today in bjj i learned

this is not about comedy, but it is something i want to write down for later. Today in bjj i learned two sweeps: a pendulum sweep, and a hipbump sweep (remember to plant your hand down on the hip bump). In both cases i need to work on pulling my opponent further forward. I also learned a guard pass, stacking the opponent and moving to side control, and then a pass to mount.

Stay in the Pocket

I was at an open mic a few weeks ago, and this local comedian Brad Brake came in. This guy is a headliner, has been doing comedy for years, and is crazy and unpredictable. Hes known to take his pants off a lot on stage, do crazy audience interaction shit, whatever. Anyway, he came into this thing, and he was yelling at comedians to "stay in the pocket". I couldnt tell if he was drunk. At the time, I just thought that this was something ridiculous he was yelling. The more i think about it, the more i like the metaphor of comedian as quarterback, staying in the pocket. To me, this means you take your time with your jokes. You dont get desperate. Eventually you get the metaphorical ball to your receivers; the audience. Sometimes no one is open, and you take a coverage sack. But you dont force it, you dont scramble unless you have to.

Audience Participation

I was at TCC last night. The first comic up was this super sweet, super weird guy named Skippy. His sets are manic and high energy and scatterbrained at the best of times. They almost always involve him yelling "ram it in skippy" with no context while slapping his own ass. Yesterday was apparently his one year anniversary in comedy, so he put on a gladiators costume, giant gloves, an afro wig, had somebody blow bubbles, and made a giant penis pinata full of candy that he had somebody break open with a handled penis dildo. He played music in the background, and he had a blow up doll that he left in the front row. A large part of comedy is preparation. There was a couple in the back, and the woman was yelling at him to get off the stage for a decent part of his performance. She kept loudly saying "this isnt new york city". It was odd that she was saying that, because the only place in the world that i can think of where its acceptable to yell a comedian off stage is the apollo theater in new york city. I came over and talked to her a bit and she calmed down, and was (mostly) quiet for the rest of the show. The vast majority of audience members at these shows are quiet (ish), and sometimes attentive, and on rare occasion they even laugh. However, some people try to be a part of the show. I did this when i was going to my first open mics. I felt engaged, so i figured that i got to be a part of it, especially if i had something funny to yell. Thats just not how it works. As an audience member, youre like an extra in a movie scene. Your job is to be quiet in the background. The comic has a (rough) script of how their set is going to go, and if you decide to give yourself a speaking part, you are deviating from and derailing that script. Its great that you want to be funny, but ultimately its the comedian who is responsible for how entertained the audience is while he is on stage, so even if what you say cracks everyone up, youve quite possibly fucked up the rest of the time that he is on stage. We have a term for people yelling things from the audience. The term is heckling. That doesnt just apply to yelling negative things at the comedian, its anything at all. Dont do it.

ego, continued

I talked to some comics at the open mic last night. Its a little unusual for me to ask people for advice, but thats exactly what ive been doing. If youre in comedy, and i respect your opinion (and sometimes even if i dont) i want to hear what you have to say to me. Some of it was bullshit ("there are no bad audiences. Its your job as a comic to get their attention and make them laugh, no matter what"... yes. thank you) and some of it was really useful. Some of the stuff that stuck was that its REALLY important to make a connection with your audience, to get them to like you. The thing that was most useful to my current situation is that its not always a good thing to advance faster than youre ready for, because if it goes poorly, you dont get a chance again for a long time. Talked to a guy named Jeremy Whitman, who has been doing comedy for 10 years. He said that somehow or other he got into SICC after two years and just wasnt ready. He was all cocky, and got his ass kicked. So that helped me put things in perspective a bit. A number of people talked to me about patience. Im starting to think that maybe i dont need to go to the bad open mics. I can probably get by on 3-4 open mics a week instead of 7. Parker asked me how missing open mics would help me get better, and i guess that the answer is that in the long run it helps me get better by keeping me enthusiastic about comedy, and my place in it.

Ego

Its hard to let go of the ego, because thats why i do most of what i do. I do comedy for the rush of making people laugh, and the pure ego-stroking joy of hearing people tell me im funny, or that i had a good set. In this sense i am like every other comedian out there. So its hard to let go of the ego when I cant get booked, or get the recognition I feel that i "deserve". This spills over into poker as well. Im supposed to be playing poker to make money. Actually, money is probably the third or fourth reason that i play poker. For the most part, i play poker to impress people. Its alright (to some extent) that my reasoning for poker is fucked up, because impressing people and maximizing profits tend to dovetail a bit, and many of my opponents are playing for even worse reasons (they want to gamble). New topic: Did a showcase to get into the SICC a couple days ago, I think that it went really well. It was probably the best set that ive ever done. I made a real effort to connect my jokes and segue between them. It felt polished. I got good laughs throughout. I experimented a bit with just pausing after some of the sillier punchlines and flashing a big, cheesy, kind of rueful smile at the audience and they seemed to love it. I went up the next day (yesterday) for what was basically a crappy audience and still managed to do well. New topic: I find myself with a bit of a dilemma. I have all of this free time, but everything that i want to do happens during the evening. The evening is when the comedy shows are. Its also when the poker games get good. Its also when people want to go rock climbing. Its also when people want to hang out and do other stuff. So I have these free afternoons, when I just fuck around and do nothing, and then three things to do at once every evening. I should be climbing in the afternoons, but its harder for me to climb by myself, because (see above) a lot of the joy i get out of climbing is impressing the people im climbing with. That probably sounds pathetic, but I think that a lot of our true motivations are. Im OK with the fact that im a social animal, and that there are hierarchies in each environment i find myself in. New topic: Ive been intensely annoyed that people have been flaking on me for various plans recently. There are various levels of this. From the least annoying: canceling with plenty of warning and a good excuse; to showing up very late; to canceling at the last minute; to not showing up or saying anything at all, which is usually enough to make me want to kill you. It seems inconsiderate, and disrespectful. I try not to take it personally, because I understand that thats how that person is; not just to me but to everyone. That thought doesnt help that much. It makes me less interested in making plans with them. The problem is that the types of people who are weird and interesting and capable of surprising me tend to be the same type of people who suck at getting to places theyre supposed to be, and are too wrapped up in themselves to fix it. God knows ive been guilty of this before. Last topic: Speaking of ego: there was some out of town comic at the open mic last night. He came on and talked about how he had writing credits (I looked it up, 4 episodes of MAD TV) that they hadnt mentioned, and that hed been in movies. He did a pretty good/funny Cosby impression (he was an older black guy) which is kind of hack, but was well executed. Then he rambled, got the light, SAID "oh shit, ive only got a minute", then launched into a long story that could have never concluded in a minute. Somewhere around 30 seconds over time, the host turned on the music and played him off. I heard him upstairs afterward complaining about how you should never play off a big timer like him. Fuck you dude. Thank you for being there as a reminder to keep my ego in check. This isnt your city, nobody knows who you are, and you arent that funny. You want special treatment, you need to at least talk to somebody about it first. Welcome to seattle.