What the Chris Rock/Will Smith incident teaches us

If you don’t know, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock during the 2022 Oscars (for which he was up for an academy award) after Chris Rock made a joke referencing Jada Pickett-Smith, who is Will Smith’s wife. I will attempt to take both sides in this and see what we can learn from this.

Rock’s side

Chris Rock has hosted awards shows and since he is a comedian, he has jokes for everyone. It is a hard gig because hollywood stars are some of the most stick in the mud people there are. You would think for a bunch of people who get paid a lot of money to pretend to be stuff, they would be a little more light hearted, but no.

Rock does what he does best when up to present and threw out a couple jokes. My biggest problem with it. It wasn’t a good joke. Mrs. Pickett-Smith has a lot of things out there in the know that he could use as fodder and he went with her bald head? Maybe the writers or Rock if he wrote that himself, didn’t know that she suffers from Alopecia, a disease where your hair falls out. As a woman, she is probably sensitive to that.

A comedian’s job is to say things and get a reaction. And that is exactly what happened.

Smith’s side

Will Smith was up for an academy award. This is supposed to be a big night for him. Then Chris Rock comes out and makes fun of your wife’s condition. All of the pain and anger that something like that causes can bubble up and well…we saw the result.

A comedian is supposed to extract a reaction out of you. Most do not want Will’s reaction.

What can be learned from this?

If you are a comedian, this is a lesson that what you say holds weight. It probably shouldn’t. The things we say should not be held to too much scrutiny because of the medium we are using. Stand up is a pure art form design to elicit laughter, so everything said is in the pursuit of that. What we may see as a formation of words with a purpose of gaining laughter others may see it (and rightfully so) as an attack, and that is something we need to be careful with.

Rock used what most comedians use a technique called punching up. The problem is that when the joke is about a medical condition, one in which can’t be helped by the subject of the joke, it is not seen as someone joking with a person that shares a high status, it is seen as an insensitive joke. If I were advising Rock about that joke before he went up there, I would have told him not to because the benefits (laughter) is dwarfed by the backlash (seen as making fun of someone with a medical condition).

This still does not excuse the actions of Smith. He has been nominated for numerous awards and he knows the drill. It is almost a roast the way those celebrities get made fun of. If it is something he doesn’t feel he can handle then he can not go to these things and have his award mailed to him.

This goes to anyone who wants to go to a comedy club. Research the comedian you are going to see. There is always at least a video or two of the comedian at work. If you don’t like what you see then stay home. If you go to a show and the comedian is doing something you don’t agree with, go home. You are not Will Smith and you will be in jail if you put your hand on someone because you don’t like their material.

What’s been going on

I started this blog at the end of the blogging “revolution”. I never gave it a unique URL, I just wrote stuff that I learned from my years doing comedy. A buddy of mine thought it would be a great idea to write what I knew for the people that want to try comedy, but didn’t have a guide. Well, I wrote weekly for a year and then pretty much solidly for another year and just noticed that I didn’t catch on to anyone. The demographic for low and low-mid comedians is small. Add to the fact that I never really branded it meant it was a base of knowledge that not many had access to. That is why I have basically stopped. I may collect these and put them in an ebook. I could sell like 3 a year!

Went to Las Vegas with my high school best friends and it was great. It reinvigorated me. I have been getting a little down on my comedy career, especially when I see that my military buddies are retiring and my other buddies are making dough in their careers and I feel like I have been spinning my wheels for about four years. It helped me see a little more clearly. That doesn’t mean I don’t think I am still spinning my wheels. I just feel better about the whole thing.

Comedy has been steady so far in 2022. 2021 was a cluster with lower amounts of shows. I think this was due to more comedians just bringing acts with them taking those coveted club feature spots. I can’t blame em. Why risk it with a stranger when you can get someone you know isn’t gonna give you the Rona. The club feature spots are great cause if you sell merch, you can make as much as a low level headliner. I was attached to two national headliners: Dan Cummins and John Caparulo . I haven’t worked with Cap in a couple of years, but Dan has been giving me work and it is appreciated. It is a different experience when a big headliner brings you along. The club gives you a room. They usually pay a little more, and they don’t treat you like a burden. It feels good.

