Stand-Up Comedy = Conversation Porn

Stand-Up : Conversation

Porn : Sex

The more I do stand-up comedy, the more I realize that, though a conversational tone is acceptable, many of the facets we take for granted in everyday conversation aren't. This includes things like false starts ("The thing is...where is Chelsea Market"), fillers ("um," "like," "you know") and mumbling. To be sure there are exceptions but developing comics like myself need to develop interesting, funny monologues without any of the tics that make offstage conversations drag.

This is akin to porno. In a blue movie, the action typically begins with an emotionless transaction scene (pizza boy, guy with money stopping girl on street) that leads to...well, you've been on the Internet before, right? But like a jazz song, a porno is defined by what it doesn't do: it doesn't include the breakfast after bed, the incessant phone calls, the awkward second date, the unplanned pregnancy, the shotgun wedding, the first divorce, the relapse, the second divorce, the murder, etc.

How To Get Rid Of MySpace Comedian Calendar Anxiety For Good

As if comedians weren't neurotic enough, here's one more thing to fuel our inferiority complex: calendar envy. No matter how many comedy shows you are booked for, someone's got more spots and better shows lined up. Look at Matt Ruby's calendar:




Now look at mine:



Not as impressive. But you could use your calendar for appointments and such as well. So if you put vague reminders with vague locations on your calendar, you can look like you got heat on you.

I added Moving Furniture @ Pete’s, Laundry @ 357 and Root Canal @ Steinman’s.
Now let's see:



This way, you stay on top of your shit and other comedians will probably ask to get on shows.

"Who run's Moving Furniture? And did Pete's move? Pete's Candy Store? Goddam developers!"

How I've Made My Peace With Seth Meyers And Product Placement

If you asked me last week to list 500 things I was lukewarm about, I would have stammered, hemmed and hawed around 498 and 499 and then said "Oh yeah, Seth Meyers and product placement." (Oh Seth I kid! Put away the Kleenex and take Terms of Endearment off your Netfix queue),.

Today, I am excited about both. Seth Meyers is directing a web series for Crackle.com that incorporates three Sony films (Crackle is owned by Sony: Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, and The House Bunny. The series, called "The Line," stars Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio (both of them appear in Pineapple Express) as they score the coveted first spot in line outside of a movie theater, 11 days prior to the world premiere of one of the summer’s most highly anticipated films, Future Space. (NOTE: bold part cut and pasted from press release-YOU try blogging at work with your boss inches from you).

Seth Meyers and product placement are A-OK in my book now!

From Crackle: The Line, Ep 1: The FutureSpace Showdown Begins

What Does The Joker Find Funny?

Co-worker: (after receiving copy of daily report from Joker) "Thank you very little." Haha.

Joker: (puzzled look)

Co-worker: Caddyshack? Chevy Chase?

Joker: Haven't gotten around to that one.

Co-worker: OK what gives? When I gave that erotic gag gift from Spencer's to Floyd in sales -- the Chinese condoms, remember -- it just went over your head! Does anything make you laugh?

Joker: I have a...strange sense of humor.

Co-worker: Look I'm not judging you -- I get it, you are a part-time clown, everyone's taking it on the chin with this recession. But are clowns the only things that make you laugh?

Joker: No. (long pause) I like...physical comedy. You know...slapstick. I can watch people falling all day. All great comedy comes from pain. Not awkwardness, not non-sequiturs -- give me pure unbridled, unhinged agony anytime.

In all great comedy, someone has to get hurt. You know what the secret to comedy is?

Co-worker 1: Wha-(Joker shoves pencil in co-worker's eye)

Joker: Timing! Ahahahaha! (rest of the office laughs)

(voiceover announcer) William Shatner as The Joker, on The Office Thursdays this fall on NBC!

The College Of William And Mary-Juana

Speaking of alma maters, I went to Stony Brook University. I'm glad they went with the subtle drug reference. They could have called themselves Crack Cocaine Community College, with a NCAA Division III team called The Eagle Has Landed and a school song entitled "Tore Up On Cough Syrup With Codeine Again." Or they could have gone with a more obvious drug name like Berkeley.

