October 2010
1 post
That Boss is Dope: A Brief Comedy Lesson from the...
An excerpt from Inc Magazine interview with Robert Sutton, author of “The No Asshole Rule”, which I think applies to Stand-up perfectly.
From your book, it sounds as though being a good boss involves a lot of acting: acting confident, acting like you are in control. That sounds exhausting. And doesn’t it compromise authenticity?
At the time you make a decision, no one...
April 2010
1 post
Can God Create a Face so Pale that even He Can't... →
I wrote this article for punchline mag while I was in Israel this summer. They always change my titles. So it goes.
February 2010
1 post
The Royal(ty Free) "We." →
Check out my most recent post in The Comedy Nerds blog. It’s about joke theft and parallel thinking, but mostly just watch it for the hilarious sketch from Mitchell and Webb.
December 2009
1 post
7 tags
Features Strong Comedy Nerd Roots and Dork-Centric... →
My article about Pandora for Comedy in Punchline. Love the magazine, hate the altered titles he gives to my pieces. Oh well, to the best of my knowledge Dylan is a really solid guy and I’m delighted to be published. Everybody wins.
And by the way, if anyone over at Pandora feels like paying me to develop this, I got no problem spending some time in Oakland. No problem at all. Hell, I got...
November 2009
1 post
In response to Katie Hughes' status update "Katie...
It was also after someone said “is it safe to say, if your[sic] a geek comic they are geniuses? Oswalt,Posehn,Merriman[sic],Galafanikis [sic],Demetri Martin…should i continue or can the prosecution rest?”
Well, on the one hand I’m wary of how the word Genius has been devalued by it’s overuse, comparable only to the words hero and nazi (in the future, everyone will be a Genius-Hero-Nazi). On the...
October 2009
1 post
Analogies Are Not a Fucking Joke
I did a show tonight and it made me think these brain words, and since private thoughts will be outlawed in a couple years anyway, I figured I’d get a head start by sharing these ones with you. Some audiences go to see live comedy because they want to engage with a performer to create a unique, mutually satisfying comedy interaction. Other audiences want to just sit passively and have...
September 2009
3 posts
The Comedy Nerds: Comedy Science 3 →
This one is about Latin and Jello.
The Comedy Nerds: Comedy Science 2 →
This one is about the evolution of laughter.
The Comedy Nerds: Comedy Science 1 →
I’m occasionally going to do some guest blogs with The Comedy Nerds blog. Here’s the first in a series called Comedy Science.
May 2009
3 posts
6 tags
“In entertainment, you have to stake out what you think is right, you have to put...”
– Conan O’Brien - Heeeere’s … Conan!!!
8 tags
Truth in Comedy: In Defense of Abstract Art
I just wrote this post in response to a podcast by The Comedy Nerds. The original Podcast can be found here.
—
William Faulkner:
Facts and truth really don’t have much to do with each other.
Mark Twain:
A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.
Blaise Pascal:
We know the truth, not...
11 tags
Giving Good Hedberg →
An article I wrote on Mitch Hedberg, posted in Punchline Magazine. Understandably, they didn’t go with my title.
February 2009
4 posts
7 tags
Ja'cuse of Ha'ckuse
I think I’ve talked about this before, but I often get compared to certian other comedians. Demetri Martin comes up a lot, Zach Galifianakis as well, sometimes Steven Wright or Mitch Hedberg. I recently got a somewhat harsh e-mail about this from a comedian I’ve never met but who has seen me perform. I’m going to include his letter and my response (with his info left out because...
8 tags
Comedy by the Numbers
This was a follow up to the previous question. Generally speaking this has to do with the issue of struggling with writing. The comment I’m responding directly to is “What’s frustrating is that I feel halarious conversationally, but it’s so hard converting it into a routine.”
That’s always the challenge. Like I said, it’s a numbers game. Lets say your...
8 tags
Sex, Drugs, Puke, and Profanity - Staples for...
This was written in response to a question about a specific joke. I won’t share the joke since it’s not mine to share, but I think the general advice is applicable.
With regards to your joke, it’s not really up my alley, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it out, as I am not an arbiter of universal taste. My guess is that the logic isn’t entirely clear as...
“If you attempt to create a wholly imaginary incident, adventure or situation,...”
– Mark Twain’s notebook (1935).
It struck me how well this applies to long-form improv. A scene which is grounded in some truth can spin off into wild places, but a scene with no grounding in truth soon finds itself stalling out on the runway.
May 2008
8 posts
Is Anything Off-Limits?
