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.

Before they ban comedy podcasts from entering the US...

...check out my appearance on JL Cauvin's podcast.

Listen to me play the hack card on JL Cauvin's podcast

Whoever listens is going to win big league.

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.

I appear in hard-hitting comedy documentary

I appear towards the end, but watch the whole thing to increase your understanding of where comedy went wrong.

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.

Mike Payne Makes His Important Voice Heard Yet Again

I appear on the 200th episode of JL Cauvin's Righteous Prick podcast. We lose our religion over politics and religion (and comedy).

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.

Mike Payne overstays on JL Cauvin's podcast again

If you hate Ted Cruz, enjoy hour one. If you hate Cosmo, enjoy hour two.

The latest audio genius from Mike Payne

Enjoy my third appearance on the great JL Cauvin's podcast. Topics include 50 Shades of Grey, porn, puritanism, daddy porn, "cool girls," and Axl Rose. You can see how these things go together.

Hope you laugh...

Impressions Aren't Necessarily Satire (or funny)

In light of the recent 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, I wanted to make a quick distinction: doing an impression of someone isn't necessarily satire.

Dana Carvey was so funny as an impressionist that the entire show became mostly about repeating the tics of the person being impersonated. Any urge to satirize the person was diluted.

When Chevy Chase did his Gerald Ford impressions, such as the joke about Ford in a debate: "I was told there would be no math," he was also commenting on who Gerald Ford was. Carvey saying "wouldn't be prudent" every week for four years wasn't satirizing George Bush; it was simply doing an impression of him.

The Colbert Report was satire; Colbert was amalgamating and projecting the essence of Bill O'Reilly, Hannity, etc. If he just wanted to do an impression, he could have just shouted Pinhead! over and over again.

What Carvey did with Bush (and what Tina Fey did with Palin) was at best a caricature. Still takes talent to do it well, but it isn't satire. If all it took to be a satirist was impersonation, parrots would be the greatest satirists in the animal kingdom. Come to think, most pet shops are funnier than SNL...

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.

Mike Payne Returns to JL Cauvin's Podcast

Episode 121 - Comedy Scar Tissue with Mike Payne

A frank discussion of the cons and cons of comedy. Still not sold? I also sing "Sarah".

Public Displays of Anger and Affection

Two things people don't like: stand-up comedy that is genuinely angry, and public displays of affection.

Plenty of comedians play angry. They throw on the angry comedian costume - leather jacket, Marlboro, imitation snarl - so the crowd knows they mean business! They really are mad about the twist-off caps on cough syrup bottles!

But it is all just a game, and the crowd knows it. That comic in the angry comic costume isn't truly angry any more than an impersonator in an Elvis costume is really Elvis. That is why they laugh; because they know the anger is all make-believe.

Comedy crowds can't handle real anger, so a comedian who shows too many flashes of the real thing usually bombs. Famously "angry" comics like Kinison found ways to codify their anger into signature moves that could signal "anger" without showcasing the authentic anger that kills the mood. Lesson from Comedy 101: Don't Callback in Anger.

People also can't stand public displays of affection. "Get a room!" is a typical taunt to couples who make their feelings too obvious. Yet those righteous "Get a room!" hecklers will pay to tearfully watch a syrupy romantic comedy about a Bedouin who falls in a sand dune and finds his true love hidden under the scorpions. But real affection offends them. They can't stand an unscripted romantic comedy happening before their eyes.

They often say love and hate are two sides of the same coin, and I say these two phenomena demonstrate that. What people find funny is an extremely intimate part of them, so maybe it makes sense they need play-acted comedy emotion the same way they need play-acted romantic emotion? At least the people on the subway who scoff at the smooching couple can say they didn't request a romantic show. What is the major malfunction of the paying comedy crowds who shrink when they catch a true glimpse of the hate side of the coin?

Mike Payne appears in hilarious comedy clip

That Time I Almost Died Part VII

December 2008 (I think this string of blogs was titled “The Apotheosis of Payne”)

My body and psyche have capitulated, so when I return to the U.S. for Christmas, I will be remaining there for at least a few months while I seek First World care. The hope is that a diagnosis and treatment plan will be reached quickly, and that I’ll be back to reasonable health and London town by the spring. 

