Comedy and Humor

skullman80
Posts: 19201
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 5:02 pm
Location: Monroeville, PA

Comedy and Humor

Postby skullman80 » Thu Mar 26, 2020 7:28 am

Wife and I watched the most recent (I think) iliza Schlesinger specials on Netflix and thought they were both really funny.

mikey
Posts: 42242
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:58 pm
Location: More of a before-rehab friend...
Contact:

Comedy and Humor

Postby mikey » Thu Mar 26, 2020 8:25 am

New Segura special is hilarious
Watched it yesterday, it's great.

count2infinity
Posts: 35611
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:06 pm
Location: All things must pass. With six you get eggroll. No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney.
Contact:

Comedy and Humor

Postby count2infinity » Thu Mar 26, 2020 8:26 am

Love me some Segura. Might have to add that to my queue.

mikey
Posts: 42242
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:58 pm
Location: More of a before-rehab friend...
Contact:

Comedy and Humor

Postby mikey » Thu Mar 26, 2020 8:26 am

Wife and I watched the most recent (I think) iliza Schlesinger specials on Netflix and thought they were both really funny.
Been tracking her for a while because I thought she had a lot of potential...she finally got pretty close to 60 minutes of material into her last special, when typically she's been in the 40-45 minute range (in a 60 minute special), I think she's finally realizing what she can do, she's terrific...

mikey
Posts: 42242
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:58 pm
Location: More of a before-rehab friend...
Contact:

Comedy and Humor

Postby mikey » Thu Mar 26, 2020 8:27 am

In other news, Mrs Tif and I have just gone down the John Mulaney rabbit hole, and we quite like where we've found ourselves.
About a month or so ago, I was discussing comedy with some friends and I came to the determination that he's the funniest man in America right now. Absolutely brilliant...

Freddy Rumsen
Posts: 35313
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 11:50 am
Location: "Order is the only possibility of rest." -- Wendell Berry

Comedy and Humor

Postby Freddy Rumsen » Thu Mar 26, 2020 8:46 am


NTP66
Posts: 60740
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2015 2:00 pm
Location: FUCΚ! Even in the future nothing works.

Comedy and Humor

Postby NTP66 » Thu Mar 26, 2020 8:57 am

Wife and I watched the most recent (I think) iliza Schlesinger specials on Netflix and thought they were both really funny.
She's terrific, and deservedly won Last Comic Standing.

DigitalGypsy66
Posts: 19674
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 7:33 pm
Location: Iodine State

Comedy and Humor

Postby DigitalGypsy66 » Thu Mar 26, 2020 10:41 am

Wife and I watched the most recent (I think) iliza Schlesinger specials on Netflix and thought they were both really funny.
She's terrific, and deservedly won Last Comic Standing.
She plays Marky Mark's girlfriend in the Netflix Spenser movie. Decent Boston accent. :lol:

tifosi77
Posts: 51509
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 1:07 pm
Location: Batuu

Comedy and Humor

Postby tifosi77 » Thu Mar 26, 2020 1:16 pm

In other news, Mrs Tif and I have just gone down the John Mulaney rabbit hole, and we quite like where we've found ourselves.
About a month or so ago, I was discussing comedy with some friends and I came to the determination that he's the funniest man in America right now. Absolutely brilliant...
It's nuts. He's not just funny, which is obviously the most important part. But technically - in a nuts-and-bolts sense - he's elite in just about every aspect of the craft.

mikey
Posts: 42242
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:58 pm
Location: More of a before-rehab friend...
Contact:

Comedy and Humor

Postby mikey » Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:08 pm

Yeah, you nailed it, it's very precise...impressively so. Even when he gets away with just using specific, albeit random, references to serve as joke/story filler, they're just so unique and delivered with such good joke rhythm that you can't help but to laugh...it's really quite exquisite...

count2infinity
Posts: 35611
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:06 pm
Location: All things must pass. With six you get eggroll. No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney.
Contact:

Comedy and Humor

Postby count2infinity » Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:13 pm

"And then I had that thought that only black out drunks and Steve Urkle have..." I laughed so hard at that.

