That's A Great Performance and a Great Hat

Steven Wright, Autism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ErMolRE8M

Unmasked

Ron Bennington interviewing some East coast shlubs ya might have heard before.

Comedy Commandments

 1.) Ensure that every action and every line is rooted in some degree of personal or universal truth.
 2.) Respect yourself; respect your audience.
 3.) The comedy must be well paced. You can always get more laughs per minute.
 4.) Generate comedy via the word, the body, and the face.
 5.) Always avoid choices that are obvious, expected, or safe.
 6.) Deliver the comedy in a style that is full of energy, warmth, and playfulness. 
 7.) The word is what they take home. Don't rely on delivery to pick up the slack.
 8.) Allow the audience to fully affect and alter the performance.
 9.) Leave them wanting more. Err on the side of caution with joke mileage.
 10.) Opt for unpolished originality over slick imitations.
 11.) Always have something new to try, allow material to evolve, and write something every day.
 12.)  Have faith in your words, especially through their infancy. It's a rare thing to be born polished.
 13.) Remember that the truth serves the laugh and the laugh respects the truth.
 14.) Choose the targets of your humor wisely, and never hurt those that are weaker than you.
 15.) Do your thing, relax and have fun. That's the rarest dish of all.


i am going to figure this comedy thing out.

George Carlin: On Location with George Carlin

Somehow throughout my comic travels, I completely missed George Carlin. I am mostly unfamiliar with his albums and specials, and other than a few bits online and a cameo in Dogma, the man was mostly off my radar. That being said, I am very aware of the trajectory of his career, as well as the comic icon he became. His penchant for exposing the raw and naked truth isn't really explored much in this special, On Location with George Carlin, but since it's Carlin's first HBO special I thought it would be a good place to start.

This special has some significant context to it. It opens with a little old lady in a chair telling the viewer that the FCC had a serious legal hearing about Carlin's freedom of speech in relation to this special, since the final twenty minutes contain the "seven words you'll never hear on television" bit. They ruled in favor of his freedom of speech, but Carlin chose to do less controversial humor because of the commotion that had been going on. This muzzle greatly softens Carlin's voice in this early 1977 special. He spends a lot of time with the small world, especially early on, and comes across a little bit bored.

It is very hard to nail down what is going on with Carlin in this particular special. His pace is slow, and the topics and premises he explores early on are a bit simple. Just basic observations about shopping, walking, playing monopoly, differences of dogs and cats, burping/farting. No deep exploration or honest insight to much of it, but simply pointing out that certain quirks exist, and then articulating those quirks with silly faces/voices/physical humor. His face always remains fully animated, and his bits of physical humor remain charged throughout the special, which juxtaposes oddly against his seemingly bored narrator. As the special goes on and Carlin gets closer to topics and ideas that interest him, it starts to mesh better.

The Seven Dirty Words bit, which comprises the final twenty minutes, is by far the strongest material. He leads into the routine with a bit about language regarding the elasticity and malleability of word meanings. Before the bit starts, there is a twenty second pause in which the following appears: "THE FINAL SEGMENT OF MR. CARLIN'S PERFORMANCE CONTAINS ESPECIALLY CONTROVERSIAL LANGUAGE, PLEASE CONSIDER WHETHER YOU WISH TO CONTINUE VIEWING." A jarring and off-putting reminder that clearly renders the tone of the comic landscape Carlin lived in. A world where television was strictly monitored, and the comedian's artistic and comedic principles did not yet outweigh the standards of rules and practices. This comic bit that clashed against this world, Seven Dirty Words, is originally from an album called Class Clown from 1972, and at this point the routine is already famous. The style of humor doesn't change much from the earlier jokes, but it's a much more interesting subject than his other bits of disconnected small world comedy fluff. Ultimately, it's his intellectual exploration of the topic that one ends up taking home, along with some clever lines about language that unfortunately did not age very well and seem now common and possibly corny.

The comedy in this special does seem a little corny at times, and might be responsible for skewing my interpretation. Sometimes older comedy just feels...old. Sometimes it's corny because the humor might be too close to its time period, wearing its era too snugly, and it's hard to crack for younger generations; the history ends up superseding the comedy. Also to contend with is my expectation of who Carlin is as a comedian which might get in the way of his jokes. I am hoping that by starting early and working through all his specials, I can closely examine how he found his comic voice, and better still how he developed the tools to express it. In the meantime, it's an interesting history lesson in comedy.

Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theatre

Just watched this very funny Louis C.K special that had some great bits, especially near the end. Got me thinking about Louis C.K. from a technical standpoint again, as he's one of my favorites to analyze. I have trouble categorizing his worldview since there are so many angles from which he approaches his humor. Cynicism, neuroses, apathy, morality, compassion, love and petty hate are all distributed in such equal parts that it's hard to pigeonhole him as an angry comic or an awkward comic, so he achieves something greater. A fully human voice.

By setting up his persona as a highly observant but wholly ineffectual commenter, he's given himself reign to explore anything his imagination allows. His observational style transcends simplicity by how adept he is at exploring vague and abstract notions, and the vaguer they are the more specific and articulate Louis' language becomes to serve his descriptions. Louis is also a great story teller, and reminds me of Patton Oswalt in this sense, as they both explore each leg or segment of the story comically before tipping their hands as to the direction the story is going, which in turn gives the stories tremendous mileage. His ability to remain endearing by agency of dirty language and perverse delusions is a feat that somehow makes it hard for one to judge him, and it's interesting that simply through his admittance, analyzation, and acceptance of his personal flaws, the audience comes to love and accept him.

The only gripes I had with the special honestly is that I think I've simply reached critical mass with Louis C.K. I've seen Chewed Up, Shameless, Hilarious, One Night Stand, two seasons of Louie and now this. He's a fantastic comedian, so now when he cracks me up, it doesn't surprise me any more. I expect him to crack me up. Even if he re-invents himself and becomes something somehow greater, I still would expect it in the back of my mind. "Of course he'd become the greatest of all time, of course".  He's now a column kingpin of comedy, and though that may dampen the surprise and rob some steam from new specials, it's still an incredible testament to his ability, to the point where I can't ever imagine saying "I've heard enough from Louis C.K."

Last things last, I found this online, it's a bit from the performance that didn't make it into the special but it's great and it should have.

Badda bing badda boom, this was Joey GooGATS, and you learn to say it right.

Mentlegens

While we figure out how the hell this is going to work here's some background.
Alphabet-wise listing.

Aziz Ansari

Bit:

Full Bit:

Maria Bamford

 Bit:

Bit:

 (Couldn't put up the Homemade Christmas Special)


Mike Birbiglia

Talk:

Full Bit:

Hannibal Buress

Bit:

Bill Burr

Talk:

Full Bit:

George Carlin

Bit:

Dave Chappelle

Talk:

Bit:

Bill Cosby

Talk:

Jim Gaffigan

Bit:

Paul Mooney

Bit:

Album:

John Mulaney

Talk:

Full Bit:

Patrice O'Neal

Bit:

Jim Norton

Bit:

Talk w/ Penn:

Patton Oswalt

Bit:

Bit:

Album:

Daryl Wright

Bit: