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Comedy Recap of the Week: You Don’t Look Half…

This weekend I travelled to Hartford, CT for gigs at Brew Ha Ha Comedy Club at City Steam.  This is one of the most convenient and best set ups in the whole country.  The shows are Friday and Saturday, so one does not have to take any days off from the day job to work the club if you are in NYC. The hotel is a Holiday Inn Express, which given current comedy club accommodation standards, ranging from no room to body fluid stained comedy condo, is basically the Ritz-Carlton to a comedian.  The hotel is 400 feet from the Amtrak station and a ten minute walk from the club.

Interestingly enough, the hotel has a free breakfast, but no waffle iron, which is a big problem because as any comedian knows, the waffle iron has been the great equalizer in comedy accommodations.  “Four people were murdered here last week,” used to be what you would hear at a comedy club condo/hotel, but it now sounds a lot better as “Four people were murdered here last week, but our continental breakfast features a waffle iron.”  Like the personal computer for individuals, the waffle iron leveled the playing for hotels. The Econo Lodge closed the gap with the Gansevoort thanks to the waffle iron.  There is also a Subway near the hotel so that you can eat something halfway healthy for lunch and the club provides free food and a few free drinks per show for dinner.  In other words it is the perfect set up for a comedian looking to have a comfortable weekend.  When I was at the club in Summer 2012 I had three great shows and was happy as could be.  But this is 2013 and I am working on a new hour, which will set the world on fire, but as a majority of the crowds taught me this weekend, it is not for everyone.

The Friday show was the worst I had all weekend.  It still went well, but I blanked on several bits (including two of my new best) and had to retreat to some older bits to keep the flow going, which is exactly what I did not want to do.  And I felt guilty since two of my 28 nationwide fans, Jon and Laura (it was fate J-L has fans J and L) were at the show and I had promised newer material.  They still thought it went well, which was probably them being nice.  But most people greeted me nicely, except for a group of girls who sprinted past me, well sprinted might be generous – they waddled in a frightened manner away from me.  The only really awkward thing about City Steam (aside from the fact that half of the ceiling over the stage is too low for me to stand under) is that merch sales for features is at a narrow corner right next to the stairwell, which creates a gauntlet for audience members to pass through.  I shook many hands and was told “good show” by a lot of people.  I sold very little and got the awkward exchange that would become the theme of the weekend.

An elderly couple walked up to me and said, “Very funny stuff, but I just don’t believe that you are half-black.”  I have not figured out the right way to react to this.  I literally spend 5 minutes of my set recalling the unique experience of being half black, but generally looking white (or at least not-half black, even if some other ethnicity).  Now perhaps comedy audiences no longer believe they are getting humorous truth on stage anymore because of all the geeks and act out-specialists that comprise comedy now (of course the audiences all believed the headliners Mad Lib-esque bits where he simply placed me into interchangeable stories of smoking weed on the road, even though we met for the first time 2 hours before the show – THOSE were all believable to the audience as they kept asking me about our “tour.”).  But do people think anymore?  There are only two possibilities to the statement/question about my ethnicity – either you are calling me a liar or a panderer or you are saying my parent’s’marriage is a fraud (it is full of hostility, but it is not a fraud).

Saturday I recounted the story on stage to some laughter (mostly from the 10% non-white crowd members) on the early show.  Then after the show a guy came up to me and here is the exchange:

“You don’t look half-black.”

“I know.  That is what the bit was about.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“Well, really funny stuff man.” (he said this sort of nervously because the look in my eye was probably that of a half-Black Panther)

See the problem with the material I am working on is that it is not for everyone by definition.  Speaking of all the subtle and not so subtle racist things I still experience and observe to audiences where half the people could be guilty of some of the experiences I recount is not a recipe to winning a whole crowd.  But instead of laughing or not laughing the mirror has to be turned on me instead of on themselves.  Because if I am making up my race for material then the jokes have no relevance or meaning.

As if this was not enough of an annoyance, there is also the “your wife is being uncomfortably flirty with me right in front of you dude” scenario.  After the first show Saturday, which was my second best set of the weekend, but my lowest audience response, a woman came up to me gushing and not removing eye contact for a good 15 seconds.  I did the thing I always do in these cases which is shake her hand and then immediately engage her husband with a hand shake and a “thank you.”  But this guy who was a pretty big guy in his own right gripped my hand and he had some serious paws.  They weren’t longer but his hands were very thick and engulfed mine.  I can palm a basketball, but this guy felt like he could deflate a basketball with his hand.  Then he said, “not very big hands for a big guy!”  I replied like a court jester, “Well that is why I am telling jokes instead of playing in the NBA!”  What I wanted to say was “You know what they say – mediocre hands, mediocre cock, but that does not seem to be stopping your wife from wanting to ride on it.”

This is the joy of my career until I can draw my own audience – people either question my race without thinking of how weird/offensive it is or they need to drag me off of my high horse of feature work in cities like Hartford.  Either someone is telling you that their friend is really funny too, so you know that they know you are not special or they get into a pissing contest because their wife or girlfriend enjoyed the show.  The headliner is accorded a decent level of respect (not always, but odds are better), but the middle is the best place to deposit your issues for any audience members.  And don’t worry I also got a hearty helping over the first two shows of “pretty good,” the worst compliment in entertainment.

But there is a happy ending to this story.  I banged that guy’s wife.  Just kidding.  No, the final show was fantastic.  The average age of the late crowd was 30 instead of “Do Not Resuscitate” and they appreciated the new material.  And even though no one bought merch after I received no “pretty good”‘s, and no “are you really half-black”‘s.  It was nice to end on a high note.

And then like a horror movie, where you think all is well but a horrific thing happens at the last minute, as I was leaving, and standing right next to the emcee, a woman walked by, in front of the emcee and 4 feet from me (hard to miss – my action comedy movie biopic title) and said to her, “You were the best one.”

