Children starving… for attention

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on August 18th, 2010

We have long held that it’s ghastly to inflict children doing standup on a comedy club crowd.

It was Robert Heinlein who said, “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”

We have a new one: Never try to teach a kid standup. It wastes your time and it annoys the audience.

We went over to Helium last night to work out some material on their open mike night. (Helium was nice enough to spare us the sign-up ritual. We were given the last two spots on a lengthy bill.)

The Male Half stayed in the bar and went over notes while The Female Half monitored the room during the show, which was a combination of newcomers and experienced acts.

Up until this point, any child we’ve seen performing on a standup stage has at least had the decency to work clean… or relatively clean. Last night, however, was the exception. A 13-year-old (some said he was 12; he looked 11) went up at Helium and did a cringe-inducing adult set. He paced the stage as if he were performing in his own HBO special. He did “jerking-off” material– enhanced with brief visual re-enactment. He mentioned “tits and ass.” And, when the light came on, he said, “I’d like to stay, but I have to get off because of this damn light.” Nice.

The Male Half missed it. The Female Half was furious. (Such was her anger, she says, that she should have left then and there, lest her anger get the best of her.)

And, if that weren’t enough, Junior took a seat with dad– in the audience– in the third row which, because there was no one seated in the first two rows, was technically the first row. Can we all agree that it’s bad form for the open mikers to take a seat in the audience? Has there been an open mike that hasn’t banned that practice (or at the very least, discouraged it)?

It’s bad enough having a kid in the audience. The violence it does to the audience dynamic is incalculable. Take that and multiply it by a thousand when it’s tween kid whose just been onstage doing masturbation jokes.

The kid got no genuine laughs. It was all shock laughs, cheap stuff. What kind of parent not only allows but encourages this kind of freak show? One feels as though one is witnessing the creation of a self-esteem monster of unparalleled proportions. (The self-esteem monster won’t necessarily make miserable the lives of the comics or patrons at future shows– the kid will most likely wash out, comedy-wise, when the thrill wears off and the laughs dissipate– but his outsized pride and arrogance will fester and balloon until he’s unbearable in nearly every facet of his life.)

The crowd had been stiff and judgmental all night. A roller-coaster for all concerned. Never any momentum.

The Female Half went on next to last and, after about three minutes, attempted to jiggle them out of their complacency by threatening to bring back the child comic for more jokes about masturbation. The response was startling, especially considering that he had gone on much earlier in the night– 17 or 18 comics had gone on between boy wonder and The Female Half. (The spectacle was clearly on everyone’s mind… and not in a good way. It was something that might have been addressed immediately afterward by the emcee. Or by the comedians who followed. But, as most of those who followed were first-timers or very new, none did– none dared deviate from their alloted three minutes, and understandably so. And none of the more experienced comics who came after saw fit to make mention of the trauma. It made for unnecessary tension that needed defusing, but which never got defused.)

She looked over to see Super Dad playfully punching Sonny Boy in the arm saying (loud enough for all to hear), “I’m proud of him!”

The Female Half’s blood pressure skyrocketed. She hammers the kid a couple of times more. Then it’s onto the rest of her set.

She fully admits that she allowed her anger to dictate her actions and momentarily deviate from the night’s mission. But the attitude and the posture (head on the table!) of the juvenile open miker was an affront that was insufferable. What was also galling was the fact that both parent and child seemed oblivious to the rudeness they were displaying.

As she winds up her set and says her goodbyes, the kid leaps up, approaches the stage and, while ostentatiously proffering a slip of paper in the direction of The Female Half, announces loudly to the assembled, “Here’s my number!”

The Female Half halts the proceedings and says, “Hold on… If he thinks I’m touching that piece of paper after he’s been up here telling everybody he masturbates, he’s out of his mind.” The reaction is mixed. She exits.

A comic should never (NEVER!) approach another act while that act is onstage. Never. Not at the beginning of the set, not in the middle, not at the end. That is pure bush league. It’s unprofessional. It bespeaks a colossal arrogance. It is indicative of a thundering ignorance of the ways of, for lack of a less pretentious term, “The Theater.” As seemingly informal as the standup millieu might be, there are still some unspoken rules and regulations. Not the least of which is you don’t insinuate yourself into someone else’s act– not physically, not verbally– unless you are asked to do so. (And the “Ick Factor” of a 12-year-old giving his number to a 44-year-old woman is off the charts.)

We hope this kid doesn’t get any more spots. For every one of the 20 or so spots that were given out last night, there might be three comics desiring that same spot. Which means that a couple aspiring (adult) comics went home last night disappointed, while this precocious twerp soaked up a precious slot.

It got us to thinking about the art of emceeing. In an above paragraph, we note that the incident could have been ameliorated, the tone of the evening recalibrated, by the emcee. However, the emcee at this particular open mike is at a distinct disadvantage– he’s sequestered in the green room just off the stage and can’t clearly hear (or see!) what’s transpiring onstage. And, since many of the sets are three minutes in length, it’s not practical for the emcee to monitor the acts by leaving the green room to watch from the showroom. There should be a monitor back there. Sure, situations like this one arise only occasionally, but proper emceeing– emceeing that keeps it moving, that occasionally comments on moments of shared experience with the audience, that offers a running commentary on the progress of the show– practically requires that the emcee be familiar with what transpires onstage, not sequestered backstage.

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