Tracy Morgan Sucks But So Do You

On June 4th, average citizen and comedy enthusiast Kevin Rogers wrote a note on Facebook about an anti-gay rant he had seen from Tracy Morgan at what was supposed to be a comedy show. The note has gotten world-wide media attention and has led to public outrage, prompting an apology from Morgan and statements from his coworkers and NBC, all without even seeing a video. While I personally am not a fan of Tracy Morgan’s comedy and I think what he said was incredibly ignorant and unfunny, for me this whole incident highlights what is wrong with society more than it exposes the shocking truth about Tracy Morgan.

To me it seems like this rant was probably a bit that he hadn’t developed yet and threw it out there anyway in its rawest form. When it wasn’t working he probably panicked and got angry and decided to heighten the shock value instead of abandoning the bit. This is purely conjecture of course because again, I haven't seen a video. Comedians see this kind of thing a lot at open mics so they’re probably a little more desensitized to it than non-comedians; that’s why you save that kind of shit for the open mics and you don’t go throw it out to civilians who don’t understand that it’s not necessarily that you’re a hateful person, it’s that you’re a horrible comedian who hasn’t yet learned that shock value has to be balanced by wit and good writing. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take risks, I’m just saying you should choose your risks carefully in this day and age. George Carlin is quoted as having said, “I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately”. In 2011, you’re better off finding out where the line is drawn, drawing another line two feet behind it, and crossing that line. Sorry George. The revolution is over.

In this day and age, free speech isn’t really free. Free speech is free if it is free of hate. And that’s fine I guess. Freedom of speech has to have restrictions because people are too stupid to not be incited by a powerful speaker who uses hate to unite like-minded and weak-minded people. We have to protect society from messages of hate, because society is mostly made up of sheep and savages who will act on them, too dumb to think on their own and too weak to break away from their immediate sphere of influence. Human beings need censorship for the same reason they need religion: because common sense and common decency are not that common and not enough to keep people in line.

Everyone is fucked up. The people complaining about bullying are just as bad as the bullies, and hate is fought with hate. Over the past couple of days I have seen several people condemn Tracy’s rant, calling it bullying and anti-this and that, and then saying things like “He must be mad because he has a girl’s name”. So you’re outraged about bullying and homophobia but you still resort to making fun of a person’s name because it is traditionally used for the opposite sex? I bet when Tracy was in elementary school, it was the kids like you who were bullying him. Kids like you, who would torment a boy for having a “girl’s name” are what create this kind of monster. Many of these same people accuse Tracy of being a closeted homosexual, which I agree he probably is, but I bet if people hadn’t been making fun of his “girl name” and calling him a homosexual all his life he wouldn’t feel the need to be closeted. He wouldn’t be so afraid and ashamed of it.

The rant as it’s described is not even really hateful towards the gay community per-say. He said being gay is a choice. That is an opinion and, in and of itself, not hateful I don’t think. Personally I don’t agree with it but I don’t think there is any conclusive scientific evidence to prove otherwise. He also didn’t say he would like to kill all gays. He didn’t say he would, or you should, kill a gay on the street. He said he would kill his own son if he was gay. Again, ignorant and unfunny, but I don’t think society as a whole would mind so much if he killed his son. America would be obsessed with the scandal and the subsequent trial (please see Casey Anthony). You’d eat that shit up. You would repost it a thousand times on Facebook and use it as an example to support your particular agenda; black-on-black crime, homophobia, self-destructiveness in comedy, whatever it may be. You’d write a blog about it and it would get you lots of attention and accolades. A comedian that very night would go up on stage and tell a joke about it and get an applause break. America loves celebrity scandal and horror more than apple pie with a scoop of vanilla. No one is even that horrified that he said he would kill his own son. They are too preoccupied with the reason why and the fact that it is not politically correct.

NBC released a statement regarding the incident that urged Tracy to educate himself on “why such words have no place in our culture today”, but clearly they do have a place. The blog written by Kevin Rogers that originally brough this to light describes the crowd during Tracy’s rant as responding with “thunderous cheer and ‘You go Tracys’.” So there is an audience for it. The “God don’t make mistakes” thing is a pretty common hardcore Christian belief. There are a lot of people who truly feel this way. Maybe it’s not so much that Tracy Morgan is fucked up, maybe it’s this whole society that’s fucked up. Maybe today, it’s not so much the comedian’s duty to cross that line that was drawn so long ago, it’s the comedian’s duty to hold up a mirror to society and show it just how ugly it has become. And if that’s true, Tracy’s work here is done.