This was written in response to the a question I received asking if I thought comedians should talk about certain touchy subjects.
I think that Comedians can and should talk about anything they want to. No topic is off limits. But that doesn’t mean that anything should be said. Dave Chapelle and Carlos Mencia both talk *about* race, but their points of view could not be more different. One breaks...
Heckler Handling
This was in response to a question about what to do if someone’s heckling.
—-
Heckling usually happens when there’s dead space in an act. I keep my sets pretty tight, so I don’t get heckled much. Even if someone doesn’t like one of my jokes I’m usually on to the next one by the time they think they have something to say. Because of this my advice here is mostly based on what I’ve seen with other...
Moving on Up: What next?
This was in response to a question about moving on to “the next level” in comedy.
—-
It sort of depends on your intended career path. Typically you put together a press kit (bio, resume, quotes, headshots, you can download one from Eugene Mirman’s site to see an example). Road comics will send that to clubs around the area they want to perform, presumably the same is true for comics living in a...
7 tags
Don't Forget to Memorize
This was in Response to a question about memorization.
—-
I’ve been involved in theater for years, so this is something I have a decent amount of experience with. For memorizing material, something that I fucking hate but is hugely necessary: Decide on the order and then break it down. If I’m doing a set of 20 jokes, I first decide on the order (putting together jokes that have similar topics,...
6 tags
Developing a Process
This was in response to a question about how I prepared and my method when I first got started doing Stand-up.
—-
I’m going to write a lot here, some of which may work for you, some of which may not. Obviously everyone is different, but these are the things that I’ve found that help me produce and develop, so I hope you won’t think I’m saying it’s the only way or anything like that. Before I...
Opening Crowd Work
This was in response to a question about opening and crowd work.
——-
This is something you may just have to experiment with to see what works for you. I like to sort of interact with the room a bit, so that they know I’m there and present. If I’m commenting on the bathroom or on the crowd or something they know that’s not something I could prepare any time and it puts them at ease. A couple of...
Why I was Posting A Joke Every Day
This was in response to a question about what went into my Joke Every Day project
— I’d say that when you start a project it takes a while just to figure out what you want it to be, so you have to establish stability before you can experiment or tweak it. The first couple of months my focus was just on setting things up and keeping myself going, I remember being amazed after the first month that...
Theories of Humor
This was written in response to a question about superiority theory and other theories of humor.
If you’re interested in the psychology of humor then I’d definitely recommend reading that book I was talking about: http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Humor-Integrative-Approach/dp/012372564X I don’t have as much faith in superiority theory as you seem to, I think that status and power is involved in...
April 2008
1 post
Portrait of the Comic as a Young Artist
Originally Posted April 14th 2008
This post is in response to Andy Kline’s response to my response to his blog… You get the idea. You can see the original post and comments over here at DC Comedy 4 Now. Again, the first paragraph is a direct response, the rest pretty much stands on its own. It’s broken into 2 Parts, if you want to see other peoples responses in between, check out the...
March 2008
3 posts
6 tags
Comedy Autopsy: Bryson Turner (ca. March, 2008)
This was part of a larger piece I did back in March of ‘08 contrasting stand-up and Improv. Since this was before I started doing improv I’m not going to post the rest, but the comedy autopsy is still relevant. Bryson is now down in Austin, TX and I suggest you check him out, if you’re into laughing.
Comedy Autopsy: Bryson Turner has a bit he’s doing right now which provides a...
A Few Types of Hack
This is from a much longer essay I wrote on the subject.
1. Non-joke/Presentational Hackiness - By this I mean phrases that have become cliched over time like “How you guys doing tonight (for the 10th time in a row), That doesn’t happen, that’s not right, Am I right, what’s that about (if you have to ask you don’t know), Can you believe this?, Have you seen this? , Didn’t they get the memo?,...
A Brief History of Fart Jokes
Originally posted on the 5th of March, 2008
This is a response to a guest blog that DC comedian Eli Sairs wrote on the DC Comedy 4 Now website. The original article can be found here.
Eli, your point about Steve Martin is well taken. The same could be said for Steve Allen and Steven Wright. Maybe Alternative comedy is all about being named Steve. More to the point, I think the idea is that...
November 2007
1 post
LOUD NOISES!! I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING...
Originally posted on the 29th of November, 2007
Disclaimer: The following blog contains strong language (my words can benchpress like… 250. It’s no big deal.) and shouldn’t be read by people whose parents will be pissed off at me if they find out their children read this. Or wusses.
I was listening to a woman on the radio talk about how the term “special” in Special Olympics is offensive; she...