Blog

Sorry for the misleading title, but this is not going to be a list of all of the people in comedy and life that I want to wipe away like when Michael Corleone handled all family business.  No, in much more pleasant news Keep My Enemies Closer is the title of my new album coming out in late September.  I reviewed my set from the Triad in May this weekend, and for the first time I was extremely pleased with what I listened to.  Even my last two albums, which I am extremely proud of (my very first one I am just proud of), did not please me on first listen as this one did.  But that is  not to say it is perfect.  Yet.  There were two bits I forgot to do and three bits I want to tighten up so if you missed the Triad taping (or if you were there but want to support again, since there will be around 20 minutes of material that was not recorded at the first taping), then please mark your calendar for July 12th.  I am recording one more headlining set to complete the album at the Laughing Devil Comedy Club in Long Island City (one stop from Grand Central Station on the 7 train).  Please get tickets HERE and share with friends.  Opening for me are the hilarious Chris Lamberth and John Moses.  And as a treat I have put a couple of short clips from the set up on YouTube and if you have ten minutes to spare check the clips out and share your favorite.

Lena Dunham

NYPD Cheaters

Gay Guys vs. Lesbians

Equal Storytime

Hopefully you enjoyed these.  And if you like any of my previous albums I promise you this is the best one by far.  Hope you can be part of the taping on July 12th.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

James Gandolfini passed away shockingly yesterday at the age of 51.  He was known primarily for his iconic performance/character of Tony Soprano and for being the face of one television’s greatest, if not the greatest, shows (my pre-Game of Thrones list has it at #6 on my favorite shows of all time).  But with an untimely death comes the ritual of comedians taking to social media immediately to offer RIPs, jokes and other comments.  I was particularly disturbed after Whitney Houston’s death only because I thought her talent was so singularly spectacular that it would have been nice for people to reflect and appreciate it for a minute or too before offering half-baked jokes.  Plus, it is worth noting that I saw a lot of trashing of Whitney Houston (black) for her drug problem – sometimes in the form of “Why do we care about this crackhead whore who did this to herself when we have troops and other real heroes dying,” and yet interestingly enough I have seen no calls for similar reflection from America’s social media heroes in the wake of grieving and reflection for the obese Gandolfini (white).  But rather than make this my usual tone of judgment I thought I would just offer the casual comedy observer the different types of responses that now come from comedians in the wake of a tragedy.  Enjoy!

1) Standard RIP message – this is made to either show appreciation for the man or woman’s work, but just as likely to let everyone know that you have heard the news and are hopefully either informing them, which makes you cool, or that you are feeling something profound, which makes you look warm.

2) Hack Joke – for example if you mentioned the ending of The Sopranos or Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ you need your comedy license revoked.  These always seem to happen so quickly to the point that you see 8 comedians with the same joke, and they are all Facebook friends sharing the same wall, but they still failed to realize that the joke was dead on arrival.

3) Video Clip and/or Photo RIP – I like these actually. The person is known for something so it makes sense to share.  Which is why I will share Kim and Ray J’s tape when Ray J dies.

4) Actually Funny Joke – after a day or more of respectful time usually, you can just go to www.Facebook.com/JLCauvin for these 🙂 but seriously folks… every so often someone posts something that manages to be a little gallows humor, but not too disrespectful and actually funny (or disrespectful, but really funny).  But if they do that and then spend the next 2 minutes telling you how good that joke was you are watching Anthony Jeselnick.  This is a great blog post people…

5) Unbelievable Emotional Post – This is the horsesh*t extension of #1 where someone with no emotional connection has a heartbreaking message.  99 out of 100 I don’t buy it, but just know that if Bryan Cranston meets an untimely death, my tears will be real.

6) We were friends post – You met the celebrity twice, but you refer to them as your friend, your spirit, your buddy, your dear friend or any other such nonsense.

7) Fake Moral Outrage post – These are the folk who either take a celebrity’s death as a time to remind us about the troops or breast cancer or any other important thing, but they only do it on that day.  There were no posts about honor or important causes the day before.  They are like the Westboro Baptist Church – they show up to a social media mourning and then try to shame you with stuff they don’t care about most days, but become morally indignant just to fu*k with your appreciation.  Or they point out that the death was not a surprise or that they deserved it.  Hey – if the celebrity did not harm to others and they were talented it is OK to reflect on their skills and gifts without being told about the causes you rarely discuss during non celebrity mourning social media time.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

The question of who is the greatest basketball player of all time is not historically settled, by the very nature of History – people are always making it and adapting from and surpassing the past.  It is of little debate that at the present moment, by almost any standard one can apply that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.  He has the stats, championships, individual and team accolades and perhaps most importantly, a series indelible marks left upon the imaginations of millions of Americans.  Jerry West may be the logo of the NBA, but Michael Jordan is its most shining symbol of glory.  Others who have tried to lay claim to the throne have fallen short, most notably Kobe Bryant, the closest approximation to Jordan in style (if not in success) to the point that if Kobe could have killed Jordan on a boat, assumed his identity (along with press conference cadence, fadeaway jumper and gum chewing) and called himself The Talented Mr. Jordan, he might have.  But the danger in replicating a great is that no matter how great you are, unless you surpass the original in every way you can never be considered greater.  And this goes beyond stats and number of titles, but also the spirit of the legend.  Which is why I have found Lebron James so damn intriguing.

