The same must go for comedians. Stand-up comics. The funny people. The people whose job it is, the people we pay money to see, to entertain us with their witty, humorous, jokes. Tonight I went along to a friends 'gig'. It was in a pub, was poorly attended and competing with the alcohol. I don't think the organizers did a good job in terms of arranging tables to accommodate. So it was a 'tough' crowd. South African TV producers have the same problem: Put my show before, or after a multi-million Dollar product with international superstars and it's also going to be competing for attention. Anyway. The MC, some old bugger from Ireland starts off the show with a wonderful round of racist jokes.
Why should Afrikaans people drink Guinness beer? Because it's the only time the whites will be on top of the blacks again. He said this to a crowd of white people, with black waiters running around serving us. There was a collective plastic grin on all our faces. For the first time in my life I felt, I really felt ashamed that another human being could be so callous, and so out of touch. Sure he ripped off the Indians (rather poorly), the Brits, the gays, the blacks, the blacks... Now is it wrong that he attacked the blacks? No. Not at all. He should be free to make jokes about anyone. But to rip off the politics of black versus white and white versus black to me is just plain bad form.
Then once he'd finished putting us all on edge, another comedian came in who seemed more bored then we did. It felt like he was trying to make his mates laugh. They would laugh because they'd all be drunk. I know I wish I was. He ripped off sports commentators that I would hazard no-one knew about, because well... no one laughed. Oh we were a polite audience. We chortled politely. But like all good producers of TV, we know, it's not what you find funny, it's not what you like, it's what the audience wants that is important. This audience didn't want racist jokes, we didn't want sports commentator jokes. We wanted a few minutes of fun. Anyway, once the comedian had finished talking to his sock (and giving it to an audience member) on came my friend.
It was like switching to an American version of Boston Legal after watching the Hansie trials. Something decent. (OK so that wasn't a funny joke, it was old, tired and rather inaccurate as no one watched those trials, but I was reading in the urinal at the pub, I lingered as long as I could without drawing suspicion, not because there was some cute boy there, but because the smell of old urine, and the advert for laxatives was more interesting then the comedy, and one of the signs up above the really, really, high urinals was about Hansie and the devil or something.) Anyway, my mate goes up and he uses a self approach to humour.
Instead of attacking audience members/members of the public about their hand-bags, or their hair, or their skin-colour, he attacks himself. And the audience responded to him. As I said to a friend on the way home, he came across as a man doing his job, and doing his job with pride and dedication. His job is to make us laugh. If he takes it seriously and puts effort into it, and doesn't need to resort to one-liner rip-offs or hack jokes about gays/blacks/blondes, then he deserves to be rewarded with audience applause. And he was. He was a professional amongst hacks, and we all knew it. What did it cost him? Did he have a multi-million dollar effects budget? Nope. It just cost him some time thinking. Thinking...
So just what the fuck is the point of this post I hear you ask... although by now, if you've read most of my posts you'll have given up on looking for a point, and will only be looking for the PENIS or SPERM reference so you can skip it in case the boss catches you... the point is well. Just what is the point? Oh yes. Comedians. Comedians can teach us a lot about ourselves. The bad ones can show us our stupid, basic, cave-man side, the non-thinking side that just laughs cause our little brain when - hehehe funny noise go plop plop. Good comedians can remind us what is pure and noble about the human, insofar as creativity and performance are pure and noble. Because in order to find the joke, we as the audience have to be creative and attentive, as much as the comedian does. So we have a collaborative effort which makes us better people. And average comedians, or below par comedians can remind us to sometimes know when to just shut up and sit down.
So ask yourself - my audience (be it co-workers, partners, loved ones, employee's, employers, students, strangers on a bus) - are they waiting patiently for your to just die so you stop making an ass of yourself? Or are they nodding, looking at their watches/cellphones/shoes/paint job on the wall, and occasionally making 'ah, yup, huh' comments? Or, and this is the moment we should all strive for - are they watching, listening, and waiting for you to continue talking? I know I illicit (is that the right word? Or should it be ellicit?) all three reactions, often within the space of the same blog post...
If you can't sense when you're doing it, just stop talking and see what happens. That's a good test. If you stop and everyone nods and wanders off, you really need to work on your stories/jokes/small talk, and perhaps think before you start speaking. If they ask you what's wrong, it means they were actually listening and want to know more. If they go 'gosh. Well. Those annual report figures? Do you have them?' then you know they were just waiting for you to finish.(Or you're in the wrong company and should have turned left at the robot's and not right).
Are you a comedian, a tragedy, or just plain cave-man? Me... I'm sorry what was I saying? I wasn't listening.
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