Third Guy Ducks

Tig Notaro Has Cancer

2012-08-04T18:07:00.000-04:00

…and Kira Hesser remembers where she was when she heard the news. Watching Notaro do a set.

While telling us anecdotes from these personal tragedies, all along the way, she assured the audience 'it’s okay, I’m going to be okay.' At one part, when she reached a dark place wherein most of the audience could not find the will to laugh, she said 'maybe I’ll just go back to telling jokes about bees. Should I do that?'

Read Hesser's post here.

Hesser wasn't the only one impressed with Notaro's set.

Just saw Tig Notaro at Largo...made me feel like I was an open miker. Absolute genius!
— Bill Burr (@billburr) August 4, 2012

in 27 years doing this, I've seen a handful of truly great, masterful standup sets.One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo.
— Louis C.K. (@louisck) August 4, 2012

Daniel Tosh Told an Offensive Joke about Rape

2012-07-11T20:56:00.000-04:00

Daniel Tosh has made people laugh about murder. He's made people laugh about slavery. He's made people laugh about bear mauling. Even right after all those people watched a video of a bear mauling.

In order to get those people to laugh at the attack, he didn't have to convince them that being mauled by a bear is OK. And he didn't have to convince them that they should be happy that someone got mauled by a bear. To make them laugh, first he had to convince them that altho life is full of pain and fear and there's always a risk of damage and trauma, right at that moment no-one was being stalked by a bear. And he had to be pretty sure that they knew that a round of laughter was not going to conjure two she-bears out of the woods.

Then without that fear, all it took is a little wordplay on race issues, an ironic lack of sympathy, or better yet, some misplaced sympathy—for instance, feeling sorry for the bear when someone defending the woman throws a bottle—and the audience could both laugh at the ridiculousness of the comments, and not be happy that the lady was attacked.

The bear attack was the focus of one of Tosh's "Video Breakdown" segments on his show. After having been attacked by a polar bear, a Russian woman stumbles away in her underwear, pants around her ankles. The first joke Tosh offers up: "See, when you dress like that, ladies, you're asking to be attacked."

That opinion probably sounds familiar. It has become the symbol of blaming the victim. It's the callous and accusatory scolding that too many women have heard after having been raped. This is just a guess, but I believe Tosh uses that line knowing that it sounds harsh, and knowing that the person who says that line seriously, is an asshole. I'm guessing that Tosh also believes that being that type of asshole verges on the immoral dismissal of a woman's suffering.

But here's the important difference: it's the serious, earnest use of that line. The ironic use of that line is by definition, saying it without believing it. And that's what comedians do all the time. Either by exaggerating their views, or by contradicting their views, comedians are pretty much always saying things they don't believe.

But they can still make people angry. Because sometimes people believe either 1) that the ironic statement is sincere, or 2) that even the ironic expression of an idea gives comfort support and power to people who hold that idea earnestly.

And one of those was the thinking that led a Laugh Factory audience member to walk out of a show angrily, and write a blogpost about Daniel Tosh's act. She reports the experience as "terrifying and threatening" and she ultimately judges his jokes as "violent". I can't disagree with her experience. The same way that someone who laughed can claim it's funny, she can claim it was scary. It's almost always stupid to tell someone that they're not feeling what they say they're feeling.

And as for claiming that she was threatened… I would ask her, with honest interest, what she felt the threat was. It's one thing to think you're in danger, and another to actually be in danger, but there's very little space, when you're dealing with a person face to face, between reassuring them to make them feel secure, and simply dismissing their fear and disrespecting the honesty of how they've experienced something.

In this case, the audience member claims that Tosh made very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny. She stresses that he was insistent on this point, and that he also claimed that rape itself is hilarious I'm willing to bet that Tosh thinks some rape jokes are stupid, poorly constructed, simple, obvious, and contrived. Any blanket statement about every conceivable rape joke being funny is fairly considered a purposely ridiculous opinion. And the statement that aside from jokes about it, rape itself is hilarious: are we really to believe that Daniel Tosh finds the act of rape amusing? I don't believe that about him.

She writes that she disagreed with Tosh's supposed opinions by yelling Actually, rape jokes are never funny! It's completely within her rights to share that opinion. Even tho she's not on stage, and no one attended the show expecting to hear from her, I'll go a little farther than supporting her right. I'm going to agree with the importance of sharing her opinion. She claims that

sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman.

I disagree with her claim that Tosh was telling her how she should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape, because I believe that Tosh's jokes are not statements of his belief: they're performances. But because of how she understood the statements, I repeat that it was an honest and important decision she made to disagree at that moment. To reach out in the most honest way she could was important to her sense of self, to her integrity. And if she was hurt by the response, what else could she do but what she did? She left.

And altho I don't think Tosh's reaction (if it was as she reports it) was an important one for him to make (nor was it the only option he had) I believe—just as I do about his other jokes—that it was a valid and acceptable performance. So while I believe she felt threatened, I also believe that if someone had even started walking towards her or had thrown an ice-cube at her, Tosh would've called them out and told them to stop. Call me naïve, but I do believe it. And I'm not going to simply accept jokes about cruelty as direct evidence of a comedian's cruel character.

The problems with communication begin when this becomes a matter of sides, and the two usually unopposed forces, sympathy, and levity, are pitted against each other. I refuse to agree to someone else's stricture that if I feel bad for a person, I can't laugh at a joke that makes light of their experience. Or that if I find a joke about some evil funny, I can't possibly sympathize with someone hurt by that evil.

Often, people who are upset about a joke will criticize any defense that focuses on the character of the performer rather than the effect of the act. It's a little weird to say that defending character is irrelevant, when much of the criticism focuses on motivation and character. So then, what of those criticisms that say something like 'I'm sure so-and-so is a good person, but there is a dangerous result of these types of jokes'?

