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Top 10 Working Titles For My Feature Act Comedy…

Everyone clamors for a book by star comedians who reflect on their rise to success. They usually sell well because they are funny and they give readers a latter-day Horatio Alger story: comedians always seem to start poor or at least unhappy and then rise to a position of fame and wealth and slightly less unhappiness.  But what about feature comedians – the stop on the way to headliner success for some, or the purgatory of comedy for many?  As a national feature act (meaning underpaid, underbooked and under the radar) I have thought about writing a book on the experience of travelling America and seeing the country through the lens of comedy’s middle class.  As I have written before, I think the feature act is an unexplored bellwether for (or at least a microcosm of) the disappearance of America’s middle class:

https://jlcauvin.com/?p=2304

So as I explore ideas for a memoir here are the ten titles I am considering (I am far too lazy to follow through on an entire book). Keep in mind these are based on my own experiences.  Some comedians may feel the same, some may not.  I applaud those of you that feel the same because you are right. And a message to my civilian readers – I know I can sound bitter – think of my posts (sometimes) as a darkly humorous look at how the comedy sausage is made:

1) 25% Off a $4 Order of Mozzarella Sticks – Nothing feels quite like a kick to the balls than the food discount, especially when the food item is dirt cheap to begin with (not to mention seeing the headliner eat that $7 hamburger free of charge – why don’t you blow your nose with $100 bills while you are at it!).  $1 off a $4 order is not so much about savings as it is about sending a message. The message? “You ain’t sh*t” (another possible title). That is why I now travel with homemade coupons for free back rubs.  If I have to pay for appetizers then the club is going to have to earn my money… the hard way (Rodney Dangerfield blog voice).

2) Trying Not To Get Hit By A Car While Walking On The Side Of A Highway – For every four day trip on the road, I spend about 5 hours on stage and 20 hours walking around towns where the lack of sidewalks help to explain the high levels of obesity.  I am 6’7″ and anywhere between 240 and 290 pounds, depending on how despondent I am over my “career,” but even at my fittest I have this fear that a murder will occur in any number of the towns I perform in and witnesses will say “we saw a real big unhappy sombitch just walking along the highway. And we ain’t never seen him before.” And my only alibi will be “Google Maps told me there was an IHOP two miles down the road.”  Either that or a car will simply hit me as I dart across a highway to get to a Starbucks with WiFi. Headline the next day: “Tall Stranger Killed Trying to Check Facebook. No One Had Any Idea Why He Was Here Or Who He Was.”

3) Why Do All These White People Find This Mediocre Black Comic Hilarious? – If anyone wants to know why large pockets of America think President Obama is a Muslim, just go to a comedy club across America.  This country, for all its progress and love of Denzel Washington, is still an incredibly segregated place, where people of color still possess an exotic aura for many white people.  And no job is easier in comedy, in my estimation, than to be a mediocre opener of color (the darker the better) in front of a white audience.  The white audience in America is often times self-selected (my native Bronx is by no means the only place that has experienced white flight) so no line ever does better (or is more repeated by black comics) than “I must be in the wrong club!”  The goobers in the audience are simultaneously thinking “That’s a funny joke!” and  “That’s true!!”  I was emceeing shows recently and a feature, who was black, told me after a show while we were chatting, “Every time I talk with white people from here after a show, they always want to tell me some ‘black sh*t,’ like some story about a black guy they met or a black person they hooked up with.  Maybe I just want to talk about some other sh*t!”  This is not even necessarily a mean thing (ignorance is not necessarily evil), but it does explain a high tolerance for bad comics of color in America (the gentleman I am speaking of was not in this category).  Now there are terrible comics of every race working out there, but the large parts of this segregated country that still think American black people only exist in prisons, rap videos and sporting arenas (because our president is Kenyan) are giving refuge to a lot of terrible comics of color.  I don’t know which came first, the sheltered/ignorant white crowd or the black comic with way too high a swagger-to-talent ratio, but both need to stop.

4) Why Do All These Black People Love This Asian/White Comic – The pendulum swings both ways and if there is something that annoys me it is when a member of a group gets respect from an audience comprised of a different group, simply having the guts to show up.  I have seen this in black rooms almost as often as I see it in white rooms. Now this is not to denigrate comics with real skill and talent who happen to be different. Rather it’s the ones who coast on their appearance as if that alone is a “voice” or “perspective” (often times these guys DON’T have a voice or perspective, which might make their job more difficult if they are not truly skilled). Of course #3 and #4 are just a prelude to my personal gripe…

5) Why Do White and Black People Judge My Biracial Ass For Making Humorous Commentary On Race – If you can tell from #3 and#4 this is personal.  I have the comedic misfortune of being opinionated and sharp on race in my material while looking like an Italian in the winter and an Egyptian in the Summer (my Dad is black and my mother is white). In other words, black rooms (not necessarily black people individually, but rather comedy clubs with a classic urban sensibility) require me to be more forceful in asserting my blackness before I am “allowed” to speak on it, while many whites don’t like being lectured to on race by some guy who looks mostly like them. In conclusion I hate you both.