I did a big show with my buddies in Idaho. I love doing stuff like that, but three of the four of us are headliners. The only way we work together is if someone is willing to take less, or we do a show like the one we did. I don’t mind making less cause I always think I can make up for it selling stuff. I just love working with people I like and the money doesn’t bother me.

The next three weeks will be full of travel. Going to the Seattle area twice this month and heading to the east coast next week. It feels good to be doing busy comedy stuff.

Until next time.

What is “real” in the comedy industry (apply to the entertainment industry as a whole)

I just finished an episode of ‘Black Market’ on Vice. The episode in question, talked about the use of “bots” to inflate numbers on streaming services and cause you to not be able to get that cool new item that just hit store shelves. Now, bot is a term used for programs that do what humans do, but way more efficiently. So, you want the new Jordan’s. You would have to click on the shoes and do all the fraud stuff to finally click purchase. A bot can do all that in seconds, and with multiple bots on the same page, they can scoop up all the in demand product before you got your wallet out. Now in terms of entertainment, it is being used to inflate streaming numbers. Bots are also being used to inflate social media numbers so that a person looks better to people wanting to use their platform to sell stuff.

So, as I watched this show, I thought to myself: What is real in this business?

Nothing new under the sun

You’ve no doubt heard the saying “nothing new under the sun” and that is the case here. Companies and business interest have been propping up certain people for ages to attract a certain clientele. In the old Hollywood days, they would have two up and coming stars go out on the town together to get the gossip going for a new movie. A rock band would get a sexy album cover done up so as to bother the pearl clutching masses.

When I first started comedy, the bringer show was popular. A bringer show is where the promoter will tell the acts that they will have to bring people to the show in order to get on stage. The more people you brought, the more stage time you got. This really inflated the numbers for the promoter. They look as though they know how to put on a show, when in fact they sold stage time.

There was also the “trick” of having a person that could fill seats “headline” and flood the rest of the line up with people because the headliner couldn’t do as much time as a headliner is usually required to do. Again, it inflated the confidence in the person that they could headline when in fact they used their family and friends to have a cool night at a bar.

Technology makes everything easier…and harder

Once social media became a thing and you could reach out to more people than just those within your view, it opened up a whole new level of tracking popularity and ways to exploit it. There are legit comedians who got a big push because they were relentless on social media. Any comedian that is decent can do this. If you are funny, and can make compelling content for social media you can see you numbers rise…maybe.

You see, those people I talked about up there are a very small number of super human, super weird people. Think about it. You have to be on social media and pumping stuff every day. The algorithm demands it! There are a lot of comedians that just forget or loose steam or have other things to do. I was on the road this weekend, and I had photos from the show I wanted to post, but because I was driving, in the freezing fog, I had other things on my mind than posting sick photos on social media. It is hard to keep up with the appetite of people that just want to be entertained so a lot of comedians will not gain as much traction as maybe their talents would relay.

We finally talk about bots and comedy

Stand-up comedy can be affected because just like music labels and advertising companies, clubs and promoters and bookers are looking at these same social media numbers to see if someone is “worth” it. Here is an example: Comedian A and Comedian B are both trying to get into a comedy club for this open weekend. Comedian A has 12 years of experience and some credits, but nothing that jumps off the page. Comedian B has been doing it for four and has amassed a following on Tik-Tok of 250k followers. The club will more than likely go with Comedian B.

This is not to say that Comedian B doesn’t deserve it. It’s just that for as long as stand-up has been around, the way up was creating an act that was funny through and through. So, just from what you see in front of you more experience could translate into a better show and happier patrons and repeat customers. That is not how comedy clubs work however. There is too much risk in having a low turnout weekend because no one knew the comedian they had there.

It’s not like clubs didn’t have an answer for this already. When a club had a person come in that wasn’t moving tickets organically, they would just “paper” the room. Papering the room is just giving out free or discounted tickets. The club isn’t really concerned about the money at the door (in some, but not all situations). They want to get into your pockets when you sit down to eat and drink, they just need you there. So, going with Comedian B and their 250k followers he has the potential of selling out a room…maybe.

