. I sit by him. We talk. At some point he starts singing the chorus to "You Can't Always Get What You Want." I join him. Damn, I love the Stones. And I think about the music that was in our house when I was growing up. I start crying. And I say, "Thank you for exposing me to art. I grew up in a house with people who loved art and I am so thankful for that." It's true. The music from the speakers, the books on the shelves, the movies we'd watch. They are the reason I see the world the way I do. I remember being a little kid thinking my parents were weird when they would sing along to Bob Dylan. Now I listen to Blonde and Blonde and am mesmerized by how the words dance.

This process is such a stripping away. On a primal level, you see what matters. He has reverted to his mother tongue. He wants to see faces that he recognizes. He wants to sing songs he remembers. He wants his family next to him. Even when he doesn't understand what is happening, he looks at us and trusts us to do what's best for him. He's not hungry but he says he'll eat if we join him. Dining together matters to him. We always ate dinner together as a family. He likes to be touched. Whenever a woman goes to kiss him, he puckers up his lips and leans in for a smooch. He is floating away but simple things like these are the gravity that pull him back.

Every hour, he gets asked this question: How much pain are you in from 1-10? 10 is the most pain. 1 is no pain. The idea is to get his pain to a manageable level. If he's at a 6 or higher, he gets more morphine. The problem with that is he gets so zonked out that he's not even lucid anymore. Understandably, he's chosen to be pain-free over lucid. What a question though: Do you want to minimize your pain for the sake of mental clarity? What will you sacrifice to get to 2? What are the benefits you get from enduring at 7? I think about the choices we all make every day to numb our pain. What is pain and what is just the price of being aware? When are you broken and when are you just feeling?

Eventually, my mom got sick with MS and they moved out to Trinidad, California. The mild temperature there was good for her disease and she had a great view even when she couldn't move. I think her disease was more painful for my dad than it was for her. He felt helpless. My mom took the p.o.v. that "my journey is now inside my brain." I don't think my dad could see it that way. He saw her slow decline as a travesty. It tore him up. When she passed about six years ago, I think it was a big relief for him. It seemed to lift him out of depression. He joined a song circle. He played bridge. He made new friends. He met his "lady friend" Carol that he was with for a couple of years. I asked him why he didn't call her his girlfriend. He said, "After a certain age, a woman is a lady and not a girl."

We spend a fun day together despite his condition. We look through family photo albums. We listen to Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. We watch The Sting and a Marx Brothers movie. I remember him showing me Marx Brothers movies when I was a little kid. And watching Steven Wright standup specials. He loved to laugh. It was my first exposure to comedy and the joy it could bring.

During the Cohen album, my Dad says, "He has such contempt for ships and shoes." I have no idea what this means. I say, "Really?" "Of course, listen to the lyrics." Alrighty then. I ask my Dad what he has contempt for. He pauses. "A shallow, meaningless life." I think he's talking about himself now. I decide to change the subject. "And what do you love?" I ask. Another pause. "Country." "You mean America?" "Yes." "Why?" "Because it gave the rest of the world hope." It takes an outsider to appreciate things sometime. He loves America more than most people born here. I think of the fervor of born again types. How not having something at first makes you love it even more when you do find it. He's that way with America. So many Americans take it for granted. He does not. His love for America is not a flag pin kind of love. It is the type of love that is so strong you don't even talk about it.

Things keep breaking around the house. The dishwasher stopped working the other night. It's closed but it doesn't think it's closed so it won't start. The garage door won't stay down. We had to unplug it in the closed position. The TV remote seems to have gone haywire too. You push channel up and it instantly starts scrolling through all the channels, like there's a madman at the helm. As his body shuts down, all his appliances are giving up the ghost too.

He was a gentleman. And he never wanted to be a burden on anyone. This is the email he sent when he found out he had cancer:

Hi kids,

I was diagnosed today with advanced metastatic bone and lung cancers.

The prognosis is not good.

I've had a good run and don't mind dying, but I do fear the pain and helplessness that come with this disease.

Let me know if you want me to update you. I don't want to burden you with this needlessly.

I love you very much.

Dad

He weakens further. The end is near. I told him that he lived the American dream: He saw America in movies and decided to come here. He arrived and experienced Greenwich Village in the 60s. He knew no one in the US yet rose up the ladder through hard work. He became a prosecutor and put away the bad guys. He met an amazing woman. He settled down in the suburbs and had children that he loved. He built elaborate model railroad tracks in the basement. He watched Jeopardy every night. And then he retired to a house on the north coast of California with a beautiful view. What more could you ask for? I told him he had done well and lived a real fucking life. And then I kissed him on the forehead and said goodbye. He said ok and smiled. He looked weak and more beautiful than I'd ever seen him.