6) Please Let It Be a Hotel… Dammit It’s a Comedy Condo – I would lick a Las Vegas Holiday Inn comforter with more mental peace than I have when I get into a comedy condo bed.  “Hey, I like your choice to go with a white comforter in the comedy condo – really brightens the room!”  “Huh, that comforter is navy blue.” Cue Jim Carrey crying in the shower in Ace Ventura.

7) Jack and Jill and Other Things I Am Ashamed Of On The Road – I love going to the movies, but it can reach the point on the road where I am seeing a movie just to avoid staring at a wall or becoming Jack Nicholson in The Shining.  That is my official explanation for why I saw Bucky Larson last year.

8 ) Why Am I Getting Paid The Same As A Feature in 1985?  From several accounts I hear the actual dollar amount is less (especially when considering that travel was sometimes included during the comedy boom), but the fact is that in adjusted dollars features are making far less than their counterparts 20+ years ago.  Any other profession work that way?  Is a partner at a law firm in NYC going home to his family saying, “I just made partner!  How does $50,000 a year sound? What? That is how much our daughter’s private school costs?  OK, well, let me get back to my managerial position at Best Buy where I can make some real cash.”

9) Dear Booker, It’s Me J-L, Please Read My E-Mail – Being a comedian without management is sort of like being Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. You are just sending messages out into space with the faint hope of receiving a reply. (My June and July are open – call me!)

10) Yes, I can Explain That 4 Year Gap on My Resume… I Was In Jail.  This is the excuse I have come up with if employers start asking me about my tweets or YouTube videos. “No, that is not me – my accounts were hacked. I was actually in prison for those four years, but in no way, shape or form was I performing stand up comedy.”

 

J-L’s New Stand-Up Album “Too Big To Fail” is Available at www.JLCauvin.com for FREE until April 30th. His weekly podcast “Righteous P***k” is available for free on iTunes with a new episode every Tuesday.

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Starving Kids, Depressed Kittens & My Former Career as…

I will be writing a new post Wednesday, but I wanted to share two new videos from last week’s killer show at Gotham Comedy Club as Comedians At Law concluded our Lawmageddon Tour.  Enjoy (really one of my best sets – thanks to all who were there)

My Career as an ADA

Starving Kids vs. Depressed Kittens

Hope you enjoy and please share.  Don’t forget – my new CD is FREE on my store page for the month of April and a new episode of my podcast goes up tomorrow (all this before a new blog on Wednesday). Thanks for the support.

 

 

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Too Big To Fail. Maybe.

I am in the middle of a media blitz promoting my brand new stand up album “Too Big To Fail” which was released today at 12:01 am – how dramatic!  And by media blitz I mean a Facebook invite, an e-newsletter, and some tweets.  The biggest decision for me was to make it free to download for the month of April.  I did this for several reasons.  One, Louis CK charged $5 for his last special and I’ll be damned if he is going to get the “nice to his fans” credit over me.  The main reason is that I have sort of given up.  I am literally doing everything I can to build a brand, to get my name out, to share as much comedic content as I can and nothing seems to have broken through.

For example – my YouTube videos.  Most are really good, well-written and have a strong production value.  None has gone “viral.” My Tax Masters spoof is the closest at around 19,000 views, but other videos have just not blown up. I have no idea how to make that happen (www.YouTube.com/JLCauvin if you want some laughs).

My blog and podcast are small successes (the blog more so) and I am hoping an opportunity to share my comedy blogs with the Huffington Post will yield more traffic, etc. but I still don’t know the logistics of doing this or if the opportunity is still open (a few days before my website went down for 6 weeks I was asked to share my comedy writings with the Huffington Post – great timing by me to have my site down).

For the first time in five years it appears that I will have fewer bookings than the previous year.  For anyone not in the comedy business allow me to explain what that means: my career is now going backwards – at least as far as the traditional comedy trajectory is concerned.

So that brings us to the ironically titled “Too Big To Fail.” When I was organizing and writing my material for the CD I wanted one of the themes of the CD to be a snapshot of a struggling comedian before he either quits or makes it big.  So the idea of Too Big To Fail, even though it is not explicitly stated on the album, is that I am at the point where something has to hit to make me big or I am going to have to figure out how to live a life without comedy as my future (or at least the driving force of my future).  So I thought, what the hell? If I have nothing to lose, why not just make the CD free for everyone?  I have already gotten some great feedback so maybe it will work.  Work for what do you ask? I have no idea. I don’t know what my goals as a comedian in 2012 should even be.  The path to success that I want to exist seems to not exist anymore. So maybe some guy or gal will hear this CD and forward it to someone who will forward it to someone, etc.

