|
Funnier than his UCB meltdown was Besser and Ian Roberts doing a special I4H to dispel the idea that the theater is some cash cow for them. Like apparently they've operated at just above black for the entire time the theater has been open.
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 09:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 20:05 |
|
|
If anyone could link that Improv4Humans podcast where Besser talks about it, it'd be appreciated. Also, I'm fairly certain there was a little more than "Kurt didn't get $20 for his 10 minutes of stand-up" thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O2SbNaJdyM It happened while I was in the midst of a bad relapse, though, so I didn't pay a great deal of attention to it. Meltdowns and the UCB incident aside, he's a really funny comic. "Talks To Young People About Sex" is a fantastic album. Anybody see the behind the scenes of Amy Schumer where Kurt talks about how they dated a few times, then Amy realized Kurt looks just like her dad, and they stopped dating? That was funny as hell when they put the pictures up side by side.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 10:23
|
|
|
Politicalrancor posted:Funnier than his UCB meltdown was Besser and Ian Roberts doing a special I4H to dispel the idea that the theater is some cash cow for them. Like apparently they've operated at just above black for the entire time the theater has been open. And it's a co-op environment where they use the profits from the big time sell outs to keep the entry level student shows going. And they intentionally keep the prices at 10 dollars tops.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 14:31
|
|
|
escape artist posted:If anyone could link that Improv4Humans podcast where Besser talks about it, it'd be appreciated. http://www.earwolf.com/episode/bonus-episode-ask-the-ucb-the-ucb-philosophy/
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 15:03
|
|
|
Thank you.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 15:17
|
|
|
Politicalrancor posted:Funnier than his UCB meltdown was Besser and Ian Roberts doing a special I4H to dispel the idea that the theater is some cash cow for them. Like apparently they've operated at just above black for the entire time the theater has been open. And they made it seem like it was going to be part of an ongoing series of behind the scenes episodes. I had no idea about the Kurt Metzger thing, so I actually thought there might be a part 2.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 15:23
|
|
|
Politicalrancor posted:Kurt Metzger is the worst. This. He came across as a total dick when he was on You Made It Weird and got into arguments with people in the comments section.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 18:47
|
|
|
Mst3kmann posted:This. He came across as a total dick when he was on You Made It Weird and got into arguments with people in the comments section. I liked his CC special but man, he comes off as wholly unlikable off stage.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 23:43
|
|
|
escape artist posted:Also, I'm fairly certain there was a little more than "Kurt didn't get $20 for his 10 minutes of stand-up" thing. NOPE!
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2013 11:17
|
|
|
escape artist posted:Also, I'm fairly certain there was a little more than "Kurt didn't get $20 for his 10 minutes of stand-up" thing. I watched the video and nope that's exactly what it is. He doesn't get what UCB is about, and that's fine - he doesn't need to perform there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 7, 2013 15:06
|
|
|
Mob posted:NOPE! YEP! Conduit for Sale! posted:I watched the video and nope that's exactly what it is. He doesn't get what UCB is about, and that's fine - he doesn't need to perform there. The video is a snapshot of the incident. There's more to the story than that. Kurt and Matt ended up on good terms after they spoke on the phone, FYI.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2013 04:09
|
|
|
escape artist posted:YEP! Eh. Not really. They came to a detente relationship at best. Metzger says he has no ill will, but if I recall he still had random things to say about the theater. UCB said they would re-evaluate how stand up relationship is handled. I can't speak for the New York theater but pretty much as long as the LA UCB theatre has been open stand ups have not been getting paid and continue not to. Though Death Ray/Bang Bang is dead the replacement show Put Your Hands Together is still getting great stand up comics and as far as I Know they aren't getting paid. And drink tickets or whatever aren't even an issue since there isn't a bar at the LA theatre. I mean, basically as Besser said, if you can get paid go get paid. But a lot of comics out in LA do the show to test newer material on receptive friendly audiences.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2013 07:37
|
|
|
There's a reason you can see amazing comics at UCB doing stuff that you can't see anywhere else. The theater brings in not just a smart or savvy crowd, but devoted fans of comedy. $5 and $10 without a two drink minimum makes it so you can see multiple shows a week. And they offer totally free shows like the Sunday night "Asssscat" which gets a line that basically reaches to the Gelson's down Franklin. Conversely, I could spend $20 on a ticket to the Improv or the Laugh Factory, spend another $15 on the 2 drinks, deal with lovely openers and mediocre crowds. That's not to say I haven't had a good time at a big club but I've felt like I haven't got my moneys worth plenty. I've seen Sarah Silverman with a paper setlist checking off jokes that worked. I saw PFT accidentally waste a whole 10 minute set making fun of a drunk chick who made a piss poor attempt at heckling. UCB is just special, and that Kurt Metzger doesn't really get that kinda speaks volumes about him.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2013 11:42
|
|
|
Politicalrancor posted:There's a reason you can see amazing comics at UCB doing stuff that you can't see anywhere else. The theater brings in not just a smart or savvy crowd, but devoted fans of comedy. $5 and $10 without a two drink minimum makes it so you can see multiple shows a week. And they offer totally free shows like the Sunday night "Asssscat" which gets a line that basically reaches to the Gelson's down Franklin. I know, undoubtedly, that Kurt Metzger is extremely generous when it comes to helping out young, budding comics. He has a tendency to have mini-breakdowns about silly things, though. But it doesn't mean he's a bad person.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2013 01:05
|
|
|
I saw Jen Kirkman tonight! I just read her book this week, so a lot of the material stuck out to me as stuff from the book, but it was still a really great show, lots of fun. I haven't been to a live show in a while (note to self, go see more live comedy). Also, read her book! It is funny.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2013 04:59
|
|
|
Outside of Comedy Cellar and UCB, where do NYC people to to see good stand-up? I see Wyatt's show occasionally and Hannibal's show when I want to feel like a sardine, as well as a handful of open mics, but I'm really not a club guy. I'd rather go to an open mic with indie comics having interesting material that's not always hitting than see some hacky populist stuff at Eastville or the equivalent. What are my other options, where am I missing?
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2013 05:32
|
|
|
The Berzerker posted:I saw Jen Kirkman tonight! I just read her book this week, so a lot of the material stuck out to me as stuff from the book, but it was still a really great show, lots of fun. I haven't been to a live show in a while (note to self, go see more live comedy). Did Christina Walkinshaw open for her? And if so, did you enjoy her set?
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2013 19:02
|
|
|
Nah, Kirkman had different openers for each of the 3 shows she did this weekend. My openers were Eddie Della Siepe, Evany Rosen, Kristeen von Hagen. von Hagen was okay but the other two were great.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2013 20:34
|
|
|
I'm a starting comedy person, but I'm also fresh out of college so I've not yet been paid to do anything solo (like stand up.) To me rape jokes are lazy. They're gross and scary and unnerving, but only in a very conventional, everybody-knows-this kind of way. This is why you find it in shows by people who are generally thought to be hacks, like Seth Macfarlane or Daniel Tosh. They play on very culturally grounded ideas: women are weak, sex is an act of conquest, men are strong, only sluts get raped, etc. but they tend not to do anything new. Most rape jokes follow the formula of, "she thought she he had power, but I<i>raped</i> her." Which are the worst form of these jokes. A joke like Carlin's joke about rape with the cartoon characters isn't about violence as an equalizing act against she-bitches or whatever, but about the concept of rape-as-violence in the cartoon world that presents sanitized violence as entertainment. The first concept is boring, trite, and lazy. The second is shocking and brilliant. I don't think you can't joke about rape, but that if you joke about rape in a way that just empowers existing social structures instead of dealing with rape in a unique way then you wind up falling into two traps. Which are that you 1: don't do anything original but just do the modern edgy comedian's dad joke and 2: encourage a tacit acceptance of those toxic thought forms outlined above, and that does matter because comedy isn't a magic no-consequence zone where nothing you say affects