are the things that make you a horrible person. You're ability to find funny in anything sometimes backfires. I mean joking about death is only funny if you don't know the person who died. Talking about your relationship is funny to teh outside world, but never funny to your significant other (at least the juicy stuff anyway). When you're on stage or writing, you remove the filter and talk about everything. That's what makes you great.
With me I can talk about alamost anything on stage (I clear stuff with my wife first as I don't want to be divorced). I'm being pushed by veteran comics to talk about the really private stuff on stage, but it's the stuff that could cost me the most or pay off in the biggest ways. What to do?
6 comments:
I have some of the same issues. Is it really all or nothing? Can you disguise bits so that maybe it didn't happen to you (but then again, that's why it's funny in the first place). I think it's a great idea to take risks, but personally, I wouldn't do it if it could actually hurt someone I love.
-Kantad-
that's the thing, if you don't go all in you will never be great. You can be good, but not great. Pryor talked about everything in his life, and he was great.
And Jerry Seinfeld talked about nothing important, and in almost an hour a week for 15 years of Tonight Show monologues I don't think Jay Leno has mentioned his family more than a half-dozen times, and never with any meanness.
There's plenty to talk about without hurting your loved ones.
-Shaun Eli
You can't be the next Seinfeld, his observatinal humor has been done to death by millions of copy cats.He made it because of his writing and he was the first.
In order to stand out now you have to be real, once you establish yourself, then you can talk about whatever you want because the audience knows you at that point.
Just my opinion.
But if everyone is being told to be real, does being real stand out anymore? I don't think that greatness in comedy is about being one thing or another, but about doing what you feel that you should be doing better than anybody else who is doing the same sort of thing. Talking about ultra-personal material obviously isn't comfortable right now, but if you feel like the veteran comics are onto something and that could be an enormous strength then you should probably work on getting comfortable with the personal stuff or at least becoming comfortable with the discomfort involved with trying to make strangers laugh by finding the humor in dark personal situations.
I agree that it's risky, but I've been reading a book of essays by Scott Adams (Dilbert) and one of the most important pieces of advice that I've gotten out of it so far is that anything that everyone likes is bound to fail because nobody will love it, but something that invokes a strong negative emotion in the majority when they are exposed to it will result in a similarly positive emotion in a minority that can become an extremely loyal and useful following.
I hereby waive all responsibility in case going for it when you think you are ready doesn't work out, because the decision is completely up to you.
-Ethan Mawyer-
Ethan,
The thing that makes every comic different is they talk about their own reality. I'm sure you did not grow up as a biracial kid in a predominantly balck neighborhood, while being molded to be a preacher whose father died, mother had cancer, was electricuted etc. That's my life. Talking about that stuff will set me apart. As will your story.
Josh
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