Lemon Berry Lobster
Posts: 15363
Joined: Fri May 22, 2015 3:13 pm
Location: dodint is a millennial

Comedy and Humor

Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:47 pm

New Segura special is hilarious
Watched it yesterday, it's great.
Any chances you know the Philly girl...

mikey
Posts: 42242
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:58 pm
Location: More of a before-rehab friend...
Contact:

Comedy and Humor

Postby mikey » Thu Mar 26, 2020 2:50 pm

Haha hopefully not...

shafnutz05
Posts: 50377
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:27 pm
Location: A moron or a fascist...but not both.

Comedy and Humor

Postby shafnutz05 » Thu Mar 26, 2020 5:51 pm

I'm to lazy to look.... Are there any of his standups on any of the streaming services?

Lemon Berry Lobster
Posts: 15363
Joined: Fri May 22, 2015 3:13 pm
Location: dodint is a millennial

Comedy and Humor

Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Thu Mar 26, 2020 5:54 pm

I'm to lazy to look.... Are there any of his standups on any of the streaming services?
Mulaney? Should be some on netflix if they didn't get removed.

tifosi77
Posts: 51509
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 1:07 pm
Location: Batuu

Comedy and Humor

Postby tifosi77 » Thu Mar 26, 2020 6:03 pm

I think Mulaney has four or five specials on Netflix.

the wicked child
Posts: 5497
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 2:54 pm
Location: :scared:

Comedy and Humor

Postby the wicked child » Thu Mar 26, 2020 6:18 pm

I absolutely love the salt and pepper diner bit. I listen to it from time to time when I need a good laugh.

Kaiser
Posts: 5389
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 10:35 pm
Location: In these uncertain times

Comedy and Humor

Postby Kaiser » Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:58 am

I love beans, digadoo

Orlando Penguin
Posts: 11336
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:04 pm
Location: Orlando, FL

Comedy and Humor

Postby Orlando Penguin » Tue May 12, 2020 4:56 pm

For those of you who are Seinfeld fans, Jerry has a new Netflix special that dropped this week. I watched it last night and I strongly recommend.

eddy
Posts: 22309
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 9:49 am
Location: Emmet's barn loft

Comedy and Humor

Postby eddy » Tue May 12, 2020 5:01 pm

In other news, Mrs Tif and I have just gone down the John Mulaney rabbit hole, and we quite like where we've found ourselves.
:thumb: he's delightful

tifosi77
Posts: 51509
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 1:07 pm
Location: Batuu

Comedy and Humor

Postby tifosi77 » Wed Jun 03, 2020 8:23 pm

@mikey, I noticed your last post about Rickles in the other thread, thought I'd dive into that a bit deeper here. You talk a lot about comedy from the perspective of someone who is as into the craft as they are into laughing at funny things. Did you ever try standup?

I've just always been interested in the psych aspect of what makes comedians tick; to that end, the two types of documentaries that I will always watch without having any real fore-knowledge of the subject are music biographies and comedy stuff.

Mrs Tif was in an improv group here in LA about 20 years ago. (No, not the Groundlings, although she has taken theater classes there) So our convos about comedy tend to be about things like 'would that joke have been as funny if they had used a different word', 'space work', and railing on people who do the hang-loose/thumb-and-pinky thing to mime holding a phone instead of having their hand like it is when you actually hold a phone.

mikey
Posts: 42242
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:58 pm
Location: More of a before-rehab friend...
Contact:

Comedy and Humor

Postby mikey » Wed Jun 03, 2020 9:57 pm

My whole life, everyone has told me I should do standup, do standup, do standup...blah blah blah...and I was like, "nah, I don't write jokes...I just do off-the-cuff stuff, I'm in the moment. I can't write it." or I'd say like, "I'm not funny, everyone else is funny, I just happen to notice." Just brush it off... And then at some point in my mid-20's maybe my outlook on life kind of changed and I kind of started to morph into the person I am now - for better or for worse. And I realized that I stayed up at night usually for one reason: I'd sort through all the catalogs of conversations and interactions I had that day and critique my behavior, my words, my phrasing, how I was perceived with each line that I said, all that jazz. I always had a knack for looking at someone's face and knowing what they would think was funny or interesting, I could kind of fashion my conversation and jokes to them to make our interaction appealing...it's a weird thing, tough to describe, moving on...

