Caalaroka Shark Media and Hello, I'm Jennie Mack with your daily comedy news.
The New Yorker said to Jerry Seinfeld, it's possible that you've made a dollar
or two from Seinfeld, yet you still work hard. Why, Jerry said,
because the only thing in life that's really worth having is good skill.
Good skill is the greatest possession. The things that money buys are fine,
they're good. I like them, but having a skill. I learned this
from reading Esquire magazine in the sixties. They did an issue on mastery.
Do you remember that, The interviewer says, I don't. I'm surprised you
definitely read Esquire. Oh yeah, of course I loved Esquire in the sixties
and magazine for men. Remember, yes, I do. Yeah, And
they did one issue. In fact, I gotta get this issue. I'll
get it on eBay. I'm sure it's there. It's a very zen Buddhist
concept. Pursue mastery that will fulfill your life. You will feel good.
I know a lot of rich people, so to you, they don't feel
good as you think they should and would. They're miserable because if they don't
master a skill, life isn't fulfilling. So I work because if you don't
stand up comedy, if you don't do it a lot, you stink.
They asked Jerry, who did he start listening to that made him say that
was the skull I want to learn. Terry said, Robert Klin and Jay
Leno were the two guys that and George Carlin, Bill Cosby I love,
but I thought I can never be that good. Switching gears. Jerry talked
about naming the series. I thought, well, they'll just call it Seinfeld
no matter what we call it, so we might as well just call it
Seinfeld because Carson wasn't the Tonight show. You're on Carson. It becomes the
name of the guy, and that's why we called it that. I never
thought, well that's a Jewish name. What about Middle America never ever crossed
my mind. The New Yorker pointed out that NBC executive Brandon Tartakoff said the
show originally was to New York and too Jewish. Terry said, maybe we
mentioned a bar Mitzvah one time. Maybe I don't know. We would have
done anything, and comedy do anything that you think might work. Anything.
The reason my show succeeded was the brilliance of Jason, Michael and Julia.
They took this really esoteric material and the brilliant performers and actors that they were,
they made this material accessible to a wide audience. That's why the show
worked. Those three people, Larry and I could never have done it.
Our humor is. I think maybe it's a little more accessible now, but
at that time no. Brandon Tartakoff was right, but he didn't realize how
great Jason, might and Julia were. That's what he missed. A tip
from Jerry, don't try to be funny if you're not funny, if people
aren't always telling you you're funny, don't be funny unless you're drunk and you're
with your very very close friends. I set out to find out if I
was funny. I didn't think I was any funnier than any friend I had
growing up. I thought we're all exactly the same. I drove to this
club, the Golden Lion Pub one forty three West forty fourth Street, no
longer there. I'm still a Queen's college. They have an audition. I
think there were just a few people there, and I did this joke about
being left handed and They got a laugh, and then they booked me.
The interviewer says, I want to hear the joke, and Jerry goes,
all right. The joke is I'm laught handed. Why are so many left
things negatively associated? Two left feet? Left handed? Cop of it?
You go to a party, there's nobody there. Where'd everybody go? They
left huge? It got a huge laugh. Jerry tells an anecdote. I
saw comedian do a couple of Tonight shows and get bounced. I don't want
to mention the name. He went on, He did well. The second
time he went on, he did less well. The third time he struggled.
They never had him back, and I went, oh, now I
get how this racket works. This is a writer's game. If you can
write, you succeed. If you can't, you will not make it.
The performing being funny on stage, that's great. A comedy can be funny
on stage, But the bullets are the writing, Jerry. Do you watch
tapes of yourself? For films of yourself? Jerry said, sometimes every artist
is only showing you his best. When you watch a movie, every scene,
they only show you the one take that worked. Seventeen times they missed
it, you're only seeing the peak of it, and stand up. You
gotta make it happen every night. That's the difference. That's why actors I
think they like to do theater. They want to be honest, They want
to be held to account, and only a live audience holds you to account.
Jerry, do you feel constant pressure to make it new all the time?
Jerry says that conversation would take another hour. The short version is,
there's no answer. If I love a bit that somebody doesn't, I go
and they do the bit. I love it the comedian you've seen them after
the show. You go, you did the Beana bit? I love the
bean A bit and they go, I know I'm trying to get out of
my act. Do something new? You go, No, I love that
bit. Who's right, there's no answer, Jerry? Will you do another
special for Netflix? He says, no, why not again? We don't
have time for that. Jerry. Do you ever go to clubs? Yeah?
I go all the time. I don't sit there and pay for two
drinks and watch the guys go. That guy's fantastic. I gotta work out
my own stuff, Jay Leno told uh New Jersey one on one point five
radio to me, there's nothing funnier than comedy in New Jersey. I was
at Rascals once years ago. So next to Rascals is an arcade, literally
right next door. So I'm in the arcade. I'm playing one of the
games. To see this guy looking at me and he goes, hey,
you look like Jay Leno. Jay says, I am Jay Leno. The
guy goes, no, you're not. Jay wouldn't be here. Jay says,
I'm playing Rascals right next door. I'm on in forty five minutes.