Now I never tried drugs before I went to college, but you can't avoid pot while going to Stony Brook. That's like going to Smack My Bitch Up University and not listening to Prodigy.

The school team was called the Patriots but they changed their name to the Seawolves in the '90s. Imagine how that meeting went down:

They may seem to be clean-cut American patriot do-gooders, but we all know they shape shift into bloodthirsty marauding canine predators from the deep. This bowl is kicked.



Stony Brook is known for its medical program (read: medical marijuana-W00T!)

The most famous alum from Stony Brook is comedian Joy Behar. The second most famous alum is another comedian...me. Both of us are comedians because the only thing you learn at Stony B is how to smoke dope and crack wise.

Patton Oswalt Speech Gets Gettysburg Treatment

Patton Oswalt's recent high school speech has been analyzed and broken down as if it were the Gettysburg address by this former principal. Oswalt's comedy is so great it is worth literary exegesis.

I consider the following his "four score and seven years ago" moment:

“First off: Reputation, Posterity and Cool are traps. They’ll drain the life from your life. Reputation, Posterity and Cool = Fear.

Now THIS Is Funny

I so rarely put comedy videos up but just hearing the Sirius lady say "We're here to get people psyched about sex" is worth more than the price of admission.

New Self Deprecating Term To Describe My Brand Of Comedy

Mediogre

(NOTE: you have no idea how much time I've wasted trying to find a picture of an indifferent monster)

On A Personal Note:: Missed Connections

In this segment I tell humorous personal anecdotes. If you hate personal blog posts, skip this; there's plenty of non-personal stuff on this blog as well.

I was driving home the other day when my cell phone gave off a message alert. It was a picture message, so I was excited. I figured maybe it was a picture of me eating donuts from a garbage bag or something zany like that. Saying it was not zany is a masterpiece of understatement. It was a pic of a shirtless muscular guy I never met before.

It was the closest I've come to being raped by my cell phone. I pulled over trying to piece the puzzle together when I got a text message saying something to the effect of "Great convo last night. Have a good day at work-Mike."

The plot thickens.

Not to nitpick over shirtless meathead mobile phone etiquette, but shouldn't the message come before the pic? But I digress.

It was time to set this guy straight, no pun intended. I called him and let him know he had the wrong number. He was confused because he claimed his lover texted him back.

But he sent it to the wrong number; how could she have texted him back?

This is impossible unless I am living some schizoid Tyler Durden multiple personality relationship with a shirtless guy I don't remember. All I know is that I've never needed a new phone so bad in my life before.

NOTE: I just got texts from David Fincher and M. Night Shymalan for the rights to this blog post.

Eddie Murphy Returns To Only Thing He Was Good At

No more fat suits. After twenty some odd years, Murphy plans on returning onstage. This is great news. If only other major figures went back to doing things they were better at:

President George Bush announced today that he was going to return to managing the Houston Astros after his term was up. Bush also said that he would stop at nothing to get Sammy Sosa on the team. "I don't care if young fresh-faced Astros lose their lives, I'm gettin' SosQuatch," Bush said at a press conference at the Astrodome earlier today.

"I will say 'Mission Accomplished,' tricking Ferrari TestaSosa into thinking that he is on the Astros. There could be a hurricane in the southern region-unless it's a SosaStorm, I don't give a wet fart. I will wiretap every clubhouse in the US and Japan until I get my hands on SosaFrass."

"Mind you, I won't look for him in Cuba," Bush continued. "I will go to Baltimore, raise hell there and get Pete Rose, even though I want Spaghetti Sosa. I will even give a long-winded, overwritten speech in a one-dimensional blog post decrying my admittedly questionable policies."

"Worse comes to worse, pappy can buy me Sosa Nostra," Bush concluded, to scattered applause.