So anyway, I'd sit there at night and go over the conversations of the day and I started going, "ah, what if you had said this here...and that word choice made that joke too clumsy, whatever word you put there next time needs to be two syllables, not three..." and all that...and then I'd also re-do the conversation with new jokes, just in my head, and go, "that's funny...let's try to make that conversation happen again with different people and then use this joke." So, like a good sociopath, I'd very clandestinely lead conversations in a direction to use material that I had thought of previously and most of the time, I was getting big laughs...

And then it dawned me, "hey stupid, that's writing jokes..."

So I finally started jotting them down on paper and napkins and in my phone. Just things or ideas for things that I think are funny...sometimes I write out the whole thing, a whole 2 and a half minute story, sometimes it's just an idea, sometimes it's wordplay, sometimes it's funny rap lyrics that I'll never get to use haha...whatever...

And I started working them into conversations. And now, not that I'm dependent on it, but now going into a social interaction, I'm kind of dictating the terms of the script that we're working off of...it's remarkably easy, but super-uncomfortable for me to explain...

Anyhow...I started going to comedy shows and open mic nights with some regularity around here. Just sneaking in for a couple hours on a Thursday or a Tuesday or whatever...just listening to what else is out there. And frankly, it gave me a lot of motivation. They stink. They're brutal. So I have been working on a tight five and I think I more or less have it at this point (but I'm a perfectionist in this regard, so I read it too many times and kill the bit in my head and throw it away - that's a struggle). And I've talked to some people about getting stage time and a few people have been supportive and know people in the industry around here that would definitely give me a look...so, it's something I'm going to do once things open back up again and all that...

I did one set of written material for about 7 minutes. I did a roast in front of a bunch of people (half co-workers, half strangers) at a retirement dinner. About an hour and a half before this retirement dinner for our legal counsel, the CEO comes to me and goes, "mikey, why don't you put together a little roast for tonight..." and I'm like, "Jesus, that's really short notice..." -- I'm gassin' tequilas from the open bar...but I do it and I recorded it for my dad to listen to (I got everything from him in this regard, and everyone told him he missed his calling and it's probably true) and the whole room absolutely loved it and I let a couple of other people listen to it from my work and they lost their minds (also, they couldn't believe I wasn't fired)...so, that gave me some confidence too...so I have some stuff written out, I'm working on some more, so I can get some stage time and just see what it's like...

##

You ask a very interesting question about the psych of comedians, and obviously, I've just confessed I'm no professional...but an excessive amount of people in my life have anointed me as such. Comedy is interesting to me in the sense that it's almost parasitic in a way. You're taking over someone's brain and convincing them that they now find this connection amusing too.

So I'm just sitting there constantly analyzing and retaining word choice and structure and re-formatting it for later use. I think it's easy in a social setting - even if I don't readily know anyone - because I can see the faces and they give me the data on what they like to hear. With just a regular audience, I think I'll probably struggle, especially at first...but - and I say this here because it's true - I demand to be entertained at all times, I am addicted to distraction...so I just assume that if you're in a social setting with me that you want to be entertained too, so I'll do anything to make that happen. But it's not to a point where if someone else is doing something fun, I won't steal their thunder, I'm not gonna yell something out in a movie or anything...that subject has the floor, they're entertaining me, I'm good with that.

I don't know it's tough to put into this bright white box...my brain is just wired in a weird way that makes these weird connections. And like even if I'm not writing something funny, even if it's like a hockey article or a college essay, there's a certain parallelism in there that I enjoy and I want to be just a certain way and I don't want to be edited...I used that word there with that amount of syllables for a very specific reason - do not touch.