Lebron James, I have always said, is the only modern player with a chance to surpass Jordan (read the words haters – a chance – not a declared certainty or a present-day fact) because he is a different model.  Kobe challenged Jordan on Jordan’s turf. Lebron’s eventual legacy will challenge Jordan from a new template – a point guard mind- power forward body phenom.  He will never score as much as Kobe or MJ, but he impacts the game in a way I have never seen.  He is a defensive force and only Scottie Pippen has been as versatile a defender in my life.  What other player in NBA history goes chest-to-chest with Tim Duncan and rejects his post shot and then resumes guarding Tony Parker out on the perimeter?  Defensive player of the year Marc “Hodor” Gasol?

To watch the San Antonio defense you would think no one on the court exists except Lebron  They guard him with multiple players, a layered scheme and are only willing to concede the worst shot statistically in basketball – the 17-19 foot range jumper.  He is a gifted passer, a savant of the game and a physical freak, but he has only shown glimpses of an assassin’s mentality on the court and because Jordan set the framework and Kobe followed it, the fact that Lebron does not adhere to that model means in the hater/hoops-simpletons’ minds that he can never be as good or better than those who operate with that mindset.

And yet, Lebron is one game from winning his 2nd NBA title a year before Michael Jordan won his 2nd NBA title.  He has collected 3 triple doubles in his last 7 NBA Finals games.  He has thrived offensively in a league that, although not as physically dirty than the one Jordan played in and that Kobe began in, is much more sophisticated defensively and the statistics bear that out.  Better athletes, more zone defense and more complex stats and schemes make scoring a bigger chore in today’s NBA (not necessarily individually, but the game is a lot slower than in the 80s).  Am I in any way suggesting the MJ would not thrive in today’s NBA?  Of course not.  I think he would excel.  But this is more to defend Lebron.

Lebron is playing under a microscope that no other NBA player has ever played under.  Jordan felt the glare, but that was the glare of an adoring spotlight for most of  his career.  He was a Madison Avenue darling very early on and became the toast of the league for the second decade of his career.  Once MJ broke through, he was never questioned again, at least not pejoratively.  This has not been the case since Lebron won.  Lebron has had the spotlight, but much of it has come from the ever present 24 hour news cycle and the 200 foot troll of a magnifying glass known as social media.  Every game Lebron plays is not specific enough evidence of greatness or failure – he has every play dissected.  After willing the Heat back from the brink of destruction all 4th quarter in Game 6 last night, the instant reaction from haters was that Ray Allen had “bailed Lebron out” with his incredible three pointer.  What is Lebron Moses?  He gets to lead his team to the Promised Land, but not get to experience any of it?

The problem for Lebron is not that he is not talented or clutch or great.  He is all of those things.  The real problem for Lebron is that he is the greatest athletic specimen we have on the planet, other than perhaps Usain Bolt, and that shames a lot of the public.  See, we live in a society now where everyone’s opinions, thoughts, pictures and mundane activities are on display making us all feel like important celebrities in our individual, mundane circles.  Mediocrity has never been more famous and self-important and Lebron has been reminding us for the last three years that he is better than us.

We were OK when he was a nice kid from Ohio, toiling away, earnestly failing to achieve his profession’s highest goals.  But then he made THE DECISION.  I did not like it, but I got over it, mainly because I enjoy watching him play so much.  But what Lebron said is “watch me America – I am important and you will watch me.” And we did watch and then we hated him for showing us how much we cared and how shallow we all felt (THE DECISION was a huge ratings success).  We became champions of Cleveland’s dignity, even though many people watching were just hoping their team would be the one to break Cleveland’s heart (Hello Knicks and Bulls fans). Rather than apologize for our own hypocrisy we turned Lebron into a massive villain.

But don’t forget he was arrogant at a free pep rally fgor Heat fans!

And then he lost in the Finals to Dallas and it proved that he was being punished for his hubris and we could all feel good.  It was a text book case of schadenfreude.  We determined he deserved a comeuppance,  he got it and we delighted! Good riddance King James! Except rather than fade away into the Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter wing just outside of the NBA Hall of Fame for underachieving athletic freaks he bounced back and destroyed his rivals en route to his title in 2012.  Yes he played with Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, but only a truly delusional hatred could ignore that Lebron was the Sun that the other Heat players revolved around.  And he never had that iconic moment in the NBA Finals last year because he destroyed the OKC Thunder so thoroughly.  So other than Boston Game 6 (and Indiana Game 3 if you paid attention), his 2012 playoffs did not give us Jordan over Ehlo or Jordan (shoving) shooting over Russel.  Another strike against Lebron!

So we arrived at 2013. The Heat win 66 games, 27 in a row and Lebron puts together the most or oneof the most efficient seasons in NBA History.  And then the playoffs happen and it appears that by the Pacers’ series Lebron is no longer part of a big three.  He is the Big One and is alternating between dragging his teammates and creating for them.  He single handedly vanquished a very tough and balanced Pacers team that specifically were strong where the Heat were weak.

And now the Finals.  Standing in Lebron’s way are a 4 time champion player and coach, a team with size and a team with a devastatingly good point guard – all weak spots for the Heat. And with some help, finally, Lebron is one game away from defeating the team that swept him when, like a Mozart of basketball, he took a terrible Cavs team to the Finals in 2007 with only his individual natural brilliance.  But now Lebron has mastered basketball.  Does that mean he is perfect? No.  Did Jordan shoot below 33% in the final game of the 1996 Finals?  Did Kobe go 6-24 in Game 7 of the 2010 Finals?  Yes and yes.  Does that diminish their legacies? No.  Yet Lebron for that he has accomplished before the age of 30 and the brilliance with which he plays is still having every dribble examined with heightened scrutiny.  So if he were to score 40 and go 15-15 from the field on Thursday, but Tony Parker hits a buzzer beater to win Game 7, this will somehow render Lebron’s admission to the upper elite of the sport null and void.  He cannot please these people because they want him to fail.  They need him to fail.

Lebron James has shown us that he is great. Greater at what he does than we will ever be at what we do.  He has also shown us that he knows he is great and better than us.  Not in a brash Terrell Owens sort of way where it feels cartoonish. Rather, Lebron was blessed by God, fate or nature with incredible potential for greatness.  He was not born Peter Parker or even Bruce Wayne – he was BORN as Spider Man and Batman. And what is worse is that he is fullfilling that great potential and enjoying it in beautiful Miami.  Lebron is better than us, knows it, but what really stings is that we could never be him.  No matter how hard we work and dedicate ourselves he was always going to be better. Kobe and MJ gritted their teeth, yelled at and in MJ’s case, punched, teammates – they had the gifts, but they also exhibited the grit that made us feel better about them being better.  Lebron is just enjoying a game he has mastered and fullfilling his promise, but with something closer to a child’s enjoyment than a mob boss’ ruthlessness.  And in an age where we all think we are so important and special he has shown us that we are not.  But that he is.

Good luck in Game 7 Lebron.  And get ready to hear “but MJ and Kobe threepeated” or “now Tracy mcGrady has as many titles as you” right after.   And then have a hearty laugh.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

June’s video is a movie parody written by me, starring me as one of my impressions.  Although people are saying I look more Vin Diesel than Dwayne Johnson, hopefully you enjoy the impression as well as the high quality film work.  And please like the YouTube video and share it!

And don’t forget…

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

I have a ticket to see Man of Steel tomorrow and it has been the movie I have anticipated most this Summer.  Reviews have been much more unsteady than I expected, but after seeing Christopher Nolan’s name attached as a producer and an all star cast I am still optimistic.  And the Rotten Tomatoes aggregate reviewing system has failed me a few times this Summer already – most notably with After Earth, a movie I liked and predicted would be around 58% on Rotten Tomatoes, which garnered only a 12% – a complete hater fest against Will Smith, his son and M Night.  However there are reasons to be concerned with Man of Steel.  First off the director is Zach Snyder so don’t be fooled that Christopher Nolan is directing.  I enjoyed 300, but I generally find Snyder’s movies to be weak (300 and Sucker Punch – both CGI fests that could not keep my attention).  Second, like the film Jesus of Nazareth, the only relative no-name in the cast is the guy playing the Messiah. Henry Cavill is an English actor (for a second I thought he was Australian and I thought “seriously, can these guys stop taking our jobs – who cares about 1 million Mexican migrant workers when we have like 30 Aussies taking multi-million dollar pay days from hardworking American waiters?” But I was wrong.) whose biggest role to date was in the underwhelming, overly CGI’d Immortals.  But I have the good fortune of not being a nerd or someone who found the will to live as a child or a teen based on picture books.  I read real books, I played sports and I made people laugh with me, not at me. Now this may explain why my career in stand up comedy is so stalled, but it also explains why if Man of Steel is good I will be happy and why if Man of Steel is terrible I will not curse the Heavens (I will save that for the San Antonio Spurs if they beat Lebron James in the NBA Finals).

See, I don’t care if any of these directors or writers stay true to the source material, or the spirit of the original.  I am going to watch a movie. If the movie is good, mission accomplished.  Oh no Superman is not wearing red underwear outside his suit!  Oh no – he is struggling with his identity in this one!  If it makes for a better movie then great.  If changes and approaches make for a worse movie then that is where it ends for me.  Too many freaks and geeks have too much of their adult identity in Hollywood somehow validating their sad and pathetic youth.  Is it not enough that Hollywood and pop culture have turned being a “nerd” into a cool thing?  That bullies are an endangered species?  That everything you ever liked as a kid is being made into a big spectacle for you to enjoy as an adult.  Shut the fu*k up already.  You cannot go back in time and make friends or kiss a girl or any other things you wish had happened when you were younger and a new Superman will not fill that void – nor should the movie’s failure to live up to your hopes be reason to feel that you are being stuffed into a locker again.

So I hope Man of Steel is good.  But if it is not at least the silver lining is a whole lot of tools will lose their minds.  Now if you don’t mind I have much more adult things to do – like worry about if Lebron James can beat the San Antonio Spurs.  Probably almost as immature and lame as comic book fans except at least the guy I am rooting for actually exists.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

Monday’s blog was such a comprehensive diatribe on the pitfalls and borderline corruption permeating stand up comedy that today I am happy to take a break from long-windedness.  In today’s post I am sharing a video that my buddy, sometimes road companion and baseball fan Joe Pontillo made. I play Mark Teixera, who I don’t really resemble, but the keys to the part were that the person be equal parts apathetic and mean.  When my agent got the call for the role I asked how much it paid and after some very tense negotiations I agreed to a one-way train ticket to Valley Stream on the Long Island RR.  Not to brag about my acting ability, but in the sketch (which is for comedy fans who like baseball) I am actually wearing a Robinson Cano jersey, but because of my Meisner technique I was able to channel the spirit of Mark Teixera and make the audience forget I was in a Cano jersey.  Also, one last note, realizing that Teixera has a horse’s mouth I borrowed a comedy technique Jim Carrey utilized to play Vera De Milo on In Living Color in the 1990s, known as the “horse laugh.”  I hope you enjoy the sketch and the finely honed instrument that is my acting craft.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

No other business in my opinion represents America like stand up comedy. I do not know where or how it exactly originated, but it is clear that America has the lion’s share of the top tier talent.  Comedy has been at the forefront of the 1st Amendment in entertainment.  It has produced cultural icons.  It has opened doors, pushed boundaries and offered Americans of all varieties windows into the worlds of people different than them in ways that social interaction may not have always allowed.  And like the American Dream – comedy was an art form where if you had a dream, a spark of talent and motivation you could become successful, albeit, moderately in many cases, if you just stuck with it and worked hard. People could make careers in stand-up comedy.

