talking about stand-up, he said when standup comedians get really good, they are pressured, encouraged, cajoled to give up standup and start making movies or maybe a television show. it's like standup is only the means, a mere stepping stone.
I mean, I guess all comedians, that happens. I mean, standup's the only career like that, where once you get really big at it, people kind of encourage you not to do it. Some of our greatest standups don't do standup anymore. Steve Martin's one of the greatest standups to ever live — the guy doesn't do standup. Eddie Murphy, amazing — Michael Keaton, who's great in Birdman, was, like, a really great standup comedian. So many guys don't do it anymore.
one thing that seems true to me about standup is that it must be difficult. not the actual standing up and talking. that doesn't seem so hard. what seems hard is:
...the stress caused by the risk of bombing.
...the ego-smushing blow of actually bombing.
...developing the material.
standup requires fresh, relevant, funny, unique, original material. you'd have to be on your toes, developing and testing material constantly. nothing is tireder than yesterday's comedy. no one wants to hear the same joke twice. well, unless it's ron white doing "tater salad". that shit is just fun-nay every time.
there's no sampling in standup. original material only. generating all that original material must be difficult, and then... the audience will use it right up and ask for more. like working for hours to create a meal, only to have it eaten and gone in a few minutes. steve and michael and eddie and the others probably just got tired of all that work.
chris went on to say he tries to keep up with the standup, not let that part of himself go.
I try to stay with it, and I try to stay in contact with comedians, just keep comedians in my life, because comedians are their own species. If you get away from them, especially as a comedian, I think it's dangerous.
that's laudable, to stay in touch with the mindset of working to create original stuff. when he says it's "dangerous" to get away from comedians, i think he's talking about the good influence of comedians' work ethic.
he's also talking about the irreverence, the political incorrectness.
Hey, everything's funny — in the right context and done by the right person — everything.
the crucial point to "everything's funny" is the same point is most of life: context. contexto es todo. context is everything. a comedian has to be aware of his surroundings, his audience. if you assault people with words, and they laugh, that's comedy. if they don't laugh, it's no longer comedy: it's assault. funny is in the eye of the beholder.
it's like - and we've talked about this before here in this space - grass is not green per se, because color is not an innate feature. grass is green in the presence of the most common forms of light in our world, with sunlight being right up there, because greenness is a function of the biological composition of grass and the presence of the correct sort of light.
grass is not green at night. words are not comedy if no one is laughing.
but chris wants to stay around the irreverence even when no one is laughing, and i think that's a good thing, as important a thing as the work ethic. being able to appreciate the humour all around us keeps us sane. i don't want to take life or myself too seriously.
that's one component of how i'd define success.
chris says:
But most days I get to, like, spend really good time with my kids. That's what success is, to me.
i guess that's a pretty good definition of success, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment