Callaroga Shark Media finally know Johnny Mack with your daily comedy news. Jerry Seinfeld
still thinks about a heckler from thirty years ago. Jerry was on the In
Depth with Graham Benzeger show. Jerry said, I had this amazing bit about
weddings. It was fantastic. It was so long, covered everything, and
I worked on it and worked on it and worked on it. It takes
me forever starting to the bit and somebody else heard it. That was a
tough one. I still think about it. I mean it was true.
Jerry explained it was a bit they had been working out until he thought he
finally made it perfect. I guess the fellow had heard an unfinished version of
it. Terry said, I think now audience is a little more sophisticated.
There are pieces that we work on for months and months and months. You
don't do it once and works. Every scene you see in a movie.
They did that eighteen times. One time it was good. Same with comedy.
I've done it one hundred times and now I finally got it. Corey
Holcombe called Donell Rawling's recent special a new day mild. Rawling said people try
to use the word mild as an, but I'm over fifty years old.
I don't even like hot sauce. I get heartburn. There's nothing wrong with
walking in the line, but not pushing it. That's where my comedy is.
Donnelle Hall's life been feel lately. It's good and it's gonna continue.
The only thing we can do is try to evolve, especially as a stand
up and artist. We have to be the best we can and give the
people what they want. I don't think I'll ever hit the max. I'm
always gonna try to go next level. He talked about working with people like
it Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock. The notes I've taken from Rock and Chappelle
are that anything is possible, and if you work hard enough, you give
me in a situation where you could say I'm rich bitch and Philerinas as for
his catchphrase, there's been some good and some bad. The good is people
recognize my voice from that phrase. But the bad is when I go with
my friends to dinner, they don't even open their walls. They look at
me and like, I thought you were rich, bitch. Ha Donelle filmed
the special three times. What was missing? The first two Donnelle said,
I don't think anything was missing. The first time I did it, I
knew was funny, but Chappelle told me, Donnelle, you're one of the
funniest guys. I know you'd rip any room, but it doesn't make it
a great special. The second time we did it, I took his notes,
but then we an issue with the production of it, but it was
never a high level or frustration. A lot of times people don't get multiple
opportunities to do it, but Chappelle believed me enough and the product I could
produce, and we got it together. I have no regrets, all right.
How's that feud with Corey Holcombe going? The last time was an l
I went to this club and Hulcomb was there. The first thing I asked
him was could I be on his podcast? He said, yo, d
why do you have something against me? I said, bro, you can't
say that. I've always shown you love. My only issue was why he
felt they need to put down some of the people who are moving the culture
of comedy. He agreed with me, so I'm going to do a show.
For some reason, the black comedy community thinks only one comic can make
it at a time, and a lot of times they don't support each other.
This room for everybody. There are different styles and genres of comedy.
One of the hottest things now is social media influencers transitioning the stand up.
They have the platform because people want to see them. Then you have their
crowd work, which I'm not a huge fan of. It's a muscle in
itself, but it was shunned back when I was coming up because it usually
meant a comic didn't have an act. But I don't knock it. A
lot of people my age think these young guns coming up don't respect the art.
But when I started, if you wanted to be rich or famous off
this, you had to be good. That was the only way you can
get noticed. But nowadays these kids are making hundreds of thousand dollars a month
and of no incentive to be good. You can't tell them to work on
that joke. They're like, I heard what you said, but I just
made one click and made ten thousand dollars. But if you're a real comic,
you can protect the craft by being good and evolving. One of the
comedians I came up with hated shows when a YouTube guy would come on behind
them. He wouldn't go to those shows, but I told him, get
your money, go to the show and teach them a lesson. WPR asked
Dmitri Martin about his creative process. Dmitri said, what I usually do is
daydream a lot. A lot of my jokes come from that. I've teld
some stories over the years, but once I've told a story five, ten,
fifteen or whatever number of times, I get pretty tired of the story
and myself because I'm usually in the story. But with jokes, especially shorter
ones, I don't get sick of them so fast, and if I do,
I could drop one out of the set and it can reappear months later
or years later. Most of the jokes aren't about me. They're more about
ideas or perspective. So in terms of the process, there's a much more
enjoyable pursuit because I'm daydreaming and brainstorming. Sometimes jokes just don't float into my
head. But I'm getting ready for a stand up special or tour I'm going
to record now or something. Then I'm trying to force them out. I'm
really pushing it. That's when I spend more time, especially on flights,
when i'm touring, I bring a spiral notebook, write jokes, underline them,
and then write as many as I can until the plane lands and see
what I can come up with. Ali Sidiq spoke to Cracked. He said,
I did Domino Effect my first special, and then people started asking me
about the rest of the story. The simplest way was to do it in
chronological order. If they're going to listen to the whole story, just do
it off all the way until I got incarcerated, because people knew that I
was incarcerated, but they didn't know how I got there. I got out
of prison October twenty first at nineteen ninety seven. I went to Just Joking
Comedy Cafe December of ninety seven, and I learned observation, being able to
look at an audience and determine what I'm going to do. Was Apollo Knight,
and that's where you had to start. You get everybody on Apollow Knight.
