On Saturday night I went to my THIRD Sketchfest event, the Nerdist podcast live at the Marines Memorial Theater. To be honest, I have never listened to the Nerdist and really only wanted to go because I have a long-standing Singled Out-related crush on Chris Hardwick, the instigator of the podcast. I was surprised and intrigued in a couple ways. First: Chris Hardwick is pretty filthy in an impressively non-misogynistic way, which I liked and wasn't expecting. Second: the show also features two other guys, also non-misogynistic Matt Mira, from the now-cancelled Attack of the Show, and trying-really-hard-to-not-be-misogynistic Jonah Ray, from those "Bing It On" Bing commercials. Needless to say there was a lot of heckling related to being in "Google's back yard." On Saturday, they were joined by guest Pete Holmes from this E-Trade commercial. I'm still on the fence about his misogyny level. Third: they started the show, which I assumed would be a podcast-style round-table, with three individual stand-up acts, which is really what started me thinking about the whole EXISTENCE OF STAND-UP COMEDY. Since Saturday I have developed a few theories about this subject which I will share with you now:
1. Stand-up is performance art that is 98% about getting an automatic physical reaction (laughter) from the audience.
The difference between the Nerdist and my all-time favorite podcast of all time, Uhh Yeah Dude, is the goal of the creators. All the guys on the Nerdist, and their guests, are comedians who want one thing and one thing only: to make you laugh. And they do a really good job of it! Old men's anatomy is funny! Your father performing sex acts on your girlfriend is funny! "My sleep number is 9/11" (Pete Holmes said that one) is really, really funny! But do any of those things mean anything? Uhh Yeah Dude is also funny. So funny that sometimes while listening I laugh so hard I can't breath. But because the two guys in it aren't comedians per se, they aren't just going for laughs. Their goal is talk about the ridiculousness of the world we currently live in. Which is tragic, but also inherently funny. The Nerdist and Uhh Yeah Dude are both made up of straight white guys trying to find their place in a world that no longer just accepts straight white guys as the dominators of everything, but Uhh Yeah Dude does it with subtly and heart while the Nerdist plays it for laughs.
2. You can't be in stand-up unless you have some serious ego-related issues.
Okay, this could be the same for any performing art, but comedy takes it to the next level. There you are, standing on a stage, as YOURSELF (or a weirder, dirtier, crazier version of yourself, but with YOUR NAME anyway), all alone, with the one goal of getting the audience to like you. Why would you want to do that? Because you are compelled to make great art and change the world? Or because deep down you hate yourself and think no one will ever love you and so you need to get on stage every night and hear the laughter of strangers to stop yourself from putting your head in the oven? I don't necessarily mean that in a judgmental way. Every single person wants more love and maybe stand-up comedians are just taking the most direct route. Still, it can be rough. Just ask Jonah Ray's sour face when Chris Hardwick and Pete Holmes totally dominated the podcast section of the show talking about Alf. Jonah had to make someone offstage bring him a drink and then take cheap-shots at Matt Mira's belly just to get the people (us) to give him that life-sustaining approval he so needed again.