But just like the American Dream, which has basically died except for hard core Americans who believe more in the sanctity of platitudes than the reality of life, comedy has undergone a profound shift in recent history.  Just like an America where the rich have rigged the rules so that if you start ahead, you will most likely finish further ahead (while simultaneously lecturing the have-nots on the virtue of hard work and fair play), the comedy business has become an increasingly rigged business where the haves continue to grow in wealth and opportunity while instructing the have-nots (at least those rich in talent, lacking in most other things) of all the new ways they must work hard and build their brand – because their effort and skills are the only things holding them back.

THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR CANNOT FORM A UNION

The truth is America is rigged and you need to be an exception to make it by with hard work – the social contract of work hard, contribute to society and stay out of trouble is no longer enough for many people to have a successful life.  We are not all equal and we will not all live equally, but somehow a notion that permeated our country and thrived for decades, the idea that if you “work hard and play by the rules,” to quote Bill Clinton, is now not virtuous anymore.  You are either some wealthy kick ass person worthy of our admiration or someone who has fu*ked up or is not working hard enough – a janitor may not be a glamorous job, but if a guy puts in 40 hours a week cleaning toilets shouldn’t he be OK at least?  Now comedy is an art and by no means as important as basic life necessities.  And talent is necessary (and subjective).  But hard work, talent and staying out of trouble are no longer enough in comedy.  Because the game is increasingly rigged.

The “rich” in comedy have consolidated power by creating a near monopolistic control of the A comedy clubs in America, making it easier for their headlining clients to earn commissions for them.  So if you manage the talent and manage the venues that book the talent to perform, it seems fairly obvious who will perform there.  Now this monopolistic, incestuous booking/management/ownership practice may doom the comedy club business in the long run, but this apocalyptic future is of little consolation to comedians who have spent 10-20 years building a career only to see the equivalent of their factory close down or outsource or downsize in the last couple of years.

Now in many professions, a union used to be the way to even the score between undervalued workers and powerful owners and employers, but many decades removed from some of the worst worker abuses that made unions necessary in the first place, we now live in a society where more and more people belittle and denigrate the purpose of unions.  And a comedy union, which was tried a decade or so ago, has even less likely a chance of coming to fruition today than it did before.  Here is a comment I wrote about comedy unions on Facebook last week:

 It won’t work because only a small minority of comedians would actually benefit from a union. Assuming things like standard rates for showcase sets, emcee, feature and headlining gigs would be what a union would seek it would not work because headliners and stars would have little incentive to join, rising stars (MTV 2 and Comedy Central stables) would not want to harm their ascent, and local comedians around the country would not like it because they might and probably would suffer if more top flight features were sought out and guaranteed room and a decent week’s pay (since clubs abiding by union regulations would be paying more for talent they would be incentivized to guarantee customer satisfaction with the show). So the only people who would benefit would be the top tier feature level talent who would be able to stay afloat to possibly reach headline status and would have more opportunities if clubs no longer had a financial incentive to get emcees and features on the cheap.

In other words, just like in America – the rich workers have no incentive to support unions, employers have incentives NOT to support unions and the poorest and least skilled have little to benefit from joining them (local comedians in many cases being almost the equivalent of government assistance recipients) so the people who get squeezed and lose out on the would-be benefits of a comedy union are the middle class of comedy – hard working people who have the skills, but are no longer offered social mobility in the business.

THE MEDIA CARES MOST ABOUT THE MEDIA

Also, like in America, where the media has become a slave to the whims of the public and web traffic statistics instead of being solely concerned with valuable information (Lindsey Lohan “news” coverage ring a bell), the most popular sites for comedy news appear to be those dedicated to promoting the established stars and rare do-it-yourself tales of people making it from outside the industry – the kind of stories that are not as likely to enlighten or add weight to comedy criticism or information, but will boost Google Analytics for the provider of the story.  Stories of Bo Burnham are well known, as are Louis CK’s bucking the industry.  But these are exceptions – a kid becoming a star from his bedroom or a performer who spent decades within the industry finally accruing enough power to then buck the system.  However, just like reality television, which provides us with dozens of shows about “real Americans” to make us believe industry and working class people are still thriving and full of entertaining life, these comedic anecdotes are like opiates – making comedians believe that the business is more accessible than ever and not more rigged than ever.  The notion being f you just work hard and come up with something creative you will be rewarded. It was always a tough business, but every time you read a story of do-it-yourself successes in comedy, there are two more clubs being swallowed up into a monopoly that will not hire you unless you have made yourself a star already.  Then they will want your piece of your slice of the pie that you earned.  And the comedy sites will then be there to tell your story.

