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Transcript

Stand-Up Pt II · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: and Jerry's here, too. And we are kicking off part
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: two of our two-part episode on stand-up comedy. And I
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: think if I remember correctly, Chuck, it was a couple
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: of days ago, but you said something about alt comedy.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: We were going to talk about that.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: What is that?
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Alt comedy is something that came about in the early
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: 90s with a group of comedians performing in. And I
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: don't know if that's where the term comes from, but
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: performing in alternative venues.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: They weren't performing.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: And, you know, of course, they would all go to
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: perform in a comedy store and all that kind of stuff, too.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: And comedy clubs, but they were well known for performing
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: in like piano bars or like bookstores.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And things like that.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: And, you know, people like Jeanine Garofalo, the great Dana Gould,
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: who is a wonderful comic and human being still.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: They started out at performing at a place called Big
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: and Tall Books in L.A., the Luna Lounge in New
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: York and Largo, the original Largo in L.A.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Were all sort of home bases for these comics.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: We did a show in Largo. Was that the original Largo?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: No, the original was like this little piano bar.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I see.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Uh, but the, the new Largo is great too. It's awesome.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: For sure. Uh, so I mentioned Mr. Show before, if
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: you're familiar with Mr. Show with Bob and David, um,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: that is essentially alt comedy at its core. And most
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: of the people associated with the show, if not all
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: of them were alt comics of the time, early, early
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: mid nineties. Right. Um, Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, Mark Maron, PFT,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: the great Paul F. Tompkins. Yeah. One of the funniest
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: people alive. Mary Lynn Raskub.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: She's great.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was like, who is that? And I went
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: and looked her up. I'm like, oh, OK. I had
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: no idea that she started out as a stand up.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: But she was great on Larry Sanders as the booking
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: assistant to, I think, Janine Garofalo, right?
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Janine Garofalo was on that show.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: And she's probably more well-known by mainstream America as a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: character on 24. She was on 24 basically the entire
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: run of the show. I'm not sure what she did, though,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: because I didn't watch it.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was great. She was part of that crew.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: I know you mentioned Maria Bamford, but if you've never
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: seen Maria Bamford's comedy, please go see it because she's
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: still one of the most original comedians working today, for sure.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you said still, because most of these comedians,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: the ones who are still alive, are still working and
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: still doing stuff, and a lot of them are still
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: doing stand-up. Like David Cross, he's had some Mondo TV hits,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: like he was on Arrested Development, he was on Mr. Show,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: he's been on just tons of movies and just killed
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: on all of them. He still does stand-up pretty regularly,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: as a matter of fact. Oh, yeah. Does Patton Oswalt still?
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah. So these guys are still doing stand-up, which
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: is Really, to their credit, because most of them, I mean,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Patton Oswalt was on what? Was it King of Queens?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: I don't remember either, but he had a huge role
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: in like a major network television show. Like, I just
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: think it's amazing that they're still doing stand-up because as
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: we've seen, people like Steve Martin and Robin Williams and
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: all that. It's like once they became huge, they left
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: stand-up behind. The early 90s alt comics did not. And
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: they had some other there were some other characteristics besides
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: just appearing in small like alternative clubs, too.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You know, it was, I guess, sort
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: of an alternative point of view.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: And this was in the 90s at a time where
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: alternative music that was just sort of the buzzword for
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: anything that kind of broke from the previous mainstreams of
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: the 80s.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: So a little more like they were making like insider
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: references more. A little less like set up punchline and
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: more sort of observational, like wry humor about life and
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: telling stories about their lives and stuff like that.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: What else?
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: They eschewed the racism, generally homophobia. Essentially, if you if
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: you're familiar with Don Rickles, imagine the antithesis of Don Rickles.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: One of the alt comics from this time, too, is
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: very sadly no longer with us because he was also
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: one of the funniest people around. His mind was just
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: a national treasure, was Mitch Hedberg. Yeah. Were you into him?
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's the greatest. We've talked about him on the
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: show before. Mitch Hedberg is very, very sad that we
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: lost him because he was just kind of getting started,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: I feel like.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he really was. I came across, I think, a
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: BuzzFeed list of 275 people. Of his jokes ranked from
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: worst to best. And there really was no worst one
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: on there. They're all just wonderful.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: God bless you, BuzzFeed.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Would you like to hear one?