But now that I have the blog back, the podcast humming along and the CD out I feel like I have given it my best shot.  So now it is time to look for a day job.  If you are so inclined to listen to a free comedy CD (and forward it along to friends and colleagues) here is the link:

https://jlcauvin.com/?page_id=3807

I have done all I can to put my material out there so I guess now I need your help in getting more ears listening to it.  I am writing to all 8 of you that read this.

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How To Get Along With A Struggling Comedian

Hello everyone.  It has been eight weeks since I last posted and I have been itching to write.  My new site is finally up and I am very proud of it (www.JLCauvin.com). I have been touring cities at a relatively exhausting pace (by the end of the month it will be 11 cities and 10 states in under 40 days – consider it my Lenten wandering in the desert of comedy), reaping little financial benefit and even less comedy industry credit. To give you a glimpse of my current comedy pessimism, two nights ago I dropped a pitch perfect George Lopez impression on stage for the first time and all I could think was, “Well there is another thing I can do that will go to the grave with me.”

I usually spend a lot of time, when I do write about comedy, complaining or critiquing aspects of the business, whether it is bookers, managers, clubs, or monolithic groups of comedians.  But I realized it is not just them making comedy more difficult, it is regular people and everyday individual comedians who make this such an annoying journey at times, even if they don’t intend to.  So, inspired by the “Broken Windows” theory of crime prevention, which theorizes that swarming and fixing little problems will lower overall crime, I present the “Broken Compliments and Questions About Comedy” theory on making comedians, who are struggling in the increasingly weakening middle class of comedy, happier day-to-day.  Obviously these are my own personal theories, but I doubt I am the only one for whom these will resonate.  Some of these apply to fellow comedians and some apply to regular folk.  Enjoy:

1) Re-Tweet, don’t Favorite. And don’t email or direct message me that I am funny.  I am a reluctant abuser of social media.  If I did something else I would avoid it, but it is a part of entertainment so I try to immerse myself in it.  But the reward is very simple – if someone likes something, share it. That is how I can advance my reach and audience.  Treating my material like a black guy that a white girl secretly dated in college is helpful to no one.  I am sure there is some benefit to favoriting. I just don’t care.

2) Don’t ask me about how my comedy is going. And definitely don’t refer to it as “my comedy thing/skits/sketch/hobby.” If you think it is so trivial then don’t ask about it. But if you are actually curious then speak of it like it is a career or a job.  No one ever asked me how the “legal thing” was going when I was a practicing lawyer.

Want to see me smile about comedy? It's unlikely, but these guidelines give it a chance.

3) Don’t tell me about your friend who is hilarious unless they are a comedian. Otherwise you are insulting and degrading what I have sacrificed to be skilled at what I do. I was the funny asshole at the cafeteria table and have been since I was 10. But now I make strangers laugh and have done so with an economically crushing, relationship harming, career risking, trial and error process.  So your friend can go fu*k himself.

4) Don’t say you want to go to a show or to let you know when I am in town unless you mean it.  You owe me nothing.  I mean it. I am doing comedy whether you support it or not.  It is like a story I shared from a couple of years ago. A decently connected manager was very interested in working with me to find a way to publicize my Obama impression. We met several times over several months and then he told me that he decided not to commit to it.  The lesson – don’t say anything unless you’ve made the decision to act, not just because you think you might act.  That way expectations are not raised. Simple and thoughtful.  If I don’t know, then I can’t care.

5) If a joke goes up on Facebook, “Like” it – don’t piggyback on the joke. There are a few egregious offenders of this – the person that never acknowledges a good joke, but then just takes the 95% of thought that the writer created and then simply attempts to add to it. If you like a joke, like it. If you don’t ignore it. But if someone beat you to a concept, don’t try to pull yourself up by their bootstrap.

6) Try to make famous people work for it on social media. Comedians and civilians alike – try not to kiss too much ass, especially of funny people, unless they are actually being funny.  They do not care about you or how many times you suck their twitter di*k.