Well played Comedy.  Well played.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

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Rise of the Frans – Comedy & Social Media’s…

Over the last couple of years in comedy, with the rise of social media, there have been many hints and tips on how to accelerate your career using the new forms of communication.  “Communicate with fans!” “Create a relationship with fans!”  “Be Louis CK!”  Other than “content creation” there are no other things I hear more in comedy right now to make it.  Unfortunately, I feel like all this advice and expertise sharing is moot.  Like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (not really a Breaking Bad reference, but feel free to think of Walter White as you read this), which states that you cannot know the position and momentum of something at the same time, all this advice about social media and outreach is outdated as soon as it is identifiable.  Once ten comics have made money and success from a given strategy (Dane Cook – MySpace, Rob Delaney – Twitter, George Lopez – Latino people with terrible senses of humor), everyone adopts the technique and then collectively saturate the market with it.  And no on discusses the side effects or unintended consequences of all this outreach!  Sure, for the upper echelon of comedians in stature and money, they still call the shots, but I recently mowed three fans’ lawns just to get them to listen to my free weekly podcast.  Telling jokes, providing free content and travelling around the country is not quite enough these days.  Now, this is not to say that the advice of communicating with fans is useless, but at some point too much communication, outreach and heavy petting can lead to an awkward blurring of the line between fan and friend, which has given rise to a new breed of people thriving in the new media world of comedy: “Frans.”

Frans can come in three varieties: one is the fan that crosses too quickly into friend territory and starts sharing too much personal information. The second Fran is a friend that believes because they have been to three shows in 8 years and has heard of Louis CK that they are now well equipped to critique and modify your act.  The final Fran is very common to comedians – the token Fran – the friend who has claimed to be a fan for a long time and turns out is really neither.

TYPE 1 FRAN

This Fran starts as an eager fan and can engage you on various topics – sports, movies, comedy and it all stays solid.  If it stays there you have a great fan, social media has worked and you should reward them with merch or comp tickets or recreational drugs.  But Type 1 Fran-ness can start with a personal question  or an inquiry for advice on a personal matter, which then puts the comedian in a position that I hate in all aspects of life (I have used this example before on sharing cable bills).  If you engage on a personal level, then you have just turned the fan into a Fran.  However, if you pull the “slow down,” or “that is not my department” then you may lose the fan entirely when they feel like, justifiably or more likely unjustifiably, like a used up Steubenville high school student who was only there to have his or her funny bone  tickeled while they were passed out in what they thought was a friendship blackout.  In other words, there is no safe middle ground – you are either uncomfortable or an asshole.  I once had a fan tell me “can’t you act like a person?!” during an exchange and all I could think was, “I’m not a person! I’m a comedian!!”

The way to nip this in the bud, in my opinion is to have a firm boundary.  Mine is either the second pregnancy or the third restraining order, whichever comes first.  That is when I tell a fan, “Hey, you have crept in the the Fran zone!”

TYPE 2 FRAN

This is the person that started out as a friend and then, thanks to lots of interactions with you and your comedy on social media, began to feel a little bit like Luke Walton. What I mean by that is when Luke Walton arrived on the Shaq-Kobe Lakers he probably was in awe of their talent and very respectful.  But after 4 or 5 seasons of VIP treatment at clubs, championship rings, Luke Walton probably started offering Shaw free throw tips and trying to compete for chicks with Kobe at the club.  Similarly, if your friends become immersed in your comedy world on social media and on the Internet what may start out as a respectful, deferential relationship to the work you have put in to your comedy and the talent you have cultivated, but then all of a sudden your friend goes from Flavor Flav, just offering spontaneous bursts of encouragement to P Diddy – attempting to one-up your status updates on Facebook, critiquing all aspects of things you do and then slyly throwing in comments like “WE know what funny is.”  Since when did you go from my Luke Walton to my Scottie Pippen?

The way to nip this in the bud is to go out to a big dinner with them and at some point during the dinner do this to them:

TYPE 3 FRAN

This is the friend who claims to always support your comedy and then after a few years you realize, no you don’t! And then you realize, we aren’t even really friends!  And finally, that is when you tell your parents you are moving out.

The cure for this is easy – do not get into comedy. If you respect your parents and family at all you won’t make them choose between loving you and respecting you.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

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Time to get the F word the F out

The big sports story of the most recent 24 hour news cycle, now that we have gotten tired of looking at broken shin bones that morons posted on social media, is the abusive tirade of fired Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice.  In clips filmed at Rutgers practice he is seen kicking players, shoving players, throwing basketballs at players and at one point calling a player a “fag*ot.”  I played college basketball and never witnessed more than a coach grabbing a point guard by the shoulders or the back of a neck and sternly reiterating a point.  Curses were occasionally used (at which point my coach might then blame the team for making him cuss, which was sort of funny if you were the guy at the end of the bench working on impressions of the coaching staff), but NEVER any slurs of any kind.  In fact the closest I ever got to hearing a slur in my entire time playing basketball was when my uncle would sometimes call me a “Mary” if I was not playing tough enough in my Church league games in junior high.

If you missed Coach Mike Rice’s horrible impression of Alec Baldwin in Glenngary Glen Ross here it is:

I remember when I started at Williams College I was a fairly liberal (arts) user of the “f word.”  I never really though about what it meant, but if pressed I could have told you it was for a “gay guy.”  Williams had a gay/queer pride week, most of which I never paid attention to, except during that week each year there would be chalkings around campus that I found offensive.  Things like “Jesus sucked dick,” or “Mary ate pussy” (along with admittedly unoffensive comments regarding homosexuality) would be scrawled on campus walkways and I always thought “what purpose does that serve?”  But the college’s consistent actions of openess and inclusion (only highlighted by that week) clearly had an effect on me after four years.

I don’t know when the transformation from user of homophobic slurs, to finding them offensive occurred, but I remember the day I realized it.  I was sitting with some friends from high school during my first year of law school and one of them called someone a “fag.”  It was not meant as a matter of fact, but just as a way of calling the person stupid or having less than manly tastes in something.  I immediately said “come on man – don’t use that word” and received a backlash ranging from curiosity if I was gay to hostility at my “stupid liberal arts college” for making me too soft.  10 years later I am sure my friends’ sensibilities have changed either due to changes in heart or simply changed because of public sentiment, but I hear a lot less “fags” then I used to from my friends.  And this is not to say that once in a blue moon my old vocabulary does not crop up in my head, but I do not say it because when my sensitivity fails me I at least have a brain that tells me it is not right, even if at the moment I don’t feel that way.

