Kevin Marshall's America
One of the things I find as I get older is how little patience I have for musical fads and/or theatrics pretentiously masquerading as counter-culture art.
The primary example is the glut of folk rock bands. At first I assumed it was specifically an Albany problem, but in looking at what’s dominating indie rock right now, it’s mostly that tripe; childishly simplistic acoustic arrangements with an accompanying ukulele while some kid who grew a beard 18 months ago whispering high school notebook scribblings.
I was at one of those shows recently, and it was like watching the Muppet Babies cover Iron & Wine. And they’re supposed to be one of the better acts in this area.
I’m not one of those who demands that any and all rock have some fucking balls (though God there’s times when I wish it all did). But I do think that the folk rock movement of the last few years is based more on laziness, complacency, and cowardice than on any real effort to expand horizons or, even, to play good music. Because if it’s not fun and it’s not good art, then what is the fucking point?
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Here’s what I’ve been jamming to lately. I know saying it like that makes me sound old and unhip. Fuck you.
Twin Shadow – “Confess”
King Tuff – “King Tuff”
The Henry Clay People – “Twenty-Five for the Rest of Our Lives”
Fiona Apple – “The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do”
The Soundtrack of Our Lives – “Throw it to the Universe”
The Tallest Man on Earth -“There’s No Leaving Now”
Cadence Weapon – “Hope in Dirt City”
Last night, while refusing sleep because my life has proven more than anything that i’m predisposed to bad decisions, I became a digital witness to a great milestone in the life of fellow comedian/pal Thomas Attila Lewis:
Tom is mayor of The Atlantic Ocean. That’s some Aquaman shit right there.
My first thought, as seen above, was “Tom needs a trident.” I jested, of course, then thought more seriously about it and owing to that statement earlier about bad decisions, decided to at least look at what it would take for me to obtain a Trident.
Here are the options given to me by the internet:
1.
Our first option didn’t really…I don’t know, there’s something missing here. Sure, it’s a trident. It’s big and it has three prongs. But there’s nothing regal at all in its design. I mean, what the fuck would you do with such a dull-colored trident?
2. eBay’s collection of trident spears
Not actual full tridents, but just the spears. Pass. I tried searching for just Tridents, but it’s a term that’s been co-opted for everything from gum to cheap cellphones. Don’t these people know that there’s people like me that are pretending to have interest in buying real, actual tridents at four in the morning on a Monday?
3.
There we go. This is a LITTLE more like it. But again, look at how dull that is. It’s got the right idea in terms of design (not like that pussy shit in Item #1), but still, the colors! What Mayor of the Atlantic Ocean would be caught dead with such mendacity on a red carpet?
4. The Hobo Trident
Seriously, I wouldn’t even make Ocean Master lug this thing around. It’s insulting. If I was elected Mayor of the Atlantic Ocean and someone gave me that as a gift, I’d throw it on the ground and cry a little.
5. For the Guy Who Can’t Count
THAT’S NOT A FUCKING TRIDENT. Count the points! That’s five! That’s a Quindent!
In conclusion, I guess I’d go with number one? It’s the only one with an elegant design. But what’s odd is how much trouble I had finding a good, regal-looking Trident available for purchase on the internet. What a disappointment.
Tom can be found at TomDog.com. Because in addition to being Mayor of the Ocean, he’s also a dog. Essentially he’s a Silver Age, Pre-Crisis DC Comics character.
I listened to Matt Besser’s “Improv for Humans” podcast for the first time yesterday. Click here or subscribe on iTunes. It’s great and hilarious, and if you start listening regularly you can be cool like me. But not AS cool as me, because I was listening first.
On the most recent episode, Besser had Chris Gore on the podcast. Gore I know from his appearances on “Attack of the Show” and a variety of other programs. He was brought on for the last half-hour or so to discuss something he said to Besser at a recent event they attended. Gore postulated that “Improv is for pussies.” Why? Because he does improv all the time. He then proceeds to, as Splitsider’s Jesse David Fox at Splitsider put it, “talk out of his ass” about improv.
Besser, to his credit, was super patient and quite informative. As someone who hasn’t done any improv, I learned a lot just from listening to him for a few minutes. Chris Gore, on the other hand, came off as kind of an ass, and not even for his incorrect assumption of what “yes, and…” is all about.
No, what really got my goat is when he compared doing improv to stupid shit people do in public to elicit a reaction. The most glaring and ridiculous example was what he claims he did on a first date with a girl who dated him for two and a half years, when he suddenly and without warning jumped out of his chair and yelled “you’re pregnant?!”. Gore not only claimed that the girl found this funny, but that the entire restaurant burst into applause and laughter at his wildly clever antics. Which is sort of a weird thing for an adult to expect another adult to believe, but there are also a lot of comedians who bless their heart always say they “killed” when the reaction was…well, okay, but was not in danger of inducing death via hilarity.