When the discussion goes there, we're heading into claims about what fear a person should feel at the ability of other people to balance the two values of sympathy and levity. Does making a joke about evil—or laughing, or not expressing outrage about a joke about evil—make that evil stronger? And if the joke is the supposed admiration for that evil?

Some critics of Tosh's reported jokes are focusing on the effect this has. Some have been as specific and direct enough to claim that joking like this about rape makes it seem acceptable. Nobody seems to care that jokes and glib statements about murder are going to make murder seem acceptable. There was no outcry that all the cannibalism jokes of several weeks ago were going to hurt the cannibalism statistics. Some people didn't like the jokes, but it wasn't out of fear of some effect on society. Why not?

Rape falls into a window of evil behaviors that are cruel enough to be clearly wrong and beyond discussion for almost everyone, but are somehow still being negotiated. We could probably put child-abuse, wife-battering, bigotry, and a few other things on the list. And so we get statements, like this one from the @mountain_goats twitter feed

to compare those jokes with "I'm gonna kill you!" jokes is inane. 1 in 5 of the people you know isn't likely to get killed.

It appeals to a sense of risk and personal interest. It's a very attractive argument: An already too common problem, becomes even more likely because of these jokes. So how common does murder have to be before we decide the jokes are too much of a risk? No jokes about accidental shootings? How many people have to be killed on the highway before we get upset at jokes about reckless driving?

But does a performance like Tosh's really make rape more common? Even if we accept the claim that someone might be convinced by a joke to care less about rape, it's a huge jump to say that culture is equally lulled into thinking that 'no' means whatever. Or that joking about rape means not caring about rape. This goes back to the argument of necessary opposition: the belief that vigilance for a value will be destroyed by humor.

When comedy begins to concern itself with reaching the absolute moral certainty of being obviously satirical and impossible to mistake for an earnest statement, it isn't as good. Some of the most precise, thoughtful, intricate, and beautifully constructed jokes have offended and misled audiences. Ridiculous statements can be seen as both hilarious and completely wrong. And often they're even more hilarious when they're structured and presented as almost indistinguishable from honest statements of belief.

Adam Carolla Is Funny Enough for a Guy

2012-06-19T20:13:00.000-04:00

Adam Carolla has been fawning over cars and bandsaws and the wisdom of football coaches for years, and the first thing that makes some people roll their eyes is a tired old comment about women not being as funny as men.

Image from www.adamcarolla.com

If you look at my Twitter feed, you'll see that I've made a few jokes about his comments, and I seem to be jumping on the backlash bandwagon. Hell, I'm even writing a post about it. But in my defense, I'm just an attention whore, trying to get a few RTs and the approval of a few female comics with 100X the followers I have.

I'll admit that's a big part of why I'm picking this moment to talk about Carolla and his ideas.

Because he's not dangerous all of a sudden. He's not nudging America towards misogyny and insensitivity. He did take a dig at a few comedians, but he did it only a few seconds after he said he thinks Kathy Griffin is a "super-funny chick". If anything he said could make me mad, that would be it.

Why does this recent interview matter? Why do we care that he said "The reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks"?

It's a banal and shortsighted argument, even when the dude making it tries to sound smart, like Christopher Hitchens tried. So my reaction to Carolla's statement is really the same as my reaction when listening to him say that anyone who drives a Honda C-RV has given up on life. Or when he gets moist talking about how great sports are because "toughness and tenacity is something that you should hope your child has, versus, o— you know, a— a gift for music or math equations. You want a kid that's fucking tough. You want a kid that's not a pussy."* I roll my eyes and recognize the holes in the argument pretty much immediately.

I disagree with anyone who says that he shouldn't have a show, or he should lose his audience, or that he should apologize. I'm not even sure that he really believes the claim he's making. He's been performing for a long time now. And he's been trying all sorts of things to be funny. This might be ironic. It might not be. He might be doing his own version of the World Inter-Gender Championship. Or he might be as dumb about this as the interview suggests. He's clearly not dumb about getting attention just as his book is coming out.

The sticker price is the same whether you love him or hate him or don't care but decide to buy it anyway.

Whatever he really thinks, these statements are ready-made straw man arguments. I like seeing them out there, because all I have to do is quote them, and a lot of people will immediately recognize their stupidity.

*This quote is taken from the May 9, 2012 episode of Pete Holmes' You Made It Weird Podcast.

Today, We Are All Eaten

2012-06-07T01:09:00.000-04:00

No one thought that cannibalism was going to become a problem. At least not a problem that we were going to have to deal with ideologically. I was probably being naïve, but I always figured that eating humans was clearly enough discouraged and recognized as not reflecting American values. So when you come across three stories in one week about cannibalism, maybe it's time to step back and remind folks that, 'Hey— we don't do that here.' Because if we don't stop this now, it could get out of hand.

What? That's not necessary? No one thinks it's OK? It'll never be OK? And you think it's ridiculous to get serious making sure people know cannibalism is wrong?

But what if denying cannibalism is the new cannibalism?

I wonder if it would be funny to make a satirical public service announcement against cannibalism. Andy Samberg made one (watch it here), but I think we can do better. First, it can be better by being funnier. I don't want to be critical, because Samberg's was pretty funny. That explains some of the laughs it got. But it wasn't funny enough. Offensive jokes have to be super funny, or else they're offensive. Trust me.

Also, we have to make sure that we know what our point is. Dylan Gadino reminds us that in addition to being funny, "cringe acts" need a "purpose". It also helps if the performer offers "valuable commentary" like George Carlin always did. You know how all jokes work better with commentary.

Just to be safe, let's make sure the commentary is explicitly stated. In these cannibalistic times it's not enough to let commentary remain merely implicit in the comedic material. So just to be clear, our humorous PSA should probably have a disclaimer either at the bottom of the screen, or it should provide a link to a sensitively worded treatise on how our willingness to make a joke about cannibalism is in no way an endorsement of cannibalism, and is in no way an argument for greater acceptance of cannibalism nor should it be taken as agreement with cannibalist acts or statements.