Comedy Conundrum

Be yourself.  Like no one else who has come before you. Like this guy.

I have been so bogged down lately with analyzing, studying, and trying to understand comedy that I have become completely comedically paralyzed, bringing my own creativity to a screeching halt. A big part of the problem is that I read too many blogs and listen to too many podcasts from other comedians and comedy critics, talking endlessly about what comedy is and what it isn’t and what it should and shouldn’t be. The mixed messages from self-proclaimed comedy experts are driving me insane. If I were to take all of the things I’ve heard from said comedy experts and lump them into one conversation, it would go something like this:

Comedy Expert: Just be yourself. Don’t be like anyone who has come before you. Use your personal experiences to be unique. People will accept you if you are honest.

Me: Ok that sounds simple enough.

Comedy Expert: Just be honest. Be true to yourself. Like Carlin or Pryor or Hicks.

Me: So I should be like Carlin Pryor or Hicks? You just said don’t be like anyone else.

Comedy Expert: No you should be like them. But don’t curse a lot. Be conversational. Just do what you think is funny without the cursing.

Me: But all three of them cursed a lot. And you said I should be myself and conversational. I curse a lot in regular conversation.

Comedy Expert: Well you don’t want it to look like a crutch. Also you’ll never get into clubs or on TV if you’re cursing all the time.

Me: But you said people would accept me if I’m honest and true to myself.

Comedy Expert: Yeah but you’re a woman. Vulgar women are a big turnoff. Speaking of which, don’t ever talk about farts or anything like that.

Me: But sometimes farts are funny to me. Even babies laugh at farts. Farts are innately funny. You said I should do what I think is funny.

Comedy Expert: You have to go deeper than that. Talk about something that has really affected you. But stay away from relationships. Every female comic talks about relationships.

Me: But relationships really have affected me.

Comedy Expert: Just avoid it. You have to find your inner voice. You don’t want to be like anyone else.

Me: Ok.

Comedy Expert: But don’t get too dark. You’re bumming the audience out with that shit.

Me: But I’ve been through a lot of dark things. What I’m saying is true. I want to talk about it.

Comedy Expert: People will think you’re just trying to be edgy. Just stick to lighter stuff.

Me: Like farts?

Comedy Expert: No. Now you’re just trying to be funny. Don’t try to be funny just be yourself and let the funny come from within. And stop wearing tight shit and showing cleavage. You’re here to tell jokes not make dicks hard.

Me: But this is how I always dress. If I wear baggy clothes I feel like I look fatter.

Comedy Expert: Oh my God no DO NOT wear baggy clothes. You don’t wanna look like a dyke up there or some kind of hipster idiot.

Me: So I shouldn’t wear tight OR baggy clothes?

Comedy Expert: Look Amy, what I’m trying to tell you is just be yourself. Don’t be like anyone who has come before you. Use your personal experiences to be unique. People will accept you if you are honest.

This is maddening. I don’t know what’s right anymore. The double standards and self-doubt have rendered me creatively impotent. I think one thing I definitely have to do is simply stop paying attention to what people say, but that’s so difficult for me because I want to get good at this. I love comedy, I want to study it. I live for it and I’m obsessed with it. I want to be a good student but the text book is fucked up and the professors are egomaniacs. Not to mention class never starts on time. I don’t have a solution to this right now, so there won’t be any clean tied up ending to this blog. I guess you could call this the unclean, untidy end.

Speaking of unclean untidy ends, did I ever tell you about my ex-boyfriend who used to shit his pants every time he farted?

Thom Yorke...In Bed

Check it out! I was asked by Playboy Magazine's website thesmokingjacket.com to write about what it might be like to bang Radiohead's Thom Yorke based on his dance moves in their new video for the song Lotus Flower. It's really interesting to see the different female points of view on this. Personally I would never bang this guy but apparently not everyone feels that way. They would probably never bang the guys I have banged either. To each her own! Enjoy!

http://www.thesmokingjacket.com/humor/thom-yorke-dancing

Comedy Can Suck My Dick

This week has been one of extreme highs and extreme lows for me comedy wise. It started with a high on Saturday night when I performed on a show in my home town of New Rochelle. I was so sure I was going to bomb when I saw the crowd of mostly middle-aged upper class money types, but I ended up killing and the adrenaline was unbelievable. I never thought I would be able to get through to a crowd like this, but I did and I felt like I had really achieved something. Even if it was a small victory, it felt great and I remembered why I love doing this for a moment.