However, from music and comedy to sports the F word still sturs up controversy whenever someone becomes offended by the usage of it.  The “I didn’t mean it towards a gay person,” excuse is often invoked.  Of course the unspoken part of that excuse is “I just meant it to mean shitty or stupid or weak,” which carries with it the implication that being gay has an automatic negativity associated with it. (I have come up with a new subsititute anyway – cu*t)

Now I am not here to be the next spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign.  After all I am a Catholic who has no real problem with the Church limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.  Maybe in 20 or 40 yars, or even now, that will make me a prejudiced person in some eyes.  But I also believe that civil marriage and the associated rights that the state gives to married people should be accorded to all people, gay and straight – and this represents a changed opinion of mine over time.

But the idea that slurs can still be used just because you did not directly mean it towards the usual target of the slur should not be a viable anymore.  As a half black man who appears Caucasion, or at least not black,  most of the year (look out August tan) I hear a lot of comments ranging from stereotypes to slurs against and about black people to my face or in my presence when people do not realize someone with a black father is standing near them.  Now had these people known I was half-black would most of them had made the comments? Probably not.  Does that make it OK then?  That had they been mentally prepared to exhibit better manners they would have never offended me?  In the same way, the coach of Rutgers may not have a gay player on his team.  And perhaps if he did and knew it he would have tempered his language (though perhaps not – which would make this at least more intellectually interesting, if not less or more offensive).  But so what if there are no gay players on the Rutgers basketball team – is this an appropriate way for a coach or leader, especially at a public university to conduct himself?

I don’t really have too much of a problem with the physical and verbal machismo the coach was displaying, though if I were a parent of one of those players I might say my son is a basketball player, not a member of the cast of Full Metal Jacket.  But what if there is a gay player on Rutgers – or at another college hearing the same slurs from his coach, a man who is supposed to be a leader and entrusted by the school and that player’s family with guiding the young man through a transitional point in his life.  Is hearing that stuff going to make the student-athlete feel comfortable on his team?  Perhaps his teammates do not mean anything cruel by just letting the coach’s comments go by without reply, but perhaps a 19 year old college student might feel alienated on his team and interpret their silence as condoning the sentiment behind the slur.  And the coach who made a dream come true by giving the student a scholarship as a reward for all his hard work and training is now someone who feels betrayed.  Why would a gay student athlete want to risk asking his coach or teammates if they really are OK with calling gay people “fag*ots?” On the upside he has outed himself, perhaps before he wants to, but find out his team and coach are ok and just meant it as a word and they promise not to again.  On the down side what is the worst that can happen? A lot.  But instead the burden is placed on the people judging the usage of a word to lighten up because “it was not meant that way.”

So the coach has been fired and I am OK with that.  I would have also been OK if he were given an opportunity to make amends and learn from the error of his ways, if only as a reflection of how quickly our society has moved on the issue of gay rights and sensitivity to those associated issues.  But the apology and defense of the F word needs to stop.  It is a slur.  Now if you use it in a comedy act or in a story or whatever else I am OK with that, but the whole idea of the perpetrator of a slur being the one who gets to define it has to stop.

There has been a rumor going around that an active NFL player will come out of the closet.  I think this would be a brave thing to do and an important thing at the same time.   Of course when at a football game I have heard N bombs and F bombs thrown around and it may not make a difference to that player now or in the future if the comments are meant to question his sexuality or merely his toughness.  But I just hope one thing – I hope that if the player comes out he is not a punter or a kicker because gay or straight those guys are not very tough.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

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The Blueprint 46: How To Ruin Careers of Athletes;…

Fresh off winning MVP in the World Baseball Classic, Robinson Cano has made a blockbuster move changing management from Scott Boras, baseball’s super agent, to Roc Nation, an entertainment agency affiliated with rapper Jay Z, that is getting into sports management.  The immediate concern here is that the last high profile rapper to enter the sports management game was Master P, who got Ricky Williams to sign a horrible contract with the New Orleans Saints.  That contract was almost entirely incentive based, which was quite fair, and also quite stupid when no one else in the league was as bound to incentives as Williams.  Williams then went on to become a weird, marijuana loving dude who occasionally played football at a high (and proficient) level.

But rest assured, Jay Z is no Master P.  Master P was actually a decent basketball player.  Besides Jay Z claims that he made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee, which apparently impressed Cano enough to make a horrible business decision, much to the chagrin of Derek Jeter, who believed he had made the Yankee hat more famous than Jay Z.  Typically an agent’s job is to make you more famous in your field, not to claim that he is bigger than you in your chosen field, but that is why Jay Z is great and surely about to change the game!

Jay Z has announced that he intends to become a certified agent, while Cano is now officially certifiable.

Cano has said, in the last year of his contract with the Yankees and surely heading towards a big payday as one of baseball’s superstars, that he wants to take a more active role in his endeavors on and off the field.  This should be music to the ears of all 30 major league baseball teams.  What would you rather do – sign an athlete going into a huge contract who is singularly focused on his craft, or a guy who is looking to open up all off the field endeavors?  Like Dwight Howard, but with a less marketable smile, smaller shoulders and a thick Dominican accent!  This movie roles and championship rings are practically writing and minting themselves!

