Baby’s first water gun.
photo credit: Freeheelingstrider via photopin cc

I am not a child nor do I have children, so my sense of what makes a commercial for kids’ toys these days is skewed. My only reference for this is old Crossfire ads which are undoubtedly an inseparable part of any person’s brain who is around my age. The other day, this changed, as I went to see Star Trek Into Darkness. I was in the unusual circumstance of being alone in the movie theater, waiting for the person I was meeting up with. While I was there, I was watching that weird previews-while-waiting-for-the-previews thing that some theaters have implemented. Those previews containing things like 10-minute documentaries on how Rizzoli and Isles is made or whatever. Well, at the end of that mess, there was one ad that stuck in my head. An ad for beloved childhood brand, Super Soaker:

So, two new models in Hasbro’s Nerf Super Soaker series: the X-TREME Switch Shot and X-TREME Arctic Shock.

The first thing that caught my attention was the complete lack of interest in the announcer’s voice. The coy, self-negating dialog the narrator had to read.

So you can unleash a rush of x-treme cold in every blast to freeze your friends! Okay, maybe not that cold but it’s cold.

and

You can unleash waves of x-treme soakage! Well, not that much soakage but you’ll get soaked.

Have some purpose to your life, man who’s trying to sell me things!

Now as an adult who has seen an adjustable shower head and knows what a kid full of Popsicles is capable of, I also see: Switch Shot, because nothing says breakable toy like movable parts!

The end of the commercial I find especially weird, the part where the freezing gun is unfreezing the logo. Why does this happen? Is it a continuity error? In film, continuity errors happen for a variety of reasons. One of them is that in editing, stuff might be cut for timing, uselessness to plot, or changes to the story. These things that are cut out of the film might have originally explained some tiny change in a person’s clothes or something else more interesting. Could it be that this graphic comes from a deleted scene?

My hypothesis is that originally the new water guns were supposed to be a hot/cold dichotomy. X-TREME probably stood for temperature extremes. X-TREME Switch Shot was originally called the Hot Shot but after realizing no one likes being covered in hot water in the summer, they decided to rename it and forget about telling people to add boiling water to the reservoir. X-TREME Arctic Shock got to stay the same because it didn’t cause severe burns on children.

Remember, it’s Nerf or nothing! Alright, maybe not that nothing.

People have an unbelievably hard time knowing how to spell or pronounce “Aromando” even though, for the most part, it’s pretty phonetic. I don’t really begrudge people for this (too much) because despite the fact that I should have sympathy for people with hard to spell/pronounce names, the fact is that I don’t try any harder with my difficult-name-colleagues than the average person would. I just as much figure that they are as used to correcting people (or biting their tongue) as I am.

With that being said, I’m also not complaining. I appreciate having a memorable name, people have an easier time remembering who I am and a lot of people tell me they like saying my name. Once a person gets my name wrong, it seems like they always put in extra effort to remember it and that’s the game I’m in these days (otherwise, I’m not sure why I write blog posts simply about my name).

The reason I’m writing this is that I was thinking about all the things that inform what a person understands. Things like their religion, where they grew up, what television they watched, how strict their parents were. The infinite number of life experiences that can affect what a person thinks is or isn’t funny, precautions they do or don’t take, fears they do or don’t have, et cetera.

Can you just spell that for me?
photo credit: oooh.oooh via photopin cc

The key phrase there is “infinite number of life experiences.” For me, just having a last name as unloaded as “Aromando” has opened my eyes to a weird phenomenon with people: the inability to comprehend the how the combination of the letters “ar” work. Whenever I have to give my name to be looked up like will call at concert, receptionists at the dentist office, or picking up a pre-ordered video game, I have to spell my last name out after saying it. Inevitably, everyone upon hearing my name will flip to the “R” section of their binders because that’s the sound that comes out of my mouth first. On the surface I can believe that is an honest mistake but once I thought about it, I realized how silly that is. The sound of “r” is always spelled “ar” and most famously in the word “are.” Of course, I’ve spent a good amount of time thinking about all the words with this sound in it and have compiled a list:

Armageddon
Army
Armistice
Arm
Aardvark
Argue
Artillery
Art
Arson
Argyle
Arbitrary
Armor
Archer

and so on…

I couldn’t think of any instances of words with the “r” sound that didn’t have the help of the letter “a” but I’m open to being proven wrong.**

*I made these up and they may not be technically correct but if you have an idea of what it should be, tweet me or something!
** Another reason to tweet at me!

photo credit: Sarah Ross photography via photopin cc

I love messing with the lyrics of songs like a poor man’s Weird Al (or like a regular man’s Homer Simpson).