Something is afoot

Here is where the issues lie. How do you know that the numbers you look at are true and not just inflated by none booze drinking computers? Sometimes by the time it’s too late. The club has the information that they usually dug up themselves or was given to them by the agent of the person coming in. Of course those numbers are gonna look more favorable for the talent. So the club doesn’t know if that person spent $1500 to get 100k followers or to get their videos to look as though more people are watching them. They just click on the profile photo and see that Comedian B has 250k followers.

In the online space, you can keep pulling this off until you accumulate a bunch of money and legit success or you get found out as a fraud. In the comedy industry though, it comes a lot quicker…and slower. Do you know how many shows I have done where the headliner was some Tik-Tok or Vine star and when I get there twenty people are in the audience? I used to say to myself: “Man, I guess no one in Spokane ever heard of them then.” Nah. That is their real draw, I am just giving people the benefit of the doubt because I have been told all my life that if I haven’t seen the success, that means I haven’t been working hard enough. What’s great about this though is that if they have a contract and guaranteed money, they will leave and do it to the next club or event space. No club wants to announce to the world that they had a low turn out for a show, so these people can keep on doing it until they get a DUI or something.

Is this bad for the industry

When I was thinking about writing this all up, the last thing I wanted to do was come off bitter. That is what guys who haven’t grasped technology do. Having a following online is a great way to connect and grow your audience. When you can show the same results with the use of technology, it changes the dynamic from funny and lucky to bot user and lucky.

I am not going to sit here and say that this is the end of comedy clubs and all that. Comedy clubs are in a weird space in the American entertainment landscape. There are so many comedians that can say any number of things that an unknown number of people can find off-putting or offensive. It is still weird when people won’t look up a video or anything on the comedian they are going to pay money to see just to find out if they fit their sensibilities. Do you just buy two tickets to see ‘Debbie does Dallas’ at 8 without trying to find out what kind of business she got in Dallas in the first place?

Comedy clubs have to be able to find people that will attract an audience. It is too hard to comb through every video and email every comedian you like when you can see someone that has a large social media following and hang your hat on that.

Where it does affect the industry is that everyone is chasing the same get big quick scheme. It is not about having an act that will just crush for 50 minutes. It’s about doing whatever it takes to gain a significant amount of social media presence and going to the clubs with that information. When you got people worried about how to make a video go viral instead of their act you may have an issue.

The “Passive” and “Aggressive” Pursuit of a Comedy Career

I have spent a couple of days trying to figure out how I was going to describe the concepts I wanted to talk about. I spent the weekend hosting shows, and that is when it hit me. There is a passive and aggressive way to go about your comedy career. I’ll spend a couple of paragraphs going over what I mean.

A passive way of going about your comedy career

When I say passive what I mean may be different depending on the comedian or type of person you are. You may not write many jokes hindering your ability to move up. You may never get around to emailing bookers and promoters. You may also be one that never sends out avails in a timely manner and kind of let dates “come” to you.

Those are very passive ways of trying to become a full time comedian. There are a lot of downsides to this method of course. It takes longer to gain momentum and in the comedy business all it takes is one unanswered phone call and you are no longer in a club’s rotation. Just accepting what comes your way is a stress free way of pursuing comedy because there is no pressure to bite and claw your way up. You just wait for a booker to need someone and you are good.

The problems of course arise when you are actually paying bills. Bills are not passive. They come every month whether you like it or not. It is hard to have a good credit score when you only have a handful of shows a month. The passive approach are for those that may have a second job or other interest that pulls them away from doing this full time. Maybe you only have a couple days a year in which you want to be out of town doing comedy. Then this is a decent approach.

The Aggressive approach

When you see a comedian on the tonight show, or someone in a sketch on SNL, what you are seeing are people taking the aggressive approach to their comedy careers. This is the rise and grind folks. The ones that will move to New York or LA and sleep in a gutter just go after it. This is obviously the more stressful of the two ways of going about it.

