Who should comics be performing for, the audience or their fellows in the industry, including critics?
I ask this because I was once told not to do my Jack Nicholson impression because "everyone is doing Jack". What was really meant was that management sees too many Jack Nicholson (and Bill Cosby and Christopher Walken) impressions, although I've only seen one or two others myself, in recent years. But the comment I was given was a valid one, except that the audiences LOVE a good Jack impression (which mine sometimes is).
So that begs the question: if audiences are enjoying a show and laughing loudly at the material being performed, should the comic listen to other comics or management or critics, or should the comic perform for the people who came to see him or her?
Now, if the comic is trying to move up in the industry and be unique and get a TV or movie deal, they will need to pander to the industry and give them something they haven't seen before.
So, what's it to be? Who should comics be performing for, the audience or their fellows in the industry, including critics? Both, if possible, I suppose. Be as funny as possible and as unique as possible, but I think that career aside, we are there to make people laugh so that they come back and bring friends with them.
Like San Fransisco comic Steven Kravitz says: "Comics are just glorified liquor salesmen." So true.
Ciao for now.
Tim Reynolds.
Author of Stand Up & Succeed
www.StandUpAndSucceed.com
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Friday, 6 March 2009
Graffiti Beat
GRAFFITI
Words of morons
Scribbled, scrawled and sprayed
From far-flung Tofino
To even further John the saint,
Stupidity on display.
But the best
Was in our own Bowness,
Scrawled large on a worn bus bench,
A future leader of democracy
Expressed anger with such eloquence.
The words were simple and to the point
But his vocabulary was stuck
When he took the time and energy
To write
“FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCK FUCK”.
Ciao for now.
Tim Reynolds.
Author of Stand Up & Succeed
www.StandUpAndSucceed.com
Words of morons
Scribbled, scrawled and sprayed
From far-flung Tofino
To even further John the saint,
Stupidity on display.
But the best
Was in our own Bowness,
Scrawled large on a worn bus bench,
A future leader of democracy
Expressed anger with such eloquence.
The words were simple and to the point
But his vocabulary was stuck
When he took the time and energy
To write
“FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCK FUCK”.
Ciao for now.
Tim Reynolds.
Author of Stand Up & Succeed
www.StandUpAndSucceed.com
Beating the beat into a beaten beater of beets... Part 1
(To be read with a dark, husky voice to the rhythm of bongos and a stand-up bass. Go ahead. Try it. I'll wait while you find a band.)
RIDING THE BUS...
Riding the bus, the train, the bus, the shuttle... riding it all and all of it riding on a two-fifty fare.
Spending more time with strangers travelling to and from work than with our own families before and after, work. Strangers who twitch and swear and spit and shove, behaving better than the people we love to love, from below or above,
reeking of solvents or bathed in Old Spice or new Axe or that industrial strength Brut from left over from Christmas 1979.
Buses stinking of vomit and skunkweed and garlic and old socks, the trip to and from work and career and other-life is like two hours trapped in a teenager’s closet. Not just any teenager, but your goth-dressed, face-pierced, crappy grades, I-want-to-live-with-the-other-parent, teenager.
Two-fifty a trip to get bumped and grinded and fondled --- but no flowers, no chocolate no simple “I’ll promise to call you but will lose your number in the next five minutes”. The freedom of frottage without commitment.
But on a bus you can jab jab jab an elbow or step on a toe, hard on a toe or fart never-so-gracefully in the face of these daily stranger relationships and no one says a word; but treat your causeless James Dean teen with the same disdain and you’ll hear from Family Services the very next day.
And the day after, and for the rest of your days until the divorce is settled, the custody battle done, the bank account drained and the Beamer traded in for a used Toyota Tercel that never looks as good on page two of the local paper when they announce you’ve had another trial date.
Not so, the bus, the train, the bus, and the shuttle --- no names exchanged, no hatred grown, no love lost, no lasting impression made.
So give me diesel fumes and ignorant strangers and vomit on my shoes just so I don’t have to go home to Hell in the home, homely in its own hellish way.
Give me back the grazing touch of a total stranger, the hardening of my nipples, the weakening of my knees... and then their cellphone rings and ABBA’s Dancing Queen causes us all, passenger strangers one and all, to lash out, bump the coffee hand or the phone hand or grinding grind a heel into their imported Italian in-step; because it’s all fakey fake, all falsely hoped for ...
... and all going to happen again for all our tomorrows, on the not-so-Express bus up and down to downtown.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Ciao for now.
Tim Reynolds.
Author of Stand Up & Succeed
www.StandUpAndSucceed.com
RIDING THE BUS...
Riding the bus, the train, the bus, the shuttle... riding it all and all of it riding on a two-fifty fare.
Spending more time with strangers travelling to and from work than with our own families before and after, work. Strangers who twitch and swear and spit and shove, behaving better than the people we love to love, from below or above,
reeking of solvents or bathed in Old Spice or new Axe or that industrial strength Brut from left over from Christmas 1979.
Buses stinking of vomit and skunkweed and garlic and old socks, the trip to and from work and career and other-life is like two hours trapped in a teenager’s closet. Not just any teenager, but your goth-dressed, face-pierced, crappy grades, I-want-to-live-with-the-other-parent, teenager.
Two-fifty a trip to get bumped and grinded and fondled --- but no flowers, no chocolate no simple “I’ll promise to call you but will lose your number in the next five minutes”. The freedom of frottage without commitment.