OVER-SATURATION LEADS TO APATHY

The brilliance of this new comedy business model is that comedy has never been as accessible and widespread as it is today.  Just as the general public is flooded with more information than ever before, breeding a level of apathy and cynicism in the general public (stories get bigger faster and become irrelevant faster from news fatigue), so too are people inundated with comedy all over their computers, phones and social media.  So it has never been easier to reach an audience, but simultaneously an audience has never had less monetary value.  As soon as YouTube fully grasped the success of YouTube they began promoting certain people and creating their own original content.  Comedy Clubs of the established variety are the last sort of seal of industry approval that audiences recognize.  But they are becoming more and more closed off to a lot of comedians.  And I am not just speaking of people in my position – there are a lot of experienced people beyond me who are feeling this pinch.

I wish I had a solution for this.  And maybe ten or twenty years from now the model will have exploded and things will reverse or get back to a little less Gilded Age approach to the comedy business.  But that won’t help people now – being historical footnotes during a Comedy Club oligarchy as the powers that be decided which headliners would survive and which up and coming acts they would try to make stars out of.

Instead of insuring the life blood of comedy, the powers that be seem like they want to suck it dry so it no longer exists when they leave.  That might explain why there is now Laughstub which is a Ticketmaster for comedy.  Because everyone loves Ticketmaster, right?  Just a few years ago, this did not exist at most clubs, but now people looking for a moderately priced evening of entertainment can tack on service charges that go to who – the employees of the clubs? I doubt it.

But the message sent to comedians – the working class soldiers in the comedy business?  Work harder – that is what is holding you back.  So while the haves keep increasing their share of the pie and inventing new slices to carve up, the blame is placed at the feet of the comedians just trying to work and earn a buck. The stand up comedy business is now so American that Ken Burns should make a documentary about it and Paul Krugman should write a column about how corrosive it is.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

In my decade of performing, observing, enjoying and being despondent over stand up comedy it has been a very interesting and unique time to be a comedian.  When I began I still sent physical VHS tapes for auditions (quickly moving on to DVDs, both of which sit in warehouses like the one where the Arc of the Covenant is stored in Raiders of the Lost Arc).  The biggest comedian in the world was Dane Cook.  Beards were worn primarily by drifters and the homeless and women were just not considered very funny.  And in a decade my how some of those things have changed!  Now I send video clips and avails by email, which no longer have to be discarded into basements or (physical) trash bins; Louis CK is the biggest comedian, who unlike Dane Cook never uses non-sequiturs or voice inflection as the driving force of a joke; beards are an industry gold standard, like a foot long dong in porn; and now women are the funniest gender on the planet if you are reading the Huffington Post.  So to give you some perspective on the last tumultuous and game-changing decade in comedy here is my list:

1) Chris Rock may be the last stand up legend to be judged critically.  Bring the Pain is the greatest hour of comedy I have ever seen.  I do not think it will ever be surpassed.  Every bit on that is a greatest hit.  It was strong, relevant, thoughtful and most importantly hilarious.  Chris Rock’s next special was an A, but not the A+ that BTP was. But then Rock did Never Scared and I remember critics and comedians were not that warm to it.  I was at a taping of it in DC and enjoyed it, but knew that it was not to the level of the first two.  But I did not try to choke slam the first person to say they did not like the special.  Because in comedy you should be judged by the product and not merely reputation (that might actually benefit me).  Sure, fans can get caught up in the hype, but at least comedians should be able to give honest assessments.  However, guys like Dave Chappelle (who’s show was tremendous and whose stand up career has someone how been inflated to the level of Chris Rock (or beyond by some) as he gained unwarranted mythical status) and Louis CK have been unassailable and infallible in their stand up.

I saw Chappelle in 2003 I believe, headline the DC Improv and watched someone deliver a lackluster hour for $45 a ticket.  The material and the effort were not worthy of the ticket price.  Also, Louis CK’s last two specials were fine.  Some highlights, but the almost instant reaction from comedians to them was “brilliant” and “amazing” across social media platforms, and could not be justified.  So apparently it is now a great time to be a legend in comedy.  Our colective need for man made deities in an increasingly secular age with more and more Internet interaction has made hero worship more necessary and more personal to people.  Myths can be worshipped, but a real comedy legend should still be scrutinized and judged on the work.  So for my money (which is not much) I think Chris Rock may be the last comedy legend we see for a while and definitely over the past decade.

2) Dane Cook used voice inflection as a punchline, which is now panned… by people who love comics who use voice inflection.  Starting my decade of comedy, Dane Cook was the biggest thing in comedy (more Kevin Hart than CK, but still a huge deal).  Ten years later, Cook can do nothing right in the eyes of some.  His formula, though not for everyone, was unique and he had honed it – it relied a lot on personality, charisma and story telling, but his signatures were voice inflection and accompanying gesticulations.  I do not describe it this way to denigrate it, but only because that is how someone studying his success might portray it.  He worked hard, worked through the clubs, made it to late night television and when his moment came he became a monster success.

Now Dane Cook is a guy with “no jokes” and “stupid fans” to a lot of the in-the-know comedy crowd who gravitate towards a new scene of comics who use plenty of voice inflection and gesticulation to either punctuate a joke – or to replace conventional punchlines entirely.  But some of this new inflection class are more humble and pulling less pussy than Cook so they are viewed as vanguards of authenticity.  So in a way nothing has changed on this front in ten years, except for a lot of blind hypocrisy.