7) Don’t ask me why I don’t have an agent or a manager.  It is not by choice.  I don’t want to be a struggling freelance unknown, unappreciated comedian.  And to answer your follow up, yes, my career would be easier if I had people booking me for shows and auditions and gigs.  Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

8 ) If you do nothing do not ask me to follow you on Twitter. I will follow friends and fellow comedians that I like either personally (which pains me because sometimes I feel like I am giving positive reinforcement to a mediocre product) or professionally, but every so often a person from a show will ask for a “follow back.”  Why? Did you just travel 100o miles to entertain me with your writing and performance and I will receive more of that?  OR are you just someone who tweets random personal thoughts and opinions with way too many pronouns, which make even your mundane thoughts hard to process (“This book is great!” – what fu*king book?!!!).  But thank you for equating my career of making people laugh and trying to build a fan base that will purchase tickets to see me and raise my minuscule profile with your desire to brag to your friends about how many people checked our your twitpic of your salad at Panera Bread.

Ahhhhh, feels good to be back.

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Sets and The Cities

It has been a whirlwind of emotions over the last few days based on the shows I have had.  Surprisingly the emotions were both bad and good, which differs from my normal emotional responses to comedy of bad and worse.  I will start with the bad news, since that is how it happened chronologically.

Saturday night I was co-headlining a show at the Triad Theater in the west 70s of Manhattan.  Comedy crowds come in different bunches.  Sometimes you get hardened comedy fans.  Those are great crowds – they want good comedy and understand the medium and are not easily offended.  Then you have tourist-type crowds that generally want to hear the most basic comedy and are easily offended.  But then there is a third, wild-card crowd, that one can see in Manhattan, which is a crowd consisting of other comics’ friends.  Now if those friends are comedy savvy people then they tend to embrace all types of comedy.  In other cases, they are groups of people who are prepared to laugh at their friend, because their friend is mostly their only exposure to stand up comedy and everyone else to them ranges from unamusing (because you are not their friend) to shockingly inappropriate (because they think stand up comedy is what CBS comedies do).  Well guess which one I got Saturday night?

My initial material dealt with interracial porn and how we could never be a racism-free society as long as there were people in America that believe whites and blacks having sex together represents a taboo in keeping with some of the other more anatomically shameful porn genres.  I got nothing (obviously this concept was presented in more joke form and not as a graduate thesis).  The few laughs I got were from a few comics and a few people, but the mention of race and sex, even in a sanitized way, seemed to elicit a “We didn’t know a comedian was going to discuss race and sex! Well I never!”  So in what is becoming an increasingly annoying flaw in my stand up I took the uptight comedy stupidity of the majority of the crowd and looked at them with disdain the rest of the show.  I made sure to be harsher and more care free with my material, which actually won me about 12 of the 45 people in the crowd.  However, the remaining 33 seemed to genuinely hate me.  Which actually felt good.  They were only ruining one evening with their response: mine.  But I was ruining 33 evenings with my routine.

Confirming the depth of the hatred some members of the crowd had for me was a story told to me by the date of a friend of mine in attendance.  After the show, she was in the bathroom and heard a woman say, “I liked the show, but I wanted to stab that last guy in the face.”

In case you are wondering, I was the “last guy.”

But redemption was only a few days away.  I had a private show for Comcast at Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia last night.  I kept my set clean (not one curse in 45 minutes is the longest I have spoken, let alone performed, curse free since I  was 12 years old), I riffed about 20 minutes of political material that went over well and as of today no one has made an official complaint to my knowledge.  So it was good to wash away the bad taste of Saturday with a strong showing last night.  But the cherry on top was sharing a train ride home from Philadelphia with Samantha Jones a/k/a Kim Cattrall.

I am very well versed in Sex and the City.  An odd admission perhaps, but the same way Malcolm X was knowledgeable of the Bible, I felt it necessary to understand the white devil in my own fashion.  But let me tell you, my seething disdain for the culture that Sex and the City spawned (or at least greatly augmented) all but melted away when I saw Kim Cattrall.  I actually did not think it was her because she looked much younger than what I assumed her age was (dead).  But she had not one, but two personal assistants (gay man and hipster looking chick) with her so that settled it for me.  In all honesty it is pretty intimidating when you see a woman from television that you never found THAT attractive relatively to other women on television, but then you see them in person and it opens your eyes.  I felt the same way when I was in the same green room with Teri Polo (Greg Focker’s wife in Meet The Parents) several years ago.  All I could think was “If Greg Focker’s wife looks this good in person, then Macy Gray must be a fu*king knockout!”

Kim and I rode in the same car (we agreed that I could be on a first name basis with her), so hopefully everyone else in that train car realized the star power they were surrounded by.  And just in case I thought that Sex and the City was a horrible show for a generation of young women it was refreshing to see one of the show’s stars travelling the same way as the miserable King of Greyhound Comedy.  Hello gorgeous.

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Support My Free Comedy Content For Free To Make…

Having given up on making money through comedy I have dedicated myself to creating tons of free content to you, my 11 fans.  Because I have nothing to gripe about specifically (sorry) I am hoping you will help me out.  There are some free ways you can support my comedy endeavors that would make me moderately happy.

