Stand-up Comedy 101

Expressions and such

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:33:00 +0000

You probably noticed how most English expressions aren't meant to be taken literally. Which is why doing so can lead to comic effects. Whenever I hear a proverb of some sorts through out the day, the first thing I do is test it for funny outcomes if taken literally. Do it long enough, and it will become automatic. You can start with something simple, like "Call me a taxi." "Ok, you're a taxi." and progress to something more complicated, like "When someone is impatient and says, "I haven't got all day", I always wonder "How can that be? How can you not have all day?" - George Carlin

Day after day

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:09:00 +0000

My favorite method of writing is a daily exerecise for every type of joke I have in my collection. For example, I have a lot of autobiographical jokes, so I started a daily excercise where I write a random fact about myself. I also have a lot of jokes built around funny words like "cow tipping", so I began a daily excercise where I build a joke around two funny words. I even have a lot of jokes that form around random thoughts, so I have a daily excerise where I write down one weird idea. It sounds very systematic and dull, but it works. For me. For now.

A word about anger

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:50:00 +0000

I think the thing about anger is that you can either turn it inward or outward. When you turn it inward, it is called depression. When you turn it outward, it is called comedy. George Carlin and Lewis Black come to mind. Pay attention to what makes you angry and write it down. Better yet, make a list. In fact, write one thing every day that made you angry. As somebody once said, "Anger is a gift." Time to unwrap and put it to use.

Something interesting

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:47:00 +0000

"Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do." - Christopher Morley.
I've always believed that the more different you are, the better. You're competing with over a thousand other comedians, and that's in NYC alone. Are you reading, thinking and doing something that none of them are? If you keep doing the same things, you will keep getting the same results.

Episode #19

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Sat, 10 May 2008 02:35:00 +0000

The handicapped.

My religion

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:31:00 +0000

I have a friend, let's call her "Tera", who just took a vacation from stand-up comedy and now has "standupitis" - the fear of performing again after a break. I know exactly what that's like because I took two long breaks from stand-up comedy in my first year and almost didn't go back. The reason I perform only one day a week but every single week is because it is a lot easier to stick to. Did you ever notice how all three major religions ask their believers to visit their place of worship only once a week? That's because it is easier to commit to. If you know in advance that every Saturday is your day of worship, you never make other plans for Saturday and you never have a conflict of interest. If your religion is stand-up comedy, make sure you leave time for one day every single week for worship. I think now is a good time as ever to repeat the three things which I believe will make you successful in comedy:
1) write every day
2) perform every week
3) never give up

Reactives vs proactives

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:25:00 +0000

I think there are two types of people in the world - reactive and proactive. Reactives are those who are always scrambling to whatever life throws at them after being caught with their pants down. Life will throw them an emergency and they won't have an emergency cash fund on hand because they weren't ready. Proactive people are those who plan for life's events before they happen. If you're going to do stand-up comedy, sooner or later you're going to need an audience to support you. Whether you are doing a bringer, starting an open mic or opening your one woman show, you're going to need a lot of people. What I call your "network." Many comedians will sign up for or start an event first and then realize they don't have a network. Or they have a network, but it is a lot smaller in reality than they realized. I will use myself as an example if I may. I have a half hour show coming up in August, and I've been working on a list of people to come out to see me for an entire year in advance. I say build your network first, before you need it. So that when the time comes, and it will come, you will be ready. And then you can tell everyone - "I was born ready."

The other bubble

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:15:00 +0000

I've noticed at least one more bubble in NYC besides the real state market one. That would be the open mic bubble. I've counted 50 open mics listed on my site, and that doesn't include a couple of open mics I haven't listed, like the one in Chinatown that has a 3 months waiting list. That means there are at least 52 open mics in the city, and that means if I go to one different mic every week, it would take me a year to go see all of them. I think we've finally reached a point where there are more open mics than people available to participate in them. And I further think the bubble will be bursting any time now. I expect to see a lot more open mics shutting down this summer, starting with The Paddy O'Reilly's open mic, which just closed this week. Then again, what do I know?

