Comedy with a Message

When speaking of comedy, there's an old saying: you can't teach funny. Generally, this means that someone who doesn't have some form of natural talent associated with humor can't be taught how to truly be funny. These are things like timing, pacing, rhythm and a good storyteller or comedian will use these all at once without even thinking about them.

Moving further along the same thought, nobody can truly teach YOU how to make YOU funny. Your sense of humor and what it is you find funny is entirely unique to you. While someone else may have some good advice on a technical aspect of a joke or two, your style and the subjects you choose to tackle are decided by what makes you laugh.

Simple, right? If a thought you think makes you laugh, you can turn around and perform it, and providing you've built your stage skills properly, you will be a funny comedian.

Now, in terms of me personally, the thoughts that make me laugh the hardest are also the ones that mean something underneath the surface. To take an example from my current act, I have a joke about the Flesh Light (a male masturbatory aid, which resembles a vagina stuffed into a Pringles can). The main premise is “We've had dildos for decades, why did it take so long to invent the flesh light? It's like someone inventing the lightbulb and then no one thinking of inventing the socket.”

On the surface, it's just another joke about a stupid sex-toy. And largely, it is. Underneath though, there's a message of society using advancing technology to fill needs that didn't exist until the need was made possible by technology. Again, kind of deep for a sex-toy joke, but the message is why I continue to perform it.

I'm mentioning all this for one reason, and oddly enough, its not to highlight my flesh light joke (though it is kind of clever, eh?)

I have a substantial amount of material regarding the fact that in April 2009, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. On the surface, the material is just a pissed off kid making light of a serious event, but again, I like to write things with a message. In this case, the message is significantly more important to me than the joke, in-so-far that the material is less comedy routine and more motivational speech with jokes.

The message of the epilepsy material is four-fold:
1) Epilepsy is a serious condition
2) The people who have epilepsy are regular people, not “people I've never met”
3) Most people's perceptions of epilepsy are incorrect
4) No matter how serious a condition is, humor can be found

Currently, I perform the material very infrequently, waiting until I have at least 7-8 minutes to perform it. I've tried to shorten it down, but every time I've tried, I find I leave a bad taste in my mouth because I've missed an important part of my message.

For example, just 2 weeks ago, I did two epilepsy jokes at the end of an 8 minute set. No sooner had I said the first joke did I see a young man, obviously at a table with friends, turn to his friends and pretend to have a seizure, complete with stuck out tongue and shaking limbs. His friends howled.

I wanted to leap of the stage and beat him with the mic stand. I refrained, because, at least to me, this was my fault. I didn't give him a reasonable exploration into the reality of epilepsy, and so this kid decided to add what he thought, for comedic effect.

That incident with the kid in the crowd is also why I refuse (and will continue to refuse) to add any seizure simulation to my act. I mention seizures, of course, but I don't act them out. I've been told by numerous otherwise well-meaning people that I need to add it because “it's what the crowd wants to see.”

To me, that's crossing a line between making fun of a condition, and making fun of people with that condition. If I'm on stage, pretending to have a seizure, I'm telling the crowd that what they're seeing is just a joke. And that is why I refuse to do it. I'm not going out of my way to appease the exact knee-jerk reactions I hope to raise some awareness against.

And beyond that, if it's not funny to me, then its not in my act. I do appreciate the advice, but while you can't teach funny, you can use funny to teach something else.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go to a party. Apparently, epileptics are hot commodities for the party-throwing crowd. And really, you can see why. I make one hell of a shaken martini.

GET IT, ITS A SHAKE JOKE!

Now that I find funny.

All is well, and my brain is (not) broke.

FBS

Vancouver's Amateur Comedy Scene

In a tragic case of breaking rules I just made for myself yesterday, I wanted to say something in the traditional blogging sense.

While I wasn't there (I was busy speaking into the smoky darkness at another comedy room at the time) based on every account I've heard, the LOL @ the Cellar charity benefit last Thursday was a rousing success. I just want to say congrats to the two brains behind the show, Andy Kallstrom and Donovan Patrick Mahoney.

While browsing through the facebook pictures of said event (which you can find here), I came upon a realization; Vancouver's amateur scene is pretty damn stocked right now.

After nearly 5 months of hauling my ass around to the different open mics and Pro/Am shows in this city, I'm amazed at how far a lot of us have come. Even just speaking of the 10-12 comics who started this summer (including the aforementioned Donovan and Andy), seeing the progression of both the individuals and the group has given me a real boost of confidence regarding my own development as a stand-up.

It seems to me that, while we may all still have extensive periods of intense stage-suckage, we also are kicking ass in greater frequency and amplitude than expected. In other words, for a bunch of rookies, we seem to be better comics and having more great shows than we should be.

Pardon me while I pat myself on the back. If you're part of the scene, feel free to do so too. I'll wait.

What's also amazing to me is how well we all seem to mesh. While there's some amount of the personality conflicts and back-stabbing that goes on within any amateur scene, we all seem to get along (though, I, for one, still maintain that Ross Dauk is far too handsome to be a comic; get off the stage, dreamboat and leave it for us Fug-ohs, dammit).

Anyways, my point is this; I'm honestly proud to be part of this scene right now. I also wouldn't be surprised if, 10 years from now, I'm going to be telling people "You know that guy/girl, (insert name here)? The one on TV, the one with that special? Yeah, I knew him/her in week 5. And man, did he/she SUUUUUUCK!"

Keep it up everyone, and if you are not a local comic reading this, go to any comedy show and look for the amateurs (we're easy to find, we're usually the ones begging the Host for more stage time). Better see them now before success hits and the same people become giant assholes.

Also, I hope Ross knows I was joking before. I think you are plenty unattractive to be a comic. I (heart) you, buddy.

Francis Brian Shaw

Thought for the day:
I realized last week three things: my father owns a trailer, my mother lives next to a swamp and favorite uncle just got parole. Apparently, my white trash credentials are in fine order. (Seriously guys, NOT joking)