The direct and non-ironic commentary must accompany the Escheresque irony of a situation in which an argument might be misunderstood as an endorsement of cannibalist ideas, even tho the argument ostensibly condemns cannibalism. That confusion is understandable, because making light of a serious situation can too easily be seen as indifference to someone's suffering. And now that cannibals are on the loose, sensitivity to the suffering of others is more important than ever.

Maybe we can explain that unlike Samberg's obviously ignorant PSA, our fake PSA about cannibalism is carefully satirizing the ease and self-assurance of a lot of celebrities when they take obvious sides in ridiculous debates. We should come up with some statement about how PSAs are sometimes just lame PR strategies, with celebrities even cheaply promoting their latest PSA on late-night talk shows. Let's make it clear that we're also satirizing how PSAs so often clumsily combine heartfelt messages about important and somber issues with schlocky jokes, bad writing, stiff acting, and rough editing.

But most importantly, we need the commentary to explain just how much we're against cannibalism. We need to remind people that we still think cannibalism is very bad. Because bad writing is just kinda bad for comedy. But no good joke has ever worked by being insensitive and insincere.

Audio: Interview with Mitch Hedberg

2012-03-27T23:39:00.001-04:00

Adam Cayton-Holland has posted the audio, from 2004, of a phone interview he did with Mitch Hedberg. Hedberg was on the road, driving to Louisiana Tech for a show.

The full audio is embedded here, but head over to Cayton-Holland's page to read his comments on Hedberg and the interview.

Squidward Jones?

2011-10-31T20:20:00.000-04:00

Kyle Kinane Claims He Was Stiffed by Sioux Falls, SD Booker

2011-10-05T07:07:00.001-04:00

(UPDATED BELOW)

Kyle Kinane is putting out a public service announcement.

A few follow-up tweets fill in some details of the story:

He confirmed that the fellow he refers to looks like this

He confirmed that Abrahamson is "the same guy that stiffed JD Povorose," (as identified by @kfleminem).

He reported (we can gather) that the amount was $1,183.00 (plus the amount of Kinane's hotel stay).

Abrahamson's side of the story is nowhere to be found. In fact, his online presence is pretty minimal. A Facebook account under his name has been removed (screenshot of the cached page). His MySpace page is available only to friends. The only YouTube videos to show up with his name were posted by "mrstandup1978", who promised "I will be posting my sets as I get them…" but whose account has been deleted.

It's not clear that all those missing links are Abrahamson, but he is looking a lot like a baboon right now.

(UPDATE)

Kinane has posted the following statement on his webpage:

IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO TOURING COMICS: Avoid working for Sioux Falls booker Brian Eugene Abrahamson at all costs. He will not pay. He is not a sad-sack down on his luck as he’d like you to believe. From what I’ve discovered after the fact, he books people with the promise of a set amount but has no intention of paying them the agreed flat fee. I was lucky that I wasn’t relying on the promised guaranteed amount for my bills, but others haven’t been so lucky. Brian Eugene Abrahamson needs to be ousted from booking comedy shows and the best way I know how is to take to public forums.

Feel free to repost this in any comic forums you utilize to warn others that you WILL NOT BE PAID if you work for Brian Eugene Abrahamson. Or give me the names of any viable comic forums and I will be happy to contact them myself.

Abrahamson has deactivated his Facebook and Twitter accounts, as he’s done in the past when comics have rallied against him for the same reason. He will terminate any means of communication until the trouble blows over, then resurface to book more comics not aware of his scam. It is my intention to make sure that doesn’t happen again. As I’ve said, put the word out that Brian Eugene Abrahamson doesn’t pay his comics the amount they’ve agreed upon, therefore he has no business working in a promotional capacity. To clarify, he works independently and is not affiliated with any clubs in the area of Sioux Falls. As a matter of fact, he is banned from his hometown club, to the best of my knowledge. So if that says anything…

Thanks for listening. Spread the word if you are a comic and understand that if you manipulate someone and mess with their source of income, it shouldn’t be tolerated.

Kyle Kinane

Jim Tavaré, Victim of Identity Theft

2011-06-21T17:17:00.007-04:00

UPDATED BELOW

In the 3rd season of Wings† Jim Tavaré played a comedian who steals Helen Chapel's comedy thunder by doing a stand-up act with the same gimmick she is hoping will make her stand out: playing a large stringed instrument.

Now, Tavaré is making sure everyone knows that there's a comic out there, named Sid Bowfin, who's trying to steal more than his thunder: Tavaré believes he's stealing the entire act.

Tavare has been working hard to shine an accusing light on the would-be doppelgänger. He's been on Twitter asking for help from Robin Ince, Bob Saget, Peter Serafinowicz, Bryan Callen, Neal Brennan, Stephen Fry, the people at Punchline Magazine and others.

See, the important difference here, is that while both Tavaré (left)
and Bowfin (right) are checking their mics, Bowfin has updated
the material by using a wireless mic. Tavaré never though of that.

The similarities pretty feasibly go beyond mere coincidences. Both wear white tie and tails on stage, use a member of the viol family as a prop, sport a slick scalp, have similar websites (Tavaré's page, Bowfin's page), speak with a British accent (that might be coincidence), and even work with some similar extended premises on stage.

Here's a video of Tavaré doing a bit about a malfunctioning mic and keyboard.

And here is Sid Bowfin doing his own take on the technical troubles.

It might be worth noting that one of Tavaré's early jokes was "Good evening. My name is Jim, I'm going to play you music spanning several centuries. Hope you've got the time."

And his admirer says on stage: "Ladies and gentlemen, hello, my name is Sid Bowfin, and I'm here to play you some classical music for the next four hours! Are you excited? You should get out more."

Use this information as you will.

UPDATE: A comment has been posted under the name "Sid Bowfin" over at Punchline Magazine's article about this story. The article is a reprint of Tavaré's letter to Punchline, wherein he makes his case.