As a former lawyer, former athlete and current entertainer to dozens of people nationwide, I have put my skill set to work and come up with the list of career choices and opportunities that Agent Z will most likely be developing for client Cano. Enjoy:

  1. Cano will be encouraged to sign with the Brooklyn Dodgers.  After all, if Jackie Robinson listened to Jay Z, according to all the commercials for 42, then why woudln’t Jay Z send his first big client back to Brooklyn!
  2. Cano will record a new Salsa album on Jay Z’s new Latin label Yay-Z records. It will go plantain.
  3. After Deron Williams suffers a knee injury, Jay Z will encourage Cano and the Brooklyn Nets to a agree to a 3 year, $10 million dollar deal to play point guard.
  4. Jay Z will secure a 50% discount off of all merchandise at the Barclays Center Fan Store for Cano
  5. In Cano’s contract he will have exclusive naming rights for Beyonce’s second child.
  6. Cano will re-sign with the Yankees only if Jay Z’s Empire State of Mind replaces New York, New York.  That is if Brooklyn does not sign him first.
  7. Cano’s contract will stipulate that Cano will never be brought up to any Nas’ songs, nor will Nas ever be played at Yankee Stadium.
  8. Stipulated in Cano’s new contract is that all Yankee hats must be worn slightly to the side and must, at all times, have a New Era sticker on the brim.
  9. Jay Z will receive a modest 45% of all of Cano’s earnings.
  10. Cano will be featured on Jay Z’s new album cover called The Blueprint 46: How To Ruin Athletes.

Cano can be expected to have career lows in batting average, RBI and focus starting in 2014.  At which point he will start negotiating with Justin Timberlake’s new management company.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

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Drag Me To Hell – A Comedy Journey On…

I am writing this from the kitchen area of the Madison Heights, Michigan Days Inn.  It is the logical ending place for the journey I just completed to Detroit for a weekend (Thurs-Sat) of gigs.  Readers of this blog or my tweets know that I am an avid Amtrak user and will take it from NYC to Boston or DC for a humane and traditional usage of the rail service.  However I have also logged train trips of 30 hours (New Orleans to NYC), 20 hours (Chicago to NYC) and other similar journeys when I want to save money on road gigs at the expense of my sleep and sanity.

This weekend I am at Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle in Royal Oak, Michigan and it is a gig that requires me to save money at every turn (starting with bringing a bagged lunch/dinner onto the train).  So I booked Amtrak to Detroit (which is a 16 hour train ride to Toledo and a 1 hour Amtrak bus to Detroit – yes they have buses and if you are taller than 5’11” you basically have to sit side saddle to fit into their tiny seats), booked a room for three nights at the aforementioned  Days Inn, which met my criteria on hotels.com of “under $50/night while giving me at least a 75% chance of not being a victim of a violent crime,” and booked a cheap flight back home on Spirit Airlines which, based on an informal poll of friends’ Facebook statuses, is rated as a “piece of sh*t.”  To put it simply it was a borderline miracle to be in the black for this gig (financially, not a reference to Detroit’s population), but I am and now profits will be directly tied to how much merchandise I push over the next three nights.  But that is for Monday’s blog.  This one is about the 17 hours of Amtrak that are now seared into my memory, since I only slept 17 minutes of the trip.

For those of you who have not taken Amtrak long distances (the kinds of distances that one usually flies to), imagine a Noah’s Arc of society’s saddest members:

  • We will need two (hundred) obese of every race and gender;
  • We need at least two (dozen) people who look like they are avoiding TSA scrutiny, but not because they are ardent civil libertarians
  • We need two (thousand) people who hate wearing shoes in public
  • In J-L’s car we will need two Honey Boo Boos

Yes, you read that last part correctly.  The Lake Shore Limited – Amtrak #49 had all the usual things I listed.  In addition there were funny little things like the woman sitting in front of me watching bootleg DVDs of movies that are on basic cable right now and the old woman who did not lock the bathroom door (but gave me the dirty look like I wanted to see her ancient body squatting), but the worst aspect to the trip was something unique to this trip (at least for me), which I listed last in the bullet points – a pair of 8 year old Honey Boo Boo-esque twins and their assorted siblings.  Here is a list of their offenses with mitigating circumstances when I discovered them:

  • Walked up to the woman watching bootleg DVDs and kept asking her to play with the DVD player
  • Walked up to me and asked me for M & Ms that I was eating.  I said no.
  • Started playing with my computer mouse pad at 1 am while I was watching episode 7 of Downton Abbey Season 3.
  • Asked if she could sit next to me and watch something else on my computer.  I said no in a nice way for a change claiming that I only had “boring grown up stuff.”  Then I started playing my digital copy of Toy Story 3 in front of her just so she knew that I DON’T ANSWER TO 8 YEAR OLDS!
  • I notice the twins both have hearing aids, which momentarily made me feel bad.  I then got over it.
  • I discover that there are a total of seven kids, which belong to two women, who may be friends or more likely sisters, or even more likely half-sisters.  Both women appeared to be slow.  Like not “full retard” to quote Tropic Thunder, but the kind of slow that the Supreme Court would not allow them to be executed for murder convictions.  Let that sink in women – these two cannot stop from getting knocked up and will not stop even though at least five of the children appeared special in one or multiple ways.
  • At 4 am the younger brother of the twins kept asking me my name.  I declined to provide that information to him.
  • At 430 am the same younger brother hugged the train conductor planting his face squarely in the cock region of the conductor.  My camera phone would not focus quickly enough for a picture.

I had confused feelings about these kids and women, but it is part of a theory I have.  Not all handicapped people are good people.  We just assume they are, but some of them have to be jerks and rude, just by playing the odds.  These kids were not evil and they had problems, but they were also without any manners or sense of propriety (perhaps a Downton Abbey marathon of all of Season 3 was the wrong show to make me forgiving of their poor manners).  All I knew was that these women should not have had 7 kids between the two them, as evidenced by the fact that almost all of them seemed sort of fu*ked up.  Add in poor manners and a willingness to talk to strangers without any care or reprimand from their moms and I think we have January – July 2014 milk carton models in the waiting.

I finally arrived in Toledo and took the Amtrak bus to Detroit and am now at the Days Inn outside of Detroit.  But my room is not ready and will not be for a few hours so I am writing this post in a semi-coma waiting to get into a room that costs as much as a blu ray disc per night.  Friday and Saturday shows at Mark Ridley’s will be great, but tonight will definitely be the wild card.  It reminds me of  the John Malkovich line in In The Line of Fire told to Clint Eastwood’s character, “Do you have any idea what I have done for God and country Frank?? Some pretty horrible fu*king things!”  Replace God and country with comedy and money and you know how I feel.  Especially knowing that that family on the train is much closer to a television development deal than me.

