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The reflections of a baby Stand up comedian
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Watching comedy
| Friday 17th – Sunday 19th November A Weekend of Watching Standup
A lot of stand up comics are weird about watching other comics – they get frustrated if they aren’t performing in the show and would prefer to be at home checking their Myspace account (or what ever it is they do on the internet in the privacy of their own bedroom) than learning from other comics’ hits and misses. Personally I think this is a tragedy for so many reasons. They don’t get to see what works and doesn’t work from an audience’s perspective; they never get to feel what it is like to sit in the crowd being talked to, they don’t get to show their respect for other comics work – which I promise is returned if you put it out there, they don’t get to meet and make friends with other comics (and in LA you never know who you might be able to call a friend. But most importantly I feel when you stop watching comedy you loose sight of why you became a comedian – because you loved comedy!
So as much as I would have loved to perform this weekend – and perhaps this is just me talking myself into it being ok that I didn’t – I know I learnt and gained a lot in the last three days from just watching comedy.
Friday night was a lot of fun. It was the Standing Tall Kids comedy show and when kids are involved in LA the industry come out in packs and the parents come wielding headshots and shotguns – talk about ruthless and tactless!! The Improv was standing room only.
I had a personal interest in the show – one of my students the hunky and super talented 10 year old world Karate Champ Jaime was performing. I was a secret weapon in his performance though because it got out that I was helping another one of the girls who was meant to be in the show and she was taken off the line up – way to show love for the kids hey!?!
The way this show is organized makes me laugh – specially when they call it stand up. What it really is the parents paying $100 a session to ‘comedian/writers’ who are linked to the school to write their jokes for them. Then they learn it word for word and then the teacher gets up on the night and applauds the children for writing their own jokes – interesting hey!
Poor Jaime had a lot of trouble in the weeks prior to the show because he had actually written his own – very funny – jokes but he was banned from using them – (once again so much love for the kids!!) But it was so nice to talk to the comedian Jimmy Brogan (The tonight Show) who had been brought in to help at the last minutes and hear that he could see Jaime’s intelligence and passion for stand up. It is apparently obvious that Jaime is one of the few kids who is doing stand up because they love it not just because their agent told their Mum that it would get them a sitcom!
Amongst the line up was maybe one too many Barbie girls who all looked the same and all talked about their boyfriends! It hurts to hear 12 year old talk about dating. I felt myself gritting my teeth during these girls yet when the pudgy girl from a trucking family got up and made fun of her dad for 3 minutes I nearly fell off my stool and just wanted to run on stage and high 5 her! This showed me how much stand up is about owning your life and being yourself and not about the perfect braided hair with the matching ribbons and shoes!!!
However watching the confidence of these kids really taught me a lot. I wanted to go out to the bar and drag some of my adult comic buddies in and say – see how they own that stage? See how the believe they are funny? – see how people are listening and laughing? And they aren’t even really that funny. Watching the uninhibited spirit of a child up there is what every comic needs to see. It is what makes people not just their Mums - laugh. Because when you get a sense that the person (big or little) up onstage doesn’t really care what you think of them you want to laugh, but when you watch someone who needs you to find them funny all of a sudden you don’t – reverse psychology!
By the end of the night over 30 little comics had gone up. Jaime really proved he is a performer and lifted his set even further than we had taken it with those hours of coaching (thanks Mum!) And he didn’t hit the piano or knock over the stand when he did his karate moves – phew!
If only those hungry hungry parents could have resisted; if only there wasn’t a line of parents shoving headshots in the hands of anyone that was holding a pen as they walked out after the show we could have fooled ourselves that this was a sweet fun night about laughter and celebrating the joy of kids. But who am I kidding - I know every parent was on their cell to their childs’ agent 10 mins after they left the club to check if any calls had come in yet to set up their child’s wardrobe call for the new sitcom starring - their child the stand up star.
The next night – for a slight change in pace I went to the Comedy Sex and Rock n Roll show at midnight at the Improv. That was a lot of fun, very rude and guess who won the raffle for the big bag of goodies that she can’t even type about as they are so rude! If anyone is interested the bag is still unpacked in my bedroom – minus the glass dildo (excuse me!!!) that I sold for 50 bucks on my way out that night - and you can come and collect it at anytime! Those unexplainable tools and tidbits are burning a hole in this innocent girls carpet!! Oh yeah and the comedy was very good – once again proving to me that no matter how much I try and deny it - sex sells!!! As far as comedians go the highlight for me was definitely Owen Benjamin who got up last and used his real intelligence and knowledge of classical music to affect a crowd at 2am who had come to hear dick jokes - Good work Owen!! He also would like the world to know that my prize ‘tool’ is apparently a direct replica of his ‘ tool’ – who knew it was see-through – lucky ladies!!!
And then just incase I hadn’t been to The Improv enough this week I had to come back Sunday night to support a wonderful and funny friend Stephen Kramer Glickman in a Heavy Hitters of Comedy Show. I work a lot with them so I knew my hopes of dashing in and dashing out were futile – how right I was! The Heavy Hitters of Comedy is produced by one TK – an interesting personality who is a big fan of the ladies. These are bringer shows so there is always that horrible pressure to bring a crowd when you perform which not only creates an added tension ie ‘will my friends turn up so I get a decent spot in the line up’ and can sometimes take the fun out of comedy because being good in his eyes is not so much about the job you do but how many people you bring.
Glicky surprised me tonight by turning from one of the most confident and charming fellas I know into a nervous wreck for the entire hour and a half before he got onstage. One thing I will never understand is why so many of these amazing men and women - who have such fun being funny every day of their lives - when they are faced with putting it onstage – just like they do every other night – just before they do it loose all rational faith in themselves. Of course he was wonderful and of course he was hilarious but he knew as well as I did that his nerves held him back – let loose Glicky you have the ability to rock an audience if only you believed you could!
As always it was fascinating to watch a packed house give very little to the comedians – in particular to the host Rich Kunkler who has so often killed before with the same jokes and is an extremely talented comic. I sat watching the crowd instead of the performers and saw how they reacted when each comedian kept pointing out that they were a bad audience. They sat back further and further into their seats and more and more of them crossed their arms and started believing the comics. It was almost as if they were saying “you are right we better not laugh now or we will be failing in our duty as a bad audience!” Comics – don’t tell the audience they are bad, give them the benefit of the doubt, show them some love – they just might return it and if not well atleast they will be nice to you in the bar after the show!
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Posted: 01:35, 2006-Dec-3 |
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