Stand up comics/comedy writers, I've got a few questions for you [looooong]

[CptPlanet]

I'm pretty sure that few of the folks who post here do stand up comedy, and I've been seriously considering getting into it myself. I've been writing humor/satire since I was 14 years old, and everyone I've showed it to thinks I'm just the bee's knees or the cat's meow or whatever. I'm told at least once a day that I should do stand up.

Before I toss myself headlong into the comedy club abyss, I've got a couple questions I was hoping you guys could answer about it for me.

1. How is writing stand up different than writing, say, essays/skits/stories? How do you take a humorous idea and develop it into a bit or a joke?

2. Do you ever find yourself crippled with pointless self-doubt? In spite of the fact that you know that what you're working on will make people laugh, do you ever just go "Jesus Christ, this is retarded. What the fuck am I doing?"

3. Do you struggle with stage fright? It seems to me that one of the keys to being an effective comedian is being able to interact with the audience in a humorous manner, and if you're nervous about the fact that you're in a room full of strangers, you'll probably fuck it up. What do you do calm your nerves and put yourself at ease around an audience?

4. Do you find yourselves stealing "material" from actual conversations in your daily life? Is this something to feel bad about?

5. How rigidly scripted is your act? Do you just jot down a few notes about what you want to talk about and play it mostly by ear, or do you actually memorize jokes and bits? If possible-- and I swear I won't steal any material from you-- can you post some your material exactly as you have it written on the page? I just want to see how writing standup material is different than writing essays and articles.

6. Overall, do you enjoy it? Have you ever bombed? What do you like about it, what do you dislike about it? What are some things that most people don't know about the "business" as it were?

7. How do you get booked? Show up at an open mic nite? Get an agent?

8. How much does it pay? Is it a reliable source of income, or just a hobby that yields a little extra cash on the side?

9. Do you ever get in a "rut" or "funk" where you just don't feel funny for like 3 weeks and you know that the only reason it's happening is because you're stressed about trying to write something funny? Yeah, that happens to me sometimes too. In fact it's happening right now. What should I do about it?

10. What, if any, background do you have in performance arts? Were you a drama kid in high school? Were you a theater major in college? How exactly did you get involved in stand up? Did you just decide to show up at an open mic night and try your hand at it?

The final for my creative writing class is to go to some shitty hipster cafe in a week and do a "reading". It's mainly going to be a bunch of poetry/artfag circle jerking, but I'm going to use it to get a feel for stand up and see if it really is something I might be interested in.

I realize that I probably sound too pathetic and insecure to ever make anyone laugh, but this board seems like the perfect place to ask these kinds of questions, and I don't like to go off half-cocked. Plus, remember that "condensed comedy" thread I posted? I blew that shit up, right?

To everyone who even bothered to read this bullshit, thanks a million. And to everyone who replies, thanks a trillion. You're absolutely magical. Don't ever forget that. :)

[keepthechaaange]

i really want to be a comic too. too bad all the clubs here are 21+. gay. anyway, i'll try to answer some of your questions based on my minimal experience in comedy:

1. when i write a sketch, i usually take from a notebook i have where i've written a bunch of interesting ideas that i think could make a funny sketch and go from there. most standup bits i think of are usually just spontaneous stuff from me thinking or talking to people. i think the less you overthink a joke, the better.

2. i know exactly what you mean. even if i'm just having a conversation with somebody and make them laugh at something that i think is a retarded easy joke, i get kind of disappointed in myself for stooping to that. getting laughs are important, but i'd rather take the high road and use material that is funny to me rather than pandering to the audience.

3. i used to struggle with stage fright. but a few beers will cure that. if you really get nervous on stage, i would recommend drinking a little beforehand just so you loosen up. that's just my opinion though.

4. i dont know how to answer this. i think it depends on if youre blatantly stealing jokes from your friends/family out of context or if youre just repeating conversations because they were funny. hopefully that makes sense.

