The Great White Dope

The only way I can be of service to humanity is as an example of what not to do. I have made many mistakes, piggybacked on those mistakes, then waited until it was too late to try correcting them. Here is one blunder you might learn from:

I moved to NYC to advance my comedy career. This was before YouTube and social media platforms were catapults to fame. Industry gatekeepers mattered. In comedy, the "industry rooms" in NY and LA were essential to getting management and/or TV and comedy festival auditions. I knew someone who regularly played one of NYC's industry rooms. He got me an audition there. I'd been doing comedy about eight years, and was beginning to think my quest for comedy success was Pickett's Charge with a two-drink minimum.

I crammed in several spots on crappy open-mics in the days leading up to what in my mind was the most important performance of my life.

"All right, please welcome Mike Payne!"

I hit the stage running. Had a great set. I didn't quite destroy in the five or so minutes of my audition, but it was probably an 8 out of 10.

I alighted the stage quite pleased with myself. I figured I'd at least start doing the low-rung, late night Monday spots that newly passed comics were granted at this club. I approached the club manager with tremendous confidence and relief.

His assessment, "I've already got a lot of white guys."

Comics I'd consulted before my set warned me I might hear this, but like every creative wannabe, I fancied myself different. Sure, other comics heard that, but I wasn't just any white guy comic! All I had to do was perform well and the rules wouldn't apply to me!

The rules applied to me. I didn't pass, and was given the very reason I'd been advised me to expect.

I recall waiting on the subway platform after the audition, my stomach and chest tingling a bit. I had a long train ride ahead of me. My reaction wasn't so much "HOW DARE HE!" There was a tiny gremlin in my brain murmuring "Unfair," but that didn't predominate my thoughts. I was frustrated, deflated, shocked, but my internal response was, "Well, all I can do is work even harder until he gives me another chance in a year or so."

That response was entirely useless. Of course I would have to work hard. If he'd passed me, I also would have had to work hard to stay in the rotation. It wasn't a question of effort. The question was: what was I going to work hard doing? Getting a tan? If I turned a little beige, was the booker going to make me the house emcee? Unlikely. Instead of developing a new strategy for my career, I made the unbelievably asinine decision to double down on the strategy that was failing me. Moronic!

What I should have said was, OK, I have no near-term prospect of passing at any industry rooms. Instead of working harder at being funnier on the shows I'm already doing, I'll start some of my own shows. I'll approach some bars, tell them I'll set up a microphone in the corner, and we'll book a show each Monday or Tuesday when bars have nothing going on and need a way to yank in customers.

Eventually, some bar would have said yes. I knew plenty of funny comics in the same purgatory I was in and could have booked them regularly. If the show was at all successful, I could have pulled in some bigger comics, who might have reciprocated by getting me onto some bigger shows. If nothing else, I would have expanded my comedy network. Had I done this, perhaps I would have found a backdoor into one of the industry rooms.

The odds would have been against me, as they are with all entrepreneurial endeavors. Had the show failed, at least I would have known I'd tried a fresh approach. Instead, I kept doing what hadn't worked and a few years later flamed out of comedy while waiting bitterly in the wings for another shot at advancing. Moronic!

I could have tried something as simple as sporting a new look. Purple hair, breast implants, something. I could have worn a spiked glove and sold myself as some kind of "punk comic." I would have felt sheepish, but the industry might have seen me in a more marketable light.

Hard work without a plan is masochism. If you have been working studiously in one direction for eight years and haven't gotten anywhere, working harder in that same direction is downright Calvinist. Unless you're an attractive woman, your life will always have a lot more no's than yes's. When the no's really start stacking up, you need to change the question.

My blunder was comedy-related. I have seen plenty of people make the same slip-up in the romantic arena. Someone rejects or dumps them, and instead of finding someone else, they work fiendishly trying to become what they believe the person that rejected them wants. Never works.

Comedy isn't the only line of work where this applies. If your employer has a framework that makes it crystal clear you can't advance, the least savvy reaction is working harder. Try another company or another career or start your own business. Otherwise, five stagnant years will pass and you'll be doubly frustrated, because not only did your career stand still; it stood still in the face of increased effort.

When the structure you're trying to conquer makes it clear it doesn't want you, you try a more entrepreneurial approach to conquering it, or you try doing something else altogether. The structure doesn't care that you're sweating more as you work harder to overturn its rules. That sweat will end in tears for you, not the structure.

The Truth about Truthful Comedy

In stand-up, only "socio-political" comedians are deemed truth tellers. You might say the Mount Rushmore of comedy truth consists of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Hicks.

