George Carlin on Comedy and Humanity

Jeff Turbitt handed me a fascinating book today: Comedy at the Edge - How stand-up in the 1970's changed America. It's a history of modern stand-up starting with Lenny Bruce. In the chapter on George Carlin, Carlin states:

"I think I was looking for familiar frames of reference that lend themselves to distortion. Because distortion is one of the most important things in comedy. You look at an ordinary event, an ordinary tableau, and you say, what element can I distort in this? And suddenly you have at least the potential for a joke."

Later, Carlin more darkly observes,

"I sort of gave up on this whole human adventure a long time ago. Divorced myself from it emotionally. I think the human race has squandered its gift, and I think this country has squandered its promise. I think people in America sold out very cheaply, for sneakers and cheeseburgers. I think they lost their way, and I really have no sympathy for that. And I don't think it's fixable."

Free Comedy Workshop Begins

I've put together this press release that will go out next week. Help me spread the word.

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Have you thought about becoming a stand-up comedian? Do people tell you you’re funny? Do people tell you you’re not funny, but you want to be? Are you interested in writing comedy, or making a living through comedy? Then the Comedy Workshop is for you. This free course will start on Wednesday, February 6 and will meet weekly for four weeks.

The course will feature instruction based on Judy Carter’s famous LA Comedy Workshop. “A few weeks ago, a few friends gathered to explore the idea of putting together a stand-up comedy night,” explained David Khorram, the course organizer. “We realized that we needed some structure to help us move through the process of developing our acts, so we ordered Judy Carter’s instructional DVD series, called ‘Comedy Career in a Box.’ It’s a way to attend her Comedy Workshop, here on a remote island.” Judy Carter is the author of The Comedy Bible and Standup Comedy. She is a renowned comic, speaker and teacher. This unique DVD series takes you step-by-step through the creative process of joke writing and basic and advanced performance techniques.

The goal of the workshop is for each individual to ultimately develop thirty minutes of original comedy material. “Even if you don’t want to perform comedy, but just want to add more humor to your life, to your writing, or to your talks, this is a good way of doing it,” said Khorram. “Understanding comedy also helps you see more humor every day, and helps you appreciate the natural comedy around you. So, this comedy workshop isn’t just for people that want to perform comedy. It’s for anyone who wants to gain an appreciation for how comedy works.” For those interested in performing, the group has planned an evening of stand-up comedy towards the end of February.

Part 1 of the workshop is “Creating Killer Comedy Material.” According to the course materials, you’ll learn to use the same tools your favorite comedians use to write material from your own point of view. It covers how to jumpstart your creativity, fighting stage fright and other worries, joke writing made easy, finding your authentic material, and getting big laughs.

Part 2 focuses on “How Not to Bomb.” In this section you develop your material further and concentrate on performance. You’ll learn secrets to dealing with hecklers, avoiding hack material, the top five mistakes comics make, insider secrets of successful rewrites, how to make the audience love you in five seconds, and building a set that kills.

For those interested in making money, Part 3 is on “Making Money from Being Funny.” It shares secrets from managers, agents, executive producers, casting directors and club bookers on how to get noticed. It features interviews with 18 Hollywood heavy hitters.

The Comedy Workshop will begin on Wednesday, February 6 at 6:45 PM at Marianas Eye Institute on Beach Road Garapan. If you’re interested, contact David Khorram at 235-9090, or by email. There is no charge for the Comedy Workshop. Space is limited.

Stand Up Comedy 101 - The Funny

In my last post I discussed the Set Up. Here I'll summarize The Funny, as described by Judy Carter, in her excellent book, The Comedy Bible.

The Funny

Once you have the set-up -- the serious part -- you just need to think about how to express this in a funny way. The quickest and easiest way is through the “act out.” The Funny has two elements

1. The Act Out. This is where you act out the premise. You act out the situation in the set-up. As Judy says, “Instead of talking about someone or something, you perform it. You turn into the people or things you mentioned in the setup – actually act them out.”

It doesn’t have to be a grand performance. You just take on the attitude of the characters in the set-up. Here again is Robin William’s set-up, with the act-out to follow.

“When you have a baby, you have to clean up your act. You can’t come in drunk and go, ‘Hey, here’s a little switch. Daddy’s going to throw up on you.’”

Here is another example of a simple act-out by Steve Wright. The unstated attitude is, “You know what’s weird about babies?”