Back to business: Dec. 11th return trip to the hematologist: Not only was PMR ruled out, but another theory, B-12 deficiency, was checked off the list. In fact, my B-12 reading was one of the only indicators that was slightly high.

The hematologist showed me a computer screen clustered with bloodwork jargon that was supposed to illuminate us both. Evidently, nothing kooky dared show itself, which brought the doc to a new theory: hepatitis c. I felt like saying, "I’m flattered you think I’m happening enough for hepatitis C (the C stands for cool), but let’s face it, I’m not that outgoing.”

Instead I said something about how square my life had been, making hep C astronomically unlikely. I could see by the doubting smirk on her face she didn’t believe me. I protested, citing all the important stats of my boring life. With each word, her face became ever more scrunched and skeptical. This is the only time I’ve ever had trouble convincing a woman I don’t get laid much.

We went back and forth on this point, then she began to speculate wildly about tapeworms and rare liver diseases. Once I half-convinced the hematologist that hep c was a long shot, she offered a very unappealing Plan B; a bone marrow biopsy. My reaction must have said a lot, because she tried to backpedal a bit by saying: “I don’t think you’re as sick as you look."

The word biopsy is a downer at 89. When you’re 29, it leaves you vegetative. Maybe I'm just accustomed to the diagnosis roller coaster, because some of the initial shock value was lost on me. What replaced it was a very specific kind of resentment. Age 30 is just around the bend for me, and I couldn't help but think of how I spent my 20s: loitering in comedy clubs with comedians I mostly disliked. Comedians are a twisted and often very unamusing bunch. If you like people who take a Type A approach to annoying everyone around them, hang around comedians. If you want to be around a bunch of wannabe peacocks who think saying they have a fancy tail and actually having a fancy tail are the same thing, find your way to a comedy green room. If you like people with more tics than a woman who has been sexually trafficked, visit an open-mic.

The comics I started with also became great friends. Unfortunately, they were a small minority of...oh...let's just say single digits. The majority of comedians I’ve met do nothing but put several exclamation marks on a business that can only be described as heinous.  Don’t get me started on the bookers.

I spent my 20s in such company, all because of a delusion about “making it" in comedy (I can't even write it without cringing!). A poor choice on my part. But hey, any chump who bunny hops toward a mirage deserves what he gets.

I guess I should say a few words about the idea of public, socialized healthcare. Go to any scandalous online newsstory about healthcare, and you’ll find a spate of comments like, “Yeah, what do you expect from for-profit healthcare?” This statement states nothing whatsoever, but by blending vague cynicism with what sounds like industry jargon, it lets its author play the role of informed commentator. All that’s lacking is a misused Latin phrase. Referring to “empirical evidence” while providing no actual evidence or even demonstrating that you know what empirical means is another winsome tactic.

Hard not to laugh at Americans cheering on government conscripted medicine. Given how abominably government performs in all its other functions, why would anyone trust, let alone insist, that we turn over healthcare to government officials? A giant government system is a giant government system. It doesn’t matter if it’s the military or medicine, stealth bombers or stethoscopes, the results from plus-sized government are the same; lethal and inept. The same process (and underlying assumptions) that strands you in Iraq enables medical bureaucrats to hit the snooze button on your cancer treatment. Government healthcare is the collateral damage do-gooders have deemed acceptable. Health redistribution doesn’t work any better than wealth redistribution.

Yes, I’ve had wacky healthcare experiences in America. At age 12, during a family vacation in North Carolina, we stopped somewhere to eat BBQ ribs. I managed to get a splinter of rib caught in my throat. I wasn’t choking; it was just a scratchy obstruction. We were near Cherokee, North Carolina, an area which comes complete with live Cherokees. We pulled up to the first hospital we saw. Turns out, it was for Cherokees only, and I was turned away (had it been an emergency, I believe they would have been compelled to treat me).

Don't know where my comedy goes from here. Do know I need to get funny again. Hope I'm haven't become permanently pretentious. If I have, hopefully I'll recognize it and quit jokes forever. I'm not cut out for confessional folk comedy, and neither are crowds.

That Time I Almost Died Part III

In 2008...


