On a recent post (“The Total Prick and his Insignificant Wife”), we went all crazy on someone who sent us a link to a clip by a comedian, claiming that the set depicted was “one of the best sets I’ve ever seen,” and that the clip was going viral and garnering all sorts of praise.
We disagreed. We were pilloried by the sender for daring to disagree. The comments on the posting were illuminating.
It also led to some interesting conversations with some professional comics “off-blog.”
And we came to the conclusion that today’s aspiring comedians have no shame. And that shame is often a good thing to have.
Allow us to explain. When we first started out, the clubs we worked out at had video cameras in the back of the house. We were invited to watch the recording of our most recent open-mike performance. Some feedback was offered. Occasionally, we were able to bring in a tape and actually take home a copy of our most recent performance and watch it on the Reggie-Vision.
In those early days, it was instructive (if not also cringe-inducing) to watch those sets. We would be on the lookout for annoying physical quirks. Watching the video (and not just listening to an audio recording) was a tremendous way to edit jokes, break bad habits and accelerate the learning process.
Later on, when we got good enough to travel, we rented video equipment on one or two occasions and tried to capture a set– on the road, with a hot crowd. Once in a great while, we defied the odds and got lucky, actually capturing a set that was executed nearly flawlessly and that got the desired raucous response from the audience. It was a painstaking process, often frustrating. But the one, decent tape that resulted was often enough to get subsequent bookings from other bookers… or maybe even a television spot.
When the cost of the equipment came down to reasonable levels, it was commonplace for comedians to own their own video equipment. But getting a great set on tape was still difficult, and maybe even costly, for a number of reasons. Chattering near the camera’s microphone? Waitresses walking past the camera? A heckler that disrupts what would have been a perfect set?
Now comedians have easy access to relatively inexpensive and tiny video cameras, some of which are high-definition, which can be easily mounted anywhere in a showroom. For even the laziest comedian it is possible to make a decent, clear video and audio recording of practically any set, any night, anywhere. Of course, these recordings are not all going to be great or usable, but the odds are now more in the comedian’s favor than a decade ago.
And we have the means to upload them to the internet. So, you would think that every tape would on the WWW would be far and away better than recordings from the old days. But they’re not.
We’ve always been annoyed at the poor quality of some of the tapes that make it onto the web. If every show can be taped, there’s no real reason to put up a tape where the comedian’s voice can’t be heard… or the comedian’s voice is obscured by chatter from the audience or servers… or the camera is regularly jolted by nearby foot traffic. Those recordings are useful for private critiquing or for note-taking, but they certainly aren’t suitable for consumption by the public.
Further, we’ve noticed a disturbing trend in which new comics (aspiring comics? newbie comics? open mikers?) are uploading recordings of crappy sets. Sets that are not just coincidentally bad, but sets that quite clearly demonstrate that the person doing the set doesn’t know how to do standup yet.
Where is the shame? Don’t these folks know that they suck? Mind you, sucking, in itself, is not a crime– we all sucked in the early going. But we sucked in obscurity… in a vacuum… like we were supposed to. Like today’s comics are supposed to. Not plastered all over the WWW for the W to see!
Is it ego? Exhibitionism? Is it an eagerness to demonstrate– to themselves or to co-workers or to doubting relatives– that “Yes! I AM a standup comic!” (Is there some sort of sentiment out there that– as many times as a comic has done an open mike, as many times as a comic as told his friends that he does standup– it isn’t real or legitimate if it isn’t on Youtube?)
If the ego is involved, why doesn’t embarrassment keep the ego in check? Why not wait until you have something excellent to upload? Of course, we all convinced ourselves that we were “good” before we were actually good. But it seems odd to convince yourself that your set is worthy of torturing the entire world when, in some cases, there isn’t even any laughter on the tape!
This isn’t some sort of “these kids today think they’re so damn funny” rant. We’re honestly baffled.
We often wonder: Would we have uploaded– to the WWW– some of our absolutely gut-wrenchingly bad sets from our early days were we able to do so? We have to answer: No. We had trouble convincing ourselves that we were actually comedians, that we actually had the right to call ourselves comics. And that was a good thing. It made us work hard. It still makes us work hard.
Are we imagining this humility? Are we viewing our early days and our bygone colleagues through some sort of nostalgic prism? We don’t think so. And we think we have proof of that.
We have been trying to put together a show here locally where we invite veteran comedians (at least 15-years+) to bring a videotape of the earliest performance of theirs that they can get their hands on. The idea is that we would all gather and watch the tapes, then watch each comedian do a live set. Hilarity would ensue. As would mocking of the old set. A multi-media self-roast.
We say “trying” because NOT ONE comedian has said that they would do it. Not only that, but they say that it is a horrible idea! And they say that there is no way that anybody they know would ever consent to doing it. The prospect of unspooling an early, amateurish set fills them with dread.
They are shamed decades later.