Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media. Hey, I am Jenny Mack with your
Speaker 1: daily comedy. Hew's a cool article on cracked dot com
Speaker 1: Mitch Hedberg's secret to comedy, he apparently told Kevin Nalin.
Speaker 1: I started to delete stuff is what it comes down to.
Speaker 1: I have jokes that have maybe three or fourth the
Speaker 1: most punchlines, but I started to make it come down.
Speaker 1: I figured out that one or two is the best.
Speaker 1: You know, the second punch line of the first punch
Speaker 1: line works better than the third or the fourth. Hegburg
Speaker 1: talked about performing in Ireland, saying I got a lot
Speaker 1: of food product jokes that I do. I know that
Speaker 1: some of the food products don't translate and up to
Speaker 1: the point now where I'll still do them regardless. Audiences
Speaker 1: just have to be really hip to understand a food
Speaker 1: product that is several thousand miles away from them. If
Speaker 1: they only know their local food restaurants, you know f them.
Speaker 1: Times have changed way back. Heedburgh said, I'm working very
Speaker 1: hard to get recognition. It takes so long. Man. I
Speaker 1: got like a small percentage of recognition in the States,
Speaker 1: but I decided to say f and I'm going to Ireland,
Speaker 1: where I have no percentage. I like the fact that
Speaker 1: I could basically go to zero and away and humbles you.
Speaker 1: It's like all I could do is impress them. Each
Speaker 1: show is getting better, and I'll play all the countries
Speaker 1: as long as they give me a chance to get better.
Speaker 1: The first show will suck, but the seventh show will
Speaker 1: be sweet. You know that's the bottom line. Hebburg passed
Speaker 1: away March thirtieth, two thousand and five. Wow, twenty years
Speaker 1: goes fast. The Chicago Defender spoke to Donnel Rawlings. He said,
Speaker 1: A New Day wasn't my first special, but it truly
Speaker 1: evolved my comedy. The first time I taped it, the
Speaker 1: material was two tied to the pandemic. It featured COVID jokes.
Speaker 1: They didn't age well. Chappelle advised me to aim for
Speaker 1: something timeless, so I took that feedback seriously. I rewrote
Speaker 1: my material and refined my point of view, resulting in
Speaker 1: a final version that could stand the test of time. Initially,
Speaker 1: my special felt like a collection of jokes that needed
Speaker 1: a clear beginning and personal perspective. However, I realized I
Speaker 1: had to capture everything I needed at the moment. It
Speaker 1: was my third attempt at the special recorded right after
Speaker 1: the pandemic, when audiences still felt its effects. While some
Speaker 1: jokes may have been funny, didn't create a great special.
Speaker 1: By listening to constructive criticism, I returned to the drawing
Speaker 1: board a craft relatable and meaningful jokes To speak about Chapelle.
Speaker 1: He said, our friendship means more to me than any
Speaker 1: business relationship. While Chappelle's show helped boost my career, our
Speaker 1: connection genuinely matters. We've been there so much together. He
Speaker 1: was there when my son was born. We've attended weddings
Speaker 1: and funerals, including Charlie Murphy's. Whether we're doing comedy or not,
Speaker 1: He's one of my closest friends. Many people assumed I
Speaker 1: must be upset about Chappelle's show not moving forward, but
Speaker 1: my genuine concern was his mental state. He didn't often
Speaker 1: share his feelings, making things uncertain regarding the Comedy Central situation.
Speaker 1: When I ran into him a club in New York,
Speaker 1: I wanted to hug him and slap them, but felt
Speaker 1: relieved because I hadn't seen him in a while. Monday
Speaker 1: Man caught up with Russell Peters. He says, gotta keep working,
Speaker 1: ex wives, you got baby, mamas, you got it all.
Speaker 1: You know. I hadn't accountant who I found out wasn't
Speaker 1: doing his job properly, and now I'm paying the price
Speaker 1: for it because I got to get out there and
Speaker 1: hustle to pay the irs, which I thought he was doing.
Speaker 1: Some people on social media accused Russell of doing the
Speaker 1: same formula again and again. Russell says, the people that
Speaker 1: say that, don't come and watch me. If you do
Speaker 1: see me, you'll see I do different material every night.
Speaker 1: Now there's a whole generation of com that are doing
Speaker 1: my formula and making millions of dollars off it. But
Speaker 1: it's okay for them and not me. When he plays Canada,
Speaker 1: he says, I'm home, they get it, And when he
Speaker 1: takes a show around the world, he says, listen, you
Speaker 1: should never talk about things you don't know about. Number one,
Speaker 1: If you're going to another country and try to tack
Speaker 1: their religious beliefs, of their government, or anything, that's a
Speaker 1: definite no go. Even if you know something about it,
Speaker 1: just don't do it. Jang Wang says he's pretty happy
Speaker 1: with where he is in his career. He says, I
Speaker 1: don't have any big long term goals beyond just kind
Speaker 1: of what I'm doing right now. My goal right now
Speaker 1: is just enjoy the ride. I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: even with this level of success, I'm dealing with more
Speaker 1: things than I had to in the past in terms
Speaker 1: of just simple things like marketing, or taxes or tax
Speaker 1: withholdings from different countries, talk to Russell Peters, uh or
Speaker 1: things I never had to think about too much beforehand.