When your general wellbeing is in freefall, it's amazing how quickly you just adapt to the latest symptoms. Ailments you shouldn't be adapting to you shrug off simply because you've forgotten what it's like to feel normal. For instance, I never used to mind cold weather. In fact, I was hot all the time and was the type who wore gloves maybe twice a year. But since October, I've been unable to keep warm. 55 degrees and I'm bundled up in a winter coat, gloves, scarf...and I'm still frozen.

People are like, "Mike, what's with the outfit? Going on a ski trip?" 

"Nope, just picking up my dry-cleaning."

It's quite dangerous, because you cease recognizing the gravity of symptoms you should be taking seriously. Instead of sprinting to the doctor, now when some new and sinister wrinkle materializes, I react the way you do when you find out someone's cousin is  from your hometown. "Really? Hmmm. How 'bout that? [Cue nondescript nodding]."

Probably the worst example of this is my recent weight loss. When I moved to London, I weighed about 130 lbs., a weight I've maintained since I was 18. I'm now down to about 114; a level I haven't seen since I was 14 and 4' 10". Strangely, this wasting away of my body didn't really alarm me that way it should have. Again, I just adjusted. Belts that droop to my crotch, suits that look more filled out on the hanger than on me...no problemo. Who made the rule that says undershirts have to be tight?

I mentioned I'd been having dizzy spells. Well, things came to a head the weekend of Nov. 7th;
I'd booked a weekend trip to Budapest. I was supposed to leave on a Friday, but on the train ride home the night before, I was having a hard keeping my balance. Immediately, I began picturing how this would fly in an unfamiliar city with an unfamiliar tongue. I opted to can the vacation, eat the losses, and do some touristy stuff around London instead.

On my day off I decided to hit the National Gallery. While there I suddenly felt faint and wobbly and had to flop onto to one of the Gallery's couches to get my bearings. I tried to make it look like I was just overwhelmed by the unfinished Michelangelo I'd been viewing.

The Monday following my museum episode, I had a bloodtest appointment with NHS ("universal healthcare"). It had taken weeks to secure, and fortunately, happened to be scheduled for when I needed it most. My appt. was at 10:52 Monday morning, so as per my GP's counsel, I consumed no food or water after 12:00 the night before.

I had the blood drawn, and was told the results would take 7-10 days and that I would either have to drop by the clinic or make an appt. to get them. Inconvenient yes, but thanks to my weekend wipeout, I was at least able to secure an emergency GP appt. for the next day.

The next day--Tuesday--I went to the GP's office determined to make it clear my health was in real jeopardy, and that I needed speedier care. I recounted the semi-collapse and everything leading up to it with as much animation and pantomime as my creaky physique would allow. The last time I had tried this all my GP had in the way of a response was, "Slow down." 

I begged her not to take her own advice.

Miraculously, my "7-10 day" blood results were already in. They seemed to rule out anemia, which was the leading initial theory for the dizziness sector of my maladies. Everything else they for tested for also came up negative; kidney/liver disease, diabetes, etc. In fact, the only thing my GP noted was that my blood showed I was a little dehydrated. I reminded her that the reason I was dehydrated was because she had specifically ordered me not to hydrate myself after midnight the night before. Had I not been given medical instruction to avoid hydration, I would have generously hydrated myself. This revelation failed to resonate. She repeated: "You were slightly dehydrated." I replied again that it had been HER IDEA that I that avoid fluids ahead of the test, and that it wasn't a habit of mine to arbitrarily deprive myself of precious fluids. We agreed to disagree.

She felt the next step was to test my thyroid function, so she wanted to draw some more blood. She said she didn't have a tourniquet, so she would just use a rubber glove to tie me off. Mind you, the room we were in was JUST ACROSS THE LOBBY FROM THE ROOM WHERE I'D HAD MY BLOOD DRAWN NOT 24 HOURS EARLY. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT AN EPIC WALK OF ABOUT 20 METERS WITHIN THE SAME BUILDING. THERE WERE NO DRAWBRIDGES OR FIREBREATHING DRAGONS TO WORRY ABOUT. Follow me on this: which sounds like the more sensible route for a doctor to take; a 20 meter walk and a precise blood draw, or staying put and playing it fast and loose with the old needle and vein? As it turned out, my GP was a risk taker. Apparently GP can also mean Gambling Practitioner.