“[Premise] Babies don’t need a vacation. But I still see them at the beach. It pisses me off. [Now, here comes the Funny.] When no one’s looking, I’ll go over to a baby and ask, [act-out] ‘What are you doing here? You haven’t worked a day in your life.’”

Now, here are Judy’s set ups with the act outs. Notice that the premises have been elaborated, with more specific detail, giving a richer set up.

• [set up] Piercing is stupid. It’s painful enough just to being in a relationship hurts so much, working for a stupid boss hurts, paying taxes hurts. There is no need to add to it. in a relationship. There is no need to add to it. [act out] “Oh gee, I’m just not feeling enough pain in my life. I think I need to pierce my tongue.”
• [set up] It’s hard being pierced when you go through metal detectors at the airport. [act out] “’Buzzzz!’ [security guard] ‘Please remove all of your jewelry, miss.’ [pierced person] ‘Oh, OK! [Then act out, removing a lot of rings in weird places.] Can you help me with this one/’” {imagine where she’s pointing}

2. The Mix-Up. Although any joke can end with the act-out, you can get point out another dimension of the subject with this tool. Judy Carter states, “A good mix is where a comic connects two elements that people don’t associate with one another. The laugh comes from the way the comic connects them. It’s the ‘surprise’ element that causes laughter.”

Mixes generally start with “Can you imagine if” or “What if” and are almost always followed by another act-out.

Here is an example of a mix by Dennis Miller.

“I view a visit to the therapist in much the same way I view a visit to the hairdresser… When I leave the office my head looks great; around an hour later, it’s all f'd up and I can’t get it to look that way on my own. ‘Excuse me, doc, can I get a little mousse for my id?’”

He mixes therapist and hairdresser, and follows it with an act out of himself talking to the therapist, incorporating elements of the mix. The humor is in the surprise and the juxtaposition of unlikely elements.

That's it. That's the basic structure of putting together a solid joke for stand up comedy: The set up followed by the act-out and the mix-up. Join us on Wednesday to try out your ideas and to see the first few bits that the other comics have developed. December 12, 7:30 PM at Marianas Eye Institute on Beach Road.

Stand Up Comedy 101 - The Set Up

We had our first comedy meet-up on Wednesday night -- a great start! Five committed soon to be comics were there, and we reviewed some of the basics. I had summarized some of the key segments from Judy Carter's The Comedy Bible, which we're using as our guide. Everyone is ordering a copy, and we'll get together weekly to review our work. Our next meet-up is on Wednesday, December 12 at Marianas Eye Institute at 7:30 PM. We will be performing our material to get feedback from one another.

Here is the first part of the material I summarized. It's all taken from The Comedy Bible, which I highly recommend.

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Humor is about insight, seeing something in a unique way. Developing as a comedian is about finding your perspective and your voice.

Any comedic material has two parts

1. The Set Up
2. The Funny

The Set Up

The Set Up is the serious part of the joke. It’s just an observation or an insight about something, expressed with a certain attitude. In fact, the set up consists of three elements

1. The topic. This is simply what the joke is about – babies, money, lint, baldness, whatever.

2. The attitude. The energy that drives a joke is the attitude of the comic regarding the topic. There are dozens of attitudes, but for the beginning comic, there are four that work the best: something is either weird, hard, scary or stupid. Ingrain these four attitudes in your mind. You have to feel this attitude while setting up the joke, and the best way to invoke the attitude is to start the joke by simply saying:

• You know what’s really weird about __________? (babies, money, lint, etc.)
• You know what’s really hard about ___________?
• You know what’s really scary about ___________?
• You know what’s really stupid about ___________?

Seasoned comics may not use these specific words, but they invoke the attitudes and imply the words. When Jay Leno says, “What’s the deal with the President?” he’s really saying “You know what’s really stupid about the President?”

3. The Premise. This is the answer to the “attitude” question. Here you are going to share your insight or observation about what’s weird, hard, scary or stupid about the topic in a very specific way. The premise is not about you. It’s a statement that your audience can relate to. A good premise is insightful and original. It’s where you get to express your unique view about something. But remember, it’s not supposed to be funny. It’s a serious observation about the world. It shouldn’t have the words, me, my, or I in it. After the audience is interested in your global observation, you can make it more specific to yourself, but it has to start broad.