Plenty of comics claim those icons inspired them towards truth. Nine million stand-ups have this story: "I was doing bits about weed giving you the munchies and then I saw ___ telling the truth and I thought 'I can't keep doing the easy stuff. I need more than just laughs.'"

Nothing wrong with attempting profundity in your jokes, so long as there are jokes. When a comic decides to become "socially relevant," it usually doesn't take long for the jokes to vanish.

The Mount Rushmore comedians weren't immune from this.

From at least 1999's You Are All Diseased On, George Carlin's comedy was scant on comedy. Lots of predictable left-wing declarations regurgitated through clinched teeth, but few jokes. His early whimsical material was far more perceptive about humanity than his late, misanthropic stuff.

Bill Hicks. Arizona Bay and Relentless have huge laughs on them, including laughs from bits that "make a point." Rant in E-Minor and Bill Hicks: Revelations (especially); heavy on the didacticism, relatively light on the humor (to be fair, some of Rant was recorded after Hicks knew he had cancer, which invites bombast). I have heard stories of Bill Hicks telling crowds he was a poet. The only thing worse than a poet is a comedian who thinks he's a poet. In my mind, Rant and Revelations were steps in that direction.

The hardest thing in comedy: consistently writing funny, concise material. As a "politically aware" comic, crowds expect you (and you expect you) to discuss whatever the day's news is. Most people can't create new material that fast, and because they can't always write enough jokes to catch up with the news, their act simply becomes preaching about the day's news. Once you get into "truth telling" mode, it is almost inevitable that the joke writing won't continue because it is too tempting to say, "I'm here to make a point, and if I can't make 'em laugh, I'll make 'em think."

No thanks.

A right-wing version of this is Dennis Miller. Once highly respected (late 80s, early 90s he was among the absolute best), after 9/11 he began doing right-leaning political material, usually heavier on cheap applause lines than punchlines. The difference for Dennis is that reciting hackneyed conservative talking points gets you criticized by other comedians. It doesn't get you added to the list of truth tellers, even though the formula is the same.

"Truth" comes in many forms. Jerry Seinfeld tells truths. Brian Reagan tells truths. Norm Macdonald especially tells truths (Norm illustrates the problems with "serious" comedians here). Seinfeld and Reagan might focus more on micro truths* rather than macro ones, but their acts far better illuminate homo sapien absurdity than almost any of the comics who aspire to be "social critics." Yet they don't come up in conversations about comics who "tell the truth."

You wouldn't settle for a songwriter who just punched his guitar and said, "Lotta people be homeless." Would anyone care about Bob Dylan's social commentary if his songs didn't have melodies, if his words didn't at least aspire towards lyricism? There were thousands of other folk singers. Most of them thought it was enough to say "Big Steel Steals," which might explain why no one cared about them then, nevermind now.

Simply bringing up an issue isn't automatically satire. Stating facts is for news anchors, not comedians. The point of comedy is to make something funny. If highlighting Darfur is your thing, fine, but going onstage and saying, "Darfur is a mess, am I right?" isn't truthful comedy. It is a verbal awareness ribbon. The fact that you're saying it in a comedy club doesn't make it comedy. Wiping off a table in a comedy club doesn't become slapstick humor simply because it happens under a comedy roof.

A comedian has to make crowds see "issues" in a new way. You need analogies, you need to put us in someone else's shoes. Otherwise, you're a less funny Sunday School teacher. Most "political" comics hammer priests and pastors (but never imams, I'm sure it's just an oversight), while being as moralistic and humorless as a cable access televangelist. There is a reason it isn't called stand-up sermonizing.

* Chris Rock's Bring the Pain is an all time great special that combines macro and micro truths, and anchors all of them with killer punchlines.

Mike Payne's Psychic Powers Can't Be Stopped!

If you want to know how this political race ends, listen to my (soon to be prophetic) appearance on JL Cauvin's podcast.

Mike Payne Continues to Dominate JL Cauvin's Podcast

Do you wish NPR was hosted by two bitter comedians? Then this podcast is for you.

Sad Clowns are Unhappy Coincidences

"Life is a tragedy when see in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." - Famous Silent Era Hack

The consensus on comedy is that comedy comes from pain. No comedian can escape an "in-depth" interview" without some probing into whatever tragedy allegedly energized his funny bone.

Many comedians are screw-ups and emotional cripples, but this is more correlation than causation. If tragedy spawns comedy, why didn’t Vietnam produce a generation of vet vaudeville? Did Japanese comedy experience a renaissance in the wake of Hiroshima? Most people become twitchy, uncommunicative disasters after tragedy. The trauma leads to PTSD, not SNL.