Bowfin's entire response to the accusations are as follows:

You’re right, I can’t deny it any longer I have stolen my entire act from you, which probably explains why it’s so bad. This whole article is like an argument between two prostitutes over who caught herpes first, there are no winners here and the losers are the comedy loving public who have now had their conciousness [sic] infected with our comedy STIs.

If this is the real "Bowfin", what we have here is a petty pickpocket complaining that there wasn't enough money in the wallet he stole, and concluding 'this makes us both look bad.'

† Episode 18: Take My Life, Please — 27 February 1992

The Quick Changes of Bill Murray

2011-06-11T20:03:00.005-04:00

Can you identify all the Bill Murray movie roles in this GIF? The images scroll in the order the movies were made.

This is the fine work of Derek Eads whose page is full of excellent illustrations.

Nick Griffin: You Always Want a Donut

2011-05-08T20:40:00.004-04:00

You get a heavy sense, from Nick Griffin's comedy, that his world doesn't sparkle. His material covers depression, poverty, overdrinking, sexual frustration, insecurity, and the apparent cause of it all: divorce — which he reminds us is a lot worse than being scratched by a cat. Actually, divorce might be the result of it all. Either way, he has churned that fetid bubbling brew into a potent stand-up act.

Originally from Kansas City, he's been a part of both the L.A. and New York comedy machines, currently churning out of New York. During his recent stop in Indiana, I had a chance to talk with him about his writing, his traveling, his projects, and what he calls his "dopey Twitter account."

My wife with Nick Griffin in the barely
lit lobby after his show in Lafayette, IN.

Lafayette Indiana is so small and simple that when Nick Griffin tells me he's on his way "downtown," that's enough to make our paths cross. When his next message tells me he's on Main and 9th, I don't text him back; I just look up. Because I'm already on Main and 9th too. He sees me from the car, waves, parks, then crosses the street to shake my hand. I have to add that he doesn't have to look for parking, and he barely has to look both ways before crossing the street. Downtown Lafayette is ghostly.

Why is he riding into a small town like this, for a single show? It can't be the coffee shops. The only one we can find is about to close, and it's barely past 6:15PM. What could have pulled him out here from New York?

"It's another gig," he says. "I kinda have to take it." Certainly he doesn't really "have to." Griffin isn't begging for spots. He works and travels almost constantly. He could take a break. But a look at his itinerary makes it clear that a big part of why he has to, is his work ethic.

This is the second time within the space of a week that Griffin has visited and performed in central Indiana. The previous weekend he headlined four nights at Crackers in Indianapolis, where I caught one of his sets. He believes that at a typical club show there are maybe 10 or 15 people who came out to see him. "The rest of them have no idea who I am. They just wanted to go out to a comedy club." But for the show I saw, he had the Saturday night crowd sustained in laughter as successfully as any comic I've seen. With a steady pacing that rolled as if on rails.

The consistent tightness of his writing is always impressive. Each joke works well on it's own, but he doesn't just fire them off in isolation. Griffin is a joke writer, with well-crafted chunks, connected thematically. Not only does he want each joke to serve a narrative on stage, he wants it to fit his own perspective. "As I grow older I think I would like to have material be as reflective of my thoughts as possible. I don't hold on to material if it doesn't say what I want it to say."

Altho he admits to sometimes being harder on himself than necessary, he recognizes the benefits of his self-flagellating criticism. "Quite frankly it's so hard to write great material. I saw Jerry Seinfeld talk about having this really great act, and how hard it is for a new joke to get into that act because it's such a high standard." He pauses. "Not that my act is on that level." But he trusts his standards and knows that at least being hard on himself is another way of pushing himself to write honestly. "You do feel like there's a certain standard of a great joke and you want to have every new joke be up to that."

He writes every day, then tries the material onstage. He records every set, and listens to it later, then hones the jokes. Writing. Testing. Revising. Retesting. Of course that effort and intense crafting can start to wear. "I'm one line at a time. Thirty seconds at a time." Tho there are the occasional epiphanies "where there's a joke out there in the ether, and I find it. You know immediately that that's the one. It happens very rarely, like maybe a couple times a year where you'll think 'I don't even have to try this. I could just not do this joke, and still know it's a great joke.'"

He's in awe of comedians like Louis C.K. and Bill Burr who have been almost eerily prolific. "I just watched Burr's hourlong special, Let It Go, and I just can't believe how good it is. It's tons of material, and it's chunks, and it's thematically consistent, and it's great."

Shaking his head in disbelief, "I just don't have that. Even a good month for me is like two minutes or three minutes. It's not ten. Never has been."

He hasn't taken too naturally to his Twitter account, @TheNickGriffin. He updates it occasionally, but he's wary of putting unfinished work out there with his name on it. He's not at all critical, however, of comedians who use the internet to gain exposure. "I think it's an exciting time. I think it's a creative boom maybe, even more-so than a financial boom." And he realizes the opportunity of online exposure isn't a shortcut to anything. "There's so many good comics, and only so many venues. You've gotta find a way to market yourself." Something he admits isn't his strength. "It's hard to keep up with, quite frankly."

Among the spotlighting venues that consider Griffin a go-to guy is the Bob & Tom morning radio show, based in Indianapolis. He's a regular there. This has given him a good midwest fan base, helping to set up shows like his appearance here in Lafayette with fellow Bob & Tom regular, Tim Cavanagh.

Griffin has done a half-hour for Comedy Central Presents, he's been on Craig Ferguson's Late Late show a few times, and he recently did a spot on Conan's new show.

One of the greatest sources of pride: he's becoming a familiar face on David Letterman's Late Show. Griffin has long admired the late-night host, and feels lucky to be in the stable of repeat acts. It's especially heartening, considering the dark direction where his humor tilts. Griffin's disturbed perspective is what kicks most of his material into action. So, predictably, a lot of his best stuff isn't quite sweet enough for the networks. One of his jokes complains about his inability to date younger women.