While I'm being weird, I've realized recently that it's the jokes that I do just for me that are apparently even funnier. There's this girl that I've been hanging out with a lot more recently and we've known each other a couple two three years now whatever, but really started hanging out a lot over these last 9 months or whatever...and recently had it just click with her and she said, "Oh my God, the stuff that nobody hears is unreal!" and I was like, "meh, those are just for me...I rarely say things that I myself think are funny, I say things that y'all will probably think is funny...the stuff I just mutter to myself, that's for me, because I think it's funny. And even if I thought anyone else would like it, it can't be said at a pitch or a tone that would allow it to project out so others could hear." - by way of example, Mick Jagger sounds like he can actually sing when he's in the studio and smaller venues...but when they switched to doing big football stadium venues, they had to really speed up all of their songs because he can't belt something out like Mercury or Winehouse, ya know? I can't adapt that joke for that volume, it won't work.

Last point, and then I'll let this manifesto die unread, is that people don't always realize what they want to live out through other people. It's not super-well-documented here, but there's a strong hint that I live a rather lush lifestyle - and a lot of people around me like to kind of live vicariously through my nights of debauchery. And that's fine and a pretty obvious one. But there's a hidden comedic vicariousness that exists in a lot of people's minds that I tapped into at a very young age...there's a power dynamic that people want to exploit in society but can't.

Let's lay off the obvious like teachers and other real or faux authority figures for a moment...I recently came into another completely separate group of friends that I hadn't known before like a month ago or whatever...I thought it'd be a one and done thing, but now we get together like twice a week and ham it up. Anyway, I'm not a big person...I used to be much smaller in high school, but after picking up heavy things and putting them down for a while I don't look like a cancer kid...still though, I'm 5'9" on a good day, 30" waist, ya know, someone you could pick up and just throw in the trash if you want...so in this new group there's this like stereotypical tall, athletic Italian fella, got a good job, good looking girl, it's a pretty archetypical human type (there's only so many molds really, like hockey players)...immediately I was like, "let's track this guy, this is probably gonna be the 'mark'"...so after a little bit of kind of checking on his interactions and how he went about his business I was like, "ok, this guy can take a joke, he's gonna be cool with it..." -- I lay into this guy all the time when we're playing volleyball, playing drinking games, I jokingly hit on his girlfriend, the works...and after a few times, I pulled him aside and told him (beyond, "thanks for being a good sport and not caving my head in"), "It had to be you because people like the power dynamic aspect...the little guy giving the big guy sh*t because it's not how it normally works, there's a David v Goliath thing at play that subconsciously people enjoy more than if I picked on someone my own size...there's a middle finger to authority aspect to it that makes it funnier..." and that's always been a help, because I don't have deference to authority and never did. In elementary school, sometimes a kid would ask a question that the teacher didn't know, but I somehow knew, and after like the third time, I was like, "Hmph, that's just some dude...like he's not some special guy...he's just a regular person..." and utilizing that power dynamic in comedy really helps connect you to the people around you because you're acting out their fantasy of speaking up against the thing that proverbially holds them check...it's freeing, relieving, it's an equalizer, and it's funny...

blackjack68
Posts: 14858
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 7:09 pm
Location: Across the River from Filthydelphia.

Comedy and Humor

Postby blackjack68 » Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:14 pm

It took me longer to read that than your tight five!

But I enjoyed the journey.

dodint
Posts: 59154
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 1:39 pm
Location: Cheer up, bіtch!
Contact:

Comedy and Humor

Postby dodint » Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:14 pm

I wish I loved anything as much as mikey loves comedy.

Freddy Rumsen
Posts: 35313
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2015 11:50 am
Location: "Order is the only possibility of rest." -- Wendell Berry

Comedy and Humor

Postby Freddy Rumsen » Wed Jun 03, 2020 11:07 pm

Mikey is the best

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Dickie Dunn, Google [Bot], MrKennethTKangaroo and 103 guests