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He lets the sorry truth land: “White woman’s life is valuable.” He then asks the audience to help him remember the point he was originally getting at: “What’s his name—Joran van der Sloot? We find out he was a serial kill—man, he kills women, that’s what he do,” he says. “What’s the girl in Aruba?”
“Natalee Holloway!” people shout out.
“But the one—he just killed the girl in Peru, what’s her name?”
Silence.
“Exactly!” he says. The audience cracks up and breaks into applause, simultaneously chagrined and excited to have sprung that trap he’s set for them.
Why Comedians Were Afraid of Patrice O’Neal — New York Magazine
Patrice O’Neal had so much comedy left in him when he died a few months ago. Sometimes, when I have problems with dumb guys, I ask the Obi Wan ghost of Patrice to guide me.
He made comedy dangerous with his no-holds-barred honesty. Very few dare to do that much less be successful and well-liked because of it. Patrice O’Neal is one of the very, very few famous people I never met whose death makes me feel like I had a personal loss.
Posted on May 21, 2012 with 1 note
Source: New York Magazine
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There’s an art to telling jokes well. Shorter is better. Word choice is crucial. By the time I left Singapore, I knew forevermore that “hard-on” trumps “boner” (too silly) and “erection” (too clinical), unless it’s a joke about what Japanese men do when they have erections. (They vote.) Rhythm is crucial too; it cues the laugh. As does the three-part structure of many jokes: intro, premise, reversal. (Intro: Two Jewish women are talking. Says Sophie, “Oy, have I got a sore throat.” Premise: “When I have a sore throat, I suck on a Life Saver,” counsels Sadie. Reversal: Retorts Sophie, “Easy for you, you live at the beach.”)
Blanche Knott is my comedy mother. (Akatsuka Fujio is my comedy father.)
I don’t even know how a tattered copy of Truly Tasteless Jokes fell into my hands in elementary school. Murky concepts like blowjobs and racism crystalized in my mind reading these jokes. If that book didn’t find me, I would not be me.
Source: longform.org
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Having seen the Seinfeld finale and knowing when you depart from who you are it doesn’t make the audience happy, let’s deliver to the audience what they want and what they’ve earned.
Friends Oral History: Inside the Ratings Juggernaut’s Secret Past | Hollywood | Vanity Fair
Friends isn’t a comedy connoisseur’s comedy, necessarily, but peep this oral history if you’re curious about how shows like this come together.
Regarding the above quoted passage, isn’t it weird to think an audience earned something?
Source: vanityfair.com
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When I was in college I studied under this guy named John Glavin who was a really influential in my life. And he taught us that the most interesting protagonists in film and plays are characters who are of two hearts, who want one thing but need another thing.
We are all two-hearted, aren’t we?
Posted on April 30, 2012 with 5 notes
Source: wagsrevue.com
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Wag's Revue - Issue Eleven
Noice online-only literary journal. This issue has an interview with Mike Birbiglia and 3 essays on Louis CK, amongst other offerings.
My only quibble: the third Louis CK essay written by a woman about CK and feminism is half-baked and weak, especially in comparison to the other CK pieces…not to mention having a woman approach via the feminism angle.
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You should have said this 18 months ago when you rolled off my naked body.
Wow, I really wrote this in an email last night. I’m the biggest cheeseball. But I’m also on the bow of a shitty, sinking Titanic going “I’m the queen of the world!” -
I dunno. I’m curious what other people think. I pretty much read reviews and comments only looking for the negative. Literally, when I read positive comments, it’s like a zero. I think the issue is if you agree with it or not. For instance, something like Mr. Show, people can hate it, and they do. There are people that say it was never funny, not funny for a second, “I don’t get it, it’s stupid.” And that doesn’t bother me at all. It’s when you make something you know is weak, and you know why it’s weak, and you read reviews that say it’s weak, and you’re like, “Gah, I know!” Those hurt because you agree with them. If you love the project and do it well—I’m very proud of Let’s Do This! If we were to go to series, we’d get better, like any pilot. But as far as being a pilot and having good jokes and characters, it’s got everything. It’s okay if people don’t like it, but I’m on solid ground. That’s how you want to feel about things. That how I want to feel about things I make in my life.
Bob Odenkirk | Comedy | Interview | The A.V. Club
Odenkirk on reading Internet comments and adjusting your own attitude toward your output. I never read comments on the piddly writings I get published. One time I did and the first comment was “biased and childish”, which I asked to be used as a review quote.
Source: The A.V. Club
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if you would knock at my door / you would hear / a bee pray to god and / the rose take apart the horizon
Absent Things as if They Are Present | Longform
I wanted to share with you this wonderful piece on erasure of select passages in existing text as a legitimate form of creative writing, but I was so taken by this quoted passage of a poem written by erasure.
I can’t imagine how a rose can take apart the horizon, but I understand it intimately.
Source: longform.org
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you see Smith spitting, cursing, and telling an early audience: “Don’t be afraid of me. I’m just a nice little girl.
The Mother Courage of Rock by Luc Sante | The New York Review of Books
An overview of Patti Smith’s career as poet, musician and irresistible animal of a woman.
Posted on January 24, 2012 with 3 notes
Source: nybooks.com
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According to my pitch, as the final show wrapped up, the real Late Night set would dissolve to a tiny Lego version Conan was playing with on the floor of an employees’ break room at a stud farm, where Conan had spent his last 16 years charged with the task of manually masturbating thoroughbred horses. (I think the final stage direction in my sketch was “In the distance, a horse whinnies in ecstasy.”)
How to Kill a Joke (and Your Boss) - Culture - GOOD
Is it too late for me to become a comedy writer, where you can render your boss as a horse masturbator and pitch it to his face?
Posted on January 5, 2012 with 1 note
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I was laid off 2 days before my birthday in 2009, a dismal blessing. I miss health insurance and payroll, but I haven't bought bread since the pink slip because I have time to bake.
Sometimes I'm a serious job hunter, sometimes a serious slacker, but mostly, I'm an underemployed, freelance Jaqueline of many trades including writing and dogsitting. Either way, I scrapbook my finds and activities here for your benefit and amusement.
Follow me on Twitter if tv/movie/pro-cycling spoilers and unplanned live tweets won't hail on your parade. And yes, I do work blue so don't be huffy with me if you don't like cursing or merciless roasting of public figures.
You can look at my other blog Fashion Corpuscle if you like fashion. The ruins of my crumbling Tumblr blog empire awaits internet archaeologists.
Gainful Unemployment is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
