Bumped?! In LOS ANGELES?! Surely, you jest!

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on January 19th, 2012

We don’t normally comment on stuff that appears in other blogs (probably because we don’t read other blogs all that often), but there’s a posting by A.V. Club’s Sean O’Neal that seems to be making waves on the WWW.

In it, O’Neal engages in what we called (in a December 8 posting) “The New Hack!” (That is, he trashed a wildly popular comic, and, by extension, his fans.)

The incident that spurred the snark-alanche was this: Dane Cook stopped into the Laugh Factory last night and worked out material for 45 minutes. And some comics were bumped. And the material was less than focused or polished and touched upon subjects that offended the delicate sensibilities of some of the comics that witnessed the whole debacle.

Dane Cook doesn’t need us defending him. He’s a big boy, he’s successful, and controversy follows him wherever he goes yet he still ends up prevailing.

But the antics of two of the comics quoted in O’Neal’s piece are particularly interesting. Daniel Kinno (who knows a thing or two about being held in contempt by fellow comics) makes a catty comment about Cook and seems awfully peeved that he was bumped… at a major showcase club… in Los Angeles. To which we reply: “Boo–Fucking-Hoo.” If you’re living in Los Angeles (or regularly performing there, or performing in NYC), getting bumped is part of the game. Any comic who does anything more than express mild disappointment is being thoroughly dishonest. Any comic who then takes a shot at the comic doing the bumping is being a sore loser. And any comic who offers the cheap shots to a publication (or broadcasts them via social media) is being a dick. Take it and deal with it. You will be able to do it yourself if/when you get to the point where a comedy club manager in one of the two major comedy markets in the world decides that his audience would rather see you than the comics he has scheduled. 99 per cent of comedians understand that they will be be bumped by 1 per cent of the comedians on this planet. It’s nothing personal; it’s business.

The other mopey comic is T.J. Miller, who took his frustrations out via Twitter. He expresses outrage that Cook would bump comedians (and is outraged on behalf of bump-ee Bobby Lee), and labels Cook as a “damaged man” who “didn’t earn” the right to steamroll the other acts on the bill that night.

Again: Deal with it. And we’re sure Bobby Lee is getting along all right without any assistance from Miller.

We met Miller when we were headlining in Pittsburgh a few years back (he was in town shooting “She’s Out Of My League”) and we found him to be pleasant and humble. We also thought that his performance in SOOML to be perhaps the highlight of the movie. So we’re puzzled by this whole outburst.

We’re doubly puzzled by the expression of disgust at Cook’s choice of material. We’re told that it was “vicious, misogynistic, cruel, and arrogant.” Hmmm… with the possible exception of mysogynistic, are we not told that these qualities are the hallmark of some of the best “edgy” and “truthful” comics working today? (And, in some respectable circles, misogyny– and material that depends on it– isn’t merely excused but celebrated.)

When did we suddenly do a 180-degree turn and start valuing comedians who are kind, gentle, understanding and humble? Miller is particularly fixated on a Cook bit about… abortion? (Last time we checked, comics aren’t allowed to cross the George Washington Bridge or get through the Cajon Pass unless they show proof of an abortion joke in their showcase sets. Indeed, The Female Half of the Staff (half)jokingly says that she’s starting to feel bad for being the only female comic on the planet who doesn’t do an abortion joke.)

Miller further takes Cook to task for trying to “work through his own shit on stage” and for believing that “it’s okay to bomb and talk about your issues.” Exactly what the hell is going on here? Have we not, for the last decade or more, been bombarded with the meme that what matters most is the bold, edgy attempt at getting to the heart of one’s “personal truth?” And that it matters not what kind of response we get? And that audiences rightly thrill to the spectacle of a daring truthteller working things out onstage, not caring one whit about whether or not it results in belly laughs?

Cook defended himself by saying, “This was only the fourth time I’ve ever performed it, as well as the fourth time I’ve ever admitted this incident in public. So it still feels like a very nervy high wire walk for me. There’s times when I lose the audience and have to get them back, freeze up, and wonder if I shouldn’t have just kept this whole incident to myself.” Oh… waitaminute… that’s not Cook, that’s a quote from Patton Oswalt defending his savaging of a heckler at a room in Los Feliz about 12 days ago. When Oswalt tries out material during a “drop-in” appearance, he’s everybody’s hero. When Dane Cook does it (and bumps Jenna Marbles, Daniel Kinno and T.J. Miller in the process), he “took a shit on everyone.” A curious double standard to say the least.

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