The next night was my audition for the Montreal Just for Laughs festival at Broadway Comedy Club. This was the first time I had ever auditioned for anything other than late-night club spots, and to say I had a lot of anxiety would be a tremendous understatement. I actually threw up four times before I left the house. I used to be petrified at the thought of having to perform anything longer than a ten minute set. This time I had five minutes, and narrowing my set down to my “best” five minutes seemed impossible. I knew I had to establish my character right away, and I definitely failed at doing that. I think the audience could feel my discomfort and nervousness and it did not go over well. I was so embarrassed that I had not done well in front of the other comedians, a few of whom I already know have said nasty things about me behind my back, and that I had let down the people who referred me to get me into the audition. I left the club feeling sick and upset and questioning again why I do this, and why I give a fuck about it at all.

The next night I took the bullet spot at a show at a hookah lounge in Queens. I had decided that I was sick of my set and sick of hearing myself tell the same jokes so I would try to go off the cuff. It didn’t work. They hated me, I got heckled and a couple of people even talked loudly on their phones in a foreign language straight through my set. I still had fun though and it didn’t upset me much, because the other comics on the show were old friends who I respect and like a great deal, and I knew it didn’t change their opinion of me that I didn’t do well. After what I had been through the night before it was very comforting to be around genuine friends who wouldn’t judge me, and I remembered what it was like to just be a comic among comics and a friend among friends.

I spent most of Monday drinking brandy and crying.

Tuesday was my birthday and another small victory came in the form of Lisa Lampanelli’s discontent. My mom, who has been a loyal Howard Stern listener since the early 80’s, heard Lisa on Howard talking about how disappointed she was that one of her favorite jokes was edited out of her Comedy Central special. The joke was the one about the chimp in Connecticut, and it’s a joke that I know all too well, because I wrote it and it was stolen from me and given to her, and she had told me I couldn’t use it anymore around this time last year. I was thrilled to hear that she was upset and that the joke was cut. It was all I could have asked for in a birthday present, and I remembered how silly I was to have gotten so upset over one joke that didn’t even end up making the cut.

What happened next is pretty ironic. Just as I was reeling with glee over the defeat of a joke thief, I received a message from Patrick at Cringe Humor asking me to call him. When I got him on the phone, he reluctantly told me that one of my jokes was actually an old Roseanne Barr joke, and a fellow female comic had alerted him to it that day. The joke is not only an integral part of my act because it powerfully establishes my character early on in my set, but it was also a joke that was prominently featured in the video Patrick had recently released of me as part of the Cringe Humor Comics to Watch series. I felt like I had been punched in the cunt.

There are so many things about this that bother me. First, the joke for me is not just a joke, it’s something that actually happened to me. The joke in question goes like this when I say it: “I asked a good male friend of mine, ‘what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just get a man?’ He told me it’s because I’m masculine and aggressive. I was like ‘SUCK MY DICK! That’s not the reason’!” The male friend was Slava Yaryshkin, and the conversation that inspired that joke went almost exactly like that, but Roseanne’s joke also goes almost exactly like that – “People say to me, ‘You’re not feminine.’ Well, they can just suck my dick.”

I have read many articles and blogs about linear thought in comedy and I thought I had really done my homework when it came to avoiding something like this. Every time I write a joke, I google every word and combination of words contained within the joke to make sure it hasn’t been done before (which by the way is why I try not to blame myself too much for not being a more prolific writer – pretty much everything has been said before in some way at this point). I thought I had made sure I would never be in a position where I would have to defend an accusation of joke theivery. Now I find myself in a position where I’m asking myself, how many people recognized this as a Roseanne bit and never bothered to say anything to me, choosing instead to simply write me off as a theif? Have I lost bookings because of this joke? Can I reword the joke sufficiently to make it my own again while still keeping the character establishing punch in it or should I just drop it altogether? Could I be any more fucking humiliated by the fact that Patrick now had to edit that joke out of my Cringe Humor video and repost a new video hoping no one notices?