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

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The Things New Comics Should Be Doing

As I get set to celebrate/mourn a full decade performing stand up comedy it dawned on me that a majority of the posts I write concerning comedy have a somewhat negative or cynical spin.  Sure there are problems and issues with the art, as well as the business of stand up comedy, but I have certainly learned and experienced some very positive things.  Comedy has allowed me to see so many parts of America (and they are all obese).  I have heard racist comments in the deep south as well as the shallow northeast.  In other words, a career in comedy has allowed me to have a rich and fulfilling experience learning about the human condition in America.  It has also given me great insights into how, instead of just being mean and cynical to newer comics, my experience and observations of how comedy has changed in the last decade could provide guidance to those new comics.  So that they can become more successful and avoid the bitterness and cynicism that has sometimes stifled me, here are some of my suggestions for people just starting out in comedy or thinking about trying stand up (or maybe even some veterans), because after all: ANYONE CAN DO IT!

1.  Put “Comedian” in front of your name and as your occupation on all social media.  In other professions you have to earn your title, or at least exhibit some shame in calling yourself something you have not quite earned (like that look on a podiatrist’s face when he demands that you to call him or her “doctor.”  Well, comedy doesn’t work like that.  Simply claim the title after that first open mic and never let it go.  You don’t even need to earn laughs, let alone money, to call yourself a comedian.  And by putting it in your Facebook name you announce to the world that you are in fact a comedian.  Like they did not know already!

2.  Refer to your schedule of shows as a “Tour.”  A tour used to mean a sponsored series of events or at least a series of events similar in their significance or theme that calling them a tour seemed to mean something.  I might be inclined to refer to my mish mash of performances as a schedule or at least call the section of my website “live calendar,” but in this day and age a schedule is something you put on Microsoft Outlook.  You are a comedian! It says so on your Facebook name – so act like a rock star performer and call your list of shows a tour.  People will respect you more.  Even if that tour takes you to the basement of a taco restaurant.

3.  Tweet and Facebook “Up”.  Try to re-tweet and #FF as many people above you as possible.  And be sure to like the statuses of anyone significantly higher than you in the social media realm.  These more successful and/or famous people like being treated well and will recognize you for it.  And remember, every set that someone with more momentum than you does should result in either a  “you killed”, “you crushed” or “fu*king brilliant!” compliment from you.

4.  Refer to the right comics. A corollary to number 3 is to make sure you know who to praise, who not to praise. Easy examples to start you on your way: Louis CK – the best and  Dane Cook – the worst.  You will look like an asshole who has no idea what is going on in comedy if you veer to sharply from the boundaries that have been set by the comedy community.

5.  Do long sets as soon as possible.  I had a comedian (said so on his Facebook name) tell me he had been doing comedy for a very short time but was already doing 30 and 40 minute sets.  YES!  This is what it takes people.  Having 30 minutes is easy – if you can speak confidently for thirty minutes, can find a space anywhere in America with a microphone and someone willing to let you do it, then voila! You have thirty minutes of material!  Why wait – you may already be ready!

6. Start a web series.  Things may not be completely blowing up in stand up in your first 5 months (and you already have a podcast and a blog) so it is probably time to diversify your funny portfolio. Start doing a web series.  Nothing will make you a better comedian than by producing non-stand up comedy content.

7.  After one year, begin lecturing other performers and sharing what you have learned.  Once you have been doing stand up for one year, it is time to start sharing your knowledge with other comics.  Snort and chuckle when newer comedians say things that seem arrogant and remind them that you have been on the road and know what this business is really like (even one road gig qualifies you as an expert).  However, if you are talking to a comedian with significantly more experience, be sure to show them deference by saying “you know how it is” after complaining to a 12 year veteran how upset you are that your career is stalled after 19 days.  And speaking of the road…

8.  Never do the road.  Not only is the road not a really viable career path at this point except for the independently wealthy or established headliners, but it is not really what you should be about.  Working the road will help you get a good 30-45 minutes over time, whereas staying where you are will be good for networking and creating a ten minute set that your favorite neighborhood hangout will enjoy.

9.  Record an album as soon as you can and sell it for $5.  I defer to comedian Andy Sandford’s Facebook advice to young comedians, which sort of inspired me to give my advice column to young comedians:

hey, if you’ve been doin comedy for 6 months and have 45 minutes of untrimmed quasi-material that no one wants to hear…you need to record and release your own album on itunes ASAP, before you progress and hate the material. In the past, record labels kept artists like yerself down by having standards. Well the future is now, and you can sell direct to fans just like Louis CK, who you are most likely imitating

10. Create a Character.  Your voice and opinions, God willing, will never fully develop because within a few years you should be in development for television projects and never have to do stand up again.  However, in case you are not quite on that track, develop a character – make your voice sound different, be different, even if the thoughts expressed through your material are not.  Greg Giraldo is dead.  Pee Wee Herman is alive – which one would you rather be?

Good luck on your comedy adventure young comedian!

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

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“The Joy of Abuse” – Tickets Now on Sale

My 4th album, and what surely will be my best, is being recorded at The Stand on April 25th and tickets are now available here – http://thestand.laughstub.com/show.cfm?id=237534&cart.  Use the code “JLCOMEDY” (all caps) for a discounted ticket (only $10 and the club has no drink minimum) if you buy this month (March).  The Stand was just picked by New York Magazine as the best comedy club in NYC for 2013.  And my Mom reads that magazine so I trust it.  Without spoiling any of the bits of the CD – it will continue where my last album Too Big To Fail left off – me complaining about the direction of our society and how we constantly pat ourselves on the back for what we believe in progress.  Racism, gay rights, pornography, charity and white chicks will be some of the major topics on the album.  These may not seem like revolutionary topics for comedy, but I think you will find my take on the subjects to be original and relatively unexplored.  Unless someone starts stealing my sh*t in the next month.