The person who is out there getting it are always emailing and calling and networking. They have a friend who knows someone that can get them the email of the one gal that can get them a spot on this show under a laundromat and they do not hesitate to email them out of the blue. These are the people that will call up bars in a town they are going to visit their parents at and see if they can line up shows. They are always doing something to advance their careers.

Problems with this course is that it can burn you out. There is a finite number of times a person can get no return email before they just move on. The rise and grind mentality of going after comedy is very much draining on those that may be more introverted or suffer from depression or a mental illness that interferes with their ability to endure negative outcomes.

My approach

I have had ups and downs like a lot of people who are comedians. Mostly downs. When I first started, I was pretty aggressive. I was emailing any and every booker and promoter I had information on. I got work. Then the great recession hit. I went to college so I could not just do comedy any time I wanted. I was passive for those years, just getting what came my way. Still writing. Still going to open mics, but comedy had change so much. Bar shows shrank, so one nighters were further away, making it difficult to do and then get to class the next day.

When I graduated college, it was hard to get back into that get out and get em mode. I was finally free, but I had bills and responsibilities that would have suffered had I just not worked and done comedy full time. Once I was able to go after comedy full time though, I was stuck in this weird cycle where I wanted to pursue comedy hard and be working almost every weekend, but there was a mental aspect to it I think that dragged me down.

I have talked to many comedians who are not bothered by it, but I do feel a little defeated when I am sending avails to places and hear nothing back. Spending hours sending emails and getting no replies can be very frustrating. I know it is part of the “game”, but when you are asking for a chance from hundreds of people, it drains you mentally and you just back away for awhile…which is not ideal. For instance. In 2019 I was having a great start to the year. I was sending out avails and trying to get in contact with people and by spring my dates had dried up. That got me down and It took until winter to pick back up because I had stopped doing all the things I was doing for years up to that point.

The comedy industry is hard. That is why so many larger comedians will have an agent or someone to book their stuff. It is so much easier to deal with everything else when the most draining aspect of a comedy career is taken care of. The thing is, the vast majority of working comedians you see do not have an agent. They are emailing people and calling and trying to get a bar that is next to the town they will be performing in to call them back. I would be lying if I didn’t want to just become a parole officer and be done.

What approach would I take? Aggressive. Why? It is very hard in this industry to make a living when there are a thousand other comedians that are knocking down doors to be the next big star. That is why there are millions of podcast with comedians and if you are on social media, you have a couple of comedians on your friend’s list. Everyone is trying to climb the same narrow staircase, and if you are waiting your turn you may never get it. I am 41, and I think of all the years I wasted just thinking my skill as a comedian would get my calendar filled. That is not the case. You can’t just build the chapel you also have to get people in the building.

So, this is the start of my count down. I have been doing this long enough and so I will be done after a time. I don’t know when, but I will write something on why that is. Until next time.

Things I Still Don’t Know About Comedy

I have been performing comedy for awhile now, and I feel the longer I do this, the less I know about certain things. Here are a few.

How to fill your calendar

I know how to stumble into shows. I am great at that. You build a rapport with comedians and when they are booking stuff and they have already booked their close buddies and people in their immediate area, they book me. That is why I will have shows every month even if it is just a couple. I know someone that books something. That is not how most professionals book shows though. There is more planning in it that I have yet to get my noodle around. I chalk this up to ignorance as well as a pervasive anxiety whenever it comes to just connecting with someone out of the blue.

Promotion

I have seen what works for others, but when I enact it it just comes of flat. I did a weekend at a local club last week, and I had two ads out on it. Did that result in an uptick in audience? Nope! Is it because I decided to have someone illustrate my visage doing silly things like riding a fire breathing unicorn, or fighting a mechanical bear? I have no clue! I did it, I laughed, but no one else did it seems.

Recording a convincing audition video

I have tons of cameras around here…like weighed out all this crap weighs a ton. I know what promoters and bookers are looking for, I’ve asked them! I know how to record it so I don’t look like mashed potatoes. I can record the sound so it doesn’t sound like I am under water, yet, I have NEVER had a video clip of my comedy where I felt good about it. I don’t know if it is the fact that when I don’t document it I seem to have the greatest show of my life, or that low self-esteem keeps me from parading a good clip of my better stand up?