3) Chappelle’s Show Was the Last Great Sketch Show.  I still watch and enjoy SNL, but since Chappelle’s Show, sketch comedy took a nosedive the last ten years.   It seems that Chappelle’s Show was the last sketch (and possible comedy overall) to be hugely entertaining with meaningful social commentary and risk-taking that was not meant to shock, simply for the sake of shock.  If I showed you season 2 of Chappelle Show 10 years ago (approximately) and then showed you a futuristic glimpse of Key and Peele ten years later, you might assume an apocalyptic event had taken place.

4) It is better to be lucky or local as a middle comic.  Road work, once the lifeblood of the up and coming comedian has basically dried up.  Even if you are successful and connected enough to secure a lot of weeks of work as a middle, the nickel and diming barely allows you to make ends meet.  But if you are a local comedian across the country with any chops you can probably secure more work at your local clubs than someone with television credits can across the country (I am thinking of no one in particular).  Of course, if you are lucky enough to connect with an established headliner than you may secure as many feature weeks as they have headlining weeks, but generally being local or being lucky beat being good if you are trying to get middle work.  I felt like I saw a lot more people slightly ahead of me in the early part of my decade in comedy securing solid amounts of feature work.  Maybe that was an illusion, but when in 2013 a booker refers to it as a “buyer’s market” to you and another booker apologizes that they cannot pay you more (not because they are strapped for cash, but because local features have set the rate lower for that market) it probably is not.

5) The comedy community has reached a critical mass of self-absorption.  Comedy controversies have become as important to the comedy community as telling good jokes.  Mind you a comedy controversy is as valuable to the world as what you ate for breakfast is.  A funny joke on social media is almost as important as who told it with regard to re-tweeting and liking something.  No I am not suggesting that ass kissing somehow emerged in the last decade, just that it is now more in your face and having exponential growth BECAUSE it is in everyone’s face.  Ten years ago, the road and television appearances were badges of honor and benchmarks in a career.  Now every comedian who cannot or will not make effort to get booked outside of their three favorite venues is proclaiming “the old order is dead – we don’t need the clubs!”  Right, and now instead of some people having viable careers we have almost everyone scraping by at the same level.  I am mad at the clubs because they are cheap and hurting the chances of genuine talent sustaining their careers in comedy, but I still want the clubs because they have the built in audiences who like comedy and purchase CDs.

My favorie little anecdote showing people’s lack of gloabal awareness may have been a few years ago when a new-sish comic spoke of another new-ish comedian (both less than 4 years performing) and said “he is really influencing a lot of people right now.”

6) The best comics I have seen throughout the decade were the 10-12 year guys.  I mean this to say the “unknown” comedians that I have liked the best have always been the guys with enough experience to be great at what they do, but enough humility and time to have shifted their focus from bullsh*t.  Two of my favorite comics right now are Yannis Pappas and John Moses (who may not want to be affiliated with me or this post).  They are both sharp, unique comedians with distinct points of view and are starting to get success.  This is who should be getting the showcase opportunities from the industry, not having to be do-it-yourself cottage industries.  Of course this is a Catch 22 – perhaps if they had been coddled and embraced sooner they would not have become as good as they are.  But now that comics like Yannis and John and many others have molded their acts under increasingly brutal (do it all yourself and if we like you we will take 10% to help you cross the finish line) industry conditions I want to see them doing half hour specials.  Not as speculative chances, but as proven commodities.

I laughed when someone recently told me that they thought Joe DeRosa’s new comedy central half hour was “great.”  I laughed because I am sure it was.  Joe is a comedian who is well known in comedy circles, has been doing it for over a decade and has worked very hard.  Comedy specials on television should be the reward of people who have earned a certain status, not a polling station for what tests well with millennials.  Half hours on Comedy Central over the past few years in some cases (but certainly not all) have felt like testing ground for potential new stars, instead of a selection of proven comedians.  So when someone tells me that Joe DeRosa “was great” I laugh because I wonder why every year does not have 12-14 Joe DeRosa’s selected.  And if they cannot find that many, why do they have that many episodes?  Video killed the radio star and one day someone will write that Millennial polling drowned the stand up comedian.

7) Still waiting for a Latin comic who can make the Latin experience have cross over appeal.  Just a thought. Ten years and although there are comics of Latin descent (Giraldo being one of my all time favorites) who are excellent I find it weird that in a country where Latinos are now (I believe) or soon to be the largest minority in the country there is no breakout/crossover star of Latin comedy.  George Lopez is the most successful, but where is the Latin Chris Rock or Richard Pryor or Dave Chappelle – someone lending an insider’s perspective and experience from a large community to the mainstream?  Oh wait, I forgot about Carlos Mencia.  It just makes me wonder if Latin comedians are too insular with their material (try enjoying a George Lopez special without Rosetta Stone) or if the industry is ignoring some up and coming talent(s) who might add a needed new perspective.  Either possibility would not surprise me.

8 ) Men dominate comedy but the only thing that has changed is that it is now inappropriate to ascribe any qualitative value to the fact that dominate.  Most people still think men are funnier than women. All that has happened is vocal members of the comedy comunity have rendered this notion the equivalent of  hate speech so most people will no longer express that opinion explicitly.  #progress

9) There is no middle class left in comedy.  You are either a star, a star in the making, or a hobbyist. – Close to #4 so just read this.

10) I went from too new to too old without ever hitting the “just right” phase.  As I was moving up the ranks from “open mic-er” to “respected open mic-er” to “why is he still doing this open mic” to “hey I got a guest spot at a good club” to “emcee” to “feature” I was always impatient.  Club owners assured me that I was new and I was young and my time and voice would come.  Now I am 34, 10 years in the game and working my ass off and I see a lot of late twenty-somethings making it big (at least relatively speaking).  But maybe I just missed that specific day when I was 31 years old, but looked 29 and had just had a good workout and wrote a really solid new joke and had a little bit of 5 o’clock shadow – that was the moment when I was just right for comedy success.