Improv is a form of expression that takes work, commitment, and talent. As Besser notes, there’s plenty of bad improv out there, just like there’s plenty of bad stand-up comedy and filmmaking. Existence alone doesn’t merit praise; a point which Gore, to his credit, concedes. But that doesn’t mean that obnoxious pranks you play on people to dick around with them can be considered improv or even anything remotely resembling it. Or, even, comedy as a whole.
Thankfully I don’t think this is a prevailing view. In my brief experience, people seem to at the very least understood that there’s effort and craft behind putting together a set and performing it. There are, however, guys (and gals but in my experience it’s mostly guys) who think stand-up comedy is as easy as joking around with their buds, or they have a joke they think you should tell (note if you’re reading this – please don’t do that). It’s kind of maddening, but passable. But to hear it on a big stage like that from someone who I think honestly knows better (Gore) is sort of maddening.
I’d go more into it but I want you all to listen for yourselves. It’s not embeddable, so check it out and listen for yourself. The conversation with Gore starts around the hour and fifteen minute mark.
One of the things we do at Laughs on Lark to keep the show moving and the audience engaged is a segment called Comedy Mad Libs.
Here’s how it works (in case you’re unfamiliar with mad libs): we write a set with blank words. Then we get a volunteer from the audience (July was Karlo who spells his name with a C but I decided was a K). Without seeing the set, we have the volunteer fill in the blanks by giving us words. Then s/he performs it.
It’s a chance for the audience to get a taste of our brand of non-stardom and have a little fun. Plus they win free prizes! This month was an OFFICIAL Jaye McBride coffee mug.
Ohhhhhhh snap! That coffee mug is fuckin’ TIGHT.
So to give you an idea of what you’re missing (look at that sweet mug you coulda had for free!), here are the prompts and the set created as a result of Karlo‘s answers.
(I know, I wish I’d save the original and just scanned it too, but I didn’t think to do this until now. GFY.)
- Verb
Karlo chose: Fuck - Name of a person you showed up
and/or are sitting with tonight
Karlo answered: Jackie - Emotion
Karlo said: Angry - Name of a drug
Karlo said: Marijuana - Verb
Karlo said: walk - City in the Capital Region
Karlo chose: Schenectady - Your name
Karlo chose: Carlo - A disease
Karlo chose: Syphillis
Karlo’s answers were plugged into the set below:
Kourtney Kardashian had her baby. I FUCK babies! And I hear her baby is already smarter that Khloe!
The Olympics are coming up. I like them. They’re the sports I like, but can only tolerate being around once every four years. Kind of like my friend JACKIE.
The TV show Breaking Bad is back this Sunday! That makes me ANGRY. I wonder if my teacher made MARIJUANA in High School. That would explain why he would always WALK after we had sex.
Fast food chain Slater’s 50/50 now serves a burger made entirely of bacon. I guess because they want the whole world to look like a CDTA bus stop in SCHENECTADY.
Thanks everyone, my name is CARLO and attention (ladies or gentlemen), the doctor says that my Syphillis isn’t contagious right now!
The Vulture summed up the stuff about Tosh in a similar manner as I did, but (again) much more effectively:
First, let’s get a few quick things out of the way: (1) This is totally in keeping with Daniel Tosh’s humor and style. He’s a lousy Reddit thread come to life, which is why he is so popular! (Just ask Jeff Dunham.) (2) Don’t heckle comedians, no matter how offensive and crappy you think their material is. (3) There’s no such thing as off-limits in comedy, and comedians are always — always — entitled to make jokes about whatever they want. But “entitled to” and “obligated to” are not the same thing, and comedy is not immune to criticism.
The emphasis is mine, because those were my two primary points when I spilled digital ink over it on Tuesday. Unfortunately, because of the sensitive nature of the subject, some I talked to after the fact took what I said to mean that I make jokes about the act of rape itself, I think they’re great, I think that making jokes about rape is just swell, and/or I think it’s okay to do it at all.
But I never would and I don’t and I don’t and I don’t. To anyone else who thinks otherwise, read it again. Also come out to my shows because that ain’t my shit at all. I don’t know what else I can say to make it clearer: I don’t think they’re cool, if one’s ever been funny I certainly don’t remember it, and taboo subjects/tragedies without context aren’t jokes. Often they’re just incitement or provocation, and that alone does not constitute comedy.
Also, we need to take into consideration (and not shout down those who bring it up) the fact that this is just some random person on the internet giving her take on what went down. We probably shouldn’t take it as gospel, especially considering that Tosh and the club’s owners specifically said it didn’t go down at all like she said. And too often overlooked, even by myself at first, is that this is actually all secondhand anyway; the person posting it on her Tumblr is actually relaying it from her friend, who was the one who shouted out during the performance.
I’ve seen these points brought up in more than one forum, and invariably someone compared it to blaming a rape on the victim. To which I can only say that equivocating this incident with an actual rape isn’t all that much better than telling “jokes” about rape, and for God’s sake, let’s keep this in its proper context.
Speaking of which, in the follow-up post the author of the Tumblr writes:
My friend (who wishes to remain anonymous) is very surprised to have gotten any form of an apology and doesn’t wish to press any further charges against Daniel Tosh.
“Doesn’t wish to press any further charges?” Oh, c’mon.