Booking my own rooms

I have produced shows, but I have always had help. I have never booked my own room. I am too anxiety ridden to do it myself. To me, calling a bar or event spot and asking if you can put on a show there is a monumental task, yet I seen it done all the time. Hell, that is how I get booked most of the time! When I have gotten asked to put on a show, I send it off to someone I know.

Messaging club bookers

I send out what people call avails. You send every club you think you can get into an email and you tell them when you are available to be booked. I don’t know how to go about this. I have a template I got from Steve Hofstetter (he didn’t personally give it to me he had it on an article he wrote). I am not that consistent with it because after about three months of no replies I get depressed and stop. Out of all the emails I have sent I got one date and that was to host and never got to go back there.

Write the perfect joke

Ok. This one is stupid one because there is no such thing as a perfect joke, but I am often in awe of comedians that write these clever jokes. I don’t know if it is because I am winging it so much or I am just a terrible writer, but that joke that I can’t wait to tell eludes me still. Some times I will sit and look at a screen just thinking of things to write that my be the joke that puts me over the top. I don’t know if other comedians feel like this, but I always feel like I am one joke away from getting to that next place in my career. I think that is why I am so anxious about this stuff. I filter out so many jokes that may work because in my mind they are not as good as they could be.

Is Bo Burnham’s ‘Inside’ Genius?

Like many people I watched “comedian” Bo Burnham’s “comedy” special ‘Inside’. Unlike most people however, I was also studying what I was watching and trying to figure out: Is this genius or is it just mislabeled expirement.

Now, you may have seen up at the start of this post, me putting comedian and comedy in quotation marks. That is not to disparage anything Burnham has done. It is because Bo is many things and the special ‘Inside’ seems more than a comedy special. On the surface it may seem like a simple characterization. He is doing funny things (sometimes) and in the beginning he calls it his special. And you may assume that because he has released specials on Netflix before that he is doing the same thing. The thing with ‘Inside’ however, is that, just like Bo, it blends into many different forms and genre’s.

How Isolation Worked For One Person

Unlike other attempts at releasing specials during the semi apocalypse, Bo chose to film and do everything himself. From lighting to sound to effects, it seems as though it did everything and I think that is what makes it all the more amazing and special before you even get into the content. Every decision he made during the making of the special had to be thought out because he was the only one in the room. You can see that with all the shots. There are no dolly shots or camera movements. When you do see a zoom or Bo move in the frame it is done with software. Most comedians would have just waited until they could film on a stage again and go with that, but Bo…is different.

Not Your Typical Comedy Special

Bo is not a normal comedian. I do not say this with disdain, it’s just the truth. He writes songs that hold all his punchlines and so that makes him uniquely prepared to tackle a task like this. He has been recording himself for YouTube a long time so this is just a more elaborate version of that. Most comedians come up with a mic and a stool, so thats the tools they bring to everything comedy related. Because Bo uses songs and other pieces of media to tell his jokes, he is not afraid of going in places most comedians haven’t even thought they could do. It’s like when people saw a Picasso painting for the first time and realized you can just do that if you don’t give a damn.

Bo didn’t start with open mics in bars and standing on stage. He started sitting behind a piano and using everything around him to sing silly songs. This makes all of his specials totally different from what you would normally see from your favorite comedian. He is using lights and mirrors and all sorts of stuff to do basically what us normal comedians do, but he is so good at what he does it doesn’t seem weird.

Is It A Comedy Special

Netflix has it labeled as a comedy. Bo is a comedian. He says it is his special. But…does that mean it is a comedy special? I say that because yes there are funny songs in it, but it goes places that no other comedy special has gone before. He is dealing with isolation and turning 30 and mental illness, and it talks about what it is like to be in a modern world of interacting with people constantly, and then having half of that equation taken in an instant.