I only know the answer to the last question. I could not be any more fucking humiliated. The humiliation at the Montreal audition, at the hookah lounge, and every single day in middle school when all the other girls had bras and I didn’t cannot compare to the humiliation I feel right now. I’m sure eventually I will move on and let the joke go, just like I did with the one that was stolen from me this time last year, and this too shall pass, but as I lay my drunken and defeated head on my pillow tonight I will not think one more second about comedy. For tonight, and I’m sure for many more nights to come, comedy can suck my dick.

I'm Not Sick of the Snow

I'm sick of verbal fads. I'm sick of "Hey girlfriend!" and "sigh" and "for realzies". I'm sick of "redic" and "presh" and "adorbs" and "DONEZO!" I'm sick of people "gettin' it in". I'm sick of "swagger". I'm sick of hash tags. I'm sick of auto-tune and auto-correct. I'm sick of exclamation points. I'm sick of people wearing winter scarves knotted around their necks with no coat on. I'm sick of Oprah. I'm sick of Snooki. I'm sick of self-promotion and self-hatred. I'm sick of Self Magazine. I'm sick of cliques and circle-jerks and dick sucking and hierarchies. I'm sick of sunshine blowers and rainbow fuckers. I'm sick of the comics in the back of the room. I'm sick of people asking me to do things for them without saying good morning first. I'm sick of people saying good morning just because they're about to ask me to do something for them. I'm sick of "I'm good, how are you?" I'm sick of people consuming everything and appreciating nothing. I’m sick of Walmart. I’m sick of Glee. I'm sick of racists complaining about racism. I'm sick of fake friends, fake family and fake meat. . I'm sick of my ugly face. I'm sick of your ugly face. I’m sick of Facebook activism. I'm sick of people worshipping sports teams and celebrities. I'm sick of your god being real and their god being fake. I'm sick of sheep. I'm sick of recycling, reusing and reducing. I'm sick of comfortable illusions. I'm sick of HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER EVENTS! and writer's block and H & R Block. I'm sick of your opinion and I'm sick of caring about it. I'm sick of you judging me while you read this. I'm sick of Judge Judy, Judge Hatchett and Judge Mathis. If Judge Reinhold were still around, I’m sure I'd be sick of him too.

But I’m not sick of the snow. Oh no, I’m not sick of the snow.

What Comedians Say and What They Really Mean

Trying to navigate the comedy scene can be a daunting task. Along the way you will make friends and enemies, and sometimes it can be really hard to tell which is which. In an effort to help you figure out what you’re really dealing with when talking to comedians, I have outlined below five common things you may hear a comedian say, and what they really mean. I hope this short guide will help you along your glorious comedy journey.

They say: “So where you been getting up?”

They mean: “I would like to judge you based on where you get up, how often, and who with. I would also like to compare my own schedule with yours and pat myself on the back for getting up more than you at better venues with better people.”

They say: “That’s a good room to work stuff out.”

They mean: “That’s a shit room that’s not going to get you anywhere so you might as well throw in some new stuff since you have nothing to lose. Man you get shitty gigs.”

They say: “Nice! How’d you get that gig?”

They mean: The difference here is on the emphasis of the word “you”. They say, “How’d you get that gig?” They mean, “How’d YOU get that gig?” They may also mean, “Who can I pester endlessly using your name in order to get this gig for myself?” Sometimes it is a combination of both.

They say: “I really want to have you on my show but my co-producer does all the booking and he/she doesn’t know you.”

They mean: “I hate you. You suck and I would never allow you to ruin my show which I produce myself.”

They say: “It’s just a bunch of open mic-ers.”*

They mean: “It’s just a bunch of people who are beneath me. I have forgotten where I came from and I have no respect for people who need to ‘practice’ or who like to ‘socialize’. I am quite satisfied with my mediocre set that hasn’t changed one iota in six years because it’s just that perfect. I can walk into the Comedy Cellar and try out some new shit any time; I just don’t because like I said my set is perfect as-is. I also spit on old people on the subway to make them give up their seat.”

*That last one really says a lot about the type of person you’re dealing with. While some of the previous four quotes may be said in a sincere manner and not in the jaded way in which I take them, if you hear a comedian say that last one, I am correct in their meaning if they say any of the other four.