They were singing, doing poetry, magic, rapping. I didn't understand
that this was a younger crowd. I have on a suit because I worked
at the men's apparel store, and because I have on a suit, they
brewed me. They didn't even say anything other than hey, y'all doing and
they started booing. So I waited two weeks for them to forget me,
and I went back up there with a regular shirt, jean sneakers, looking
just like them. I did good, and I kept coming back every week.
I remember what DL Hugley told me, The funniest you're going to be
is based on how honest you want to be. I asked Bruce, Bruce,
you think you can become a great comic if you have a job,
and he said, man, do not quit your day job until your stand
up comedy is making more money for you consistently than your job. I wish
I could have run into Don Rickles. I would have asked him, how
are you so brave? On stage. Seth Meyers is sad about losing his
band. He told Deadline, I think they know how sad I am that
they're not going to be part of the show moving forward. Lord Michael saw
the New York Times. I think everybody had to go through belt tightening.
Seth said, I feel incredibly grateful to have had the eight G band for
ten years. Somebody like me never thinks they're going to have the luxury of
people playing music before they walk out on stage. I feel grateful for the
time we had together. The band will be with the show through the end
of the summer, Meyers said, I'm happy we get them through August,
so we'll value this time together until that comes. But mostly I just reflect
on it as a gift that I had for a great many years. Good
article from Auto Straddle of Bennie Jones under the headline as a trans woman getting
into stand up comedy? Can I avoid jokes about my identity? Benny writes,
Throughout my teens, Dave Chappelle was my favorite comedian. That's easier to
admit that it might seem. As a child, my favorite comedian was Bill
Cosby. My father had a warn VHS copy of Bill Cosby himself and would
sit my brother and I in front of it. That's because Cosby was clean.
I didn't decide to take a stand up comedy class as an act of
contrition, but I'm aware that this is an inauspicious origin story. If I
ever decide to pursue comedy as a career, I'm gonna have to invent one
with less problematic early influences. This essay isn't about them, though I didn't
give stand up a try in response to Dave Chappelle Ricky Gervais at controversial recent
specials. I did so because I'm both a lifelong stand up comedy fan and
a trans woman of color. And yet my current favorite working stand up comedians
are James Acaster, Bo Burnham, and Dimitri Martin. All cis straight white
men. I realized what I appreciate most about each of them and some older
favorites like Bitch Edburg and Stephen Wright. Is there a comedy typically focuses on
one liner's wordplay, absurdity, and playing with the form of comedy. They
tend to tell jokes rather than stories. It seems as though their assis straight
white maleness means they aren't forced to comment on their identities and their work.
They're free to be funny in a way that others aren't. There are three
things in stand up that I'm tired of. The first I share with most
everyone hackneyed reliance on derogatory tropes i e. Punching down. The other two,
however, seem to be the bread and butter of modern stand up comedy,
amusing storytelling from one's life that leans heavily on having lived through an interesting
experience rather than having written a clever punchline, and observations and or explanations about
one's gender sexuality erase, I'm a trans woman of color, and being trans
is frequently hilarious. But why should straight white men get to have all the
fun writing one liners on wordplay jokes. Why should they get to be absurd
and silly and observational rather than relatable. I didn't want to tell stories about
my own life. I've done enough of that in my writing. The saying
says, if you can't find the art you want to see, you have
to create it yourself. Good stuff, and that's your comedy news for today.
If you enjoy the program, tell a friend about it. They might
like it too, and I'll meet you back here tomorrow