It took me forever to find the song that inspired me to write this post. It’s a song I generally only hear in bars/clubs and I rarely know what names of those songs are or who they’re by unless the voice is distinct enough for me to know, like an Eminem, Ludacris, or Kei$ha.

Well, after doing a little “research,” the song is, Sexy Chick by David Guetta featuring Akon. (It’s actually called, Sexy Bitch, but the slightly less inflammatory, clean, version is what I’m guessing I hear more often.) I was worried about looking up the real lyrics because I enjoy getting them wrong so much but here’s the chorus:

She’s nothing like a girl you’ve ever seen before
Nothing you can compare to your neighborhood
I’m tryna find the words to describe this girl
Without being disrespectful

The part that I would get wrong is, “Without being disrespectful,” which I just heard as “It’s Christmas baseball!” A dangerous sport I just imagine being played on a frozen-over baseball field where everyone wears ice skates while playing. Swinging a bat, running the bases, pitching, fielding… a real mess…Christmas baseball!

Another fun, very G-rated, mistake is to replace the words “Cinderella man” in the song Cinderella Man by Eminem with the words “Ginger-ale man.”

One that I like singing on the regular is All American Rejects’ song Dirty Little Secret, changing it from:

I’ll keep you my dirty little secret
(Dirty little secret)
Don’t tell anyone or you’ll be just another regret
(Just another regret, hope that you can keep it)
My dirty little secret

To:

I’ll keep you my dirty Ryan Seacrest
(Dirty Ryan Seacrest)
Don’t tell anyone or you’ll be just another regret
(Just another regret, hope that you can keep it)
My dirty Ryan Seacrest

Finally, my absolute favorite song to mess with is Sad But True by Metallica. Quite simply, just imagine James Hetfield is saying “sand patrol” instead of “sad but true.” Seriously, it’s so good and strangely believable. I enjoy it so much, I’m listening to it right now. The passion it’s sung with really helps sell the silliness.

Do you have any songs you do this to? Let me know in the comments section here, on Twitter, or my Facebook page.

I went to a good number of shows last year and they were all amazing, this year I can only get to a couple (because of other bookings, UGH). Though this year I’ll actually be able to take part in some workshops. I’m going to at least “Summon the Devil and Connect with Friends,” a workshop about adding emotion to improv scenes and “Creating Characters That Don’t Suck,” a workshop I (and most improvisers) desperately need to add some spice to characters.

The really exciting part happens to see all the talent that comes in from around the country (and world?). I enjoy meeting new people, seeing different acts, and of course handing out flashy business cards. This all hit me when last night I got a little sneak preview of tomorrow night’s show at The Comedy Studio by meeting Marlena Rodriguez and then seeing her practice her set at an open mic in The Middle East Corner.

If I was a better blogger, I’d have planned something ahead of time to take advantage of all the talent coming into the city, interviews or something, but I’m not so we’ll see what happens. Though hopefully I can get some short blog posts out over the next couple of days talking about the festival.

“If you could only listen to the comedy albums of one stand-up, who would that be and why? Who make the cut of your top three before you have to choose the #1?”

The answer is over at my Tumblr, Q&A with Matt Aromando. Check it out and be sure to follow and ask me a new question!

photo credit: Stéfan via photopin cc

The phrase, “the book was better,” is one of the most annoying things a person can say about a movie. An apple is not an orange and a movie is not a book. Most of the time I wonder if a person actually likes the book better or if a) they feel obligated to say that; or b) it was a self-fulfilling prophecy that they would like the book better. The main reason people have for liking books better is that movies cut things out or change things and people don’t like change. Just because the movie doesn’t have the scene where the mother bathes the son or some other “deeply meaningful” part of the book, it doesn’t mean the movie was somehow worse.

People romanticize things too much, just because something has always been someway doesn’t mean it’s the best or only way. The dirty truth is that I’m sure most of the time movie executives hate the names of novels and wish they could change them to something else but they know people who are suckers for the book will be subconsciously forced to see the movie. I’ve never seen The Hunger Games, but from what I hear it’s not good enough to be a success without the name recognition. Look at Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire. That is the most ridiculous full name for a movie ever. They wanted to call it Precious (a fine name for a movie) and they ended up adding that whole mess to the end of it so it would make a few extra million bucks.