I plan on this being my last album for a while at least, if not ever (at least self-produced).  So don’t miss it.  Or at least if you do miss it, mail a copy of it to someone in South Africa so when I am 60 years old I can be like the dude in Searching For Sugarman.  I hope to have it out sometime during the Summer.

And to clear up the title I was never abused so the title does not allude to any trauma in my life, unless you consider my comedy career.   So please spread the word, buy tickets now and laugh and drink your asses off on the 25th of April (preferably at my show and not somewhere else).  Thanks.

#JoyOfAbuse

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The New JLC Album

I am proud to announce that Comedy Central has agreed to produce my next album!  It is a really tremendous honor and finally a sign that I have arrived in the comedy world!  I’m just kidding – those people are unaware of my existence.  Or if they are they hate me.  And if that is the case I say bring it.  You and  Mumford and Sons!  OK, now that I have that off my B-cup, man-titted chest I can share with you the actual announcement.  I am recording my new album in NYC on April 25th at The Stand (tentative agreement, assuming they don’t book anyone more famous that night, like a Hudson News clerk from Grand Central Station).  I have asked them to raise the ceiling 3.5 inches so that I can stand upright, but this may have to be the first album I record sitting down.  This will be my Extreme album.  Not because I go places no other comedian has gone, but because I will be sitting like Gary Cherone and that other dude in Extreme in the More Than Words Video.  But no instruments:

Once the details are all worked out I will let you know when you can buy tickets.  For a quick history of my albums:

Racial Chameleon – 2006.  An ambitious effort from a happy and relatively humble person.  Lots of impressions and light-hearted stories.  Well received by friends and a few fans and still gets radio play on Sirius XM.

This album got 5 mics from The Source

Diamond Maker – 2008 – If Racial Chameleon is my Ace Ventura, then Diamond Maker is The Cable Guy – a darker, much better effort that did not garner the same affection from people.  Still proud of the fact that I turned a failed engagement into a really strong final 30 minutes of the album.

Last known photograph of my muscle tone.

Too Big To Fail – 2012 – In keeping with the Jim Carrey analogy, this album was my Dumb and Dumber/Truman Show/Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – best thing I have done.  This album was offered for free and was downloaded over 1000 times (bought a couple hundred – thanks Mom) and gained me almost 10 new fans.  So do the math; if my new album is to get me to my goal of 1 million fans, then I will only have to sell 100,000,000 copies.

The album that made me a household name. In 13 households.

So I hope you will mark your calendar as seats will be limited.  I would like friends and fans there and here are my guidelines and enticements to come to the show:

  •  Married couples – get a babysitter for the night
  • Married friends/fans with a spouse and you cannot get a babysitter – force your spouse to stay with the kid(s) for an evening
  • Unmarried friends – consider this a test of friendship
  • Fans – if you are in the tri-state area get tickets. They won’t be expensive ($10-20)
  • Fans – if you are out of the tri-state area – half off ticket price if you spend $100 or more on travel, free if you spend $400 or more to come to the show, but then you scare me and please do not say hi after the show.
  • People who know me from Facebook, Twitter, Internet or my backyard MMA fights – you won’t regret coming to the show.  But why do we know each other on social media?

Well, that is the big announcement.  I know this will be my best album by far and hope you can make it and start to make plans. Also it is the day after my birthday so there’s another guilt trip.   And in keeping with the Jim Carrey analogy I guess this will be my Mr. Popper’s Penguins.  Sh*t.

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A Beard Saves the Houston Comedy Trip

Comedy can be cruel.  For example, after last week’s ridiculously great set of shows at Helium in Philadelphia, I found out within a span of 2 hours this past Monday that a show at the Houston Improv on Feb 20th was cancelled and that the club I was supposed to perform near Baltimore on February 22-23rd had closed.  The comedy lord giveth and he taketh away.  But I still had a private gig in Houston on the 21st (tonight as I write this) which was the reason for going to Houston in the first place.  And changing flights would have been more than 5x the cost of the hotel for one night (I stay in really classy joints) so I decided to check if the Houston Rockets were playing.  There were and tickets were available.  More on this in a minute.

I was flying to Houston by Southwest because flights are dirt cheap to Hobby, because it is a hub of Southwest (I think).  I just had to get an 8 am flight to Midway, wait 3 hours and then catch my flight to Houston, arriving at 2:50 pm with plenty of time to spare before the Rockets-Oklahoma City Thunder game at 7pm local.

I woke up at 430 am because I am now committed to making trips as cheap as possible, which means the 6 train to the M60 bus to LaGuardia.  $2.25 for only 375 minutes of travel.  The flight to Midway took off on time and arrived early.  Then bad sh*t started happening.

I already had a 2 hour and 50 minute layover, but that was before my flight got delayed an additional 3 hours and 45 minutes.  Even when I factored in Southwest’s “we are super cheap, so don’t depend on us that much” motto I did not think they would actually put me in jeopardy of missing the game.  The lesson here is no matter how big a lead your team has, never doubt that Southwest Airlines can turn it into a deficit.

When I finally arrived in Houston greeted by fellow comedian Alex Barnett who informed me that Brian Jian, the third comedian who would be performing Thursday (tonight) had flown in to Houston’s other airport.  So we arrived at the arena only 8 minutes after tip off, but in Texas, everything is bigger, especially the lines of people driving into parking lots because public transit does not exist here because public stuff is part of a socialist plot – AMUUURRRRRICA!

So the three of us arrived and we absolutely were representative of the Rockets organization.  We had Brian, representing the Asian community, which was in full force to support Jeremy Lin, or as they call him in Houston, Yao .5. Then there was me at 6’7″ the average height of an NBA player. Then we had Alex, a short Jewish attorney to represent the agents and ownership ranks of the NBA.  And lastly we had Alex’s friend Chuck, who was black.  We could have been a promotional ad for the NBA.

 

A tall guy, a Jewish lawyer and an Asian – it must be NBA action in Houston!