5. i believe in crafting the joke onstage rather than scripting it out. i think making it up as you go is much more intimate for the audience than having a comic standing there having memorized a script. of course, there are a few "jokes" that you might have going in but leaving it mostly unscripted with just a few notes is the best way to go in my mind. you leave yourself open to bomb but practice makes perfect.

6. the handful of times i've ever performed for people, i've enjoyed it. it helps if you get laughs. when you dont get laughs and everyone is just looking at you, it really sucks but thats to be expected.

7. open mic nights all the way. if you do enough of them and get good enough, clubs will start calling you to book nights. i wouldnt worry about getting an agent at all until youve established yourself enough that clubs are calling you to perform. and even then getting an agent may not be worth it. DIY, man. save your money and do it yourself.

8. you have to be good to make a living off of it. take someone like colin quinn (whether you like him or not). for a long time he was on the road for over 40 weeks a year just so he could make enough money to not get a real job. i wouldnt count on making this your day job until you get really good at it. and even then it's not guaranteed. i'd count on it being a hobby, though nothing's out of the realm of possibility if you work at it enough.

9. dont try so hard. let the game come to you. it's a common rule that if youre trying too hard to be funny, youre not going to be. i dont think i've ever thought of anything funny when i sat down and said "okay, think of a funny idea/joke". something will come to you at some point, maybe while youre driving or at work or walking around or whatever. just let it happen and dont worry about it.

10. my friends and i used to make short funny films for class in school. i used to front a band. and i liked to think of myself as the "class clown". that's about as close to performing arts i ever got. i think that if you watch enough standup, you develop a sense of how to do it and you can carry that over to doing an open mic night.

and about feeling pathetic and insecure, dont worry about. EVERY good comic feels pathetic and insecure. that's why theyre comics. if you just go in with a good attitude and without any expectations for immediate success and stardom, you'll be fine. just go in with the mindset that it'll be fun and you should have a good time, even if the crowd hates you.

i hope my answers were of some help despite my marginal experience.

[CptPlanet]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to write out all of that. You addressed pretty much every concern that I had about it. I was mainly worried that it was some big serious business and that people had formal sets of rules and protocols that you're supposed to abide by.

Knowing that I can pretty much get up there and bullshit with just a basic framework of what you want to talk about really puts my mind at ease, although I only get 7 fucking minutes at this performance I'm doing next week and I might invoke the wrath of one of the artfags if I go over because I'm getting sidetracked on tangential bullshit. Most of these people are probably arrogant enough that they'll be sitting there with a stopwatch and waiting for their turn to go up on stage and jerk themselves off with their mediocre freeform prose.

I'm with you 100% on the drinking beforehand thing. I'm thinking that's probably what I'll do, and my teacher gave me the go ahead to have a few drinks before I got there.

The advice about writer's block was pretty dead-on too. I stopped worrying so much about being funny, and now I'm writing some of the best stuff I've ever written right now. Thanks a whole bucketload for responding. If you have any other advice or tips, feel free to spill it.

[CptPlanet]

UPDATE: The performance went off without a hitch. I'm not sure if stand-up is quite the thing for me, but after my set, I was offered a job writing for a local humor paper.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ME AND THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

[tjamick]

fuckin sweet. do you have any transcriptions of your act?

[CptPlanet]

Hmm... I do, but it's sort of embarassingly unfunny. I had to tailor it to being spoken out loud, and condense it all into seven minutes, and the result was basically an unfunny shit heap.

Actually, here is one of the only jokes that I found remotely salvagable:

Another debate that’s starting to flare up again is the whole abortion brouhaha. There was that big protest march by all the women’s rights groups in the national mall in Washington DC. Which sort of simplifies the issue a little too much, I think. It’s not just an issue of women’s rights, it affects all of us, including men. Like, if they remove a woman’s right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, that means that I have to start using condoms. Which I think is sort of inconsiderate and inconvenient. And that’s already hard enough to get away with right now, trying to convince a girl that I somehow managed to get a dozen mosquito bites down there.

I was sort of pissed when I heard the first track on David's new album because he does a joke about abortion that's almost exactly like that, only about a thousand times funnier.