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only disease you
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: can get yelled at for having.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I think I remember that joke.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And his like delivery too was just... just amazing. Yeah.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: His whole act was great. So, yeah, I'm sad he's
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: gone too.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: There was a thing though with alt comedy where some
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: like club comics would sometimes sort of deride that scene.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I know Bill Burr in 2012 called it that scene
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: like you were in a comedy womb.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Like it was a real safe place to go and
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: you weren't just going up in front of like a
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: potentially hostile. I think there's like This idea that you
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: earn your stripes by going in front of hostile crowds
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: that might hate you and might heckle you.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: And you got to earn your stripes that way in
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the comedy world.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: And I think that all comedy scene, there were some
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: comics that thought that that was probably not going to
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: happen there.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: So it was a little too easy.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he definitely thought that. And I think his point was,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: if you took those comedians and put them in a
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: regular club, they would. not do very well because they
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: hadn't gone through heckling or something like that. And I
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: think more to the point, I read the transcript of this.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: It was on some podcast, a comedy podcast. And he
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: was saying that one of the things that really rubbed
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: in the wrong way was that if their jokes bombed
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: or something like that, they just told the audience that
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: the audience was too dumb to get what genius they were.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: And I was like, as I was reading that, I
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: was like, totally. I could totally see most of these
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: alt comics that I've mentioned telling the audience they're not
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: getting it, that that's why they're not laughing, that it's them.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: And he called that out. And I was like, okay,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I kind of get that. It was a little more
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: nuanced than that. Yeah.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And I never thought I'd be standing here defending Bill Burr,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: but you know what I mean.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Uh, you know, with the rise of podcasting, you talked
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: earlier about, uh, comedy podcasts, and that's such a huge
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: thing now. Like most of the shows I listened to
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: are comedy shows. And, uh, Mark Maron's WTF, of course,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: was an interview show. Uh, and the Joe Rogan experience,
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: you know, Joe Rogan started out.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: As a standup. Um, both of those shows were created
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: in 2009.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: And, um, You know, before Joe Rogan experience became like super,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: super political, it was much more of a and I
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: think he still does some of that stuff now with
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: this little comedy crew. But it was much more of
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: like a Marin, like let's just have comedians on kind
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: of thing.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, he he very frequently referred to it as the craft.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: And I don't think I've ever seen a commenter online
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: talk about him saying the craft and not deriding.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: It is a craft. I guess you just can't say
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: that out loud, huh?
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: There was a great takedown video of him by another
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: stand-up when he did that recent live stream comedy stand-up
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: show Joe Rogan did.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Apparently it didn't go all that well. All right. And
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: this stand-up basically just disassembled it and pointed out all
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: the reasons why, and it was very funny. But supposedly
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Joe Rogan used his clout to get it taken down
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: at YouTube, which is not super cool.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah, I didn't hear about that.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: But no matter what you think of Joe Rogan, his politics,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: the people he has on, his views, his opinions, it's
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: indisputable that he's had an enormous impact on comedy of
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: all kinds in the 21st century because of how huge
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: his podcast is and because of how often he'll use
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: his platform to bring on up-and-coming comedians. But because of
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: the politics, most of those comedians are like, at least center-right,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: if not full-on right-wing comedians. And it's a huge, yeah,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: it's been a huge shift. I mean, you know, in
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: the United States, it's been an enormous shift. And Joe
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Rogan's a huge reason why that's happened.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that, actually.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: I guess I don't keep up with the comedy scene
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: as much, so I didn't know that was sort of
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: a thing.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about that. So, yes, those same alt-right
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: comedians are often criticized in the same way that the
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: early 90s alt comedians were. That was like Bill Burr said,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: it was a comedy womb that they weren't exposing themselves
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: to what club comedians normally did. And the same thing
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: is with the alt-right comedians today because they start out
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: on podcasts usually. Right. Not even necessarily as stand-up. They're
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: just funny guys on podcasts. And they go out and
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: they get nothing but love on these podcasts. And then
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: they go out. They've generated enough followers on Instagram or
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: whatever to automatically get booked in a club.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Apparently, I read somewhere that 250,000 followers on Instagram is
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: like an automatic yes for a weekend at a club,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: maybe even headlining there. But some of them have zero
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: experience doing stand-up. And so the criticism is like, that's
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: not good for the person coming to see you because
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: they paid that money and they're expecting a good stand-up
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: performance when you're taking this funny guy on the podcast
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: out of the conversation and all that stuff. And it's
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: just that person on stage.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: It doesn't always go very well. They don't always necessarily
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: become a good standup because they're funny on a podcast.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: And just the same way we're like that, that funny
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: guy at work.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't necessarily do very well as a standup either because
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: it's a totally different context.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Uh, you know, or they might like I always encourage
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: funny people to try it because you never know. And
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: we'll get to that at the end, like kind of
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: the best steps for dipping your toe in that pond.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, you're right.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, the gatekeeping is different these days, of course,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: with social media and podcast. It's not like the old
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: days where you would, you know, get up at coffee
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: houses and open mic nights and then eventually maybe try
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: and crack in to doing five minutes on like a
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: local comedy night or something like that at.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: A real club.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: If you have that social media following like you're talking about,
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: if you have your own podcast, like you can bypass
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: sort of what used to be locked gates.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Mark Maron, shout out.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: And it's just a different scene now. I don't know
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: if it's good or bad. I think a lot of
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: the old school comics probably complain about it. But I'm
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: not a stand-up, so I just sort of see it
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: for what it is, I think.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's tough at the end of the day
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: to feel good about arguing about democratizing anything.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, true.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: I think the point is that there's more non-funny stand-ups
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: potentially than there ever have been in the history of
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the world right now.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: That's not to say that all people who get their
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: start on social media or podcasts aren't great at stand-up.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Do you remember the girl and her boyfriend who was
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: hanging out backstage with us in Toronto? I think you
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: met them briefly.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: That was Michelle Sui. And Yumi found her on Instagram.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And she is hilarious, not just like on Instagram, but
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: also in person. She's like a very, very early on
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: in her career stand up. But Party Hardiston, Patty, I
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: can't remember her last name. You know, Party Hardiston, she
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: appears on Tim Robinson's stuff sometimes.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I know her as an actor, and she is totally
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: weird and amazing.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Yes. If you follow her on Instagram, she's just constantly
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: bringing the good stuff. So, yeah, it's not a total
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: critique of social media or podcasts in general. It definitely
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: has had a massive impact on stand-up comedy. Not all
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: of it good.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. Should we take a break?