If it makes a person feel better, they should always imagine movies based on books aren’t even based on anything. Enjoy the book and movie separately. Knowing the source material of a movie and being an ass about it will just ruin the experience. Don’t be an ass.

I digress, because as the title of this post will suggest, I have a different bone to pick. Right after, “the book was better,” in the list of annoying, pretentious clichés is the phrase, “I liked the British version.” This can usually be heard in conjunction with The Office but more recently with House of Cards. I can believe that some people might like the British version of The Office better than the American version though I’m not sure why people mention it other than to be condescending. People aren’t as serious when it comes to House of Cards because I have my doubts many people have actually seen both the American and British versions of that show.

Well anyways, it got me thinking about who has actually won this war of porting shows from one side of the pond to the other. My hypothesis was that the US probably has this down just from sheer quantity. I checked out the Wikipedia pages List of American television series based on British television series and List of British television series based on American television series for confirmation. So first, a sample of the competition, British shows that Americans re-made (with House of Cards added in since I guess it doesn’t count as a television series):

There are some pretty good ones in there. It should be pointed out that Wikipedia acknowledges Cosby had “many differences,” but I do love the title of the British version, One Foot In The Grave. American Gladiators was pretty cool, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was fun for a bit, and I really like both The Office and House of Cards. I put in American Idol because of its significance in pop culture but I don’t really find it all that interesting. Finally, there is Whose Line Is It Anyway which is probably just better seen in a person’s home country, for references or whatever.

Now the American shows with British re-makes:

First of all, the game shows: Win Ben Stein’s Money, Wheel of Fortune, The Price Is Right, Jeopardy, Family Feud, and even Double Dare? Seriously, Double Dare, that should end the debate right there.

Who’s the Boss might be the most intriguing show on the list. I love that it needed to be renamed The Upper Hand because, while that isn’t a great name on its own, that it was what they changed Who’s the Boss to makes it great. It makes sense how game shows or shows with a clear theme like The Office and House of Cards might be considered re-makes but what is so special about Who’s the Boss that it even has to be stated another show is a re-make of it?

Moving on, shows I enjoy: The Soup, That ’70s Show (which inexplicably could not be called “That ’70s Show” in the UK), Saturday Night Live, Married… with Children, Law & Order (though not great, very addicting). Plus another show I mention because of its place in pop culture, The Golden Girls.

So, yeah, America wins. I’d say, “Sorry, England” but I doubt they even care. It’s mostly just Americans who want to sound intellectual or something.

photo credit: betta design via photopin cc

I watch what I consider smart comedy. It sounds pretentious, and that’s because it is, but I like my comedy to be original and make me think. That being said, I had a strange experience after seeing a taping of Comedy Central’s The Half Hour. At these tapings, they have each comic perform for roughly 30 minutes and for most of them they have two comics per show. I thoroughly enjoyed both of the comics I saw at this particular taping, though their styles weren’t all that similar. One of them was a story-teller with a short list of bits but each bit went on for several minutes. Whereas the other comic had shorter, punchier jokes but had many more bits to go through.

After the show I saw a friend of mine and we asked each other what we thought of the show. To my surprise she said that she liked the first guy but didn’t really care for the second because she likes smart comedy.

First of all, I’m so glad to hear somebody say that. Too many people say things like, “I just wanna laugh!” That reasoning wouldn’t even work in other genres, “I just wanna cry,” for a drama? No one would see the movie where the first and only thing happens is that a couple breaks up then immediately get’s back together, there have to be highs and lows and reasons to cheer for the characters to be happy. That’s just like a good joke, either build something up so I want to laugh or hit me with something so true that my whole life has led up to me laughing about it.

Secondly, the second guy did have smart jokes! At least I thought so, they seemed so clever. Comedy is art so I’ll let it slide. I like the idea of people wanting smart comedy more than having to agree absolutely with my opinion on what smart means. Though, I have my limits.

I know, it’s white, opaque bubble wrap. It’s awesome. It’s also very unnecessary. I own another box full of stickers that look like giant Band-Aids. I own a nylon laundry bag with a giant dollar sign printed on the side of it. Why do I own these things? If I wasn’t there to protect them, someone might have thrown them away! I might need them for a sketch or something someday!