She tied off my right arm with a common rubber glove (not a joke). Given my emaciated state, my veins were feeling a bit shy. Rather than recognize the error of her ways, she stayed the course and began swatting at my arm piñata-style. As you might have guessed, she failed to draw to any blood, though she did succeed in making my right arm look like a gopher-sacked golf course. Then, and only then, did it dawn on her to make that 20 meter walk across the clinic to fetch the proper supplies. The same nurse who drew my blood the day before wound up doing the honors. My GP said if I didn't hear from her, I was to assume the thyroid tests hadn't revealed anything.

I then requested the results of my first round of tests so I could take them to a private specialist. She told me I would have to make an appointment.

"Can't I just get a printout now?"

"You can, but I'm really behind today, so you'll have to wait in the lobby for 30 minutes."

What could I do? I waited in the lobby for half an hour before a receptionist, not the GP herself, performed the arduous duty of moving her mouse slightly, clicking File, moving the cursor down to print, left clicking, and letting those sweet documents rip.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday passed without incident. I even did a comedy show Wednesday night, my first in a while. I was slightly out of it and blanked a bit on some lines, but managed to have a respectable set. It's really too bad I've been too unable to hit the circuit hard. Given my hideous (read: memorable) new look and obvious frailty, I would now have the all-important POINT OF VIEW.

"Come see Mikey Malaise. You'd be bitter too if the only movement you could count on was falling flat on your face!"

I guarantee if I performed under that banner with the exact same act I've always done, rather than being deemed too dark, bookers would trumpet my act as a "brave learning experience."

Thursday afternoon and evening were kind of ugly, with a recurrence of right arm numbness and dizziness/disorientation. Friday morning I woke up with some light tingling, dizziness, and the occasional star shower in my field of vision. All were short lived.

Then lunchtime hit, and the dizziness came out swinging. I walked out of the office for a brisk stroll in the sunlight, hoping it would restore my equilibrium. No luck. I returned to the office, and now noticed that the ceiling lights were starting to get very dim. I changed floors to make sure it was me and not the lighting. It was me. I went back to my desk and attempted to will away the fuzziness.

Everything faded and I felt myself falling--

That Time I Almost Died Part II

Written sometime in 2008...


Anyone remember when I was funny? Neither do I.

I finally managed to see my NHS ("universal healthcare") GP. After hearing my boxset of symptoms, she nonchalantly told me it would still take 46 days to see a specialist. That her referral was riddled with spelling errors didn't make me feel any rosier about my prospects of fast, adequate treatment through NHS.

By this time I was beginning to get desperate. I was becoming less and less mobile, to the point where I had to start weighing the pros and cons of every single daily task; carrying groceries, tying my shoes, taking things out of the oven, reaching for my shower head, you name it. One false move in any of these tasks would often keep me frozen for hours if not days on end.

Given the bureaucracy and delays I was facing with NHS (“universal healthcare”) and my private insurer, I decided I would try to rehab myself by swimming. I hadn't been in a pool in 16 years, and it showed. I used the Slow Lane at my gym's pool, which still turned out to be too speedy for me. It is never inspiring when decrepit grannies with the Reaper's reflection in their eyes are outshining you in a physical activity. I guess the lane I really needed was the one for amputees. Or maybe I should have looked for the lane marked Hearse Speed.

Unfortunately, even swimming soon became a tightrope walk for me, with random pain and weakness sometimes appearing after just a few laps. How do you injure yourself swimming? Swimming is what they prescribe for people who’ve injured themselves playing OTHER SPORTS. No one ever says, “Oh, you hurt yourself with the breaststroke? Yeah, just go play rugby for a few weeks.” Somehow, I’d managed to become too fragile for a default sport.

So we come to the end of August, or about the two month mark. Still haven't been cleared for treatment by my private insurer and NHS is moving slower than Mike Payne in the 400 meter butterfly. The early healing novelty of swimming also started wearing off, and my decline picked up steam. By the end of August, I could no longer sit at my kitchen table. Within 30 seconds of plopping down on one of my kitchen chairs, back pain would force me to my feet. Since then, I've had to eat all of my meals standing at my kitchen counter.