"Because young girls are filled with sugar and spice and everything nice. And I'm filled with anger and semen and shame."

"Maybe one of my favorite jokes I ever wrote," he says. But when he took the set to Late Show talent coordinator, Eddie Brill, semen had to be changed to Prozac. "To be honest with you I don't think I even asked them if I could say semen. I just knew they weren't gonna let me." But, of course, doing the show is a huge honor, and he's happy to do it every chance he gets.

One of his appearances on Late Night caught the attention of John Markus, a writer and producer on The Cosby Show and The Larry Sanders Show. Markus contacted Griffin about developing a sitcom. They got Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants, to help pitch it to a network, and ABC went so far as to pay them to write a pilot. It didn't go any further, but Griffin is pleased to have gotten a chance to learn about the avenue.

"I would love to have a show" he says. "If someone allowed me to do it, like Seinfeld did, where you can be the comic that you really are, that'd be great." For him, a sitcom wouldn't be a way out of stand-up. It would be a way to do more with it. "It brings more people out to see your stand-up. It's better venues. You wanna get better. You want to develop. And you want people to see you. I didn't grow up wanting to be an actor tho."

And now, to his club and TV and radio appearances, he's added a new album: Bring Out the Monkey.

Griffin is a very quotable comedian. His jokes are structurally solid and thematically direct, making them memorable, and very portable.

On despair:

Sleep is like killing yourself, but you wake up refreshed. You ever wake up refreshed but you go back to bed anyway? Yeah. That's called depression.

On laziness:

If my generation had come over as the pilgrims, this would not be the United States of America. This would be that place where all those pilgrims died.

On arousal:

I think about sex a lot. A lot. I don't know who is running the projector in my brain, but he is very immature.

The point of view and the character that says these things is clear in his act. Recently, he's been opening with material about being envious of vampires. A woman in the Lafayette audience calls out "The real ones!" She apparently doesn't appreciate the prissy vampires prancing thru the Twilight series. Griffin shrugs and reminds her: "I've got news for you. They're all fake." That's the backbone of his comedy: bare reality. He says what he believes is true. And his delivery is perfectly suited to the humor. His pauses and his rhythm are deliberate but natural. There aren't gaps; there's space. He knows how to give each joke time to connect and hit. It seems almost unfairly fortunate for him that he's such an appropriate messenger for his humor.

So it's easy to imagine him getting the attention of the right people at the right time to throw his career into a new level. He mentions the sudden sensation and discovery of Jay Pharoah, whose celebrity impressions on YouTube got the attention of Lorne Michaels, earning Pharoah a spot as a featured player on SNL. "There's a lot of different ways to develop ideas and I'm hopefully going to keep trying all of them, and maybe one of them will break thru."

He's aware of his competition. "There's a million comics. There's a million actors. I think the internet is going to create some really great comics, and it's going to create some really bad comics who'll become really famous." Not being in the second group is a source both of pride, and some frustration.

Griffin is not unknown. He's not obscure. He's getting work and he has the solid respect of other comedians. Marc Maron considers him a "kindred spirit" and Joe Matarese has called him "the top of the Letterman guys," saying that all the sets are "homeruns" full of "unbelievable jokes."

Griffin's dedication to comedy has him swirling around the country, and bouncing between the coasts. From his stint in Indianapolis on the 30th of April, he went back to New York for the week, then came back to Indiana for the show in Lafayette on the 6th, then back home again. He'll be in Columbus Ohio, from May 18-22 at the Funny Bone, and a week after that he'll be at the San Francisco Punchline. The week after that he's at the Omaha Nebraska Funny Bone.

"I used to be able to route things a little bit better" he says. "The last few years have gotten kinda weird."

The last few years have also revealed Letterman's obvious regard for him. He's already slated for another spot this coming Friday, May 13th. Maybe it'll be that consistent presence combined with his sole-thinning tour strategy that will eventually pay off.

His face is already getting recognized. As we're finishing up our conversation, a young couple walks past us on the sidewalk. They whisper something to each other, then turn back around. "Are you a comedian," the guy asks. "Yeah, I am. Nice to meet you" Griffin says, and shakes the guy's hand with a smile. The kid is excited. "Yeah, I saw you and I knew you looked familiar."

Later that night after the show, an obvious fan who looks about college age, stands in line to shake Nick's hand. He excitedly tells Nick "Right now, I have a picture of you as the wallpaper on my computer."

That's gotta be a compliment he doesn't hear too often. But if great sets, a strong new album, national TV spots, and a foot in the sitcom door aren't enough to turn Griffin into a Pollyanna, I doubt that being on another guy's computer screen is going to do the trick. But Griffin smiles, and talks to the kid for a while, shaking his hand with what looks like sincere appreciation.

It may not yet be the broad and intense fame that packs every club with nothing but fans. And he may still feel a responsibility to grind out the circuit. But it should be a good reminder that he's doing what he's doing, very well. "If I get to be a really good comic along the way, I'll be OK with that."

So maybe Griffin is doomed to always be chasing after something more than OK. Because he passed "really good comic" a while ago.

Before you go, Remember this…

2011-05-04T03:48:00.002-04:00

MEETING NOTES:

DICK: We need a young family-friendly comic. Nothing dirty. Nothing controversial.



ED: Yeah we can find that.



DICK: He needs to tailor the set to our show.



ED: You mean… be not very funny?



DICK: Hey! It can be funny, but he's gotta ruin it with awkward commentary. You know, like when you talk to Johnny and me.



ED: Just any commentary?



DICK: No. he's gotta tie it all in to bloopers and maybe a practical joke.



ED: Who's gonna write this material for him?



DICK: Let him use his own jokes. If he's bright, he'll figure out a way to do the tie-ins.

--

Jerry takes the stage:
Thank you very much. Thank you. Bloopers… You know, I flew in on a plane. Talk about bloopers. You don't want bloopers on a plane. Stewardesses, they uh, they never make a mistake. They're too happy. They do their job. They come out there. They put on their little show. You know, before the plane takes off.