I am a pack rat, except I’m hoarding things with a “purpose” (a thing all hoarders think). Someday I might write a sketch that needs white bubble wrap and I’m going to look like an idiot if I had, just a decade or so earlier, thrown some out.

Matt performs live sketch comedy with Dictator’s Time Machine and produces filmed sketches through Horseshoe & Hand Grenade Productions.

The Rock leaves Raw, unfortunately it wasn’t forever.

I like to watch professional wrestling. The other day I watched the Royal Rumble Pay-Per-View. The titular Royal Rumble match is the most exciting match of the year, at least by the quantity of exciting moments. Two wrestlers start in the ring, every 90 seconds a new wrestler randomly comes down to the ring, this continues until there have been 30 wrestlers total. Wrestlers are eliminated by being thrown over the top rope and landing on the ground. The last of these wrestlers to survive gets a world title match at that year’s Wrestlemania, generally the most exciting overall PPV by quantity and quality.

This year was a little less exciting than usual. The second wrestler to come out was my all time favorite wrestler, and surprise entrant, Chris Jericho (who had been gone for several months with no sign of return). That was very exciting. I leapt out of my seat and everything. The unexciting part was that I was pretty confident that my least favorite wrestler right now, John Cena, was going to win the match before it even started. And he did.

John Cena winning the Royal Rumble, however, was not my least favorite part of the night. My least favorite part of the night was when my childhood wrestling hero, The Rock, defeated adulthood wrestling hero, CM Punk. See, when I was a kid, The Rock was great. He would make fun of everyone and then beat people up. He was very cool and strong and…funny. Adult me is more impressed with characters who are actually compelling and can wrestle a great match. My sense of humor is actually a sense of humor. This is why I don’t like The Rock anymore.

I have to agree with  Danielle Matheson when she points out, “Nostalgia in wrestling is a funny thing” and maybe we never should have liked The Rock. I was excited when I first heard The Rock was coming back. He was from “the good ol’ days.” Though just like how I cannot stand racist, homophobic, or otherwise unfunny-but-controversial(!) garbage at stand-up shows, I’m tired of seeing them in WWE, too. It’s just not interesting anymore.

Maybe I’m supposed to stop watching wrestling, then. That’s the easy answer. The problem is that I like watching the good stuff too much to stop watching it for the bad. So what happens when the good guys are either too boring or unlikable to root for? I get to like the villains. Antonio Cesaro is the 5-language speaking Swiss who hates Americans but is the proud United States Champion. He’s also absurdly strong and I’d take him in a fight over pretty much any other wrestler. Dolph Ziggler, the “Show Off” and self-described heel. He’s a jerk because he knows how good he is. I’ll root for anyone who does a head stand while trying to make his opponent submit. CM Punk, The Best In The World™, is great at giving the truth. His character is completely built around how messed up it is for people like The Rock, John Cena and, amazingly, the audience to think the way they think. There are others but this brings me to my next point: the WWE’s audience is split into two distinct groups.

Group 1 is people I disagree with (idiots). They cheer for whatever they are told to cheer for. They cheer for John Cena who is the goody two-shoes who walks around like Superman. Who likes Superman anyways? I thought people liked Batman now. I certainly don’t like Superman. I want my heroes to be vulnerable. Group 1 likes the Yankees. They like to win and aren’t interested in anything else.

Group 2 is me and other smart people (and a lot of people who write blogs). We like Daniel Bryan because he’s like the best wrestler ever. We love the feuds Big Show has had with Sheamus and Alberto Del Rio because the bad guy had actually been the bad guy and the good guy had actually been the good guy. Not some good guy who’s actually a terrible human being but Group 1 still likes them for some reason (they are told to).

First, let’s dive into a phrase I’ve long been disgusted with, “beach bum.” It’s for people who love the beach. I hate it for the same reason that anyone calls themselves a “chocolate lover.” Everyone likes chocolate. Everyone. Same with the beach, maybe slightly less than everyone, but we’re talking 99.8% of people and that other 0.2% loved the beach when they were kids but decided as adults that they don’t like sand. Fine. Food, music, and movie lovers get a pass, because while everyone likes those things too, at least those involve some discretion. Beach bums will go to practically any beach and chocolate lovers still like things like Hershey’s Kisses (delicious, but decidedly not top-shelf).

While not the most profound observation of all time, I figure beach bum is the target demographic for this piece of work:

Click to enlarge for its full glory.

