Comedy is Weird

Even though he’s had 2 seasons of Important Things with Demetri Martin on Comedy Central and released his book, This is a Book, I feel that Demetri Martin has been out of the limelight for far too long.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, I love Demetri. He’s hilarious. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves as a comedian. For example, he recently had a minor role in the film Contagion. Lame.

I went and watched all of Important Things season 2 last week, and it was all I needed to remember how awesome Demetri is. His opening jokes in each episode are some of his funniest ever.

He is one of the best stand ups of the past decade, but he hasn’t toured in so long. Quit punishing us, Demetri. We miss you.

Being an open-miker is hard. It’s not easy to gain the respect of comedians who have more experience than you. It also doesn’t help to be a shy person.

In Boston, there’s a whole class of comedians above me, and they’ve been doing it longer and more successfully. I respect them. I know their acts because I see them around a lot. But I feel like a freshmen among seniors.

Is that the point? Is it part of the game? Will I feel lame in the comedy community until it’s my turn to be regionally successful?

I think it is, to some degree. Like most skilled professions, reputation doesn’t come cheap. No one will even look your way for the first year or two of stand up, or so it seems.

But am I going about it wrong? I know I should try and meet these people and get them to notice me, but it’s just…intimidating. It’s tough to make them laugh (in a room when it’s just a dozen comics) and it’s tougher to have them know who I am.

Is there a natural course to all this?

I was skimming through the Kvetch Boards (the forums of The Comedy Studio in Cambridge, MA) and I read a very thoughtful thread by Shawn Donovan about comedy contests and festivals. Here’s a quote from comedian Ira Proctor, a regular at the club that I work. I think he makes a great point.

“Comedy contests are fine if you go in with the right attitude. Obtaining the right attitude is the hard part. There is going to be some disappointment/anger when you represent yourself well and don’t advance (you should take pride in what you do, and shouldn’t be happy with a “loss”) But the facts are that after a loss in a contest you are in the exact same position as before you did it, and you must keep reminding yourself that going in. I think it’s very rare someone loses work by eating it in a contest. So, other than shame, there is no risk of anything bad coming from doing a contest… but the up side can be be high. The fact that people that don’t deserve to advance do, has nothing to do with you. You must learn to forget that noise and just do your best, then remember the world didn’t end and you’ll wake up in the same bed tomorrow as you today, losing, for whatever reason, changes nothing for the worse… but winning, or even just doing well could change things very much for the better.

Yes the judges suck, the industry is loaded with morons, but the only way to avoid being let down by comedy is to not do it. This town is loaded with guys that took no chances and avoided anything that might make them look bad or let down them down… lots of those same comics don’t seem very happy. You lose your chance for anything amazing happening when you get too jaded to throw your hat in the ring. The whole biz is unfair, but it doesn’t have to be fair, no one promised it would make sense or be handled by people we respect and who always make great decisions. Once you embrace that, and let go of the fear/anger of looking stupid because someone else thinks it matters that you didn’t advance, or because the judges get it wrong, there is nothing bad that can happen in a contest. I admit it took me all of ten plus years to get to that point, but that’s just it, if you keep at it you can get to a really cool place with how you approach comedy/contests/auditions/life.”

I have been making a HUGE mistake not watching more of Louie. I saw the first few episodes when they were on Netflix Instant Queue and I’ve wanted to pick up the DVD, but haven’t gotten around to it until now.

For those who don’t watch it, do yourselves a favor and get caught up. This show is easily revolutionizing comedy television as a genre. It’s deeply thoughtful and also completely absurd. It’s a brilliant comedy.

It’s great to see Louie pushing the boundary of what you can do on TV.