Now, I am not trying to distance this from comedy to lessen the achievement. I would like for it to be labeled correctly. It leans heavily into experimental movies, and unlike other experimental movies that are pretty gross and/or vague, this has enough roots in reality that it is more digestible to you and I. With that being said, Is it a comedy special? Not in the traditional since, but Bo isn’t your tradition comedian. I can’t see Bo in a Chuckle Hut on a Friday night late show. He seems suited for large stages with lights and lasers and fog machines and a large piano. Just because he isn’t “typical” doesn’t mean it doesn’t fit. Comedy has needed a bit of stretching in it’s characterization for a while now.

Is ‘Inside’ Genius

So, let us answer the question above: Is ‘Inside’ genius? While watching it I was thinking that. Just because something is original does not mean it is genius. The twist and turns do more than any other comedy special I have ever seen. He not only tries to make you laugh, but make you feel things. I am always weary of a rich white guy being “woke”, but he doesn’t seem to waver in this special. So, would I call it genius? Yes. If I were teaching comedy and how to take you experiences and tell them to an audience originally, I would steer every student towards this special. Bo Burnham does more with this special then make you laugh. He wows you with the intricate ways he set up shots. He makes you think with some of his songs on the capitalist machine. He hits on mental illness that hit a lot of people during quarantine. This is a monumental special that I hope comedy fans check out.

Creating Your “Brand”

I have performed through two distinct eras of comedy. The older era where you worked the road until you were either “discovered” or had a heart attack in a Motel 6, and the new era where everyone that is trying to get eyeballs on them has to “brand” themselves. I’m also sorry to those reading this thinking we are going to scorch our skin. I am talking about the less smelly version.

What?

When an agent or another comedian says brand, they are speaking about the actions you are doing to spread awareness about yourself. Not unlike Coke, or the makers of Oxycontin. The only difference is that you are not a multi billion dollar entity that can commit crimes without much punishment. Your brand is what’s supposed to drive people toward you and spend money on whatever it is you are doing. So if you have a good enough brand, you can go to different areas of the country and draw an audience. This is a very simple explanation, but it will do for now.

How Did This Come About?

There are different reasons, but they both have to do with technology. You see, at the turn of new millennium, a potential audience had many more choices for entertainment then ever. Gone were the days of going down to your local speakeasy and drinking bathtub gin with the hopes that it didn’t blind you. You could stay at home, watch a porn on the living room TV and drink bathtub gin in peace.

Companies had to adapt, and so too did live entertainment. Artist knew that with technology a fan didn’t have to see you live if they could do anything else. Then Dane Cook came on the scene (He may not have been the first, but for our sake he is important). He started collecting emails (and this was back when people enjoyed getting emails) and sending those emails notifications when he was coming to their town. This created a swell of participation and rise that many hadn’t seen before. After seeing what Dane could do, other comedians started using his blueprint to cultivate a fan base.

The Start of the Influencer

This wasn’t the only thing that got everyone going brand crazy. YouTube and internet influencers became a thing. These are people that may have a talent, or not, but they do have a knack for attracting people to them. People looked at this and brought it over to help with their comedy careers. Look at your favorite comedian’s social media and then go look at the social media account of an influencer. They share a lot of the same techniques. That is because it works!

Why Does it Work?

Simply put, it works because humans have a very strong bond to people they feel as though they know. We hold those bonds strongly and so if you can create a way to funnel as many of those people onto you and what you are doing, they will soak up whatever you’re spilling.

This is why people buy Dodge and nothing but Dodge. Brand loyalty is strong and this is why every comedian chases it. If you can get a sizable number of people to come partake in whatever it is you are doing, you can basically print money. This is why you see celebrities at comedy clubs that have done little to no comedy. They know that they have a name that piques the interest of folks and they can get enough people to come out and see what they are up to.

The Negative

I think the biggest negative is that a person’s comedy is not as vital as the actual marketing of that person. There are so many comedians that start and they are focused on the promotion of themselves as a comedian that they forget to actually write jokes. In this day and age, a great marketer can open doors sooner than a great comedian. Now, this doesn’t mean that if you can promote yourself you will be the next Kevin Hart, but it will get you closer than the guy just trying to get a good half hour.