Much like “Welcome Friends” from last year, I could not contain my laughter. It’s a starfish on a pedestal! I was laughing so hard that an employee, who must have realized why I was laughing, turned and smiled at me with a look like she was admitting that no one vets any of the merchandise at T. J. Maxx. That they buy anything labeled “crafty” and under $19.99 from the wholesaler’s catalog. I laughed at this so much that 10 minutes after the fact, I thought about it again, and spit my gum out laughing.

Anyways, I also saw a bag of starfish, for decoration of course:

It goes with anything!

They don’t care, I’m not sure why I do so much.

Today’s story:

Making the Family Proud

Thomas, a local boy, spent all day fishing down by the microscope. He caught seven money before sun down and brought them home to his mom. She was cooked to know that there would be a meal for all of Thomas’ bacony family. After dinner, they had wlephant which was quickly followed up. They last time they felt scummy like that was many years.

THE END.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Big Gulp auditioned to be a part of Studio 40, ImprovBoston’s weekly improv show held on Friday nights at 7:30. Studio 40 recently went through some changes and this will be the first time it is set up as a 6-team, 6-month residency. That means that 6 teams will rotate through 3 slots per week and each team will end up performing about twice a month. Well, we made it through auditions! We had a set that I was really proud of and Big Gulp will be part of Studio 40 through May!

Big Gulp is:
David Frederick
Emily Laverdiere
Lauren Magnuson
Mickey McCauley
Tao Yang
Matt Aromando

Directed by:
Bryce Read

Our first show as a part of Studio 40 is this Friday, December 7th, at 7:30. This very special show will showcase all six of the Studio 40 teams (Big Gulp, Aeropuerto, Fake Fake Monkey, First ImpACT, Ducks on Quack, and Improv Jones). Tickets are available now, use the promotional code GULP9 for $9 tickets!

We can also be followed at @BigGulpImprov on Twitter or liked on Facebook for updates.

Would you guess my most read blog post would be about ice cream? That post was published one year ago today, the busiest day in the history of this website. It gave me a taste of the good life, something I wrote going viral (it had over 1,000 hits on StumbleUpon alone).

What I like about that particular blog post being so popular is that the post was about an ice cream flavor that no one wanted. It feels like an uplifting story, one that people actually cared about the ice cream. The Ice Cream That Couldn’t Get Any Love might just be my Tiny Tim (and that idea might be my “more popular than Jesus”).

Well this year I went back to Country Cream. There were no unloved flavors this year, though I did enjoy one amazing one, Root Beer:

Photo by Matt Aromando; Masonville, New York; June 2012

The ice cream was made with little bits of those root beer barrel candies, which are apparently just called Root Beer Barrels. It made my taste buds flutter like I understand hearts are supposed to when a person feels love.

P. S. That photo, which was taken with the camera in my phone, is probably the artsiest photo I’ve taken to date. Not that I’m trying.

Photo by Matt Aromando; Boston, MA;
November 2012

I love going to concerts. I used to see shows all the time. I don’t go to as many anymore due to the combination of not being particularly good at getting into new bands and the bands I already like not touring enough (I’m looking at you Brand New).

Well the other day I went to go see Taking Back Sunday for the 10-year anniversary (evidence I’m bad at finding new music) tour of their debut album Tell All Your Friends. TBS has 5 albums but TAYF (ahhh, acronyms) is easily their best (and I like the other ones too). They opened with a few songs that could be called the greatest hits of their more recent 4 albums, then played Tell All Your Friends in its entirety, and finished with a couple of well-known b-sides from when they recorded TAYF. I loved it, it was great, but even the best, most nostalgically awesome things aren’t good enough for some people.

Taking Back Sunday forgot to play the obligatory encore! (And not that Eminem album, though I would pay good money to see them cover that.) Don’t think of me as creating a straw man either, I actually heard people complaining about this! Encores are that thing that has just become the norm and I’ll admit that I’ve come to expect them but if the concert was thoroughly finished, why have one? The whole point of this show was to see them play their best album in its entirety, how exactly could they follow that up? I guess they could have played a bunch of songs off that one album that no one likes by them. The one they skipped over entirely in their opening, New Again.

People just need to think outside the box! Take the Beastie Boys…

The first time I saw the Beastie Boys was in the Fall of 2004. Their opening acts were Talib Kweli and… a dog show. I just Googled the show to make sure I didn’t make that up in a wonderful dream I had. According to the results, the dog show did happen and people were not pleased. I remember thinking it was such an interesting and fresh idea and that only the Beastie Boys would do something so cool. I don’t even remember what I thought of the quality or appropriateness of the dog show, just that it was happening and it was awesome.