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: All right. We're going to take a break and talk
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: about the transition to the one-person show right after this.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: I promised talk of the one person show. And that
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: is it's sort of a thing where it's stand up,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: but it's skinned a little bit differently. And they're often
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: it's usually billed as like a one person show or
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: like an evening with or something like that.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: And it's definitely comedy.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: But there can be very deep, sad moments of pathos
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: and just sadness. There's usually a very well-crafted. kind of
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: arc to the show, like it feels much more sort
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: of plotted out. Mike Birbiglia, of course, is one of
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: the masters of this craft. Alex Edelman and his great
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: show Just for Us that ran on Broadway. Gary Gullman,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: one of my favorite comedians of all time, he has
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: kind of made that transition in the last few years
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: to a little bit more of a one person show.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Rather than straight up joke telling.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: And our buddy, John Hodgman, you know, John always calls
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: his stand up imitation stand up like he won't say
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: he does stand up. And it's definitely sort of a
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: one person show. But it's all of this stuff is
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: always very, very funny. It's just sort of slightly different
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: than like a standard stand up set.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Yes. And those are all great examples, too, not just
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: of great like one person shows, but also great examples
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: of why a lot of people are like, that's not
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: stand-up comedy. That's different. That just seems to be like
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: an unnecessary controversy. I don't think it really matters. But
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: there are definitely purists out there, if it hasn't become
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: clear yet, who are like, this is stand-up comedy. Everything
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: else ain't. And that's one of the things that they
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: point to frequently is like, that's not stand-up comedy. One
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: huge target was Nanette. From Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby that
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: came out in 2017 and was a massive like cultural
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: tidal wave here in the United States for sure. And
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I think in a bunch of other countries too. And
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: like there, it was mostly like gut punches with some
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: funny stuff carrying it between, but it was, And it
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: was not funny. And in fact, she almost kind of uses,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: if not directly, I haven't seen it, but I had
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: to read a bunch about it. It seems like she
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: uses or she points out that comedy can be harmful
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: because it can take, you know, stuff that really needs
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: to get out and just kind of keep it simmered.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Like it doesn't let it out all the way. And
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: so a lot of people are like, that's not, don't
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: call that comedy. And it gets called comedy because Hannah
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Gadsby started out as a standup.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Seth Meyers coined a term called claptor
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: comedy rather than laughter comedy. And this it's like a
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: show where like the audience will give applause in agreement
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: with the person on stage and the points that they're
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: making rather than like having people rolling in the aisles laughing.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And in the case of Nanette. It's like they're
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: clapping like you're so brave for doing this. And she
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: is indisputably brave for having done that show. But but yes,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: she's not really making people laugh or she's making people laugh.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: They're laughing out of relief because it's carrying them out
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of this horrific story that she's just finished, you know?