Thanks to this evening’s comedians: Anna Phillips, AJ Friedman, Jaye McBride, and Jennifer McMullen for making my first time hosting Laughs on Lark so easy. They nailed it, to say the least, and I couldn’t have asked for a better first show.
Special thanks to Jaye who, in addition to performing tonight, is the co-founder & co-producer & was kind enough to take me on this journey with her.
But even bigger thanks to all who came out and continue to come out to the shows. We couldn’t and wouldn’t do it without your consistent support.
NEXT MONTH: we celebrate our 2nd Anniversary with a NEW regular start time of 8pm! That’s 8/8/8 – August 8th at 8pm. Come out and see what will by then be the new look & taste of Elda’s On Lark.
See you next month!
And be sure to give us a like on Facebook, will ya?
Tonight, Wednesday July 11th @ 9pm
Elda’s on Lark (corner of State St. & Lark St., Albany NY)
$5, 21+
My first time hosting this shindig and I have a great lineup. Lucky guy, I am.
And don’t worry, we ain’t gonna suggest you be raped or anything. We’re not like that.
A tumblr post describing one fan’s encounter and offense taken at Daniel Tosh’s “rape is funny” bit has gone viral:
So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don’t know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON’T find them funny and never have. So I didnt appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”
There’s the first mistake she made. She heckled. Never heckle. Take offense, approach after, but don’t heckle.
Anyway…
I did it because, even though being “disruptive” is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman. I don’t sit there while someone tells me how I should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape.
Except he’s clearly being facetious. I don’t think it’s a good bit at all. In fact, I think it’s pretty stupid (more on that later). But I don’t think anyone with a modicum of sense can sincerely argue that Daniel Tosh thinks rape is an okay thing for people to do and that the actual act itself is humorous.
Again, shitty bit? Yes, but c’mon.
After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing i needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.
But again, here’s the thing: he was heckled. Comics say and do very, very shitty things when they get heckled that they don’t mean. Heckling puts people in an already anxious and high-pressure situation in an even more vulnerable and panicky place. If you attack and put someone on the defensive like that, they are apt to lash out as Tosh was. And, unfortunately in this case, it didn’t come out as all that clever.
I think I can count the funny rape jokes I’ve heard (and by that I mean any joke that even invoked it) on one hand with quite a few digits to spare. And even then, they weren’t very memorable. Most of the time it ends up as lazy hackery, because comics who write those jokes have a bad habit of leaning on the concept itself without having a humorous or interesting context in which to put it, which is the whole meat of a joke like that. Almost anything can be made funny. A prime example is racially-charged humor: you can use race as a setup and context for a joke, but being racist and/or spitting out racial slurs and statements isn’t enough. That doesn’t mean you should, though, unless you have the confidence, chops, and most importantly, the context.
Just saying shocking shit that shocks people and makes them go “holy shit, that’s shocking!” isn’t good comedy. It might make some rooms laugh, it might make other rooms groan, and you can build an audience on it. But good comedy? No. So I do think Tosh, who has enough of a problem being perceived as a “bro” comic, should probably shelve that bit because it sucks.
But while I feel empathy for the author of this post, as a comic I have a very, very hard time completely taking her side on this one. Because she heckled.
What could have been done differently? Here’s some options:
- Don’t laugh. This is actually a lot harder than you think. I’ve seen people laugh as a defense mechanism when they’re nervous then say afterwards how uncomfortable they were in a situation. This happens with comedy too. But if you don’t think the topic is being handled properly, the best and most effective response is silence.
- Get up and leave. I know some comics bitch about this, but I’d rather a person get up and leave if my set is not their cup of tea than sit there and subjugate themselves to something that upsets and/or angers them for the sake of etiquette. It’s always better to walk away unhappy than to stay and be made completely fucking miserable. After all, aren’t we in the business of (to steal a phrase from one of the many theme songs of Tom Scharpling’s The Best Show) “giving birth to smiles”?
- Approach the manager after. If you feel a line was so deeply crossed that you want compensation, like the person eventually did, then I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of reason to ask to speak to someone.
- Anything but fucking heckling the performer and acting like he is super serious about what he’s saying on stage during a stand-up comedy show.
Anyway, bad stuff all around. Able and willing to entertain other thoughts on this matter in the comments below.
UPDATE: I forgot that Carlin summarized this as well (and pretty effectively). Posting it because someone else likely will, not because I’m one of those who defers to an authority on this sort of subject:
FWIW, again, because it’s a subject that doesn’t have a ton of inherent humor in it, his bit doesn’t work after the second minute and completely falls apart (IMO). But up until that point, he’s basically talking along the same lines I was earlier about context.
Rape isn’t the joke, and shouldn’t be. Again, Tosh wrote and performed a shitty bit. But I don’t think heckling is the proper response.
Actually, you would see that the biggest gift would be from Batman, because his secret identity is Bruce Wayne who is, like, stupid rich. Richer even than Aquaman who’s a fucking King for crying out loud.
By the by, Aquaman as Rose is what makes this work.
STALK ME
