The Stand-Up Comedy Discussion Thread!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Rapidly Going Deaf > The Stand-Up Comedy Discussion Thread!

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

jdsalmon posted:

Anybody else at the Bridgetown Comedy Fest this weekend?

Goddamn, I think I ran into Todd Barry, like, five times in the span of an hour. And every single time he looked like he was this close to yelling at me.

I was able to nab a severed monkey head in a round of Chart Pi�ata during a Who Charted taping, though. Bridgetown always delivers.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2012 08:11

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 12:13

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

Fil5000 posted:

I'm pretty sure that 99% of standups are playing some sort of exaggerated version of themselves

Eddie Pepitone dials it back to about 40%.

# ¿ May 6, 2012 21:06

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

I too will also hit the comedy button in iTunes and throw a list at you and I'll try and cut out what's already been mentioned:

Andrew Daly: Nine Sweaters
Baron Vaughn: Raised on Radio
Chris Fairbanks: Fairbanks!
Dylan Moran: Monster
Kyle Kinane: Death of the Party
Reggie Watts: Why poo poo so Crazy?
Reggie Watts: A Live in Central Park
Rory Scovel: Dilation
The Sklar Brothers: Sklar Maps
W. Kamau Bell: One Night Only

If you like super conceptual sketck-y stuff, I do love Scharpling & Wurster (The Best Show on WFMU) CDs. Nine Sweaters is really concept-y, too, whereas Reggie Watts is just bananas and it's worth picking up the CDs since they both come with DVDs. Why poo poo so Crazy? doesn't really repeat any material either. If you could call it material.

# ¿ May 22, 2012 01:41

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

BobTheCow posted:

"Black Books"

Black Books was a TV show he created with Graham Linehan (who made Father Ted) and is absolutely amazing, watch it right now.

Edit: seriously.

# ¿ May 22, 2012 02:12

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

The Capm posted:

I live in Portland we have Helium, which is an amazingly warm open mic.

How warm are we talkin' here? I've always considered hitting up Helium's open mic, but there's at least a 60/40 chance that I'd just have a panic attack onstage.

Which, to be fair, might have even more entertainment value to it than an actual open mic set.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2012 00:15

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

The best New Years gift I ever saw was a man telling Jimmy Pardo that his son's name was Indigo.

Jack. Pot.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2013 06:38

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

Shovelbearer posted:

luckily it came out to just under the allotted time because I don't think I would have been able to see them giving me lights, as the lighting on the stage was practically blinding me any way.

I got up for the first time a month ago and I have to say, if you ever wanted to try and open mic but were afraid at the idea of being in front of dozens/hundreds of people, go on ahead because the lighting is so goddamn blinding, you'll feel like you're in an empty room no matter what.

And keep going, because you'll get to see the shittily named novely acts on the sign-up sheet (my favorite so far has been "SHOWBIZ!"), or the meltdowns people have after not getting stage time for weeks.

caligulamprey fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Feb 16, 2013

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 21:47

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

escape artist posted:

Congratulations for popping your open mic cherries, guys. I have a good deal of material written but I'm not personally a fan of all of it-- I need to make it stronger.

At the end of the day, if I think my jokes are funny, then I could go up, perform in front of a dead silent audience, and feel accomplished and proud.

That's a big stumbling block for me - I come up with material that I find amusing and rewrite it in my head a million times, but I have absolutely no idea whether or not it's going to play for anyone else. The only reason I'm able to force myself up has literally been me just saying to myself "There's got to be at least one person there who's going to understand whatever you're saying" and that's pretty much enough.

Bob The Sun posted:

I love that you mentioned this because the blinding thing happened to me too. It actually kind of delights me every time I see someone do their first 5 minutes, because when I talk to them there seems to be a high chance they'll mention the same thing.

A solid block of everyone who went up that night were first timers (the general rule at Helium in Portland seems to be if it's your first time or you're from out of town, write that down and you'll get stage time no matter what), so as the night progressed, it was a conga line of people exiting the greenroom shouting WHERE THE gently caress WAS THE LIGHT? WAS THAT THE LIGHT? ALL I SEE ARE LIGHTS followed by ARE YOUR KNEES SHAKING? MINE ARE SHAKING.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2013 03:51

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

Apparently Second Show Friday is infamously terrible enough to warrant capitalizing the phrase.

Thursdays are usually seen as low-key and mainly for comedy nerds who are really into who they're seeing.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2013 03:27

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

UnclePlasticBitch posted:

I thought that price seemed ridiculous, but after looking it's more like $55-65/ticket based on the venue website's info.

Is it a charity event, or something? $55-65 is kind of crazy, even for that line-up.

# ¿ May 11, 2013 17:44

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

Man, I feel silly about my "$55-65 is pretty steep for a David Cross/Brian Posehn/Doug Benson/Paul F. Tompkins/Todd Glass show" comment after throwing down $37 for a Dylan Moran ticket.

Eh, gently caress it. When's the next time he'll show up in Portland?

# ¿ May 25, 2013 05:40

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

detectivemonkey posted:

Dana Gould is always great, too.

Getting conversations mixed up, I suddenly came to the realization that Dana Gould is younger than Doug Benson. Okay, only by a few months, but still that just feels wrong.

I also remember when Doug Benson was a prop comic. That also feels wrong.

# ¿ May 29, 2013 23:56

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

escape artist posted:

Serious chat, incoming.

Alright so what's everyone's opinion on rape jokes and the c-word in comedy?

Trying to get into stand-up, I've thought about it - I've certainly laughed at rape jokes/the C-word/A well placed N-Bomb/whathaveyou, but from a writing standpoint I wouldn't be against using them, it's just they'd better be diamond-quality bits that have some sort of point outside of using the word as a gut-punch.

The general idea being I might be the hardened, broken jagoff who can laugh at anything and everything, it doesn't mean the people in the audience are the same way.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2013 00:13

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

I found the jitters pretty much leave completely once you get up onstage, it's just actually getting stage time when 80 people also want it in a 20 person line-up that's been a total kick in the dick. But hey, not getting on stage basically gives you hours to write, re-write and hone material in-between the sign-up sheet and the schedule getting posted week after week.

It feels like I have an hour of banked material despite only getting on twice since January.

(Or maybe I'm just complete garbage and they don't want me there. That's definitely a possibility)

# ¿ Sep 13, 2013 03:00

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 12:13

caligulamprey: Jan 23, 2007; It never stops.

Cael posted:

I'm thinking about going to Bridgetown this year. Has anyone been before and have thoughts on it i.e. great idea to go see all of your favorite stand-up acts or am I better avoiding crowds and just flying out to LA some random weekend and catching who's in various rooms?

Now that there's a local Comedy Scene in Portland, Bridgetown has been concentrating on getting more locals rather than big names for the last couple years, so if you're banking on super recognizable names, you might want to go with L.A. instead. I've gone to all of them except the first one and just spend the entire four days walking around in a comedy daze.

Big names or not, there's a solid 6-8 hours of stuff going down at four or five venues every day and it's absolutely impossible to be bored by it.

Edit: of course the best part about Bridgetown this year is there's no overbearing threat of Andy Dick crashing any show at any moment. Everyone was totally on edge about it that year.

caligulamprey fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Mar 25, 2014

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 06:35

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Rapidly Going Deaf > The Stand-Up Comedy Discussion Thread!