He's dead now. But it's ok. He had a good run. And today he'll be buried next to Mom, near the Redwoods and the ocean. His friends will gather and sing Amazing Grace. That was his favorite song.

I'm so grateful for this past week. I'll never forget it. And I keep thinking about those four things: Please forgive me. I forgive you. Thank you. I love you.

Photos of my Dad. More about my mom.

Siskel and Ebert as insult comics

This Roger Ebert obit includes this fun exchange:

Their disagreements were more entertaining than their agreements, complete with knitted brows, are-you-serious head-shaking and gentle (or not) barbs. Mr. Siskel once taunted Mr. Ebert about his weight: “Has your application for a ZIP code come through yet?” Mr. Ebert came back with a dart about Mr. Siskel’s receding hairline: “The only things the astronauts saw from outer space were Three Mile Island and your forehead.”

The article also mentions his credo in judging a film’s value: “Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions never lie to you.”

A while back, I published an article here based on things he'd written: "Roger Ebert on the pathos of Rodney Dangerfield, W.C. Fields, and Groucho Marx." It was a huge thrill when Ebert thanked me for it on Twitter.

Hey, thanks @mattruby, for quoting me on Rodney and Groucho. bit.ly/tjgYxG

— Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) November 27, 2011

I always thought he was a standup guy, in the real sense of the word. No bullshit. Equally able to appreciate a Godard film and something with a lot of explosions. He got that both high and low can be beautiful. Whenever I see an interesting movie, I go and read his review afterward for some perspective on it. I'm gonna miss doing that in the future.

Matthew Weiner on the perfect acceptance speech

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner discusses the show's rise and mentions his perfect acceptance speech.

I was watching the Oscars, and I saw Jennifer Lawrence on the steps, and I thought: That was the perfect acceptance speech. How do you avoid the envy and appearing arrogant? How do you say the perfect thing, now that you're not an underdog anymore? I don't think she did it on purpose, but you see that and see how she behaves, and you're like, it could not go any better than that. If I was writing an acceptance speech, I would have it start with someone falling off the steps.

Interesting angle. Even when you're on top, make yourself the underdog.

WAFH Podcast: Damien Lemon

Damien Lemon is latest guest on We're All Friends Here podcast. It's good. You should listen. Hosted by Mark Normand and me. Yes. Listen at iTunes or Cave Comedy Radio.

Preventing jokes from sounding robotic

Justin Zimmerman asks:

Do you write out your jokes word for word, and then when you perform go from an outline and then speak off the cuff with just the general idea? OR do you memorize everything word for word and then rehearse it to the point that like an actor it comes natural?

I am able to develop funny material organically or by writing but once I perform it for the 2nd time, it starts to sound robotic. I want to be able to keep that natural off the cuff sound.

Also to get over the hump of being funnier in real life than on stage would you just recommend more stage time?

My answer: I do not write jokes out word for word. I have an idea and then I'll go out and try it and see what words come out of my mouth that work best. Sometimes I'll work up a pretty fleshed out version in my head. Other times I'm just more rambling. If the bit stays in the act, it starts to get more rehearsed and take shape as a more structured thing. There is a danger in a bit losing its energy and starting to sound rote. It might not be that good of a joke then. Or it might mean that you need to upgrade your performance chops/acting ability in order to get the bit to keep working. Sometimes giving a bit a rest and then bringing it back can breathe new life into it.

Being funny in real life is a different animal than being funny on stage. Ya may want to get into a zone of doing more riffing and bringing your natural energy up there instead of solely relying on prepared bits that make it seem like you are reciting a script. At some point though, you're going to want jokes you can fall back on – unless you're gonna be a 100% riff/crowdwork guy which can be a tough path.

Justin replied:

After you take an idea to the stage, I'm assuming you'll record your set and then make changes to your new bit to the words are how you like them. Then do you write the bit down word for word just for memory sake? Or just leave it as an outline and let your brain do the work?

I do record my sets. If something is worth noting, I'll go about and listen to it again. Sometimes I'll write down the exact phrasing I've used, but I've noticed I don't refer to those notes often. So if I want to remember something specific, I'll make a point of trying to lock it in mentally.

Also, I like it when an IDEA is funny as opposed to a certain order of words. If there's real meat to a joke, I don't think you need to say it exactly the same way each time. Plus, that's a good way to keep things fresh too. When I lock into saying the words as if it's a script, the joke often loses some punch.