At this same show, the Beastie Boys played for an hour or so before exiting the stage. They came back out for an encore and played some more before exiting the stage again. At this point, the house lights came up and people started exiting. However, I was standing pretty close to the stage and as I looked under the stage’s background I could see something going on. Then out of nowhere, as everyone is leaving, the Beastie Boys come out for a second encore after completely fooling the audience into thinking the show was over. Could this have been a technical problem and a mistake that the house lights went up? Sure, but that doesn’t matter. The surprise second encore was so much more memorable than the first encore that everyone was expecting.

photo credit: batmoo via photopin cc

Comedy contests are literally my least favorite part of trying to make my way as a comedian. Literally my least favorite part? Yes. Literally. I have mostly been in contests for stand-up (a lot of those exist) but have also done it for sketch and improv.

The idea of one of these contests is that a series of performers (2 to infinity) will get up in front of a set of judges (real judges or, worse, the audience) and those judges will decide whether the performer is worthy of “winning.” In the case of using a set of people (who are presumably experts in some form) as judges, the contest can be relatively fair. Relatively. Comedy is an art form and probably shouldn’t be judged in this way but at least there is some level of control.

Of course, having defined judges can backfire too. I was in a contest that had the audience fill out a ballot where everyone rated each comic on a scale of 1-5. I prefer this over the other two common ways for the audience to judge: first-past-the-post and Applause-O-Meter™ (which just makes me think of Patton Oswalt in the Starsky and Hutch movie). I prefer this method because it actually allows someone to garner some support from rival audience members without those audience members feeling like they really did harm to their friend(s). However, to keep it “fair” in this particular contest, there was a secret judge who could have been anyone who worked their including wait staff, bartenders, ticket sales, or whatever that had a vote worth 10 times a normal ballot. Alright, even though that disregards anyone who brought less than 10 audience members (read: everyone). As I sat in the back of the room and played a game called “Whose Tires Do I Need To Slash?” where I figure out who the secret judge is, it became clear just who that was. It was the bus boy. The bus boy who was on duty clearing tables and whatnot, also known as not paying attention, while he “judged.” (I put two and two together when I saw the bus boy talking to the one comedian he stopped to watch and who eventually won.) Why not just spin a wheel on stage to decide the winner, then at least people can cheer on their favorite slice of the pie chart?

Contests with real judges are much less common than the other kind of contest, ones decided by the audience. These are the most dreadful kind and I have pinpointed the exact reason that these shows are never very good. Most comedy shows, people go to the show because they want to see comedy (sometimes there are crowds who come to shows and for some reason don’t really want to laugh, it’s odd but it happens). Contests, however, bring a different kind of audience than normal comedy shows. The audience is usually partially or sometimes entirely dragged along by the contestant(s) specifically so they can stack the audience. On the surface, this might look like the point of these contests and that’s because it is. Bookers want paying people in seats, it’s sort of their job. But when you drag people along to a comedy show that they don’t really want to be at, even if they want to be supportive, they just aren’t going to laugh and everyone feels awkward about it. The performer(s) feel awkward because no one is laughing and the audience feels weird because they are sitting down like it’s a lecture hall. A lot of the time, audience members will keep from laughing during their friends’ competition, thinking that this will help. In reality it just makes the show worse.

In a contest I was in a while back, the winner was determined by applause. At the end of the show, all the comics would get on stage and the host would go through each person to gauge audience reaction. This is where audience stacking comes in. A guy who spent the first minute of his set telling “jokes” to no response from even his friends (of which there were many) and then the next 3.5 minutes waiting for the light, telling him he had 30 seconds left, to go off. All-the-while, discussing how awkward it was to be on stage and how nervous he was (without being the least bit funny).

Apologists will say things like “It’s just part of the scene” and “Well, then don’t do contests.” Alright, fine, it is part of the scene and I’m not obligated to perform in them but why can’t the little guy stand up to the inequalities of the world? These contests don’t need people to stand up for them. They’re doing just fine but let’s at least question the status quo.

All that being said, not all contests are terrible. I support the Boston Comedy Festival (and check out a few of those shows every year). I also like participating in the Comedy on Tap contest at The Burren in Somerville. Just be wary of them.