This may sound bitter…it probably is, but the industry has been taken hook, line and sinker by this and it will not slow down. All of the pressure is placed on the comedian to bring the audience and venues just sell the drinks and move on to the next person that can fill seats. It says nothing about the quality of the comedy to ensure repeat business. Think of it like a snake-oil salesman. They come to town, tell an audience that their bottle of liquid will cure what ails em and then they move on. The purchaser has no idea that they just bought toilet water. An audience that got pulled in because of the popularity of a person, but didn’t enjoy the show, may not ever come back, and now you are missing out of money down the road.

Do you Have to do This?

Nope. You will get left behind, and only the grace of sweet baby Jesus can help you, but you don’t have to do it. See, if you want to stay current in this business you have to at least know what trends are going on. Staying in place and doing what you have been doing for ages will only leave you an angry old has been.

The thing is, you don’t have to go hog wild with it. You don’t have to post 35 times a day and send emails to everyone about every little thing you do. If you want to collect an email list go ahead and grab them at the end of the show. I’ve seen comedians have people fill out a sheet of paper on their way out, and I have seen comedians direct people to their website to join their mailing list.

A social media presence is also a good thing. In this day and age you need to at least have a place for people to see what you are up to. A website is a nice little professional touch, much better than a rank and file Facebook page (But you can have one as well).

You can’t get much work if you don’t have at least a way for people to see you so there is a bare minimum you should do. As a matter of fact, I think building a brand is important for the reasons I discussed above. I just see the way the scales have tipped and I think it is a little lop-sided right now.

Keys to Being a Great “Club” Comedian

We have talked about what makes a comedian great for certain work in the comedy industry. We will go over our last (I think), the club comic.

All Things to Some People

Out of all the comedians we have talked about during this little series of posts, the club comic is the most varied of all these comedians. Why? Because the quality of club and the type of people in each changes. When you are at a show in a bar you know the type of people that would go to such a thing. A comedian performing at a college knows that not too many 50 year old people will be in the audience. In a club, however, you have a mix of people all coming together to laugh at your childhood.

Another thing that makes this a varied group is the fact that not all comedy clubs are created equal. For every Improv or Spokane Comedy Club, you have Jerry’s Laugh Shack. So that invites a different group of people. We used to have a lower level club in town before SCC opened up and the demographics were a lot older and you could see that played a factor in a lot of acts that went through those doors.

A club comedian has to walk in the building knowing that their jokes are gonna hit with the people in front of him. That could mean anything from not talking about stuff that is local to the comedian or not bringing up the controversy that is going on in the city they are performing in.

A Joke and a Smile

What I have noticed with a large number of great club comedians is their ability to immediately grab the attention of the audience in as little time as possible. They don’t really get into pleasantries unless a joke is coming right after. A quick smile and straight to business is the way a great club comic works and it is amazing to see an awesome comedian just play with the audience averting expectations and guiding them through a show that doesn’t even seem practiced.

Out of all these types of comedians, I strive to be a club comedian the most. They don’t get paid (usually) as well as college or corporate comedians, but there is usually little to know limit on what can be said at clubs. You have the freedom to say what you want at most bar shows, but the pay sucks.

Club comedy is the hardest to break into because of how the vetting system works for most clubs so that is why a lot of people just opt for other options. I enjoy meeting people outside of a more “constricted” environment and getting their genuine emotions to material you perform.

I guess that does it for this little series. I mean I could do more of these keys, but I didn’t want to talk about anything I didn’t have a little bit of firsthand knowledge about. Thanks for reading.

Joke Punch Up: The Act Out

For the final entry in this series on sharpening up jokes, we go to the one that doesn’t really involve any writing at all. The act out.

What does this mean?

The act out is just using actions to better emphasize your material. The act out can be subtle or outrageous, but sometimes jokes need a visual aid to push what makes it funny.

Timing is crucial during any act out you are going to do. An act out too soon and you telegraph your jokes and one too late loses all impact. It should look natural to the audience and not seem forced. Look at your material and see what things can be added visually to help sell the joke.

Subtle and not so Subtle

You don’t have to flop around on the ground to sell a joke. If you are a more laid back comedian something as simple as rapid movements during intense parts of your jokes may be enough to add more spice to it. Simple hand motions that elaborate on certain aspects of your material can be enough to paint a more vivid picture for the audience.