DICK AND ED: [in the wings] This is better than we could have imagined.

Mandy, Presented by The Sims 2

2011-05-03T17:06:00.000-04:00

I spent a summer playing the Sims. It's addictive and time consuming. I spent a few weeks getting a good job, building a mansion, making friends, hitting on the hot neighbor, then proposing to her in front of a fireplace. She caught fire and burned to death.

I decided to stop there because my 4 minutes of uncontrollable laughter were going to be impossible to top.

So I started playing The Sims.

This video is about 4 years old. But it holds up because of 1:47.

Can I Violate You with a Rubber Chicken?

2011-05-02T06:04:00.000-04:00

Wired magazine recently devoted an issue to humor. Which means that Andy Samberg was on the cover and a couple articles were about jokes and comedians. Yeah, They went all out.

The issue includes an article by Joel Warner, "The Humor Code: One professor's attempt to explain every joke ever with a single Venn Diagram." Here's the quick summary of Peter McGraw's theory of humor, "the Grand Unified Theory of humor—in his words, 'a parsimonious account of what makes things funny.'"

photo from Janelle Keith's Blog (link)

This theory of "Benign Violation" looks easy to describe. It proposes that we laugh to signal our understanding that a challenge to dignity or other "norms" poses no real threat. Warner writes of one study carried out by the professor and his associates:

McGraw determined that funniness could be predicted based on how committed a person is to the norm being violated, conflicts between two salient norms, and psychological distance from the perceived violation.

That's a simple claim. All you have to do in order to find out if someone is going to find something funny, is measure the size of their values; identify what expectations they have and are able to perceive, and get out your "psychological distance" tape-measure. That's all. When you know those numbers, you know if something's going to be funny.

Here's the obvious problem with the theory: it's impossible to find a number, or value, for something like "psychological distance." And even if there was a number there, how would you measure it? And someone's commitment to a norm is probably even harder to fence in. But perhaps a questionnaire, and some psychological profiling will get us halfway there. So fine, if we accept that those are the variables, we know that we should measure them. Somehow.

But I'm very committed to the norm of not murdering someone. I'm planning to go my whole life without murdering anyone. And yet, I can find a joke about murder extremely funny. So am I more OK with murder than I thought?

Then, how is something that's said ironically, processed as a violation of anything other than discourse? How is a punchline that the teller doesn't "really believe" a violation of anything other than some rule about 'what shouldn't be said'?

To navigate thru that challenge, a theory like McGraw's would have to introduce something like 'a commitment to norms regarding ways of expressing commitment to a norm.' In other words, 'how sensitive someone is to comments about, or representations of, a norm.' In familiar words: a sense of humor.

One of McGraw's go-to analogies is tickling: we recoil from tickling because it's a violation of space and body comfort, but we laugh because we know we're not at risk. And we can't tickle ourselves because we can't violate ourselves. Well, in that case, I guess wasn't really caught doing anything that one time.

And even tho McGraw claims to be able to predict what isn't funny, all he seems to do is predict that some things aren't going to be funny to some people. They fail to be funny if the violation threatens the audience or its "worldview." But then why are some things that turn out to be benign violations not funny? Why is a car spinning on a bridge and stopping right at the edge, not a hilarious event? And what's the Venn Diagram for the difference between a successful and a botched joke? If someone messes up every joke with bad rhythm or a tipped punchline, how does this theory explain that failure? There are millions of ways of ruining a joke—most of them have nothing to do with the meaning or the content of the joke, or the issues being played with. The Venn Diagram only allows for two explanations for a failed joke: either it didn't violate, or it isn't benign.

Of course, I'm just going based on the Wired article. And despite every oversimplification that I've committed in this post, I'm always skeptical of dumbed-down versions of ideas. I still haven't read McGraw's paper, but I do plan to. He presented it in the journal Psychological Science last year.

In the article, Warner quotes Purdue Linguistics professor, Victor Raskin, who calls the theory "flawed and bullshit." Louis CK also weighs in. When McGraw tries to explain the theory, CK interrupts and protests "There are thousands of kinds of jokes. I just don't believe that there's one explanation."

There might be one explanation for all the different types of jokes out there. Puns, pratfalls, impressions, exaggeration, insults, absurdity and on and on. It's possible that all those varieties lead to one response—laughter—because of one feature or structure common to all of them. But in an attempt to keep it simple, McGraw's theory as reported doesn't offer anything beyond a restatement of the very dynamic it's supposed to predict. It doesn't look like this theory does what a theory should: make a disprovable claim. McGraw basically says that people find those challenges funny, that fit into their category of things that are allowed to be funny.

That's a violation of my belief that humor is more than mere disagreement. And it doesn't look anything like a threat to my worldview. Maybe that's why I find it so laughable.

Aflac's new Quacksperson.

2011-05-01T02:07:00.005-04:00

It's been about a week now since Aflac announced their new duck-voice: Daniel McKeague. It's a pretty masterful PR move to make people care about a soccer coach from Minnesota getting a VO gig.

Did they go for a new sound? Did they go for an impression? The first video doesn't make it clear. it's almost a split between Gottfried and Donald Duck. But McKeague explains that he did have an impression in his pocket. "Whenever that ad would come on I would imitate the duck and the kids loved it."

The second video, strangely, sounds like a completely different voice. Not at all Donald-ish or Gilbert-y. I wonder if they checked every contestant's tweets before deciding.

The Hangover Part II: One Nightmare in Bangkok?

2011-03-28T21:22:00.000-04:00

From the synopsis on the Apple's trailer page:

After the unforgettable bachelor party in Las Vegas, Stu is taking no chances and has opted for a safe, subdued pre-wedding brunch.

Spoiler alert: Things fall apart.

Watch the teaser trailer.