So if this is the last ten years of comedy I hope for my sake AND for the sake of stand up that this circles back around a little bit. Because if this was the ten years leading up to now, the next time you see Key and Peele on your television set there very well may have been a stand up comedy apocalypse.

Have a great weekend!

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

The celebration of my ten years in comedy continues this week with another retrospective post.  Admittedly, Monday’s post had the celebratory feel of a 9/11 memorial service so with today’s post I hope to offer something a little more instructive and even-handed.  My ten years in comedy have taught me many things, both good and bad and I thought I would share what I believe my worst and best decisions were in those ten years and how they impacted my career.

As is my nature let’s start with the worst decision.  For many comedians, both delusional (majority) and realistic, the goal is to get management.  Having someone reputable and connected guiding you, but more importantly for tangible benefits, getting you in front of people with power in entertainment, has become the holy grail to most comedians.  A lot of comedians talk that rap of  “I just want to get better,” but getting better, especially early on, when the highs from compliments and laughs are super high, is really just a means to the end of money and recognition, if not fame.  I once had management.  I had sent out a mass mailing to a bunch of agencies and even though I was only 4 years in to comedy, I believed (correctly) that my volume and quality of material was at least moving beyond my peers so I thought – “it’s time for me to take the next step!”  I sent a DVD/headshot/resume (which included every club I had done an open mic at) to dozens of managers and crossed my fingers.

To my surprise, several months after doing the initial mailing I received an email from someone at a very well known management company.  It surprised me that they would contact me over some smaller outfits that I had reached out to, but so be it.  I ended up having some very good conversations with Jamie, the manager who contacted me and then a very inspiring call with the head of the entire company.  After that I was submitted for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and before you could say “Who the fu*k is J-L Cauvin?” I was booked for the show.  I ended up getting one other regional television booking a couple of months later, all while higher-ups at the agency kept telling me to move to California.  However, my name was not signed to any paper, signifying an official relationship and although confident that I was funny, I was not confident enough to leave NYC on the encouragement of people working in the most dishonest business in the world.  But Jamie continued to call me once a week to chat and to tell me about things he wanted to submit me for.  On a personal front he also made a few correct predictions about my ex-fiancee.

But then just as I felt like I was building momentum Jamie was let go (as it was presented to me) by the management company.  And I had a very abrupt decision to make – do I stick with the individual who has helped me or do I stick with the big name company with more connections?  I chose the company – or the road more frequently travelled – and that made all the difference unfortunately.  My ex-fiancee and I broke up and I had a subsequent pair of mediocre showcases (though one was a NACA college showcase and last time I checked – student body presidents from small colleges in the Dakotas are not power players in Hollywood) in the wake of that personal annoyance.  The management company quickly lost interest, but did not tell me to look elsewhere for representation for another 6 months.  Meanwhile, Jamie now represents several writers in Hollywood and appears as loyal as ever to his talent.

Since my decision to stick with the name instead of the person I have not been back on television and have had to hustle and fight for every small piece of the comedy pie that I have had over the last 5+ years.  Who knows what would have happened if I had stuck with Jamie.  Perhaps nothing, but having someone who believes in you in your corner is something that, I have learned the hard way, is invaluable in entertainment.   So if there are any young comics struggling or comics just starting to see a rise in their fortunes, choose the person who believes in you over the person who impresses you the most (assuming, of course some base level of competency in management for both parties – needless to say the woman in my building that I chat with in the laundry room believes in my comedy 100%, but I would not have her manage my career).  It is a mistake I have made and will not make again.  It is the same logic that showed why Boof was such a better choice than Pamela in Teen Wolf.  Someone who believes in you will give effort that cannot be intellectually manufactured.  They will fight as hard as you because they share your belief in yourself.

So what is possibly the good decision here of this ten year journey?  Well, recently I had a couple of meetings with managers, based largely off of the success of the Louis CK video (their lack of subsequent contact has given me comfort knowing I may not need to make a tough decision on picking representation).  I also got an opportunity to do a web series shortly after leaving a comedy group that I had been part of.  These are small things, but they are the result of a simple decision I made –  to stop trying to be successful.  This was more a mental choice.  I still work as hard as I have been, but I now have removed expectations on myself.  The only demands I place on myself are to make good comedy and good comedy products.   Anything after that is not really in my hands.  So when a young comedian says they only want to get good I don’t believe them.  You have to have that natural inclination to egotistical attitude humbled out of you (I don’t even mean bragging or talking sh*t – I just mean that intoxicating feeling that takes hold of you early in your career when a good looking woman tells you you were funny or when a crowd pumps you up – it is too strong early on not to have your ego, even if quietly, take some control of your expectations). Some guys keep rising and then believe they can pontificate on what it means to be a comedian, but their experience is the exception, not the rule.  I now just want to be great because that is all that is left for me to aim for.  When no other validation seems available or possible that is when being great at comedy for comedy’s sake can really and finally take hold.

