Comedy, Rules, The Breaking Thereof

[oakenguy]

I'm just back from the Comedy Studio, where I went to see my friend and classmate Gary Peterson perform. Through a strange sequence of events I wound up announcing him*, which went alright--the audience seemed to applaud extra-long after I described how Gary donated his kidney and saved my life, and he was one of the best of the ten comedians on tonight's bill. (In the top 3, I'd say).

What sent me running to blog this as soon as I got home, though, was something he told us after the show, when we were all hanging out and shooting the breeze. He said that to psych himself up for tonight, he'd gone to an open mike in Bridgewater last night and bombed on purpose. Read very slowly from his notebook, took a cell phone call on stage, everything he could think of to jinx himself.

Bombed. On. Purpose.

Part of me is just so THROWN by that--I can't explain why, but it feels like cheating!

(Another part hopes that Gary stays in comedy and doesn't become, oh, a surgeon).

Bombed! On purpose! Is that allowed?!


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*What's especially befuddling is that this 30 seconds was more stage time at the Comedy Studio than I ever got when I was actually out there hustling stand-up gigs.

Comments

[kissoflife.livejournal.com]

lol Not anymore in Bridgewater, I bet!

It's unconscionable; it's brilliant. Though taking a cell call is beyond the pale for 'braving the disgruntled audience' fear-banishing, me says.

[spatch]

Bombed! On purpose! Is that allowed?!

Well, it seems to work for Neil Hamburger...

On the cellphone thing, I remember watching a magician busker perform on the Orange Line platform at Downtown Crossing once. He wasn't a very good magician, mind you, he kept talking as trains pulled up and rolled away (I'm sorry, what did you say?) and he wasn't up on the patter. Then near the end of the act he took a cellphone call from Mom: "No, Mom, I'm - Mom, I'm in the middle of my act! Okay, okay, come pick me up afterwards."

I couldn't tell if this was an intentionally bad act in the Andy Kaufman vein (he could bomb like nobody's business, but he also had ways of winning an audience back if he felt like it) or if the kid really was starting out, so I didn't know at the time if I should laugh knowingly or cringe sympathetically.

[resk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Andy Kaufman immediately came to mind for me, too. I think that what Gary did was brilliant, and it clearly worked. These are the kinds of experiments that I LOVE reading about.

[lediva.livejournal.com]

Neil Hamburger

Ack! *twitch* No! Make the bad man go away!

I saw him open for Tenacious D a few months ago. I pretty quickly picked up that the whole schtick was being intentionally bad, but when he started turning on the audience, he lost any respect I had for him, which made the remaining two-thirds of his act just plain bad, not ironic self-aware bad.

[withnoh.livejournal.com]

How did Gary do? I wanted to go but I'm afraid to run into the douchebag ex boyfriend. Actually, it would have been awesome to run into him with my students, because I would have made you all act like the eyebrow mafia.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

He did really well! He's got this non-stop smile on stage like he loves being there (which was a BIG change from a lot of the other performers), and had a line about his resemblance to Rick Moranis that made me lose it.

Oh, we SO would have had your back. No sign of the douchebag. The biggest drama of the night was when Chris Coxen spilled some bleach and almost got it on an audience member.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Neil Hamburger and Andy Kaufman's "so bad it's ironic which means it's funny" style is a comedy taste that just doesn't work for me. Maybe it's an astrological thing.

I've actually spent a few minutes trying to think of exceptions, but all I can come up with are P.D.Q. Bach, Bill Murray's lounge singer and the circus acrobat who pretends to be a drunk audience member trying to ride a horse. Hrm.

[lediva.livejournal.com]

I've enjoyed some of Andy Kaufman's work, but mostly the stuff that was just strange, like the "Mighty Mouse" bit on SNL or "Foreign Man". The stuff that was actively antagonistic (the wrestling stuff) I just... well, felt antagonized by.

I think that's the line for me personally. I love stuff that pushes the boundaries of what we consider comedy... but personally, I think Neil Hamburger is comedy's equivalent of The Shaggs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shaggs).

Context (http://www.warr.org/odds.html): "In the days of X-rated theaters, 'raincoaters' were those who had attended so often that ordinary pornography had lost its allure, and thus were forced to seek out increasingly bizarre and perverse acts to rouse their jaded sensibilities. The musical equivalent of a raincoater is a Shaggs fan" "...some day, when you're bored with normal music - when all hard rock sounds stupid, all love songs banal, all classical and jazz pretentious, all studio proficiency mere trickery - you too may be ready for The Shaggs."