[tjamick]

not bad. one thing i do is write down the entire act, and when im doing it i usually start to improvise if i get an idea during the bit. its good to keepit structured, but not too structured.

[tjamick]

i was just reading over your questions again and i saw #4 and to answer it i'd say that there's nothing wrong with that aslong as its something that YOU said. alot of times thats where i get my best material, for instace today me and my brother were talking about tammy faye having cancer and i said:

"i have no fucking sympathy for her, she compleatley deserves it. in fact, a week before it was annonced i was praying that an evangalest would die, and so now becouse of tammy faye, i believe in god."

as soon as i got home i wrote it into a bit i was doing about heaven. so, yes doing that is fine. thats where most humor comes from, every day conversations

[CptPlanet]

Goddamn that's a good bit. I really wish I was capable of writing socially and politically relevant material, but then again I'm only 19 (as of today).

How often do you do standup tjamick? Is it a full-time thing or a hobby? Also, by any chance, would you happen to have any audio recordings of your performances?

Also, for the hell of it, here's a bit that I've been working on:

"There's a video game for every sport and every sporting event. Except the special olympics. They should make one. It could be like those street racing games where you start out with the shittiest car available, and then you get to "soup it up" throughout the game. Like, your cripple could start out having to do track races on crutches, and always falling over or veering to the right, and then when you get enough money, you can buy him some spine surgery and squeeze every last bit of performance out of him, rice out your sped. You could get a big triple stack spoiler on his helmet to give him more downforce when he's cornering. Then, after you win enough races with him, you could trade him in for a less fucked up model, like a pole vaulter with mild ADD or something."

Most of that bit came from a conversation with my friend about video games. Clearly my biggest concern is that the audience will not pick up on all the sophisticated nuances of the bit.

[tjamick]

that was fucking hilarious. finding an audiance is the thing i worry about for my stuff. i've actually only done stand-up twice, im only 17, so its hard to find some where to do it. most of the clubs in my area are 18+/21+. the first time i did it on stage was at an open mic night and a lady told me that she was offended while i was doing my act, so i strayed from it and bashed her for the rest of my 20 min.s instead. and hopefully i'll have either some mp3 or video of my act within the next 3 months.

[agent_PUNT]

that special olympics thing is funny.

[CptPlanet]

Thanks guys.

tjamick, have you been involved in acting or some other performance type thing or are you just naturally comfortable onstage? I always get nervous when I have to speak in front of people, and when I'm out of my element like that it's hard to come up with off the cuff shit like you were talking about. I've been using alcohol to simulate confidence but there truly is no substitute.

[tjamick]

i've been acting for about 7 years, you'll get used to being onstage after a while. try just talking to one person.

[ME!!!!]

This thread is very polite.

[TomWopat]

OMG u GURLZ WANNA CUDDEL 2niTE HAHAHAHAHA

[Stabby]

haha aww that was back before they all hated each other

[teengirlsquad]

this thread reminds me of the thread where saddam hussein is in his underpants

[JuanBallsac]

Juan!

Here is a tip. Keep a blood capsule handy. If you really start to bomb, pop it. Let the blood slowly trickle down your chin. Then scream at the audience. Trust me, it will make you feel ten times better about the situation. Before you leave stage, say "I am (insert name), your Grandma's favorite comedian."

And remember most people are stupid Lynard skynard fans. So fuck 'em.

[Change Thief]

Hey, I write a lot of stand up material. I wish I would have seen this thread a lot sooner, so that I could have talked about it. I haven't performed any of the material yet (I'm only 17 and I live in fucking Green Bay), but I think some of it is decent. My question to others is this: do you automatically know if a bit is funny, or do you have no idea until you perform it? Because for the most part, I can't really tell if any of my material is funny or not.

[Change Thief]

Actually, I've done stand up only one time, and it seemed to go over quite well. Although it could have gone better (I was very nervous because of the audience I was in front of, and also my material could have been a little offensive to said audience).

[CptPlanet]

what about this you guys: you do a joke about pooping your pants... WHILE YOU'RE POOPING YOUR PANTS.