anything. If comedy was like that, it literally wouldn't matter. If you want to argue maybe that comedy (and with comedy, art, and with art, human expression) doesn't matter, but I haven't met anyone who believes that. This isn't to say that some comedians aren't capable of crafting a funny joke that presses my buttons. Anthony Jeselnik's newest stand up special has a bunch of jokes that are both more offensive than Tosh's and also better and have more value as an art form because of the sheer craft of his misdirection. If you haven't seen Jeselnik's stand up, it is entirely jokes that swerve into dark territory at the punchline - which works because he really takes the time to spit polish his delivery. I can't watch him for long periods of time without feeling kind of scummy, but I recognize that there is an art in what he does. (I can't speak to his show, the Jeselnik Offensive, but I've heard it doesn't have the same level of craft.) By contrast, Louis CK's jokes with the "there's no greater threat to women than men" line works because he is involved in calling out unspoken gender inequality and violence, and does it in a way that makes how bad it seem ridiculous. So the point to me of "rape jokes" being bad is that they are bad because they are lazy and regressive and socially violent, and that they deserve being shouted out of our art form, and that they don't have any place on stage, and that people who tolerate those kinds of jokes being constantly thrown at them are tolerating art that is bad in the same way that racist propaganda is bad. BUT: not all jokes about rape are rape jokes. Some are well-informed, funny, and contribute to a broader perspective, and some of those are occasionally picked at and suffer unjust persecution at the hands of people who do like to take offense to things. And there are brigades of people who do like to take offense to things. I grew up Catholic. I remember old church ladies making up stories about forced abortions and proctor & gamble being in league with the devil and describing in hushed tones satanic orgies they'd heard of in order to just take offense at those things with other old ladies who would believe them and agree that those terrible things that they made up were terrible. When people pick at Louis CK (and that is rare) or heckle a comedian who does a non-lazy, non-regressive rape joke, they are just poisoning the well and making it harder for comedy as a whole to rid itself of the rape joke problem. (which is also the racist joke problem, which is also the sexist joke problem, which is also the gay joke problem etc.) And this isn't to say that no one has ever tried to do a good rape joke and failed. I imagine that most new stand ups who get their boy panties in a twist do this because they know that sometimes they try to do a good rape joke and mess up and then decide that because Louis CK can do triple axle they should be able to, and anyone who says that they can't doesn't understand artistic license or whatever. Anyway, that's just my perspective as a guy who tries to make jokes happen sometimes.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2013 08:06
|
|
|
escape artist posted:Kurt and Matt ended up on good terms after they spoke on the phone, FYI. New interview on Splitsider that doesn't exactly paint things as being on good terms. http://splitsider.com/2013/06/talking-to-kurt-metzger-about-starting-out-in-comedy-patrice-oneal-and-stand-up-controversies/#more-28013 Metzger posted:It’s like you're not doing me a favor giving me a stage at this point, I'm doing you a favor showing up at your stage at this point. So don't put it to me like that. It's almost like, "We're not paying you, so you don't have to do that good of a job." I don't want to gently caress around, I want to try to do a good job, so give me a cut of the thing if you enjoyed it. That's right. Five or ten dollar shows make people entitled.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2013 09:53
|
|
|
Yeah Kurt Metzger loving blows as a dude.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2013 11:19
|
|
|
It looks like all of the online comedy sites are reporting about Bob Odenkirk teasing a Mr. Show tour and possible reunion on Monday's Speakeasy with PFT. Which, coincidentally, might explain this old tweet from Scott Aukerman: @ScottAukerman posted:look at these weirdos I'm guessing we get some (probably in-the-can already) material from Earwolf whenever the group decides to do whatever it is they're doing. Should be awesome.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2013 16:30
|
|
|
urk the quack posted:It looks like all of the online comedy sites are reporting about Bob Odenkirk teasing a Mr. Show tour and possible reunion on Monday's Speakeasy with PFT. I'm just dreading the idea that a tour might end up with a bunch of drunk guys shouting "Better call Saul!"
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2013 16:41
|
|
|
I guess I was wrong about Matt and Kurt being on good terms, but Kurt did seem to concede on his Facebook about it after a phone call that he understood why Matt did what he did*. I'd find the post but I'm too lazy. edit: *does what he does Anyway, I think Kurt Metzger is a cool guy, regardless. He is definitely a little bitter about his place in the comedy world. But then again, so am I. I first saw him in '09 and thought he was brilliant and wondered "why the hell isn't this guy more popular?" At least Comedy Central is giving him an hour special later this year. urk the quack posted:It looks like all of the online comedy sites are reporting about Bob Odenkirk teasing a Mr. Show tour and possible reunion on Monday's Speakeasy with PFT. They're going to be at that Tenacious D musical comedy fest with The Mighty Boosh, Reggie Watts, Tim and Eric, and a bunch of others. Bob and David are doing a set called "The Mr. Show Experience", which would be amazing. If they go on tour I will fly to the closest venue to see it. Mr. Show is the greatest sketch show ever. I hope they get everybody back: Tom, Jill, Paul, Brian, Jerry, Jay, John, Mary-Lynn, Sarah etc. Despite all of them having successful solo careers now. Declan MacManus posted:I'm just dreading the idea that a tour might end up with a bunch of drunk guys shouting "Better call Saul!" Ugh. I didn't even think of this. escape artist fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jun 13, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2013 21:33
|
|
|
Anyway, enough about the Metzger/UCB bullshit. What are the best things to buy from Matt Besser's website? I'm thinking Stand-up for Atheists and 6 Most Important Stand-ups will be my next purchases. I already have May I Help You Dumbass
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2013 23:11
|
|
|
escape artist posted:Anyway, enough about the Metzger/UCB bullshit. 6 most important Stand Ups is on Spotify and not totally amazing so I might try before you buy.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2013 23:41
|
|
|
Those records should be free. In exchange for, you know, "exposure."
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2013 23:53
|
|
|
jyrka posted:Those records should be free. In exchange for, you know, "exposure." They're $1.99 a piece. Politicalrancor posted:6 most important Stand Ups is on Spotify and not totally amazing so I might try before you buy. Thanks for the tip.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2013 00:18
|
|
|
This is oddly specific but I'm pretty sure Hannibal Buress does a bit about the pronunciation of the word ambulance in rap that I'm trying to find but can't. Anyone know what special/youtube video this was?
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2013 13:30
|
|
|
Trujillo posted:This is oddly specific but I'm pretty sure Hannibal Buress does a bit about the pronunciation of the word ambulance in rap that I'm trying to find but can't. Anyone know what special/youtube video this was? I don't think it was any special or album because I would have remembered that (I have a Baltimore accent so I pronounce ambulance "amblance"). However, I may make it my night's mission to confirm.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2013 01:10
|
|
|
Patton wrote a thing about joke theft, heckling, and rape culture (not combined): http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=167 Love it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2013 03:42
|
|
|
detectivemonkey posted:I don't think it was any special or album because I would have remembered that (I have a Baltimore accent so I pronounce ambulance "amblance"). However, I may make it my night's mission to confirm. Yeah it may have just been something he did once when I saw him live because I've skimmed through all his stuff but haven't found it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2013 04:05
|
|
|
For anyone with Amazon Prime, they have added every season of Comedy Central Presents: Stand-Up to their free streaming options. There are performances by some really fantastic comics if you look through every season, including what have to be very early, unpolished sets.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2013 04:08
|
|
|
Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:For anyone with Amazon Prime, they have added every season of Comedy Central Presents: Stand-Up to their free streaming options. There are performances by some really fantastic comics if you look through every season, including what have to be very early, unpolished sets. Lou, turn on your PMs? Also, this is loving incredible: http://www.npr.org/event/music/155311057/reggie-watts-tiny-desk-concert
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2013 15:31
|
|
|
escape artist posted:Lou, turn on your PMs? It's me, I'm the guy who doesn't really get Reggie Watts.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2013 18:40
|
|
|
escape artist posted:Lou, turn on your PMs?
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2013 20:02
|
|
|
Al! posted:It's me, I'm the guy who doesn't really get Reggie Watts. Heh, it's okay. I was honestly confused for about a year as to what was so appealing about him. Then it just clicked, and now I love it. I'm not saying you don't "get it" -- I just mean, I understand he's not for everyone. Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:I don't have PMs, but feel free to shoot me an e-mail at saxman2 AT hotmail. Okay, cool.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2013 23:51
|
|
|
Come on eislesn
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2013 07:34
|
|
|
Al! posted:Come on eislesn you know what I mean
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2013 07:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 20:05 |
|
|
The Berzerker posted:Patton wrote a thing about joke theft, heckling, and rape culture (not combined): http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=167 Thanks for this. Patton rules.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2013 21:23
|
|