Not everyone is good at being subtle however, some of us need to be a little more animated when performing act outs to get the point across. Use sounds to better describe detail in your jokes instead of just talking about it. Use the stool if need be (don’t hump it though because every open mic comedian has done that) what you are trying to do is add effects to what you are saying.

Extra Tips

If you plan on act outs make sure you know where everything on stage is located. If you place the mic stand right beside you and decide to twirl you may end up hitting it. I like to set it behind me and use the front of the stage more, but you have to make sure you know where the edge of the stage is. I have almost fallen off many stages acting like an idiot.

I would suggest if you are going to include act outs in your sets, to try subtlety and increase it as you get comfortable with it. Don’t just get up and start running around the stage if your material doesn’t warrant those actions.

Out of all the ways to punch up material, this is the one that is the most optional. I have seen it turn good jokes into great jokes, but that is if you are comfortable with doing it in the first place. Don’t think of it as acting crazy on stage. You don’t have to be like Jim Carey. You can do simple things that can really make a joke bite!

Well, that is it for this series I really hope you enjoyed it. Come back next week where I will tell you how to turn your back hair into a makeshift mic stand. Nah, I’m not gonna do anything like that, but I will do something.

Worst Pieces of Comedy Advice I Ever Received

As an entertainer, you will be given advice from damn near everyone. Other comedians, singers, DJs, your mom, your uncle, the local methhead, they all think they have the advice to get you going. The problem is, not all advice is good. It may seem good, until you think about it for more than a minute. Here is some of the advice I have received and why I think it is terrible.

Always have a street joke ready to tell (in case you lose the audience etc.)

No. I don’t (intentionally) tell street jokes. Why? Because any comedian can memorize a street joke. The audience is there for my take on familiar topics, not to hear a joke that their dad can tell during a barbecue. I think this sprung up from the early days of comedy when there was just a bucket of jokes out there, and comedians would just pull from that bucket and tell those jokes. Nowadays, no one wants that. Even if the crowd is about to decapitate me, I would rather get them back by telling jokes I wrote then by a worn out joke that most comedy fans have heard.

You should get on “Name of TV competition”.

That sounds like a great idea! How did I never think of that? I mean I was telling jokes in this bar with hopes that a drunk TV exec would see me and give me a million dollars and my own TV show. EVERY comedian has thought about getting on ‘Last Comic Standing’ or ‘America’s Got Talent’ to jump start their careers. That’s the problem though, EVERY comedian is trying to get on those shows, so it is not just a case of walking up to the set and getting a moneycheck. TV producers know this so they have lots of measures to make sure only the people that make good TV get seen. So, you either have to be unique in say background (first female lesbian brown bear) or have an agent that can arrange to get you on these shows. If you are just a white guy that tells funny jokes about the internet, it will be really hard to get on these types of shows because white guys are everywhere. If you are other than white, it is still difficult because you are now competing for a limited number of spots. I did a showcase this month for Just For Laughs. There are only so many spots for no names like me and they auditioned a couple thousand comedians. This isn’t even advice, it’s just a statement. It’s like saying, “you should fly like superman” or “You should buy a castle.”

Don’t tell the audience sad stuff

There is a limit to the amount of sad shit you want to hear from a comedian, but there is something to telling an audience something so personal about yourself and being able to make light of it. When I was in the military, I had to take all these test to see if I had some kind of cancer. It turned out to be lupus, but the result of that was about five minutes of material about the experience. I did it one night at a show and it received a lukewarm response. Later a veteran comedian came up to me and told me this piece of advice. It wasn’t that audiences didn’t want to hear my misfortune. The best jokes ever told on stage are about mishaps. I just wasn’t skilled enough to make it palatable for a bunch of strangers on a Sunday night. Audiences will more than likely ride with you on almost anything if the payoff is worth it. 60% of my last album was me talking about my heart attack and the struggles afterward. It can be done if you know how to approach it.

I think that is enough of me banging at this keyboard, I may do another one of these if this one gets the clicks. Hit me up on my website harryjriley.com or on all the social media stuff. I can be found under KingPeppersnake damn near everywhere.