The sad clown image is merely another case of artists mythologizing their lives. Comedians are self-absorbed, perhaps second only to actors in that department, so it isn't surprising they promote and believe this narrative. Unfortunately, the broad acceptance of it has caused a proliferation of godawful therapy comics. Believing your sad sack essence inspires creativity is more comforting than admitting you're a perennial wet blanket. Needing catharsis doesn’t mean you have the ability to make whatever pain you have entertaining (just ask a shrink).

Blues music is also linked to sadness, and yes, some blues singers had horrible lives, but if Howlin' Wolf didn't have natural ability, no amount of Delta angst would have done the trick. Ironically, blues singers are probably asked less about the tragedy underlying their art than comics, and when a person without talent tries the blues, everyone trashes him. No one would ever claim that just because someone has pain he doesn't need musical talent to play the blue. It is symptomatic of how little appreciated comedy talent is that people actually think: "Oh, you had a rough year?. You should turn it into a one-man show!" If everyone who grew up in a dysfunctional, booze soaked home could suddenly sing the blues there would be no space for any other music - though karaoke nights would be a lot more entertaining (and less tragic).

Pain doesn't come with charisma or writing ability. No outside intervention or grief can turn a dud into a laugh riot. Being an architect is as much art as it is engineering, but because architects don’t normally behave like brain damaged children there is no prevailing myth about the crying architect.

Did you know Mike Payne can also make you laugh visually?

Mike Payne makes his triumphant return to acting in the great JL Cauvin's comedy sketch: The Worst Comic Con in America.

One of the Worst Comedy Bits Ever

Every comedy bit I do now is a diamond-studded rainbow, so I can confidently reveal bits from my past that were cubic zirconia-scarred rainclouds. Here is a truly bitter lemon from my comedic days of yore:

You're always hearing the term crack whore. How come you never hear about a crack celibate? How do we know crackheads don't practice abstinence? Maybe they save themselves for marriage, we don't know! Because think about it, crack is not exactly a love drug like ecstacy. With ecstacy, you're hugging strangers and giving footrubs. With crack, you're talking to walls and stabbing leprechauns.

If you listen closely, you can hear the logic of this bit collapsing in on itself. This is a prime example of a fake bit; one where the comedian twists a self-explanatory term--EVERYONE KNOWS CRACK WHORES ARE CALLED CRACK WHORES BECAUSE THEY SELL THEIR BODIES FOR CRACK. NOT ONE PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF CRACK HAS EVER TAKEN IT TO MEAN ANYTHING ELSE. YET HERE COMES "COMEDIAN" MIKE TO THROW SOME HACKY SAND INTO THE FACE OF AN OTHERWISE CRYSTAL CLEAR EXPRESSION--so they can contrive a bit based on a clumsy misconstruing of said term. This method of contriving material was huge in the 80s, but it never goes out of style.

Comedy crowds lap up fake bits, which is why the crack whore bit was a solid staple for at least three years. I wrote it during a terrible dry spell, and remember feeling like a proud papa when I brought it to the stage for the first time. As you can see, it was a birth more unfortunate than Rosemary's Baby.

How I could just kill a man

I began stand-up comedy before I could legally drink, so there were occasions when comedy clubs kept me out. Being underage also hindered me when I was allowed in comedy rooms, as most of my joke-telling mates wanted to hit bars when the show ended. One night I was allowed inside a comedy club and a bar, and it was in that bar I came close to killing a man.

My friends and I were seated by the bar, discussing our favorite songs. I wasn’t drinking.

I was in the middle of a sentence--probably giving all within earshot the business on “Riders on the Storm”--when a stranger to my right sprayed me in the face with a squirt gun. I quickly turned and saw the Shooter scrambling to put the squirt gun away. He was at the corner of the bar, with two friends beside him. All three were staring off in the distance, trying not to laugh. None was doing a good job.

I had consumed no alcohol, and nothing unusual had occurred that night. Yet this minor offense, being sprayed by a squirt gun, completely scrubbed off my tendencies toward reason. I immediately puffed up with homicide-strength rage.

A little backstory: In addition to the regular angry young man testosterone one has at that age, I think I was a bit obsessed with the way frat-boy-types behaved in public. I literally could not understand their impulses to yell out during comedy shows, randomly accelerate in parking lots, stampede at concerts, bully waiters, etc. My friends and I spent HOURS analyzing the possible motivations behind these sick behaviors.

Some people are adept at drowning out meatheads. I'm not. I more or less swore off concerts at 19 because I couldn’t enjoy live music while surrounded by the scrapple of humanity.