As soon as we arrived we discovered that some people were in our seats.  They asked if they could stay because they were part of an office party and they had nearly identical seats on the other side of the arena and were willing to pay us $20 each to exchange (naturally that deal was orchestrated by Alex). We did and the seats were almost as good; I still had an aisle seat to stretch my awkward legs.

At this point, after being up for 16 hours and travelling for 12 of them I was beat and don’t forget we were at the game because a show was cancelled.  And then, in one of the greatest ironies in my 10 years of comedy, a man with a beard made it all worth it.  James Harden, the immensely talented well-bearded star of the Houston Rockets put in one of the greatest performances I have seen live (for the record I have only been able to watch myself perform stand up on recorded video, for obvious reasons).

We were enjoying the game which featured Harden’s old team, the Oklahoma City Thunder and it was back and forth all game, but with the Thunder always in the lead.  Here are some of the highlights up until Harden and Lin went legend:

  • Harden hits a half court shot at the buzzer of halftime.  We all missed it because we were arguing over something.
  • But fortunately the INCREDIBLE HD scoreboard of the Toyota Center replayed it for us several times – seriously the scoreboard at that place is incredible and the producer of it is so good it looks like he is producing highlight reels and music videos live.  Seriously, if you are in Hollywood I would snatch up the Toyota Center Jumbotron segment producer now.  He (or she, but probably he) most likely has a cheap price tag.
  • The giveaway people are really good at the Toyota center.  We were in the cheap seats (which are $69, so not that cheap) but the t shirt giveaway people run up there and hand out free t-shirts since we are out of range of the 16 year old girl with the t-shirt gun. Also, there is “parachute time” when some guy in the scaffolding (I dubbed him “The Phantom of the Giveaways”) starts dropping down prizes in mini parachutes.  Unfortunately our seats were behind, and practically above him so we did not get any.
  • Speaking of giveaway teams – wouldn’t this be a great place for Al Qaeda to launch their next team?  The stadium gives you t-shirt gun firepower, the opportunity to stand in the middle of the court and a chance to drop miniature parachute bombs all over the crowd.  You get a motivated sleeper cell of energetic Al Qaeda teens (the jungle gym workout is great for auditioning as a halftime tumbling act as well) and next thing you know you have 9/11 x 6 at a sports arena.  In other words I think we need to screen these arena employees more carefully.
  • And last thing I noticed at the arena is that during the game they highlighted a “Suite of the Game.” This is where the arena takes the richest people in the stadium, who have luxury boxes, and puts them on the screen for the masses to cheer and appreciate their success.  WE DID BUILD THAT!
Here they are Houston… your rich people of the night!!!

So with all those highlights the game was coming to its conclusion the Thunder were leading by a dozen or so points with less than five minutes and Brian, who earlier in the game met up with Jeremy Lin’s agent for China-related dealings (they are friends, proving that the Chinese are the Jews of China) said words that must have reached Lin on some sort of cosmic, Asian, telepathic level.  He said “The Rockets better make their move now.  Time is running out.” It was like when Drago’s trainer yelled “SHOSHYA!” right before Drago murdered Apollo.  And just like that James Harden and Jeremy Lin put on a display of brilliance that had me going “HOUSTON IMPROV WHO???!!!”  Harden put on a dazzling display of shooting and testicular fortitude on his way to a career high of 46 points and Lin dropped in two three pointers in the last few minutes, ending the game with 29.  Rockets win by three.  And comedy disappointment was unexpectedly handed its second straight week of defeat.  Nice win rockets.

And now tonight it is time to a show for the Houston Intellectual Property Bar Association.  Dammit – maybe I should wait til tomorrow to gloat over the comedy gods.

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

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The Rise of the Female Heckler

A foolish woman is clamorous.  She is simple and knoweth nothing.” – Proverbs 9:13

Rest assured avid readers of this blog and listeners of the Righteous Prick podcast.  This is not some screed against women in comedy.  Well, sort of.  It is not about performers of comedy.  I just finished what can only be called a triumphant series of shows at Helium Comedy Club.  I received a great response from the six crowds, sold more CDs (and Live Angry wristbands) than any single week of my career and not one person out of roughly 1500 audience members offered me a suggestion on how I could improve a joke (they must have read last week’s angry post).  So what could I possibly have to complain about?  Well a great week does not mean a perfect week and both at Helium and at a bar show I did Sunday night upon returning to the city there were a few blemishes.  For the last couple of years that has been a debate drummed into the ground about whether women are funny (or in all honesty, and more specifically, if women are as funny as men).  Rather than divide the comedy community on a gender-related issue that has been exhausted, perhaps it is time to acknowledge gender in a comedy issue that comedians of both genders should be able to agree on: women are talking way too much sh*t at comedy clubs.

I do not know enough about the history of comedy club etiquette to know if mouthy women were always the norm in comedy club audiences, but I feel like in my decade in comedy I have seen a big rise in women sharing their opinions, sound effects and “making it about them” recently.  Now I am in a unique position as a physically imposing comedian in that like a nuclear missile, my size mostly acts as a deterrent.  I am no fighter, but I could still throw a few punches and smother most people to the ground with Dunkin Donuts-fueled mass.  Early in my career I only remember being heckled twice by men.  One was at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, which was basically punk college kids having a goofy time at a lightly-attended free show.  The other time was way back in 2004 at the DC Improv where some guy yelled as I got on stage, “That’s a big bitch!” (my hair almost grazes the ceiling above the stage at the DC Improv).  But since those early (and not material-related) heckles I find women in comedy club audiences have become almost the sole source of heckling, talking and commentary.  Much like an Al Qaeda argument, I am not saying all women heckle. In fact women made up a majority of all the shows at Helium this weekend and 99% of them were great audience members.  But of the 8-10 moments of interruption during my 6 sets, 1 was a drunk man, 9 were women.  And at the bar show I did in Brooklyn there was one heckler and she was a woman.  Before I continue describing this new, or at least growing trend, allow Bill Burr to posit one theory why women have become  so free with their voices and opinions at clubs (he is discussing society at large, but it applies):

I have determined that there are different categories of female audience members that are waging war on the comedy club experience.  You never know which one will show up or if it will be several at once, creating a Game of Thrones-like chaotic war of loud-mouthed women.  But thankfully, this weekend, I got to briefly experience a little bit of each group of  The Five Female Hecklers.