Speaker 1: And so I just really want to do what I'm
Speaker 1: doing and enjoy it the whole time, you know, not
Speaker 1: get too caught up with the business of these things. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's cool you have audiences along for the ride. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: what I find to be the most satisfying is writing
Speaker 1: a new joke. You know, touring, having a fan base,
Speaker 1: that's all great, and it's fun to do a killer show,
Speaker 1: but you know, really rocket for a whole hour in
Speaker 1: front of an adoring fan base. For me, the most
Speaker 1: satisfying thing is still just to write a new joke,
Speaker 1: come up with a new bit, and have some new
Speaker 1: insight about something. The Whitmer Daily News spoke to Brian Reagan.
Speaker 1: He says, I don't adapt, I just do it the
Speaker 1: way I like to do it. I think it's a
Speaker 1: mistake to try and figure out what other people are
Speaker 1: doing or what audiences are looking for. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do what I think is funny, and if there are
Speaker 1: enough people out there who agree with me, then I'll
Speaker 1: be fortunate enough to have a career. The stuff I
Speaker 1: think about doesn't really bump up too hard against anything
Speaker 1: that's super controversial. I've never had it just accordingly. Sure,
Speaker 1: there are some jokes to avoid in today's world. And
Speaker 1: since it's an article with Brian Reagan, they asked him
Speaker 1: about clean comedy, and he said, for my side, we
Speaker 1: never push out that I'm a clean comedian. I feel
Speaker 1: like it is the wrong connotation. I feel like if
Speaker 1: someone were to hear that word before they see what
Speaker 1: I do, that put a connotation on that has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with my comedy. It happens to be clean,
Speaker 1: but that's not the point of it. When people hear
Speaker 1: clean comedy, they leap frog over to thinking, oh, he's
Speaker 1: trying to make a point here, and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: I just enjoy doing it this way. Skyler Hickley is
Speaker 1: one of Vulture's comedians You should and will know proudest
Speaker 1: moment of your career so far. Listen to this. When
Speaker 1: my former boss, Conan O'Brien pulled me aside and said,
Speaker 1: you're by far the most talented person I've ever met. Wow.
Speaker 1: I mean never mind people that Conan may have casually
Speaker 1: met hosting his show, like Paul McCartney comes to mind,
Speaker 1: but even the people that he's worked with that is
Speaker 1: high praise. Skyler says, having been a staff writer for
Speaker 1: The Onion and Conan, I do recognize that I've lived
Speaker 1: a lot of gen X white guy's dreams. Being a
Speaker 1: part of the end of Conan on TBS was very special.
Speaker 1: Once he emailed me complimenting something i'd written, I emailed
Speaker 1: him back, this is a big deal coming from you.
Speaker 1: Ever since I saw Conan O'Brien Can't Stop when I
Speaker 1: was fourteen, I've been a huge fan of jay Leto.
Speaker 1: I was only there for the final season, which is
Speaker 1: like taking a paddle boat out to the Titanic to
Speaker 1: hop on it as it's sinking into the water. But
Speaker 1: then you get to say you're on the Titanic, which
Speaker 1: is legendary, and I got a nice little trophy, which
Speaker 1: is what it's all about. Worst show ever I was
Speaker 1: supposed to do five shows in a weekend. I'd only
Speaker 1: sold fifteen tickets total, but of course there'd be some
Speaker 1: walk ins. The first show went better than I thought,
Speaker 1: pretty good, but then there was the second show. I
Speaker 1: bombed for forty minutes straight. The few handfuls of people
Speaker 1: who did buy tickets at the door heck old made
Speaker 1: high pitched bomb dropping noises after every punchline, and walked
Speaker 1: out during the show, talking crap about how bad it
Speaker 1: was and refusing to pay for their drinks. The club
Speaker 1: canceled the rest of the shows that weekend, so I
Speaker 1: spent the rest of the weekend in a hotel room,
Speaker 1: depressed about my existence and truly resentful of how many
Speaker 1: comedians would have also bombed that situation but would have
Speaker 1: never been booked there. How to deal with the issues
Speaker 1: of being an outliner? All right, what's your comedy opinion? Hill?
Speaker 1: You'll die on? Higby said, The majority of older famous
Speaker 1: stand up comedians should retire. They're not offering anything that
Speaker 1: insightful or well written. What they accomplished was great, but
Speaker 1: like with superstar athletes, there's a point where they simply
Speaker 1: can't be good anymore. Imagine if Jordan kept playing for
Speaker 1: the Wizards, but also every shot he made. How to
Speaker 1: be about cancel culture or trans people another one. The
Speaker 1: Internet has changed the value and form of comedy, and
Speaker 1: it's become very easy to be creatively lazy, which is
Speaker 1: strange since we have the tools to make things very
Speaker 1: well the concept demand and not only write stand up
Speaker 1: all the time. But what everything on social media makes
Speaker 1: me feel like I'm dumping more crap into a river
Speaker 1: of crap. Comedy is simultaneously better and worse than it's
Speaker 1: ever been, and there are a lot of Itmazingly talented
Speaker 1: people could be making some great stuff given more opportunity.
Speaker 1: That is your comedy news for today. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: the program, tell a friend about it. They may like
Speaker 1: it too. If you would like the program without commercial interruption,
Speaker 1: I get it. I got a solution. Check out the
Speaker 1: show notes, Callaroga dot com, slash plus, or if you're
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcast click then Benner and Apple take you
Speaker 1: what to do there see tomorrow.