FOLLOW MY PODCAST & SUBSCRIBE ON iTUNES

My podcast has been going nicely and all I need for you to do is click the link below and:

1) Click the “become follower” of the podcast – the numbers help and then you receive a notification as soon as the new episode is up.

2) Use the “subscribe through iTunes” link on this page (it is not in the iTunes directory yet, so if you search in iTunes you won’t find it yet) to get it downloaded every Tuesday directly into your iTunes account.

http://righteouspk.podomatic.com/

 

WATCH MY NEW VIDEOS, FORWARD THEM TO FRIENDS & SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE PAGE

Simple and free steps.  These two new ones are really good and gaining subscribers, like podcast “followers,” helps me (for free)

 

FOLLOW MY PODCAST AND ME ON TWITTER AND BE A FAN ON FACEBOOK

www.Twitter.com/RPrickPodcast

www.Twitter.com/JLCauvin

https://www.facebook.com/#!/RighteousPrick

Sorry for the self promotion blog, but these are all free ways you can support what I write and what I produce so if I cannot make money I might as well feel slightly validated.  Thanks for your support and I wil be back spewing venom at the comedy business next week.

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The Righteous Prick 2012 Oscar Breakdown

The 2012 Oscar Nominations were announced for what I believe was the worst year in movies since 2005 (Crash beat Brokeback Mountain while Munich, my favorite movie of that year, never had a shot despite being nominated).  Well this year has been the movie of the overrated and the boring.  I have some positive things to say about some of this year’s nominees, but that wouldn’t be as much fun so I will try to keep the positivity to a minimum.  For reference here is my recap of 2011 films (before I saw the excellent We Need To Talk About Kevin):

https://jlcauvin.com/?p=3180

BEST PICTURE

In my movie wrap up of 2011 I rated Hugo as the most overrated film of the year and The Tree of Life in the top 5 most overrated films of the year, as well as the most pretentious film of all time.  Both nominated for best picture.  Awful.  And Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is nominated.  It is the only film of the ten nominated that I have not seen.  And I have no intention of seeing it.  Not because of any 9/11 movie fear or discomfort (United 93 is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen, but the academy only had the courage to nominate it for Best Director back in 2006, not best picture), but because I find the child actor so irritating in the commercials and previews that I am glad he lost his fictional father.  That is how annoying I find him.

I have no problem with the other nominees and generally found the films to range from adequate to enjoyable.  However here are the movies I think are clear snubs: The Ides of March, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, 50/50, We Need To Talk About Kevin and my long shot, but personal favorite Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  The fact that WNTTAK and 50/50 were completely shut out is a travesty.

But thank goodness Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Drive were not nominated for Best Picture.

BEST ACTOR

When is Joseph Gordon-Levitt going to get some goddamn respect?!  500 Days of Summer shut out in 2009 and then 50/50 shut out this year.  It makes me like JGL more to think that he is being stiffed by the industry because he does not play politics.

The nominees are fine I guess with that one omission.  And I am surprised Michael Fassbender did not get nominated for Shame. Or that his penis was not nominated for best supporting actor.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Jonah Hill gets nominated for playing a fat quiet guy.  The fu*k out of here!

Kenneth Branagh should win this, but Christopher Plummer has earned it (and his performance as Mike Wallace in The Insider was not nominated at all in 1999 – my top snub I can remember)

BEST ACTRESS

To quote Bill Burr, “Rooney Mara had to be fu*king Daniel Craig and if she wasn’t she deserves an award for best pantomiming of fu*king a guy.”  Agreed.  She looked great, she was great. I think she should win.  Normally I bet Meryl Streep against the field because she is better than everyone, but The Iron Lady was not good.  Like not good enough to tear her chances down.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Jessica Chastain was in 147 movies this year so she deserves this. And she was great in The Help. And I think it would be funny if the only award for the The Help went to a white woman.

BEST ANIMATED FILM

They all sucked this year.  Seriously, every animated movie I saw this year sucked. What a disappointment. Shame on you Pixar and shame on you Kung Fu Panda 2. I expect better from you guys.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Rise of the Planet of The Apes – it needs to win something dammit!

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Really good category except Tinker Tailor is nominated.  Really – a good adaptation? Was the book long, boring and dreary also or was that the gift of the screenwriter?  Hugo can go fu*k itself.  I think Moneyball wins simply because it was a great book about statistics that was made into a solid (but not great in my opinion) film.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Bridesmaids got nominated for best original screenplay?  So I guess making a slightly less funny Old School/Hangover (I, not the lazy II) is now original!  I’d like to see The Artist win because it would be weird to have a film with 10 words of dialogue win a screenwriting award.