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: You know, Tig Notaro is a very, very funny comedian.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: And she actually had us perform live at her comedy
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: festival yesterday. And is a wonderful human being as well.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: But she– Tig is probably one of the biggest risk
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: takers in comedy, I think. And also just from hearing
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: interviews with her and seeing her work, like, seems to
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: care as little as any comedian I've ever seen as
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: to what people think about her and her stand-up. That's–
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Like just totally comfortable in her own skin, does what
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: she does. She very famously performed topless after her mastectomy
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: and her breast cancer.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: So, you know, that's what Tig would do.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Or when she went, I don't know if you ever
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: saw when she went on Conan and moved the chair
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: around for her whole act.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: She went on stage and instead of doing comedy, she,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: I guess in rehearsals, I think as the story goes,
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: she had a routine, but realized that this chair made
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: an awful, like, squeaky sound when it moved across the stage.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: And so she got up there and she moved this
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: chair around for five minutes.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: That was it.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Like, was she talking while she was doing it? No.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: So she just wasn't talking. She was just moving the chair.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Moving the chair. It stopped.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: That's funny.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Get a reaction. Move the chair.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Conan is doubled over laughing like on the side about
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: just the, you know, the chutzpah of taking the charge,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: doing something like that.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. One more thing on Claptor. It doesn't
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: have to just be like brave or you're a risk
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: taker or something like that. It can it can just
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: be as simple as like preaching to the choir. So telling,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: you know, Democrat jokes or Republican jokes to an audience
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: full of liberals. That's Claptor, you know.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure. Or like us on stage.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, for sure. That's why I'm saying I don't think
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I would translate to a good standup because like talk
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: about a womb, like everyone who's there knows who we are.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: They listen to us. They came to see us expecting
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: exactly what we're doing. Remember that group of women at
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: the casino in Ottawa? Yeah.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I have no idea if they thought we were funny
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: at all. They had no idea who we were. They
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: just came because they got comp tickets by the casino.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And it's still not clear to me whether they thought
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: we were funny or if they sat there because we
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: called them out at the very beginning of the show
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: and they felt obligated to sit there now.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, I bet they had a good time.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know if they thought we were like
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: the funniest comedians they'd ever seen, but they stayed.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: They did stay. You can't argue with that.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Uh, What else?
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: Cell phones is a big deal these days because, you know,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: you can get famous and go viral for taking down
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: a heckler on stage, which has nothing to do with
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: your actual stand up set. It's always fun seeing a
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: comedian take down a heckler. But in the days of
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: social media and people with their phones in the audience.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: You might become like super, super famous as a stand
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: up for like somebody that like jumps up on stage
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: and physically attacks you or something. It's an interesting time.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. Or the crowd work is all it's not even
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: putting a heckler down like it's with a lot of
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: younger stand up comedians today. It's like prompted like, hey,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: how are you doing? Are you here tonight? And then.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: instead of making a joke and moving on, that's like
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: five minutes of material.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Like talking to the person on the front row.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then moving on to somebody else. And it's
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: not even necessarily funny. It might be funny throughout, but
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: not all of them are really particularly funny. And like
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: crowd work is the bulk of that, that, that act.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: And again, the club comedians, the purists are like, what
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: are you doing? That's not stand-up comedy. You're not even
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: writing anything. You're just sitting there riffing with people in
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: the audience, you know?
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I'm a sucker for crowd work.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Well, okay. Well, then you would like this guy. I
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: discovered him from researching. His name's Big Jay Oakerson. I'm
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: not sure his sense of humor is exactly dovetailing with yours,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: but I think it's enough that you would find him funny.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: But he interacts with the crowd by basically... It's almost
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: like improv where he's like, what kind of joke do
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: you guys want to hear? And somebody will say something
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: and he just makes up a joke on the spot.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And it's not like a one liner necessarily.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Might even be like a little plot to it or something.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: But it's pretty impressive what he's doing off of the cuff.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, Rory Scoville does that. He's probably my
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: favorite stand up right now.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: He and Gary Goldman. But Rory, I mean, he has
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: shows where he writes a set and does that.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: And that's great. But he will also do these a
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: lot of times.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: It's like five nights in a row in a city
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: where he will tell everyone ahead of time, like these
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: are improv stand up shows. And man, you talk about
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: the guts to stand up on stage with no material.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: And just start making stuff up. And it's not a
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: 10 minute set or whatever. Like he's up there for
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: an hour just making stuff up. And it's so, so funny.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. He's funny. His mind is capable
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: of doing that, you know? Yeah. So you mentioned Rory
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Scoville working today. There's a bunch of other people working
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: today that are great in addition to him. Kyle Kinane
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: is another good one.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Love Kyle.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: My favorite, though, can I just go ahead and say
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: who my favorite comedian of all time is, though? I
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: think you might know.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I think I know, but go ahead.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Anthony Jezelnik, is that who you're going to say?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: That's who I was going to say.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know that there's ever been a funnier person
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: on the planet than Anthony Jezelnik.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: He's great.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: And we know some people who know him and he's