Aflac Claptrap: Amy Phillips Makes a Good Impression

2011-03-23T00:47:00.001-04:00

Now that Gilbert Gottfried is out, how many celebrities does it take to say Aflac annoyingly? Six. Or maybe just one. Amy Phillips. The impersonations are good, and she gets extra points for including Rita Rudner.

Seriously, who had the foresight to tell her to work up a Rita Rudner impression? Nicely done.

via @Satiristas

SNL Commercial Parody: Corn Syrup

2011-03-22T19:16:00.000-04:00

This is the first SNL commercial parody in a while to make me laugh. Short. Tight. A clear premise that doesn't get pounded to death.

Now, how much would you say final turn/reveal was added as a tag to strengthen the bit structurally as a punchline, versus being added to keep critics from accusing the writers of being one-sided on the issue?

Online Petition to Save Gottfried's VO Job

2011-03-17T16:29:00.001-04:00

Eric Hansen wants Aflac to rehire Gilbert Gottfried. His argument, according to the online petition he has started, is pretty easy to improve on.

"Gottfried was simply enacting his first amendment rights"

So is Aflac. They're a company that can hire and fire celebrity voices for whatever reason they want. They didn't fire him for breaking the law. They fired him for saying something they didn't like AND, most likely, that they believed would bring them bad press and hurt business.

He has "a well-established reputation as a filthy, tasteless comedian."

They hired him for his grating voice, not for his reputation. When his reputation suddenly became more problematic than his voice, they re-evaluated the balance. Whether you judge him or not, with these jokes and the attention they got, his reputation changed for a lot of people.

"[B]y joking about this tragedy, he could have brightened the days of the victims of it."

This is almost as hard to swallow as the argument that his jokes could have made their suffering worse. So maybe it brightened the days of a few victims with a great sense of humor. That's not the point tho. This defense of humor, as a way to "brighten a day," is too easy to flip around and use to attack every comedian who makes anyone uncomfortable.

"In short, if you didn't want to associate yourself with a tasteless comedian who makes inappropriate jokes, you had no business hiring Gilbert Gottfried in the first place."

Worst closing statement ever. You used to say you loved him! So now you have to keep him! You've basically told them they were right to fire him. As I write, 14 people have signed the petition. Aflac has not yet changed its mind.

via Punchline Magazine

Tom Myers: Comedy Mentor

2011-03-16T21:45:00.000-04:00

If you haven't read the last post or the editorial that it was written in response to, please do so before watching this video.

Comic Disapproves of Reading Notes Onstage.

2011-03-16T16:57:00.000-04:00

Baltimore comedian Tom Myers has written a very important editorial for Punchline Magazine about something that is tearing at the core of the stand-up comedy artform: reading from your notes.

Really, Tom? Why is this an important issue?

In order to make it to the top, it is beneficial for every comedian to follow this piece of advice that I am offering. It is something that can help all comedians and is the reason why I have invested so much time and energy into writing this piece.

Yep. This is what comedians need to do to make it. In fact, just a week and a half ago I saw Marc Maron start his set with about 15 minutes of reading and commenting on his notes. It was hilarious. But you're telling me it could have been better? I'll be sure to forward your editorial to him so that he can benefit from your advice.

If patrons had attended a showing of Hamlet where Sir John Gielgud read off of his script for the duration of the performance, then the audience collectively would have (rightfully so) walked out and demanded their money back. This principle should apply to professional comedy shows as well as showcases. The comedian should be able to commit certain concepts to memory, with limited chances to be prompted.

If patrons had attended a Kentucky Derby where the Thoroughbreds all wandered around the track aimlessly, I'm sure the audience would angrily sashay out of Churchill Downs and demand their money back. This principle should apply to Andy Kindler's act. He should run as fast as he can in a circle.

I often use a cheat sheet, which contains a list of my newest bits that are more than likely not yet planted into my memory.

Seriously? You use a cheat sheet? There's nothing wrong with that I guess. But what's more important to you? Would you rather people remember your shows saying "that was so hilarious" or "that was so well memorized"?

…this technique can be helpful because it does not create an awkward sense in the audience because they are witnessing this performer that they have paid money to see literally reading off a sheet of paper and not paying attention to them.

They paid money to be entertained. Not to be tricked into thinking you studied carefully for the test.

The newer comics figure if a comedy great like Mitch Hedberg did it, then they can get away with it, as well. The difference between the two is that Mitch Hedberg could get laughs and be funny.

So as long as they're doing well on stage, note or no notes really doesn't matter? As long as a comedian is funny, they can completely ignore your advice? I think many of them will.

Aflac Fires Gilbert Gottfried for Jokes about Japan

2011-03-15T03:11:00.000-04:00

Gilbert Gottfried is taking some of the attention away from Alec Sulkin for tweets about Japan that offended people. And he's one-upping the story: Gottfried's jokes got him fired from his quacking gig.

Aflac released a statement, saying

Gilbert’s recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac.

Some of the jokes:

Japan called me. They said ‘maybe those jokes are a hit in the U.S., but over here, they’re all sinking.

I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said ‘is there a school in this area.’ She said ‘not now, but just wait.

Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them.

Gottfried made jokes about 9/11 just a few weeks after the attack. It was at the Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner. He started to lose the crowd, but he won them back by telling a joke about sodomy, incest, pedophilia, scat, and showbusiness. And the punchline wasn't even that great. But the crowd loved it.

link to a story about the firing.

another link to a story about the firing.

another link to yet another story about the firing.

The Sulk vs Your Feelings. And Japan, Too.

2011-03-12T04:09:00.007-05:00

The second biggest meltdown to come from the Japan earthquake was the reaction to Alec Sulkin's joke on twitter.

Some people, of course, were offended. If you look over his history of tweets and the stuff he's written for Family Guy, it's a pretty safe bet that people are offended by his stuff all the time. The criticism of this tweet can't just be that it's the "most" offensive thing he's written, because who cares if it's his most offensive work? Think about it: do we make a big deal when anyone does something worse than anything they've ever done before? No. We only care when people do things worse than anyone has done before.