Word love

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:27:00 +0000

In the last interview with Steven Wright, he said he has a love for words. I remember George Carlin saying something similar in his interview as well. I think words for a comedian are like toys for a child. They are the Lego blocks in the game of writing comedy. Learn how to play with words and you can spend hours putting them all together in countless ways. Of course, the best games are the one you can come up with yourself. I like to write down every pair of interesting words I hear through out the day and set aside some time to play around. For example, I love the words "hungry, hungry hippos." I already built 3 different jokes around these 3 words. And I'm just getting warmed up.

Every joke

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Tue, 06 May 2008 02:30:00 +0000

Here's something I've learned the hard way - every joke can be made better. Ok, I didn't really learn it "the hard way." I learned it by twisting a joke this way and that, putting it down and picking it up again later. Sometimes you can add another joke right after your first to make it funnier, which is called "tagging," or you can refer to your first joke sometime later with another joke, which is called a "callback." My point is that the best inspiration for your jokes can be your other jokes. Sometimes it is best to work with your existing jokes than spend time looking for external inspiration. As you keep writing and looking forward, don't forget to glance back once in a while. And put those old jokes to use. I believe most jokes are made of at least two ideas, and these two ideas can be shaped into at least four combinations. Here's a retired joke that shows what I'm talking about. "In Germany, everything is prohibited, except what is permitted. In France, everything is permitted, except what is prohibited. In Italy, everything is permitted, even what is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, everything is prohibited, even what is permitted."

Find your target

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:58:00 +0000

There's a saying in comedy books that "every joke needs a target." In fact, they advise you to identify your target first and then aim carefully. Sounds like it is time for me to write one of mine "Comedy is like assasination" posts. But what I wanted to do is give some praise to the art of self-deprecating humor. Why make yourself the target of your own jokes? It shows you are humble, fair, and that you laugh at yourself first. Until you can find someone to make fun of you on a regular basis (like a spouse), why not give it a shot yourself? So mix in a little self-deprecating humor in everything you do. Here's a quote from Rodney Dangerfield to end with. "Comedy. It is in my blood. I wish it was in my act."

Comedy is like dating

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:25:00 +0000

Of all the things I compare it to, comedy is more like dating than anything else. Stand-up comedy is basically dating on a bigger scale - megadating. Instead of talking to one or two people a night, you talk to anywhere from 20 and up, depending on the room. Everything else is the same. Meeting different people, saying the same thing over and over again, hoping it will go somewhere, getting rejected, moving on. I think the only difference between dating and comedy is that most people don't quit dating alltogether after their first unsuccessful year. You don't hear them say "You know, I'm actually happy not doing stand-up comedy. I'm free, I have a lot more time on my hands and it is great!"

Organize and recognize

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:03:00 +0000

Once you have over 100 jokes (and if you write every day, you know exactly how long that will take) you will need a system to organize them. The way I organize my jokes only works best if you keep them on your computer and/or cellphone. On my phone, I have a file for every letter of the alphabet, such as "a-jokes", "b-jokes", etc. Every time I think of a new joke, I copy it into these files. Let's use this joke for example - "My sister invited our family to her baby shower. Unfortunately she changed her mind about having the baby and didn't tell anybody. So we ended up having an abortion shower. Very awkward." What I usually do is find two most important words in this joke, which for me are "abortion" and "sister." Next I will go into my "a-jokes" file and make a category called "abortion" and copy the joke under this category. There are many other categories in my "a-jokes" that all start with "a" and they are all in alphabetical order. Then I go into my "s-jokes" and copy the joke under "sister." As I keep writing more abortion jokes, keeping them together allows me to build a theme so that I can tell them all at once. Same as when I want to tell stories about my sister. I think it is very important to group your jokes by theme because it shows you your favorite themes and it helps you come up with new jokes for those themes.

Episode #18

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:04:00 +0000

The blondes.

Link of the week

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:55:00 +0000

Where do people find the time? What is the cognitive surplus? Who is Clay Shirky? All these questions and more are answered here. Thanks, Dima.

Still changing

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:50:00 +0000

In the beginning of this year I used to write in the morning for two hours or more. Then I switched to writing in the evening. Now I'm switching again. Right now I write for my blog in the morning and then work on my set of week. I write about everything else in the evening. I'm also reading two different books at all times. The book I read in the morning is always about stand-up comedy to help me find ideas for my blog. The book for the evening is just entertainment. This week my morning book is "Comedy Writing Secrets: 2nd edition" and for the evening it is "Belle de Jour: Diary of an Unlikely Call Girl." My system is always changing, because I'm always changing and because stand-up comedy is always changing. Change is inevitable. That's one thing that's never going to change. Does that make any sense?