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Keeping It Brill

I saw on Twitter this morning that Eddie Brill, the booker for The Late Show with David Letterman, had been fired as the booker for comedians on the show.  The official cause was “speaking to the press without authorization.” However,  it is clear that the furor over two quotes from the NY Times profile on him is what has caused the big problems “I see a lot of female comics who to please an audience will act like men” and “There are a lot less female comics who are authentic.”  Not to get lawyerish on this statement, but this is not an absolute statement.  This is not “women aren’t funny” or “All the women I see suck.”  This is an opinion of someone concerning the submissions he sees.  For the full article the link is below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/arts/television/eddie-brill-and-the-comics-on-david-lettermans-show.html

I can see women getting upset over the lacking authenticity comment, but remember that the article discusses how Brill was basically booking mostly A-list comedians.  That is one way to maintain the prestige of the show.  And also Brill appears very particular about the style of comedy he wanted on the show.  This was someone who said Eddie Murphy in his prime would not be right for the show and also rejected Anthony Jeselnik, who is one of the rising stars of stand up.  But if Brill is looking to book mostly the top comics, who are they?

Well, Laughspin.com, a popular site for comedy news and a strong advocate of women in comedy, releases a top 10 comedy albums list every year.  Of the last three years here are the tallies:

  • 2009 – 8 male comedians, 2 female comedians
  • 2010 – 10 male comedians, 0 female comedians
  • 2011 – 9 male comedians, 1 female comedian

And yet no one is bashing Laughspin for their underrepresentation of female comics on their list?

In 2010 Forbes released a list of the biggest money makers in stand up comedy for the year.  9 were men. 1 (Chelsea Handler at #4) was a woman.

 

These are sources that are not accused of sexism or discrimination (it would be hard to fire or boycott money), but they bear out that at this point in comedy, regardless of how accomplished Tina Fey is as a writer, how many sketches Kristin Wiig is in on Saturday Night Live or how many people see Bridesmaids, that the upper echelon of stand up, regardless of cause, is comprised of men.  And while I understand diversity in many forms as a good thing – in entertainment I believe in letting the market and merit guide us (which sometimes leads to tragedies known as Adam Sandler’s last decade).

Now I know when some females in comedy read this they are somehow going to extrapolate that I am hateful and sexist from this, but this is the environment and the culture that Eddie Brill is from and the resources he is looking through.  Brill may have articulated in a less than stellar approach, but the fact is America clearly has a preference, at this point in time, where their stand up comedy dollars go.  It is not a bad thing or a good thing. It is just a thing.

I keep reading over comments by people saying “diversity makes for better lineups in comedy.”  THESE ARE NOT LINEUPS.  Letterman had 22 stand-up comedians appear over the course of an entire year.  Those are individual sets that occur sporadically.  You obviously do not want the exact same schtick each time, but when you have Bill Burr, Jerry Seinfeld, Louis CK, Ted Alexandro, Tommy Johnagan, etc. can their really be complaints about the talent?

Women and men have different voices (a lot of the time) because of their respective experiences.  So do alternative and mainstream comedians.  But somehow Jimmy Fallon being a haven for alternative comedians with 3 minutes of television material for 5 minutes spots arouses no anger, but 1 woman out of 22 comedians in 2011 became a highly offensive incident.  Perhaps he does not like the majority of female comedians.  Why is that necessarily a sex/gender issue?  Perhaps he does not identify as well with the vast majority of female voices.  That does not necessarily make him a bad, sexist or hateful person.  And guess what – based on economics and album reviews, it appears he is not alone in preferring the comedy of men.  Not necessarily because they are men, but perhaps because they happen to be the majority of the top tier of stand up talent right now.  That may change, but it may not.

It sort of feels the same as when Don Imus was fired for calling the Rutgers Women’s Hoops Team “nappy headed hoes.”  I am no Imus fan, but to this day I believe it was a disgrace that he got fired for that.  But this actually feels worse because with Imus – it looked like America was taking comedy too seriously.  But here it appears that comedians are taking themselves too seriously.  Eddie Brill has rejected me twice for The Late Show, but he did something that other networks and shows have never bothered to do: he emailed me a respectful and helpful critique geared towards his preferences.  And my thought after one of them was, “well I guess I probably won’t get on Letterman” because I felt like what he was looking for me was not really what I did.  But I was OK with that because respect is such a rare commodity in this business that I felt like I could have some dignity after my interaction with Brill.  He is clearly someone who respects what comedians do and cares about stand up.  And it certainly is not as bad as something a friend of mine heard the high priest of comedy, Louis CK, say a decade or so ago at the bar at the Comic Strip, (“There’s no such thing as funny women.”).