THE FIVE FEMALE HECKLERS

1) The Bachelorette Party Member(s)

This is sort of a cliche in comedy clubs that these parties generally suck, but cliches ring true for a reason.  This can actually be broadened to any large group of young women at a comedy club.  There can be one member of the group who is loud and or drunk, or it can be the whole group, but sadly, no matter what the number, they always seem to rally around the people in the group being jerks.  I witnessed this at Helium this weekend.  I was sitting in the back watching Rachel Feinstein’s set (the headliner) and a table of 6 women under 27 years old were talking nonstop.  An employee of the club went over and asked them to please stop talking, or if they needed to talk to please go out to the bar area.  Well, emblematic of their “I walk and text without looking around on busy streets assuming people will get out my way” generation they began mock laughing saying “we are allowed to laugh, right?”  They then left a few minutes later and drew a penis on the back of their receipt.  These women will be mothers one day, God willing.

2) The Black/Latin  Loudly Passive Aggressive Woman

I do not like to divide things on race, but this one is required.  The black or latin female heckler has a different approach. For example when I shared with the crowd that my father is Haitian on Saturday’s early show, one black woman sitting close enough for me to see and hear gave me a  “uhhh hmmmm… sure sure” indicating her non-belief.  Other comments that I have heard in my history from black and latin female audience members have been things like “He ain’t right”, “he ain’t funny” and “he don’t know me!” In other words, when it occurs, the heckles are usually loud and almost always passive aggressive as they are not stated directly to the comedian.

3) The Table of Cougars

This is a more recent phenomenon given all the empowerment society has bestowed recently on neglected women in their late forties.  I was not actually personally bashed by the cougar crowd this weekend (though I witness them exhibiting some general sh*t talking), but every comedy show seems to now have a group of women – a mix of divorced, married and whorish –  who roll into the club and are going to recapture their youth, no matter who is saying what with a microphone.  What happened to some dignity later in life?

4) The Disapproving Woman with the Weak Husband/Date

This is the defining group of the women heckler phenomenon.  From being a prosecutor in the Bronx to dating women in adulthood I have noticed that bad people tend to gravitate towards someone who tolerates and/or is comfortable with their flaws.  This does not mean happy with, but means comfortable with, because it satiates some primal instinct or conditioning.  Abusive men I observed in the South Bronx did not seek out or find themselves attracted to doctors and lawyers, unless their encounter resembled the beginning of the plot of a snuff film they saw.  They found women who came from places where abuse was tolerated or normal, thus creating a hellish symbiosis of abuse.  Well, much like the Real Husbands of the South Bronx, the Real Housewives of American Comedy Clubs have apparently found boyfriends and husbands that like to be yelled into submission as if they’re dating Dirk Diggler’s mother.

I once went on a date with a woman to see Dane Cook (2004 – Caroline’s).  She was late – strike one; she gave me a look of disapproval when I laughed at a Dane Cook joke about vaginas  – strike two; and then she did not do anything after the date – strike three – game over.  Fortunately, she did not vocalize her disapproval, but her look was enough to turn me off (that and her lack of consent after the show).  But had she spoken out or yelled at Dane Cook I would have told her to be quiet, stop embarrassing us or leave.  This may sound harsh, but it just means that I only want to date people who know how to conduct themselves in public and that I am not desperate enough to put up with inappropriate bullsh*t from a woman because she is the only one I can get.  Now unfortunately, there is a class of men who date and marry loud, inappropriate and embarrassing women because they either can put up with it, or more likely, feel that they have to.  And there is a couple like this at every show.

She is the woman yelling “That’s not funny!” or “Men do it too!!”  or some other stupid and unnecessary opinion about a joke.  And almost always you will see a guy just happy to have a spot on her life roster sitting right next to her.  Just sitting there quietly knowing that he is powerless to stop this monster.   In short, she is the worst person in the comedy club.  Assuming Lena Dunham’s nutritionist is not in attendance.

Or as another example – at the bar show in Brooklyn last night – the loud woman was near the stage, intoxicated and with a large black boyfriend (second biggest dude in the bar after the miserable sloth on stage). She kept yapping and I just told her “I’ll be done in a few minutes.”  Now, as tradition would have it, large black guys don’t usually have a reputation for putting up with mouthy women, unless they are the voices inside of Tyler Perry’s mind.  But as I gave them a look of fatigued disappointment he said to me with a smile and what sounded like an African accent, “Hey man, you got to keep it real, right?”  And then I realized this woman had found a third way to find a man who would allow her to be a moron in public: date a foreigner who does not yet know the custom. Downside – when her guy does learn the custom, he may circumcise her for being insolent.

5) The Woo-er and the “I Don’t Know How To Respond To a Funny Joke” Lady

This last one is almost not a heckler, but has found a way to become just enough of a distraction to be a loose cousin of the heckler.  This is the chick that “woo”s way to much, because it is not about supporting the comedian, rather, it is about letting the comedian know that she is there.  This is the same woman that when she thanks someone she goes “thank you soooooo much,” just to somehow make the thank you about her as much as it is about the person being thanked.  This person is usually drunk, sometimes attractive and always useless.  They can often be the same person, or at the same table as the person who looks at their table and either repeats every tag (in 2006 or 2007 at a show at Gotham Comedy Club I heard a woman repeat every Pablo Francisco punchline for 35 minutes) or just keeps saying “that is so funny” while barely laughing.  Instead of teaching classes on stand up comedy, maybe clubs should start teaching audience how to react (3 appropriate responses to jokes – claps and laughter or silence – end of class).

But once again, women made up a majority of the people buying my merchandise and laughing at my jokes this week and I am very appreciative.  But now it is time for that great majority to start cleaning house and letting these dummies know that they are doing wrong.  Except for #4 – that one will probably never learn.  I am just keeping it real, right?