I was also working in a deli at the time, and each day was shocked anew by the kind of aggressive and demeaning things people would say right to my face, as though I was a robot servant rather than a fellow human with feelings. It never seemed to dawn on them that I could retaliate. After all, I was holding A KNIFE. What did they think I was cutting their bread with? The idea that it might not be safe to shriek at a knife-wielding minimum wage earner over the number of olives on their turkey club didn’t appear to cross their mind. I was only a few feet away with blade in hand. I could have easily wounded them (or worse) before anyone realized what was happening.

I believe it was these factors, as well as the culprits’ poor attempt to hide themselves, that triggered something barbarous in me. My lateral orbitofrontal cortex professed that not only could I and the Shooter not share the same bar; we couldn’t share the same planet.

I believe I spent a few seconds growling to myself and staring at the Shooter before walking outside.

The weather was warm, so the bar had been opened out onto the sidewalk. This meant the only barrier between my enemies and I was my desire to remain a card-carrying non-murderer.

The Shooter and his friends had their backs to me, so I figured the element of surprise was on my side.

I kept pacing and muttering like a zombie looking for his car keys. How was I going to attack?

Then, like a scene from a bad western, I spotted an empty liquor bottle on the ground. Eureka. I would smash the bottle against a tree (I should have mentioned the bottle was under a tree), creep into the bar, and use the broken bottle to slash the Shooter’s jugular.

One of my friends, we'll call him Mr. Pseudonym, came outside and asked what I was doing. I calmly explained my plans. My recollection is that he just kept saying, “What are you doing? You’re not gonna do that. What are you doing?”

Some of my other pals came outside and watched my little war with myself. They also conveyed how senseless my intentions were, but I feel it was the rapid fire questions of Mr. Pseudonym that pulled me from my fog of fury. I also remember having visions of the great future in comedy I would be destroying if I cut up the Shooter. I dropped the bottle and returned to reality.

I’m not sure that is the angriest I have ever been, but it is certainly as close as I have come to primal, no turning back violence. Every so often my mind revisits that night, and at times I have been ambivalent about my decision not to attack. I often return to the notion that seeing their friend mauled would have traumatized the Shooter’s pals into behaving more civilly.

I am also reminded of that evening when I read about crimes of passion that actually have been carried out. Not even counting road rage, I would guess a sizable number of otherwise lucid individuals have a near-homicide in their past. I am not violent or tough, so I have to imagine that folks who are violent and tough have multiple near-homicides in their closet.

In 2008 I became severely ill, and multiple doctors speculated that my condition might be terminal. When it hit me that I might be facing the Big Adios, I had an unusual list of regrets. I didn’t dwell much on the women I wasn’t cool enough for or the countries I failed to visit. I did think A LOT about my decision not to slice the Shooter’s neck. The main reason for not attacking was my belief that I was headed for great things in comedy. By the time I became sick, that idea had been soundly debunked. So there I was, infirm and despondent, nursing a regret about an act of vengeance not taken.

The Shooter is lucky I had delusions of grandeur when I was a young man. Had I had any inkling that my future would turn out to be a big wet firecracker, it is quite possible he wouldn’t have heard me coming until it was too late.

Civilization is thinner than the frosting on a Pop-Tart. Every time you raise your voice to another person (let alone physically challenge them in some way, even if it is with a squirt gun), you are taking your life in your hands. The fact that the person you are humiliating is a waiter, cab driver, or hotel clerk changes nothing. Telling yourself you’re "fighting the good fight” is also 100% irrelevant to your potential safety. Unless you are attacked IN A POLICE STATION, the cops won’t get there in time. Chances are, no one will be able to save you. You could very well spend the rest of your righteous life in a coma, dreaming of the extra ketchup packets you felt entitled to demand.



Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/greatmikepayne

Playing to the Back of the Odds

Recently I tried explaining to a non-comic why comedy is such an irrational, unsatisfying pursuit. Making it to a respectable level in comedy is about as probable as winning the lottery. Now, think of the kind of people you see playing the lottery regularly; babbling, unclean, unhinged freaks you would never want to spend time with. Now give that guy a scuffed up psyche and a need to "get back" at some girl or high school clique that rejected him and you have a portrait of most comics.

Would you want to spend time in a cramped green room with such duds? Worse yet, would you want to watch duds like that pass you in the business? The madness of it ends up tipping the few sane comics toward insanity.

Society mocks lotto regulars (the odds usually crush you), society condemns gamblers (the odds usually crush you), but society applauds people who pursue a dream in the arts, where the odds usually crush you. Something is wrong with this picture.

You're going to ask why I keep doing it, so I'll answer: because breaking up with comedy is hard to do.