But Eddie Brill had something we all wanted – spots on The Late Show, so because he had some less than politically correct statements (perhaps he still thought some degree of honesty could be respected by comedians) he no longer has what we want.  So it will be a few days and then we will cease to give a sh*t about Eddie Brill or what he said.

So Jimmy Fallon books alternative comics because he digs that voice, but Eddie Brill booked more men because perhaps he liked that voice and perspective. One is OK and one is not.  So I guess there will have to be more women on Letterman next year (how embarrassing and perplexing if there aren’t).  And that is not a good thing or a bad thing in my opinion. It’s just a thing. Unless they suck.

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Comedy Sensitivity: It Doesn’t Get Better

First, before I address the comedy community, allow me to apologize to anyone who is a normal human being that reads my blog.  My podcast is going to be the focus of the more general pop culture and disdain for society that used to be confined to this blog (http://righteouspk.podomatic.com/).  And I am hoping that Monday January 30th will mark the launch of my weekly Movie Review show (www.YouTube.com/JLMovieLife).  So this blog will largely occupy (but certainly with many exceptions) issues with being a comedian.

And normally when I address issues in comedy it deals with the scumbaggery of the powers that be (e.g. I was not invited to a certain comedy club’s holiday party – a possible oversight, but hard not to take personally when my family and friends have probably put two children through college with all the bringer shows I have done at that club). Some examples are:

  • The struggle of feature work, the comedy parallel to the decline of the working class in America.
  • The manipulation and abuse of comedians’ dreams through cattle call auditions for shows where the writing is already on the wall.
  • The equivalent of stunt casting with regards to some TV star, non-stand up comedy qualified headliners.
  • The despair in seeing greats like Greg Giraldo and Patrice O’Neal die before getting their just due in the mainstream culture.
  • The fact that the comedy “media” is simply concerned with web traffic and would not know an actual issue affecting working comedians until it appeared on a verified Twitter account or on Comedy Central.

In my nearly nine years in comedy I have worked hard as a comedian, gone nearly broke, struggled professionally and personally, but I think most comedians that know me or read what I write know (or should know) that I have a deep respect for stand up comedy, at least what I want it to be.  I feel it is almost a calling, not something to dabble in or “think about trying” for a year or five before sacking up and doing it.  But given some criticism I have faced recently over Louis CK comments, plus the (what feels like daily) articles and comments on the perceived underrepresentation of women in comedy. I realize that there are a lot more pussies in comedy than I thought, and I don’t just mean anatomically.

I just recorded a podcast on Louis CK where I had an excellent conversation with another comedian about Louis’ place in comedy, his writing process, the quality of his specials, etc.  Now of course I mockingly summarize his specials by saying every one of them should be called “Working It Out,” and that every track could be called “Jerk Off,” “I Hate Kids,” and “I’m Fat.”   However whenever these comments go up on Facebook, comics quickly call me a “hater,” “bitter,” that I should “work on my comedy career.”  Now of course if I called Tim Tebow a cooky Christian in some clever way, or ripped GOP candidates or bashed the Kardashians, Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia or hundreds of other public figures I would be greeted with “likes” and “LOLs.” But I cracked wise about a spiritual figure for comedians so I got showered with career advice and adjectives.  It is a cliche that comedians are insecure, but much like all the kids who need bullying to stop it appears that comedians are really become a legion of pussies (possible book/movie/late night Cinemax title).  These are the same people who will spend their time calling religious figures vile names, regardless how other people may take it, defending the usage of hate speech or hateful terms in the name of comedy, but as soon as you get near the glass house based on another comedian’s authenticity that they have built for themselves you are a hater.  I am all for full free speech in comedy, as long as it is funny.  But some of my wiser colleagues I suppose feel differently (in case you did not pick up on it, I do not believe any of my colleagues are wiser, perhaps some are as wise).

Then there is Twitter, which is downright disturbing how unfunny so many comedians are on this medium.  Genuinely unfunny.  But we engage in an ass kissing venture called “Follow Friday” on Twitter where people show support for their friends, many of whom are unfunny and kiss ass to those in a higher station in comedy life than them.  It is just mutual masturbation.  Buy your friend a candy bar or a coffee if you want to be a friend.  But respect the art and the content for Christ’s sake.

But I have saved the best complaint for last. In a discussion about pussies in comedy, I would be remiss to leave out a discussion about the degradation and shame women have been put through in the comedy world in 2011.  A typical Huffington Post/NYTimes/Twitter weekly cycle appears to be: “Women Are Funny Too!” “Are Women Funny?!” “Don’t Judge Women By Their Gender!” “Why Aren’t Women More Represented in TV Lineups!?” “Check out these 20 Hilarious Female Comedy Festivals!”  Way to play against the stereotype of indecisive, frantic and emotional.