But on a bus you can jab jab jab an elbow or step on a toe, hard on a toe or fart never-so-gracefully in the face of these daily stranger relationships and no one says a word; but treat your causeless James Dean teen with the same disdain and you’ll hear from Family Services the very next day.
And the day after, and for the rest of your days until the divorce is settled, the custody battle done, the bank account drained and the Beamer traded in for a used Toyota Tercel that never looks as good on page two of the local paper when they announce you’ve had another trial date.
Not so, the bus, the train, the bus, and the shuttle --- no names exchanged, no hatred grown, no love lost, no lasting impression made.
So give me diesel fumes and ignorant strangers and vomit on my shoes just so I don’t have to go home to Hell in the home, homely in its own hellish way.
Give me back the grazing touch of a total stranger, the hardening of my nipples, the weakening of my knees... and then their cellphone rings and ABBA’s Dancing Queen causes us all, passenger strangers one and all, to lash out, bump the coffee hand or the phone hand or grinding grind a heel into their imported Italian in-step; because it’s all fakey fake, all falsely hoped for ...
... and all going to happen again for all our tomorrows, on the not-so-Express bus up and down to downtown.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Ciao for now.
Tim Reynolds.
Author of Stand Up & Succeed
www.StandUpAndSucceed.com
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Joining the Queue of Desirable Intention
I love it when the universe surprises me. Just when my energy flags and my motivation wavers, the universe throws me a tow rope and pulls me up onto my feet again.
This week was a long week at work, simply because it's a week of hard final evaluations for my trainees before they graduate, and anyone who tells you that life-altering evaluations are only tough for the students, is full of shit.
But the students all passed, if not with flying colours at least with walking shades or grey and dark blue. But I'm proud of them nonetheless.
The first universal shockra happened Wednesday night at the Great Canadian Laugh Off preliminary round at Yuk Yuk's here in Calgary. My set was solid, though not comprehended by the all of the mixed crowd (mixed with 'WHAT I won't say), but it WAS comprehended by one of the two people in attendance who mattered the most --- Mark Breslin, CEO & Founder of Yuk Yuk's. I introduced myself to Mark and he pulled me aside, sat me down and went over what did and did not like about my set. To sum up, he loved the concept and wants to see here I take it from here. He also wants to get me up on stage when I'm in Toronto in May. Very cool.
And then Saturday rolled around and the feeling that someone had seriously cut my strings and I was dragging my ass around rushed right in to slap my silly face a few times. I got myself to the group books signing at the local Chapters Bookstore and one by one I kept meeting cooler and cooler people, from a pretty lady on crutches there with her kids who bought my book for her best friend who really enjoys comedy to the musician photographer who just happens to run one of the biggest media companies in Canada, to authors who have had bestselling fiction, heartbreaking life changes and one or two who had smiles that lit up the world when they giggled. I even got to watch an impromptu realigning of chakras, something which needs to be seen to be believed. I also made some new friends who offered some interesting insights into my own life and made me see my own world clearer by shining their light in my direction.
I am grateful for the universe's sense of timing, sense of justice and most of all it's sense of humour.
Now I'm off to Denny's for a Lumberjack Slam, because my cholesterol levels just don't seem to be high enough. *L*
And that's all I have to say about that. Except... go out and buy Maryanne Pope's A Widow's Awakening and anything by thriller author Jeff Buick.
Ciao for now.
Tim Reynolds.
Author of Stand Up & Succeed
www.StandUpAndSucceed.com
This week was a long week at work, simply because it's a week of hard final evaluations for my trainees before they graduate, and anyone who tells you that life-altering evaluations are only tough for the students, is full of shit.
But the students all passed, if not with flying colours at least with walking shades or grey and dark blue. But I'm proud of them nonetheless.
The first universal shockra happened Wednesday night at the Great Canadian Laugh Off preliminary round at Yuk Yuk's here in Calgary. My set was solid, though not comprehended by the all of the mixed crowd (mixed with 'WHAT I won't say), but it WAS comprehended by one of the two people in attendance who mattered the most --- Mark Breslin, CEO & Founder of Yuk Yuk's. I introduced myself to Mark and he pulled me aside, sat me down and went over what did and did not like about my set. To sum up, he loved the concept and wants to see here I take it from here. He also wants to get me up on stage when I'm in Toronto in May. Very cool.
And then Saturday rolled around and the feeling that someone had seriously cut my strings and I was dragging my ass around rushed right in to slap my silly face a few times. I got myself to the group books signing at the local Chapters Bookstore and one by one I kept meeting cooler and cooler people, from a pretty lady on crutches there with her kids who bought my book for her best friend who really enjoys comedy to the musician photographer who just happens to run one of the biggest media companies in Canada, to authors who have had bestselling fiction, heartbreaking life changes and one or two who had smiles that lit up the world when they giggled. I even got to watch an impromptu realigning of chakras, something which needs to be seen to be believed. I also made some new friends who offered some interesting insights into my own life and made me see my own world clearer by shining their light in my direction.
I am grateful for the universe's sense of timing, sense of justice and most of all it's sense of humour.
Now I'm off to Denny's for a Lumberjack Slam, because my cholesterol levels just don't seem to be high enough. *L*
And that's all I have to say about that. Except... go out and buy Maryanne Pope's A Widow's Awakening and anything by thriller author Jeff Buick.
Ciao for now.
Tim Reynolds.
Author of Stand Up & Succeed
www.StandUpAndSucceed.com
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