Two basic tools

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:21:00 +0000

If you're going to write stand-up comedy, you're going to need two simple tools - exaggeration and understatement. Actually the second one isn't so simple, but the first one is. Exaggerate everything you can to the extreme, and then double it. Here's Zach Galifianakis - "You know you have a drinking problem when the bartender knows your name. And you've never been to that bar before." On the opposite side of the coin is the understatement. Here you want to reduce something to such an extreme that it becomes comical. If you're going to write one, go for "the understatement of the century." Or as close as possible. The bigger the situation, the bigger the understatement. It is a lot harder than exaggeration, but when the going gets tough, blah, blah, blah. I will leave you with another example by Zach Galifianakis. "I'm an American so its kind of hard for me to talk about 9/11. So whenever somebody brings it up in a conversation, I say "I didn't like 9/11."

Link of the week

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:53:00 +0000

Here is an interesting interview with one of my three favorite comedians - Steven Wright. He is a character.

Please hold

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:53:00 +0000

I've been thinking about how we spend our entire lives in waiting. From the second we are born, we are always waiting. First we are waiting to eat, and then we are waiting to go to sleep. We wait to start school, and then we wait to graduate from school. We wait for our first job, our first relationship, our first apartment. You must be waiting for something as you're reading this. Sometimes I think the best trait a person can have is patience. It is the only way to stand all this waiting.

A goal to strive for

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:51:00 +0000

I have a goal that I'm working on every week. I want to sound exactly the same way on stage as I do when I'm off. In fact, I want to feel more comfortable when I'm on stage than when I'm not. Right now I talk either too fast or too slow, too rehearsed or too unprepared, etc. Feel free to do some comparing between how you sound on stage and off. The close the better, I think.

Second rule of investing

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:49:00 +0000

What is the second rule of investing? Plan for the long term. That's when compound interest becomes your best friend. Don't expect to be rich today, this month or this year. I don't expect to sell my investments for a very long time. Decades, maybe. The stock market always goes up in the long term. And I don't expect to be discovered as a comedian for a long time. Never, maybe. I'm hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. In comedy or investing, success takes time. The longer it takes, the sweeter it tastes. You know what they say about good things and those who wait.

First rule of investing

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:31:00 +0000

One of my many interests is personal finance. I spent a portion of my money investing and a portion of my time writing and I am beginning to see some parallels betweens the two. You probably heard about the first rule of investing - divesify. When it comes to investing, I never buy individual stocks - instead I put my money in index funds - a collection of 500 or more stocks. This helps me minimize the risk that comes with investing. And keeping with the same philosophy, I never worry about individual jokes - instead I keep adding them to my general collection of 500 or more jokes. This helps me minimize the risk that comes with performing them. So if you're interested in investing, I think you should read about index funds. And if you're interested in stand-up comedy, I think you should write as many jokes as possible.

Just say no

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:38:00 +0000

Here's what's been bothering me lately - multitasking. Or to be more specific, the popular myth that multitasking makes you more efficient. In my many experiences, multitasking does the exact opposite. Instead of doing a job well done, you end up doing two jobs half-assed. I don't believe the human brain was made for multitasking, and if you don't believe me, try watching two different movies at the same time. And if you are writing or listening to stand-up comedy, try giving it your full attention. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing well. And doing something well means not doing something else at the same time.

Episode #17

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:18:00 +0000

The Chernobyl.

Tell me a story

noreply@blogger.com (Slava) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:01:00 +0000

Here's something I learned over the years - people love stories. Love them. Crazy about them. So why don't stand-up comedians tell more stories? Because it is incredibly difficult. I've been trying to write stories I could tell on stage, and so far I haven't gotten very far. And I realize that each joke is a very tiny story, but I'm talking about a real story. A story that takes at least 5 minutes to tell, with lots of characters and plot twists. And because it is incredibly difficult, it is worth pursuing. I think the only comedian today that tells stories is Mike Birbiglia, and that's why he's so successful. To make a long story short, the comedian with the most stories wins.