An article in the New York Times featured Eddie Brill, the Letterman booker.  In it it was disclosed that:

  • Only 1 of the 22 comedians on Letterman this year was a woman
  • Eddie Brill finds most female comedians less authentic and that many of them are trying to act like men

In another article, this one from the Huffington Post, Judd Apatow’s Critics Choice Award speech was highlighted because he told 197 year old Jerry Lewis to fuck off because 13-14 years ago he said he “I don’t like any women comedians.”

And let’s not forget that Comedy Central only has one television development deal for a female comedian, but a bunch for men.

Well I am not sure how these Taliban have infiltrated the comedy business, but I for one would like to see some marines urinating on their corpses immediately.

The fact is, without getting into the “who is funnier” as a gender (I own 20 comedy CDs, all by men, but I am sure it is open for debate), which gender comprises the majority of the top tier of comedians? Men.  I mean in a men vs. women comedy all star game it’s the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Mystics (the Generals had men and were better than the Mystics of the WNBA).  And as far as Letterman goes, he is very particular in his bookings.  And he only booked 22 comedians and a lot of them were A listers?

I complain plenty about quality of comedy and treatment of comedians in the business, but other than facial hair on Live at Gotham I never break it down into a “there are not enough of me” represented in stand up.  But women in comedy keep playing both sides – “STOP TREATING ME DIFFERENTLY AND CAN YOU PLEASE PUT ME ON THE SHOW BECAUSE THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH WOMEN.”  And Jerry Lewis and Eddie Brill never made absolute statements – they merely stated their personal preferences, but like a “Support The Troops” applause line, telling guys like that to fuck off is red meat for a gender that so often is stereotypically portrayed as misconstruing messages (watch any CBS comedy and you will get what I am saying).

There are funny women.  There are just a lot more funny men.  And the funniest men are the funniest people on the planet. No matter how many times you watch Bridesmaids.

But between being more sensitive to non-traditional challenges (Fuck the Pope = OK, Louis CK is overrated = heresy), mutually masturbating on Twitter and defending women’s honor against an onslaught of sexism, comedy might as well have its own anti-bullying slogan: It’s Getting Worse.

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The Zero Barrier of Comedy

So I am approaching 9 years in the comedy “game.”  Since a new year is a great time for reflection I reflected on my relatively empty calendar, my even emptier bank account and my fully empty soul and realized that I am approaching the zero barrier of careers.  The term zero barrier, if I am remembering the term correctly, is from the film Armageddon (which failed to use Armageddon It by Def Leppard which is one of the great soundtrack omissions of all time) and it refers to the last possible moment they could blow up the asteroid to ensure it avoided Earth before it was too late.

Well, I am not sure if I am at the zero barrier of my comedy career, but I am close.  Now I will always be fairly employable – a Georgetown Law Degree will always qualify me for bagging groceries, cleaning toilets and substitute art teaching, but those will just be jobs.  The possibility of a career is slipping away though.  I have been at comedy for almost 9 years and doing it as my full time job for 3 years.  It feels like I have been released into the wild to be free and pure instinct, but now mental health and financial health seem to be calling me back to the controlled zoo of a day job as well as career ambition that doesn’t depend on the reactions of strangers.

But that has not stopped me from pumping out a ton of new content in 2012.  My weekly podcast has launched, just filmed two new comedy short films, I am in the process of putting together my weekly movie review show and of course my new CD Too Big To Fail will be out in February (along with the honor of having my voice doing the intro on Patrice O’Neal’s posthumous CD).  I also just got picked for a NACA showcase where I can potentially (but of course not guaranteed to) make a decent chunk of change doing college gigs.  The point of this is not to brag.  This is all the shit I am doing to keep even!  Just to keep people interested (because bookings have been slow, which are the comedy business’ way of helping you maintain a sharecropper’s status – go to a club, make a couple hundred bucks profit if you are lucky as a feature, get some Twitter followers, some Facebook friends, some YouTube fans, and then don’t get called back to the club for 2 or more years so that half of your fans are dead and the other half has moved on to supporting their local def poetry scene).

So thanks to the people who read this blog, watch my videos, listen to my podcast through early problems and generally put up with my shit.  I say this in part out of gratitude, but mostly because this is probably the year I go full on crazy, like become the 2006 Ron Artest of stand up or the Montecore of stand up and I will need at least a few of you at a sentencing to speak to the pressures of comedy and the joy I brought to you when you read this blog and realized – wait, maybe life is not so bleak because I certainly don’t feel as bitter and riled up as this meteor falling to the Earth.  Happy New Year!!!