This was the time when I really began what I call "bargaining with my body." Every physical activity required I make a sacrifice somewhere else. My thought process devolved to this: If I mop the floor, I won’t be able to carry groceries back from the store. If I clean the fridge, I won't be able to take my clothes out of the dryer. If I do __, I can't __. Eventually, you just quit doing most things altogether. By now the floors of my flat no longer need a mop. They need a Zamboni.

Anyway, “summer” ends and the temperature starts to drop. I didn't bring much warm clothing to London, so I tried to do some shopping. As it is with everything when you're in a state of total decline, you start planning around your deficiency. For example, I went to buy a pullover, but then found that "pull" was an unfortunate verb for someone with my shoulder and back problems. What I needed was more of a drape-over. Actually, the ideal solution would have been for me to just grow a layer of fur, which at the very least would have secured me a spot on the catwalk (told you I wasn't funny anymore).

I gave up trying to hang up my clothes. I couldn't lift them to the hangers anymore, so I just started piling them up on the kitchen table.

I also had to stop working on my laptop for more than a few minutes at a time, as I couldn't find a comfortable position to sit with it, and could hardly risk moving its whopping 8 lb. mass. This and the fact that typing itself sparked pain and tingling canceled most of my writing plans.

My weekends became marked by panic as I spent them in constant fear of calamity. Remember, I live alone, and don't know anyone in London. I don't have a wife, girlfriend, or a roommate. No one is around to offer assistance, and the London medical system isn't one you would accuse of being overresponsive. When you're dependent entirely on yourself and functioning below 50%, successfully eating and showering each day become the foremost things on your to-do list.

One Sunday in mid-September, I awoke and was more or less unable to move. No seriously, I kept sending signals to my limbs, and they kept giving me the old line item veto. I wound up wasting a sunny weekend afternoon staring at the ceiling. When I did finally convince my body to move (and inch by inch process), I basically had to get up and eat what was on the counter. Luckily, I had some tuna cans and bananas within reach (bourgeois, I know). Even lifting a plastic cup of water to my mouth required two hands.

That little flirtation with paralysis triggered me to give up on insurance and NHS and begin going to a private physiotherapist outside of the system. Initially, it was marginally beneficial for pain relief, although I didn’t really feel stronger. Such mixed signals made the mindgames and bargaining even worse, because I’d have a few days of progress and would start saying to myself, "Ahh, the road back!" Then one morning I’d be taking the lid off the mouthwash and the pain would be so swift and brutal I’d see stars and go flying backward like a man tossed off a treadmill.

Soon after I asked a neighbor to pull down my Murphy bed for me. He eyed me with more than a degree of bewilderment, probably thinking he was about to land a starring role in a snuff film. Fortunately, he agreed to help, and once he brought the bed down, I had to leave it down, which meant the doorway to my bathroom was blocked (my flat is a studio), which forced me to crawl/roll over the bed each time I needed to get in. This caused its own kind of pain, but it was better than the pain of slumbering on the sofa. Another piece of bargaining.

The sheer randomness of the pain in my back and shoulders was the worst part. It made planning close to impossible. I never knew when or where the anguish was going to land, only that at some point it would hit...kind of like a V2 rocket. By late Sept. I became hesitant to leave my flat except when absolutely necessary, because like I said, if/when something went wrong, I had no one to call, and no immediate remedies. On the plus side, this has caused me to drink less coffee, since I have very little reason to be awake.

Comedy was a big reason for my move here, but as you might have guessed, I'm not doing many shows. I don't know anyone and can't exactly network from home. It's just as well, as I haven't been doing much writing. I'm not really thinking of jokes anymore. What bounces through my brain these days are heavy quotes from literature ("The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground"). Melodramatic? OH YEAH!

Arsenio Hall Revisited

Once Arsenio Hall's red hot comedy career hit a wall, to many the man became a joke himself. It happened rather quickly; rarely have I seen a comedian treated like an out-of-style pop star, with ex-fans pretending never to have liked him. People seem to have forgotten that at one time the man was seen as a very serious competitor to hosts like Letterman.

I never watched him as often as my friends did, and I must say I too had a fuzzy memory of him being a lightweight.

After revisiting some clips of him on YouTube, I realize that I--and the rest of the world--may have had him all wrong. Forget "Things that make you go hmmm" and the over-the-top crowds. The man was a smart and very natural interviewer.