Right now, I'm playing a video game. The guy asked leto for his
ID. Jay Leno declined to provide his ID. So I go on stage.
I see the guy sitting like two seats right in front of me.
I go, do you believe me? Now? Wartschatter dot Com spoke to
Mike Burri Bigley about what started him in comedy. Mike says, I want
to say I was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. My brother Joe took
me to see Stephen Wright, and that sent me into a rabbit hole of
writing in my notebook like random thoughts, you know, because it perform what
Stephen Wright does. So well as he performs this match a trick of here's
some things I was thinking about, and I'm just reeling them off the top
of my head. And you know it's an illusion because he's written them and
workshopped them, and he knows they'll get laughs in these different places. So
I started writing a ton of jokes. Was acting ever going to be your
focus? Mike? Mike said, When I got into comedy in the late
nineties, the path success was you became a comedian, then you got a
sitcom, and that was Ray Romano, that was Roseanne Seinfeld, et cetera.
I was on that trajectory until about two thousand and eight, when I
shot a sitcom pilot for CBS based on my life. It was like an
untitled Mike Birbiglia project. Then it didn't get picked up. Then I kind
of doubled down and tripled down on making these specials. I made Sleepwalk with
Me my girlfriend's Boyfriend. Thank God for the jokes, the new one and
the most recent one, which is called the Old Man in the Pool,
And weirdly those become what I do. Forbes talk to Brad Williams about his
new special Starfish. Brad, who is a little person, says, Look,
there will always be dwarf jokes. I'm a little person. I don't
know how to write jokes from the perspective of a six foot guy. But
on this special I dive into a lot of different topics and I'm really happy
to leave my comfort zone. I'm at the stage of life where I'm a
father and I've been married a few years now. I want to give something
new as a comic. I love the laughs, I live off those,
but the moments that really get me excited to the silences, Because if the
audience is quiet and that's what I planned, I've got them. There's a
moment where I reveal something about my daughter and the audience goes quiet. I
can tug it your heartstrings a little knowing that I have a joke to bring
you back. I want you to feel everything when you come to my show.
I want you to feel joy and laughter, but I also want you
to think a little bit this is great, and I also want you to
be sad that I want to bring it back up and have you always leave
happy. There was a famous speech by Jim Valvano at the sb Awards where
he said something like if you can laugh, cry, and think on the
same day. That was a hell of a day, and I want to
make people do that, but just in an hour. So pretty profound answer
there, right, What do they follow up with? Do you find it
hard to work out material for your specialist while people are taping with their phones?
Wait to listen to the answer and follow up on it anyway, Brad
said, I call people out. Hey, dude, I'm working on stuff.
Let's put the phone down. There's a joke in my special and I'm
most proud of about the bud Light transgender spokesperson controversy. When I first told
the joke was horrible and I got to a point where it was getting last,
but it wasn't kind of last I wanted. They were aggressive, so
I kept tooling with it and I finally got the joke to point where it's
about the right laughter, The message reflects my personal beliefs. Nailed it,
and you need to be allowed that process. Here's some well written copy that
I'll read verbatim. Step right up, Comedy lovers, get ready to witness
a night of hilarity and heart as the incomparable Gina Brillan takes a stage tonight
at the legendary Gotham Comedy Club to film their fifth stan up special Mind Your
Business. The Washington Post has been covering the DC comedy scene. Matthew Deakins
describes his comedy style as I wouldn't describe my comedic style. Describing one's comedic
style is pretentious streetely like that answer? All right, what do you like
to tell jokes about? Matthew Deacon says, Applebee's Loreina Bobbitt Disney Adults,
German adults seven to eleven. What's the best thing about the DC comedy scene?
Matthew Deacon says, On any given night, you might be performing for
the architects of the Iraq War. Tomorrow you might be performing for the architects
of the next war. Someone in the audience works for Raytheon and Grumming.
Somebody else works for a nonprofit that helps orphans in far away places that I'll
never visit. They're all here, and they're all doing the same thing.
They make spreadsheets and powerpoints, and most of them want to go home to
somebody who loves them, and most of them will go home to an empty
apartment for ninety minutes. They forget their apartment is empty, and they forget
the mission statement of the organization they wish they didn't work for. They don't
check email, they can't look at LinkedIn for ninety minutes. They think about
their dad, and their yard and their dawn. They wonder if anything will
ever be as good as their memories. Wow, all right, Matthew Deakons,
What else should we know about you? I've told you everything. Democracy
might die in darkness, but privacy thrives in it. If you want anything
else, listen to my podcast. It's called half a Nice Day. Sounds
like an interesting dude. That is your comedy news for today. If you
would like this program, add free listen to the promo that you've heard five
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