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: he's he's a really good guy, too. Right.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: And he right now, I don't know if you know this,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: you probably do, but he's got a book club now
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: that he started. No. And like promoting literacy is one
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: of his big jams now. And I guess sort of
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: a joke around that was he was when he's promoting
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: this stuff and, you know, he has that delivery. And
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: he said that, you know, people tell me they don't
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: like to read. And I always tell them, you're you're
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: just reading books. books that are too long. So all
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: of his books and his book clubs are like really short. Uh,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: and that's his, his argument is that like, uh, people
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: think they don't like to read because they're, they're trying
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: to read stuff that's too long. And so he's, he's
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: genuinely promoting like reading, uh, literacy and stuff.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: It's, it's pretty awesome.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: That is the, that is the opposite of what his
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: persona is. Like his persona is, is insult comic, but
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: also really dark.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: And really, um, Really egotistical and arrogant and yes, he's
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: not really like that in real life But he's managed
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: to keep that going that persona going for like 20
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: years Yeah, he has I think three Netflix specials all
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: three of them kill every time we've ever seen him
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: in person It's just like you just like you said
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: we were like Conan like doubled over laughing like yeah
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: laughing as hard as you ever have out loud the
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: bunch of other people laughing and A bunch of other
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: people who aren't laughing because they had no idea what
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: they were going to see. And if you're not prepared
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: to go see him, especially if you're sensitive at all
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: to some types of humor, you're not going to have
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: a good time. But I would suggest everybody go look
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: up Anthony Jezelnik.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's great.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: And you can't do much better these days than Mulaney still.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: He's one of those that I think has sort of
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: mastered the craft. such that he just can do no wrong.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: And he, next year, I tried to get tickets to
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: some of these, but have you heard about his Mulaney
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: takes Manhattan run that he's doing? He's doing seven nights
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: in New York in a row. And he's starting out
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: at like the comedy cellar. And then it's like comedy cellar,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: then Bowery ballroom. And then he goes up and up
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: and up through Carnegie.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Hall radio city. And then eventually Madison square garden.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: And all of those, you know, I signed up for the,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: list to try and get into any of those shows
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: and could not get into any of them.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe that, though, except for Madison Square Garden. Man,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: that's big time, dude, to sell out Madison Square Garden.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, dude, I think he last year went
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: on a run where he sold out like multiple nights
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: in a row at Madison Square Garden.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: He's just crushing it. Yeah.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I have one more anecdote about Anthony Jezelnik.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: All right, let's hear it.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: We went and saw him at Funny Bone. Which was
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: the one that was on Roswell Road? I don't think
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: it's there anymore.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I think Funny Bone.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Funny Bone? No, that was out in Roswell. This was
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: the Punchline.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Punchline.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: So we saw him at the Punchline, which is a
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: really tiny club for any of you who've never been
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: to the Punchline in Atlanta. I mean, like maybe a 75,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: maybe a hundred person seat club. So it was really small.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: And this was the first time we saw him and
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: we were just laughing. But Yumi was like really, really laughing.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: I think the joke that got her, he was saying
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: that his family scattered his grandma's ashes outside of the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: funeral home because that's where his arms got tired from
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: carrying the urn. And just, it just got Yumi. So
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: she's laughing, crying.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: So much so that he stopped the show and asked her,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: he was like, what's your name? And she said, Yumi.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: And he goes, I want all of you laughing like Yumi.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I want Yumi, Yumi, Yumi.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: So that's how hard we laugh at Anthony Jeselnik. And
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: if you go check out Anthony Jeselnik and you're like,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: this is wrong, don't judge us.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: No, he's great.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I wish I could have seen that.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was great.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Should we take a break?
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: I think we should. Is this our first or second?
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's our second break.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, we'll find out in the edit.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah. We'll come back and talk about some less fun
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: stuff like the psychology of stand-up right after this. Thank you.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, we're back, Chuck. And as you promised, we're going
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: to stop talking about funny stuff. We're going to talk
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: about the psychology of being a stand-up because there, as
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: you can probably guess, there's a specific type of person
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: who makes a Good stand up. And it's actually been
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: studied a little bit here or there.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't think it's any secret that most
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: stand ups will say that like their comedy oftentimes comes
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: from pain. If you polled 100 stand ups, you'd probably
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: be in like the 80 something percentile of people that
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: weren't like, yeah, I had a great childhood. I grew
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: up and I was just happy all the time and
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: everything was awesome in my life.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: But they have studied it.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: There's a guy named David Webb on the all about
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: psychology sub stack. who found some studies and found that,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: you know, as it bears out compared to population averages,
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: stand-ups have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and emotional distress,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: which is not surprising.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: No. And actually, to kind of dig in a little further,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: there's something called the Oxford Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: or OLIFE. And there are some dimensions that pop up
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: that comedians score higher on that. If you put the
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: whole thing together, you're like, yeah, I can kind of
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: see that's a stand up comedian. They score high on