Here is his famous interview with Vanilla Ice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAz-SF-329E

And his famous interview with Dice Clay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q1EVsGq1y0

Go back in time and remember how huge and controversial those two celebrities were, and how easy it would have been to be confrontational and sensationalist. Had Arsenio taken that approach, every paper in the country would have been on his side. But he didn't, and the interviews were better for it.

When other hosts have folks on they don't seem to like, it's palpable, and the interview becomes a mini-roast. That didn't happen on "Arsenio". The guy also didn't score easy points by lambasting easy targets. He let guests speak. He allowed for natural silences.

And here's something else that is key: when he talked to guests he didn't mug constantly to drag out cheap laughs. That's because he was creating a facsimile of a conversation, and when you're conversing with someone, you don't start gesticulating like a nervous mime. If you were at Starbucks having a chat with someone and in the middle of hearing their break-up story you randomly jumped up and did a Chippendales dance, chances are the conversation would never regain its footing.

For all the talk about his show bringing hipness to late night, his interview style actually owed a lot to the classic approach of Johnny Carson. In that sense, you might say he was a truer heir apparent to Carson that some of the other late night hosts. Had "The Arsenio Hall Show" stuck around, perhaps the more guest-driven, less sketch-packed style that he and Carson used wouldn't have ridden off into the sunset. Maybe more late night shows would have taken their queues from it.

I understand he has a new show in the works. Hopefully it is in the vein of Bob Costas's old "Later" show, which was nothing but interviews. If Mr. Hall takes that approach, I have a feeling the show will be different and better than most other shows on TV.

What would it take to make comedy feel exclusive again?

Before the 1980s, stand-up comedy wasn't speckled all over the airwaves. Apart from outlets like Carson, stand-up was mostly a sport that could only be seen live. When people talked about going to the Catskills to see comedy, it was kinda literal.

Then in the 80s we got HBO and all kinds of stand-up shows. Suddenly it was everywhere. You didn't have to go to a club to see a wacky take on marriage. You didn't really even need a cablebox. It was everywhere.

Cut to today. Now not only do you have specific comedy channels and tons of talk shows featuring comedians, you have YouTube*, which gives you access to more stand-up than you can shake Charlie Chaplin's stick at.  

All the things that usually mesmerize people; comedy impressionists, for example, you can now see instantly and without payment. I just typed "Sarah Palin impression" into YouTube. 498 hits. In the old days, if you wanted to see your favorite impression, you had to go to a comedy club. Now every conceivable Sarah Palin impression is just a few clicks away.

If anything, this should devalue Sarah Palin impressions. You don't need to stay up late to watch The Tonight Show or drive to a comedy club to see someone do Sarah Palin.

So does that mean there is more funny out there? I just think there is more volume. Everywhere you go, you get the same three opinions, only now they are truly everywhere. Those same three opinions barrage you each day on Twitter, Facebook, your smartphone, your tablet, your television. Everywhere. The brain can only handle so much, so literal cognitive overload is bound to kick in. Eventually you're just worn down into accepting those same three opinions as fact. Perhaps without even knowing it, you come to expect them to be the template for all the comedy you watch.

If I want to escape the tidal wave of sameness, if I want to hear angles outside of those three acceptable opinions, there are probably around twenty people I can listen to. There are obvious names like Louis CK, and lesser known names like my friends Andy Kline and Dan Goodman.

With technology being where it is, there really is no reason to go to a comedy club unless one of the twenty or so distinct thinkers is on the bill. Otherwise, I'm bound to sit there frustrated while someone regurgitates the same point-of-view I could read in the New York Times seven days a week. Why should I shave, apply cologne, safety-pin a smile on my face, and pay a two drink minimum to sit through 60 minutes of the same three opinions that have been buzzing on my smartphone all day?

In order to get a break from the tidal wave of consensus thinking, I really have to sift through the noise to find my way to the comics who aren't regurgitators, which in a way, kind of makes the search for comedy feel exclusive again; maybe a little like it felt going to a comedy club in 1975.

It is as though this small league of comics with distinct angles is an accidental aristocracy. Maybe that should make me optimistic; aristocracies have a tendency to produce great art.



*Speaking of YouTube, you can use it to hear hours of unacceptable opinions from the late, great philosopher Patrice Oneal.