So is this the most offensive joke every told? The most offensive tweet ever tweeted? No. Is it the earliest joke about Japan that got this much attention? Yes. And that reaction—whether you defend it or dismiss^† it—is the doing of the people who were offended. Offended by this joke being too early. And probably more specifically, offended that Sulkin said he was willing to laugh in their temple. The temple of feeling bad.

Some of Sulkin's critics have been calm, and tried to analyze humor. Like this thought from The Comedy Bureau:

Lesson: don’t make jokes in the “never too early” spirit of trying to be as controversial as possible just for the sake of being as controversial as possible, thinking the shock itself is what’s funny. Make jokes because the accepted inconsistency or overlooked false assumption is legitimately funny.

Decent advice, but unnecessary if you're OK with offending people. And sure, the shock is part of what's funny, but that's not the only way Sulkin's joke works.

Some responses have been less analytical and have just tried to express judgement. Like this contribution from from Kasey Anderson:

Always good when stuff like this weeds out the assholes of the world.

Using Anderson's comment as a springboard, Danforth France mixes some analysis with some judgement:

It fails as a joke because it doesn’t say anything true. It makes no point. It shines a light on nothing. If it’s meant to be taken humorously, it reveals a basic ignorance of the subject he’s joking about and THAT is offensive all by itself.

France makes some key claims that—for me—explain the difference in our reactions. He doesn't believe Sulkin said anything true. I disagree. I don't want to get too heavy into an analysis of the nature and structure of humor, but I do see that Sulkin's quote makes a statement about national memory, the history of nations, the nature of pity, the sins of the father, and the size of the world. Yes. Seriously. I'm not saying whether or not he thought all that, but at the very least his instinctual comic ear was picking up those tones.

France also wonders if the tweet was "meant to be taken humorously." Really? Does he think it's at all likely that Sulkin was serious? His argument continues with an attempt at statistical proof that the premise of the joke is flawed and he tries to take down Sulkin based on a logical claim about what numbers should make us feel bad for who.

Let's back up and repeat: It's ridiculous to believe that Sulkin is really claiming that this tragedy is payback for Pearl Harbor, or that the number of people killed in the attack 70 years ago is actually a mitigation on the toll of the earthquake. France is putting a lot of energy into making a point that nobody has actually disputed, unless you take the joke as a straightforward claim, meant to be taken seriously.^†

He claims not to be interested in a discussion of "offensiveness or sensitivity or free speech or comedy theory," and he says he disregards the humor simply because "it’s a piece of shit joke." That's disingenuous. Is he out there calling out every joke he thinks is poorly written? It's no coincidence that the joke he's judging most harshly is also being called offensive.^† And his very next post he claims a position of "Moral rectitude." He clearly believes this is more than just about the quality of a joke. Unless he believes the quality of a joke is a moral issue.^†

Nobody has brought up the issue of harm done by Sulkin's joke, because nobody would be stupid enough to claim there is any. This isn't an issue that society is struggling with more urgently than all other evils. There's no current campaign of bigotry directed at the Japanese that this humor is making worse. There's no tinderbox of Japanese relations that inflammatory speech might set ablaze. There's no risk that jokes like this will make people afraid to help. There's really no risk.

Sulkin has made jokes about child abduction, D-Day, AIDS, rape, rape, incest (of the rape kind)… And people have laughed at them like they're meant to. The only stance that can claim this is now a moral issue, or that this simple joke is more contemptible than any other joke Sulkin has made, is one born almost entirely of the audience's demand that he not make light of their current emotional state. That's a fair (if silly) request. But it's no basis for a claim about his character or humor that you were never driven to make before.

Update:
Sulkin has apologized for the tweet and deleted it from his timeline, posting

Yesterday death toll = 200. Today = 10 thousand. I am sorry for my insensitive tweet. It's gone.

†I have done some minor editing of this post to make some claims more precise and specific. The emended passages are marked.

Gallagher Collapses During MN Show

2011-03-11T01:43:00.001-05:00

Comedian Leo Anthony Gallagher collapsed on stage and was taken to a hospital Thursday night, according to the Associated Press.

Chris Blade, who was at the show, told a local reporter that Gallagher was complaining of pain and shortness of breath. Others in attendance confirm the appearance of a stroke or heart attack. No confirmations have come from doctors or the hospital.

No one reported hearing "Aw C'mon Gallagher!" as he was wheeled away.

Marc Maron tweeted: "I heard about Gallagher. I hope he is all right"

Steven Wright Joins Twitter.

2011-03-10T17:10:00.000-05:00

Steven Wright, the master of one-liners, is now on twitter. The 140 character limit is a good test of someone's ability to whittle the elements of a joke down to the tightest form. And if a good one-liner is like a molecule of funny, Wright is the Enrico Fermi of jokes.

But the master of the short joke has been telling a story for about a week, with a series of to-be-continued tweets including one (so far) that is goes beyond 140 characters. He's being surreal and unpredictable as usual.

Comedy Central: "Give It Up for Greg Giraldo" to Air March 18

2011-03-10T01:28:00.000-05:00

Comedy Central has announced "Give It Up for Greg Giraldo," a tribute that will feature "never-before-aired, behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the late comedian himself." Also featured will be interviews with several guests, including Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, Dave Attell, Sarah Silverman, Colin Quinn and more. The special airs March 18 at 11:30PM ET/PT.

Giraldo, who died last September of a drug overdose, was an important part of Comedy Central's voice, doing stand-up specials, appearing on panel programs, killing at roasts, and providing much of the most reliably intelligent and funny comedy on the network. His death was deeply felt in the comedy community.

Giraldo's absence was noted more than once at the very recently filmed Roast of Donald Trump. Before the event, his writing partner and friend Jesse Joyce reportedly had a joke so "evil" that he believed only Giraldo could have made it work.