Here is an example of a set up, used by Robin Williams. He doesn’t start with the question, but he is implicitly asking, “You know what’s hard about having kids?”

“When you have a baby, you have to clean up your act.”

There is nothing at all funny about that. It’s a serious observation that he has made about parenthood, about having a baby.

When you develop comedy, you start by making observations about the world. The comedic mind is alert during the mundane acts of life. Some things may strike you as weird, or hard, or scary or stupid. Just write them down. This is the soil from which the joke will grow. You don’t have to see it as funny. You just have to realize you’ve made an observation about something.

Judy Carter, in her book, the Comedy Bible, takes a topic, “Body Piercing,” and gives examples of premises on that topic. Here is what good set-ups look like:

1. Piercing is stupid. It’s painful enough just to be in a relationship. There is no need to add to it.
2. It’s hard being pierced when you go through metal detectors at the airport.
3. It’s weird to see older people with nose rings.
4. It’s scary that nose rings are now an acceptable business accessory, like cuff links or a tie clip.

Notice, again, there are just observations, statements of her opinions, her view of the facts.

Judy gives a whole checklist of making sure your premise is good, and gives examples of “hack” premises, and how to fix them.

In my next post, I'll discuss "The Funny."

Saipan Comedy Players

If you think you might be a little funny, join us on Wednesday night at Java Joe's at 7:30 PM to launch the Saipan Comedy Players (or whatever we eventually decide to call ourselves -- Club V is starting an open mic night, which they're calling "Laff Adai" so that's taken).

We're going to talk a bit about stand-up, how to be funny by constructing a good premise (which isn't funny, but just an observation that everyone can relate to), and then using tools like "the act out" and "the mix up" to make the funny part work. We might even do a few on-paper exercises.

The goal over the next few weeks is for each of us to develop a 5 to 10 minute stand-up act that will be performed as a fund-raiser. Everyone is invited to this meeting, even if you're just curious. Don't worry... but come prepared to eventually face your fear.

Committed future comedians include Brad Ruszala, Jeff Turbitt, Angelo Villagomez, Galvin Guerrero, Rick Jones and me. How about some women? How about some more ethnic diversity?

Let's Get Naked

I enjoy making people laugh. I think all of us do. A lot of people tell me that they enjoy my humorous writings. I had a friend who took some classes at an improv theatre, and they helped make him funnier. So, I figure, I should be able to improve my funniness. As I'm prone to do, I did some research and bought a few books about how to be funny.

The first one arrived, and it was a shocker. First of all, it says the essence of humor is insight. The funny people are the ones that have the ability to see the world a bit differently than the rest of the people on the planet. They see the ordinary things in unusual ways. And there is a formula by which an insight becomes something funny. "That's good," I think to myself, "because I think I already see things differently, so I can learn to better turn those insights into funny stuff."

Now the shocking part: if you really want to develop as a comic, even if it's just writing more humorously, you have to master stand-up comedy. Stand-up is the essence of comedy -- turning insights into laughs, and getting immediate feedback from the audience. Anyone who does any kind of humorous work has experience in stand-up. If you master stand-up, you can do any kind of comedy. "Okay," I think to myself, "that sounds a little scary." Well, that's not all. The book is about developing your comedic muscle, so the exercise on day one is to book yourself for an "open mic" for a month from now, even if you don't know jack about stand-up today.

I'm at the point in my life where I get a kick out of doing things that scare me to death, and live through them. Doing stand-up would be one of those. I've never really thought about it before, but now that I've been considering the possibility for the past week, it's got to be one of the rawest forms of nakedness there is -- standing all alone on a stage, with just a mic, and an audience daring you to make them laugh. I'm in!

But if I'm going to get naked like this, I want others to join me. Any takers? We can get together every few days to go through the steps together. One of the first things that the course requires is finding a "comedy buddy" because you can't develop material by yourself. You need to bounce ideas off of other people and get feedback on your thoughts. So, even if you don't have the guts to get on the stage, you can be a comedy buddy, and help the rest of us develop our 3 minute stand-up routines. In a month or two, we'll put on what may be Saipan's first Stand-Up night. If you want to get going now, order the book, The Comedy Bible, by Judy Carter.

So, who's going to join me? Boni? Brad? Jeff ? Angelo? Mark? Russ? Anyone else? This is an open invitation.