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: unusual experiences. So they perceive things differently, use magical style thinking.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: They make unexpected connections that other people might not make.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: There's your jokes right there.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: One of the other ones is cognitive disorganization. So a
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: thought style that may be a little more scattered or
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: shifting kind of quickly between things. A lot of times
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: that can really be gasoline for getting great ideas, even
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: though it may not be the easiest thing like in life.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, living with a disorganized mind is very difficult. Also,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: so can introvert of anhedonia be difficult because you might
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: have trouble making social connections. And yet at the same time,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: you want to. validation from people. So you go get
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: it from strangers on stage.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of lonely and you don't enjoy
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: being around people. And that's a stand up comic if
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: I've ever met one.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And then the last one was impulsive nonconformity.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: So, you know, someone who will break a rule, push
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: a boundary, obviously someone who will say something that no
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: one else would say, like in public, they would say
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: it on stage. And it's not, you know, You know,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: this is like a Venn diagram when it comes to
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: this stuff. It's like a combination of different things out
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: of these lists will maybe make someone a little more
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: inclined to do stand up or maybe be good at
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: stand up. Yeah. But, you know, you have to be
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: someone who's quick witted and make quick associations between things
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: and be comfortable not, you know, necessarily being a part
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: of the middle of the road of life, you know.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: You know, when I read this and think about it,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: when I see all those components broken out, I see
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Dave Vettel standing there as like the example, the illustrated
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: example of the standup comedian.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: One of the all-time greats.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And he's like, he's like Norm Macdonald in the
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: sense that he's like a comedian's comedian. Like a lot
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: of people might not find them that funny. Sorry, Dave.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: But Pretty much every stand-up comedian, especially the club comics,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: are going to just say, like, that guy's a legend. Oh, yeah.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: And you can still, I mean, you can go see
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Dave up in the Comedy Cellar in New York on
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: any given, like, random Tuesday. You know, he's still just like,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I feel like guys like that and performers like that
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: just love being on stage and doing it. And, like,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: it's not about, like, you know, Patton Oswalt's still doing stand-up.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: He doesn't need to do that kind of thing. He's
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: made a great living as an actor. But they just
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: love getting up there and telling jokes and making people laugh,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: like in being in a room with that energy.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Who doesn't? Seriously, I mean, I think anybody would love
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: to have all their jokes laughed at. But yeah, it's
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: just whether your jokes are actually funny or not is
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the key.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: You know, if you're a stand up, like I mentioned,
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: you might have had like a rough go as a kid.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: You probably had to not like found humor as a
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Maybe as a defense in life, like maybe you were
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: bullied or maybe it was a bit of survival skill
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: in your own family. Obviously, the worst situations if there's
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: real abuse, but at the very least, just like maybe
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: a happy, not so happy family with family tension.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And it was a survival skill for you.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. When you're being threatened to be beaten up by
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: a bully, you'd say something like, take my lunch, please.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: And then the bully would just crack up and let
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: you go.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Classic move.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: There's some other things that don't fare well for being
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: a stand-up, too. According to a 2016 study done by
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Australian researchers, the average stand-up comedian dies 10 years earlier
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: than people in the general population. Yeah. That's a significant
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: amount of time. Yeah.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: How do they explain that?
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Think about how much life you could pack into 10 years, Chuck.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I know. I'm thinking about my first 10 years. I
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: accomplished a lot.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But they looked at 200 stand-up comedians and they
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: compared them to comic actors and dramatic actors. And stand-ups
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: died younger than both, although not as much as compared
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: to the general population.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: I think 80 percent of those stand-ups still died of
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: natural causes, but they were likelier to die from non-natural
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: causes like accidents or obviously overdoses is included in that
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: or by suicide.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: On a banana peel, which is the classic way for
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: a stand-up comedian to die young.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: So what if you want to be a stand-up? What
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: should you do? What are the steps you should take?
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, there's a lot of stuff you can do. It
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: turns out there's a lot of people on the internet
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: who like to write blog posts about that. And we
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: looked through a bunch of them and found that they
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: all kind of generally fall into the same handful of categories.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: One of the basic ones, obviously, is come up with material.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: You say, duh. But there's some things you have to
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: do to come up with material. I think most comedians
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: suggest you start with a solid five minutes of material.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Most of the reason why is because wherever you get
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: like your shot at getting up on stage, especially as
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: somebody brand new, you're probably going to get five minutes.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: So you just want to have that prepared and you
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: want to prepare way more than five minutes of jokes
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: just to start. Right.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: Have you seen the latest Bradley Cooper movie that he
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: directed with Will Arnett?
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Is this thing on?
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: No.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: It was actually pretty good.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: You're the only person I've met who said that.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: That said it was pretty good. Oh, I liked it
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: quite a bit.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: It's about this guy who accidentally stumbles on stage for
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: an open mic night. Just this, you know, dad and
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: a family going through a divorce and it stand up
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: ends up being kind of the thing that he loves doing.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I liked it.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Cool.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Who said they didn't like it? Everyone else that you
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: spoke to about it?