So I guess this whole post could summarized by saying the worst decision I made in comedy was putting my faith in the wrong people and the best decision I made was letting go of the mental state that got me to have misplaced faith in the first place.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

This weekend represented my last weekend as a 9 year stand up comic.  That is right, today marks the 10th anniversary of the first time I picked up a microphone attempting to be a stand up comic.  The venue was the Takoma Station Tavern, a jazz club in Washington, DC that played host to an open mic on Monday nights (it’s the laughs you don’t hear that make the difference).  The memorable things about that night were that my friend and law school classmate Hank came with his brother, the emcee referred to the sweat under a woman’s breast (the exact quote “fu*kin’ sweat under a titty be tastin’ like buttermilk”) and my set went very well for a first time.  I got a few laughs and did not forget any of the five minutes I had written and practiced for two weeks in my apartment. My thinking was simple: if I get booed or don’t get laughs I would have the set so committed to memory that I could get through it no matter what.  Now a whole lot of pain and some joy could have been avoided if that crowd at the Takoma Station Tavern had just told me to “get the fu*k off the stage” or booed very loudly (where is the student body of Medgar Evers College when you need them – STILL my worst gig in ten years), but they gave me enough support to motivate me to take the stage the next night (I use stage loosely to describe “The Cave,” a friendly and tiny room in the basement of a Best Western near Georgetown Law’s campus).  And that bit of preparation and good fortune ten years ago led to the weekend I will describe for you.

I had a spot at the Laughing Devil on Friday night in Long Island City.  The attendance was very light, but I ended up having my best set in probably a year.  It was fifteen minutes, which was approximately one minute for every person who heard the set, and ten of the minutes had been brand new stuff I had been working on during the past week.  It all went well and to show you how far my perspective has come from that DC night ten years ago – the set pissed me off.  It pissed me off because I had just recorded an album set and this 15 minutes was not on it (now trying to schedule another show so I can edit together all the material I want on the new album). It also pissed me off because there were so few people there (while simultaneously making me feel guilty for not appreciating a top notch group of people in attendance).  One thing I tell young comedians, who are looking for (immediate) keys to success, is that you need to become successful before you lose most of your friends.  Success will keep your friends around and bring you fans.  Skill, without success will lose you friends (if you devote as much time and energy to comedy as is required) and not replace their vacancy with new-found fan support.  In The Dark Knight he said it was said “it is darkest just before the dawn.” Well in comedy, it is loneliest just before everyone wants a piece of your sh*t.

When I started comedy, my closest friends were in their early twenties which meant that they had no wives, no kids and were intrigued by the new activity I had chosen.  Now ten years later, despite a series of modest accomplishments and an act that grows and sharpens exponentially every year, almost all of them either have no time or no appreciation for what I do.  But because of the scarcity of feature work, the lack of a mentor or, more importantly, a manager I have not been able to advance my career to the point that fans fill the empty seats where enthusiastic friends once sat.   As an example, I can draw more people to a show in Philly or DC, where I am viewed as a comedian by the people in those cities who have seen me, than in NYC, where after 10 years some of my friends still tease me with the moniker “the comedian” as if it is some quirky, hopeless activity I participate in, like collecting stamps.  I mean, I know the average career in comedy now ranks slightly below poetry slamming, but I am no stamp collector!

Which brings me to the second illustrative event of the weekend.  I have not been booked for 2 1/2 years at a prominent comedy club chain in the country.  I was passed to work these clubs in 2009, received two bookings in 2010, three in 2011, at which point I received an unsolicited e-mail from the booker telling me the great things he had heard about my work and that I would be bumped up his list in priority.  This was great news and it led to zero bookings over the next 28 months.  These are clubs where I have gained fans, sold albums and been able to work with top tier headliners.  But I received an e-mail this weekend that basically said it is a buyers’ market for comedy right now and that I will remain on the fringe of booking priority.  So now other road gigs are still available, but the trajectory is not good.  From 2007-2011 I received more road work than the year before.  Then in 2012 that took a huge bump down and my calendar has yet to recover.  This leaves me with the option of becoming a headliner, which means becoming famous through something other than stand up to facilitate that, or writing off a couple dozen A-list clubs as avenues of potential income.

That brings me to the third emblematic moment of the weekend: Sunday. I received a last minute booking to be on an independently produced show at The Stand.  I also had a bar show afterwards in Astoria.  The show at The Stand went really well and I was extremely happy with my set.  Then I got paid.  This may not seem like something strange, but it was the first time I had a comedy club pay me for doing a spot in Manhattan.  That is right, after 10 years of comedy and 9 years in NYC doing it I have yet to be passed at a single Manhattan comedy club.  For the first half of my pursuit of comedy glory I did a lot of bringers at a lot of different clubs.  Then I decided to consolidate all of my efforts at one comedy club.  Any tape I needed I did a bringer at that club.  I put in face time at the club and went to shows there when I was not doing spots.  But for whatever stroke of bad luck, bad look or bad connections – I am not closer to being passed at that club or seemingly any others.  I no longer have the energy or spare time to “put in face time” at clubs because I still prefer to prioritize actually performing over face time, even if that means lonely bars in outer boroughs .   But still it felt good to have a club employee hand me some money for performing.

The second show of Sunday and the last official stage time of my 9th year was how I expected – a few laughs, a few blank stares and a barely audible amount of applause as I exited the stage.  I do not pretend to be an expert at the business of comedy, but I know I am an expert in comedy.  I know it and do it very well.  But this is no longer enough, or even the most important thing.  So despite the things that occurred in the middle of the last decade for my comedy career – in ten years I basically gained $25 and lost a few applause from the first night I did comedy.  Can’t wait for the next ten years.  It may not get better, but it can’t get much worse.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!