Audience Demographics

Yesterday, we had "the talk."

But let's follow up, see how we're doing one day later.

Specifically, there was mentioned on having a certain audience. Some of us would rather play to certain audiences. And this can be different from person to person. This reminds of something from "the dread" years a.k.a. high school.

So there's a bunch of us sitting in class. It's a small glass. And all guys. This is not technically true. As this class is actually two courses, and segregated as such. But this class, I speak of was this second year version of the other half of the class. Just the other half outnumbered this half by at least four hundred percent but not more. None of this is really important.

So we're talking to our teacher, maybe, or watching a video, or a teacher is trying to get us to be quiet and get back to work, or watching that video, but we're a bunch of guys and are belligerent as such. Now, we're seated in about two rows and I'm at the end of the row, farthest away from everything.

So with all this talk, or video or whatever, there is the opportunity to make light of, to take advantage of the material, to comic, often hi-larious (patent pending), effect.

But me, being me, am telling jokes, perhaps subtly, but definitely conversationally to the guy next to me.

And this guy, being this guy, is retelling the jokes, loudly and to everyone else in the class, literally word for word, and getting laughs from all.

Now I would call this guy my friend, but I was proud of who I was, and I did not envy him.

How to Tell Only Fifty Percent of Your Jokes

How to Tell Only 50% of Your Jokes?

You have a set-up line designed to elicit a response. Like a knock, knock. Only not so obvious. This way there's no certainty you'll ever get your desired response. I do this all time. And am mostly disappointed.

Example 1: If I say "I think I fell down a hill," I don't want you to respond with "You fell down a hill?" Your response should be "You think?"

This method is mired in disappointment, though, and is only for the brave at heart. There will be rejection. There will be discarded punchlines. Do not fret, you will have to let them go. They belong to the ether, and the ether will reward you some other way.

Besides, they might not have elicited the laughs you might have thought. Which is kind of the point. I would rather tell the joke that makes the a couple of people in the room laugh than the one that makes the whole room laugh. That way I know who are the good people.

Example 2: If I say something gay, the response I'm looking for is along the lines of "your gay." This way I can tell my gay joke. Don't be all awkward and not respond at all.

Anti-Comedy I: How To Kill a Joke... With Results!

You have a horse. We all laugh at the horse. It is so pretty. I kill the horse. I beat its corpse. I fuck the horse. Then I say, "Look at me! I beat-fuck this dead horse! I fuck-beat your BRAIN!"

Comedy/Dialogue III

The Living Doll: Let me at 'em, Captain. I'm full of tinier men.

Captain Decency: Not yet, Doll. Not... yet.

- The Tick, "Grandpa Wore Tights", Season 2

Comedy/Dialogue II

Fishboy: Where's The Tick? You told my mom The Tick would be here.

Die Fledermaus: Listen Fishboy, I told your mom a lot of things.

- The Tick, "Ants in Pants!", Season 2

Weekly Wikipedia Find: Tomorrow

I'm a day late with this going by usual schedule, so I decided to turn it into a metajoke. Like all metajokes I make (and I invariably make them usually and often), I'm likely the only one to enjoy it. But hey isn't that what jokemaking is about: the amusement of one's self at the befuddlement of others.

"Tomorrow is the day after today." Other things that are tomorrow are terrible, terrible music.

Wikipedia by Week

Week Five: Borscht Belt
Week Four: Swampman
Week Three: Chinese room
Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One: Lolita fashion

Personal II

MSF

Must hate Dane Cook. Preferably in its place is an impeccably dry sense of humour. Impeccably dry.

Weekly Wikipedia Find: Borscht Belt

This week's entry isn't so much a find since I intentionally tracked it down.

I was talking with a comrade about comedy stylings after one more use of subversive wordplay on my part and he suggested that I was a man not of my time. Rather I should long to be a writer of the Restoration. There was a time when the wittiest motherfucker in the room was wrist deep in the best pussy. I responded that perhaps vaudeville would have been a more suitable environment for my talents. His argument was obviously more compelling.

It almost feels like I should be writing about the Restoration now, or at least vaudeville, rather than the Borscht Belt which has nothing to do with the former and only a very tenuous connection to the latter. The Borscht Belt, roughly a summer resort area in the Catskill mountains popular with Jews, is more notable for the humour which thrived in its confines. This comedy is often self-deprecating and usually of the rapid-fire variety. I put myself down often, but usually I think long and hard about it first. I obviously have a long way to come.

That's what she said.

Wikipedia by Week

Week Four: Swampman
Week Three: Chinese room
Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One: Lolita fashion

Comedy/Dialogue I

Apropos of nothing, except maybe Indian girls:

Toofer: Hey take that off, you didn't go to Harvard.

Frank: I went to Harvard. I did stand-up there this weekend.

Toofer: Very funny. You were not graduated from that institution.

Frank: Well, I got a squeezer from an Indian girl on a bunk bed, so I think I got the full Harvard experience.

Liz: That does sound pretty accurate.

Toofer: You're just trying to get a rise out of me, sir... and you do not want to make a Harvard man angry.

- 30 Rock, "Secrets and Lies", Season 2