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Well, people online, typically. I didn't see that it was
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: very well. You're the only person I know who's seen it, actually.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: From my impression, it just wasn't very well received.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Well, hey, buddy, I received it.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, now you give me a reason to go
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: check it out. If you thought it was good, you
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: got good taste in movies. I know that.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I thought it was pretty good. But
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: that was a sidetrack. After you have your material, you
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: got to practice it, of course.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Especially like you can get away with having notes
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: on stage if you're like a super well-known comic and
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: you're like workshopping new material and you can make a
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: joke about like, oh, the notes are on my stool.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: But like you don't want to get up there looking
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: at any notes if you're just starting out like that's
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: a bad look.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: No. And actually, that brings up another Jeselnik anecdote. The
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: first time we saw him was at South by Southwest
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: years and years and years ago. And he was part
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: of like four or five other comedians. And he was
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: like one of the last ones to get up. And
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: all the other comedians had their little notebooks that they
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: were basically reading off of on stage. And Jeselnik gets
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: up there, his stuff's totally polished and everything. And he's like,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I don't have my notebook with me. I feel so unprepared.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Then he proceeded to kill.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Of course he did.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: So once you had that material, once it's practiced, you
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: want to You know, you want to make it really good.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: And so that means you need to do it in
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: front of people. So pick something very low stakes. Obviously,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: if you're someone who's never done it, you're not going
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: to have any other choice but low stakes. It'll just
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: be a local open mic or something like that. But
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: that's where the rubber meets the road. And that's where
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: you're going to figure out, like, not only what's funny,
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: but like how you tell it. Can you tell it
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: in a different way? Can your timing be a little different?
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Can you stress a certain word? Or paste something in
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: a little bit different way to make something that wasn't
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: funny one night funny the next night.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it'll also give you some real insight into
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: how you should structure your five minutes, right? So what
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: joke goes where? You want to start with something strong,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: often like a one-liner. Then you put your riskier stuff
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: in the middle, which doesn't necessarily mean just like, you know,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: potentially tasteless jokes. But like weird jokes, maybe something that
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: doesn't have a punchline. And then you follow with like
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: your biggest joke, the one you know you're going to
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: get the most laughs from because then you get to
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: walk off stage to that applause while people are still laughing. Yeah.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: And not always, but oftentimes that last joke is a
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: rejoinder where you might circle back to something from the beginning. Again,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: there are no rules, but that seems to be a
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: formula that works pretty well. Yes.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck. Here's a really important question that I'm interested
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: in exploring because no one's answered it and it's certainly
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: not settled. But the question is as follows. Should there
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: be any topic that's off limits for stand up comedians?
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: What's your answer?
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Well, my honest answer is no, because it just feels
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: to me like a medium that should just be completely
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: wide open, but it's like that free speech thing, not
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: free from consequences. If you wanna get up there and
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: say awful things about a group of people or something,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: I think it should be allowed, but people may hate
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: it and people may put up a big fuss and
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: hate you because of it.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Yes. Okay, well, you're in good company because basically every
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: standup comedian on record who's gone on record about it
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: is like, yes, or no, there should not be any
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: topic that's off limits for stand-up comedy. But if you
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: dig in a little further and go one layer deeper
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: and you say, well, wait a minute, do you mean
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: that no topic should be off limits for any comedian,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: any individual comedian? Or you're saying that for stand-up comedy
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: in general, no topic should be off limits. And then
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: like a division. starts to come about because you reach
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: the question like who can say what about who. Right.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: And that's where the debate really starts to begin.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, for sure. What do you think?
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: I think it cuts both ways. I think that if
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: you think that you have something very funny and insightful
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: that you could make basically anyone laugh with that's offensive
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: and you're willing to take the risk, more power to you.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: And I hope it is funny because something like that
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: can just be groundbreaking. On the opposite side, if you're
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: offended by a joke, I think that it's incumbent upon
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: you to stop and say, why am I offended by this? Like,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: what is actually offending me personally about this? Or am
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: I being offended on behalf of some other people who
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: may not even be offended by it? And if you
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: start traipsing into that territory, I think you should examine
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: yourself a little further and your sensitivities, because I think
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: that that's a, That's something that can help people in
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: life in general, not just in taking stand-up comedy in
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: ways that it can just make you laugh.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: You know, there have been cases where there have been
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: comedians with like certain disabilities that get up on stage
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: and part of their act, sometimes a big part of
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: their act is making fun of that disability in a
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: certain way. So, you know, that's a case where obviously
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: someone that, or, you know, like any sort of ethnic joke, joke,
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: if someone is of that ethnicity, it's obviously going to
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: go over a little bit less with less controversy.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: If you're not of a certain ethnic group and you're
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: making fun of a different group other than yourself, like
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: I still say more power to you if that's your thing.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: But just be be ready if it's like not good
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: or it doesn't work, you know?
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: I think the key, the through line here is if
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: it's funny. If it's so funny that that group that
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: you're making fun of or that is involved in the joke,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: even if you're not making fun of them, if they
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: will laugh, then it's just legitimately, objectively funny, I think,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: at that point.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And it also depends on how much people love you.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: People generally kind of love Sarah Silverman. I know, obviously,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: she has people who don't like her, but she's sort
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: of a beloved comic. And She has got a, you know,
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: in her past, like some derogatory ethnic slurs in her routines.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: She's made very famously, had some rape jokes in her
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: past routines. She wore blackface. And Sarah Silverman always seems
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: to bounce back. And I think it's because people like
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Sarah Silverman. And I love Sarah Silverman.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: She's very lovable. And the thing is, is she's not
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: beloved by, you know— like racists, she's beloved by like
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: the people who kind of lean social justice warrior. And
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: yet she's extremely well known for telling racist jokes. The, the,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: I think the reason why she's able to, um, to
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: traverse those very dangerous waters is because at the end
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: of the day, her racist jokes are not putting down
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: any group. She's actually pointing out this, like the, the,
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: secret thoughts that people like her or in her group
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: feel guilty about having.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: Right. Yeah.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: So it's not like she's putting down black people. She's
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: pointing out how, you know, like white people like inadvertently
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: think of black people and don't even aren't even aware
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: of it. She points that out.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: And it obviously also matters like the power structure and
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: the power dynamic as a comedian. So Ronnie Chang is
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: a comedian. His last special was incredible.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: And he makes fun of white people a lot in
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: that show because and he can get away with that
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: because he's an immigrant to the United States who is
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: in a position of less power than the white people
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: that he's making fun of. So he's he's punching up.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: And you've heard of like punching up or punching down,
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: like punching up is is almost always funny. Punching down
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: is is usually not funny.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just really not. I mean, it's just not
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: like textbook. It's not funny almost ever.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I love Dave Chappelle, but he seems to
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: have just gotten kind of mean with some of his
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: stand up. And that's to me where it kind of
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: crosses the line is like and it's just a personal opinion.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: But I don't know. I haven't found him as funny.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: I hate to say it, but I agree with you.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's because he's being mean. I think
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: it's because he's turned kind of preachy.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: And he's gotten away from jokes more.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: I think he's just I think he's become so uncoupled from,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: you know, the average person because he's just become so
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: vastly wealthy.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: That it's hard for him to relate. And then also,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: I think he doesn't like being come after. I think
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: that that's really like affected him. And so he's coming
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: out offensively even harder.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: But, you know, like like we said, it's like you
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: can say what you want, but the audiences are the
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: ones who are going to have the final say. So
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: it's society who's going to. ultimately decide like what's funny
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: and what isn't and who should be allowed to say
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: what or not, you know, because that's what you're doing.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: You're getting up on stage in front of people and saying,
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: judge me, basically. And people will judge you one way
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: or the other. Right.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: For sure. There's one other thing that really stuck out
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: to me, too, was you had said I don't know
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: if it was in this episode or the last where
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: you weren't familiar with the alt-right comedy becoming a big thing.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: like around Joe Rogan. I saw a really good explanation
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: for why that's emerged. And that was that back in
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: like the 70s and 80s, America was very, very conservative.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: And so it made sense for left-leaning, liberal thinking comedians
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: to be huge because the comedian's job is to basically
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: take on the establishment, to criticize the establishment. Well, if
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: you follow the arc of American society through the 90s,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: it got way more liberal and Way more politically correct.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: And so the people more on the outside of that
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: type of society are right-leaning and they became the ones
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: whose role it was to attack the establishment. That's the
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: best example I've seen or best explanation I've seen for
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: the rise of alt-right comedy.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting too.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Hopefully these two episodes were interesting and people weren't just like,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think so.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, great. Well, Chuck doesn't think you guys fell asleep,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: which I think means it's time for listener mail.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: This is we got shouted out in a book yet
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: to be released. And so we're going to plug that book.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: Author Sarah Addison. Hey, guys, I'm reading an advanced copy
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: of Sarah Addison Clark's new book, Paper Ghosts.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: It comes out Tuesday next week.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: So I guess it'll already be out by the time
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: this comes out.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Sure. Y'all got a shout out in the book, guys.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Uh, it's somewhere around chapter 18, although they may change
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: since this is an advanced copy, but one of the
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: main characters had been talking with her friend on the
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: phone about the main plot line. And the next sentence
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: is after they hung up Bailey queued an episode of
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: the stuff you should know podcast, this one explaining chaos theory,
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: which seemed appropriate.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: I saw that.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Pretty great. Uh, Sarah Addison Allen. Well, wait a minute.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: It said Clark earlier.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: So I'm not sure if that was a typer or what,
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: but the author is Sarah Addison Allen. Okay. It's from
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: North Carolina. So a lot of her books, if not all,
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: are set in the southeast. I haven't read them all,
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: but I've enjoyed the ones I've read so far. So
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: I thought I'd share. That is from Abby Sellers.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. Thanks for pointing that out, Abby. And thank
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: you to Sarah Addison Allen, too, for including us. And
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: by the way, you have great taste because that is
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: one of our best episodes, the one on chaos theory.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: That's right. Everyone go out and get Paper Ghosts.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Great, Chuck. That was well done. And if you
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: have seen us out in the wild and want to
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: share a story about it, we'd love to hear that
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: kind of stuff. It's thrilling. You can send it off
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.