On this page you will find a few of the funny and insightful chapters from Brad Tassell’s
If you care about comedy or are a comedian this book will give you hours of pleasure. There are no other books about the comedy business like it. And if you get to the end of these chapters there is a special deal for you.
"You suck!"
"Get off bitch."
All coming from an audience of drunken college students at the annual comedy competition at Indiana University. Four hundred undergraduates packed the room ready to verbally rip into the flesh of any person stupid enough to step on the stage.
I was that stupid. I was next.
The young woman on stage at present had made the mistake of thinking that humorous poetry would win over this growling bunch of hormone-soaked tribal Greeks. She should have noticed how well the guy with the dog bone that looked like a penis had done.
Oops, she's breaking down. Her lip is trembling. The blood-thirsty mob is chanting in tandem: "You suck! You suck! You suck!"
Nothing brings folks together like the chance to gang up on someone else.
Tears—that's all she wrote. She's running off stage.
"Hey, it's not so bad," I lied. They stripped her self-esteem. They didn't just want her to feel bad about herself, they dug into every corner and crevice of her being to shake loose all those small crystals of well-being that make you feel good about yourself, then jar them until they spew out like hysterical ants from an ant farm shaken by some little brat who enjoys his role as their supreme destructive God.
But who cares about her. She's done, and her tears will stop flowing long before I even get off stage.
"You're next," says the stage manager. "Is your medical paid up?" He laughs like he's joking. He's not.
The emcee is on stage, a local DJ who has stopped trying to do jokes and is just introducing the acts.
"This next guy is very funny," he says with the enthusiasm of a junior high student at an all-night documentary festival.
"Go back to radio, scum bag," someone gurgles from the dark. It's a tough crowd.
"Let's hear it for Brad Tassell." He's half way off stage before I reach the offstage stairs. "Good luck."
I step on the stage, and things are suddenly silent, especially me. I've got nothing to say. What the hell am I going to talk about? I thought I was funny naturally. I didn't need to write material. What a fool. Time froze like the last scene in a bad seventies film. Everything was in slow motion. My watch ticked like a bomb. Strange for a digital. The crowd was just as silent as I. Were they giving me a chance or stalking for the kill? Perhaps they could see the panic in my eyes.
The tension was growing—getting thicker. Something needed to be said. I should probably have been the one that said it.
"Thank you," comes from the dark.
"Next," is yelled from another corner of the blackness of the congregation.
I spoke. I don't know what I said, but when I started talking, something flowed. I don't remember a lot of laughter, but I don't remember any disgusting audience slurs either.
My first time on stage and all I remember is before and after. I decided to always be prepared after that. What kind of fool gets on stage without a plan? Me, obviously. One thing was for sure. As I walked away from the stage I wanted to get back on. I had to, and I had to do it right. God help me.
Elmhurst, Illinois
If there is a giver of karma out in the universe somewhere I am definitely getting the lion’s share of the strange and unusual circumstance variety. It’s still two days before New Year’s and I’m in a dingy little hotel room near Chicago not yet mentally "over" the events leading up to the last night’s show.
Seven-thirty was the time, and as I got ready for the show, the winds of turmoil were brewing outside my door. Minutes after the mixture was finished, a knock was laid upon my motel door.
With the intuition of a new puppy, I pulled open the door without checking who it was. Standing on my little rented stoop was a -- no less than -- two hundred and fifty pound black woman whom I can’t stress enough, I had never met! Without thinking, I began:
"Can I help you?"
Her retort will ring in my ears for years to come.
"Yeah, I need to take a shower," she said. And with that, walked right past me into my room, sat down on my bed, and began to rummage through a cardboard box which she was holding. I personally didn’t move. I simply stood looking out the open door, my eyes transfixed on a point in space where I’d first seen her, suddenly struck autistic.
She was unfazed.
"Close the door, Honey. It’s cold outside."
After completing my instructed task, I turned to look at my new roommate. Still silent with the dumb struck look of a man whose body is numb because his brain has taken all the blood to work on a problem. A billion solutions, and like a typewriter all the metal arms were jammed just inches from the paper and the whole works were shut down. She was calm and mobile as if we’d been doing this for years.
"I need to make a quick call. My boyfriend needs to come pick me up. Oh, it’s been a long day, and I got to go to work. Hi, baby. No, I’m … blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
She made her calls and talked to me and went into the bathroom. All I heard was vocal buzzing. Words couldn’t assimilate themselves into recognizable patterns in my head. It was the ultimate Peanuts nightmare come true, just call me Charlie Brown.
The minute she walked into the bathroom to take her shower, I snapped and began rummaging the room looking for the camera, Allen Funt, or any other "Hey, I tricked ya" material, but there was none. This was real, and the strangeness of the whole thing was about to send me over the deep end. She never stopped talking to me from the shower. God only knows what she said, and some day when I get to Heaven, I’m going to ask Him. After he stops laughing, He’ll probably tell me. Suddenly, a deep dread hit me.
Her boyfriend was coming to get her. Great! Just great! He’s going to think I’m with his woman. She’s just showered, I’m frazzled. Sounds a lot like sex to me. What to do? I don’t want to over-react. Call the police. The swat team comes out. They drag her naked out of the shower. The headlines read: "Little white ass goober takes on more woman than he can handle, calls police."
Do I just yell at her, "Get the hell out of my room! I don’t know you and this is weird, so leave!"
Yet what balls it must take to do what she had done. Here’s a woman who has to go to work and is trying to keep a job and better her life. Probably no place to go, and they don’t appreciate stinky people at her job. Take a deep breath and knock on a motel door, and just ask to take a shower.
How many doors did she try before she decided the direct approach was the best? Don’t ask, just go in and do it. What guts! How many had pushed her away? Laughed in her face? I’d have said "No" had she asked, but all this is afterthought. All that was going through my mind at the time was, "When is this psycho gonna leave, and how can I stop looking like such an idiot?" Woody Allen is more poised than I.
Of the volumes she spoke, I only remember three lines. The first: "I need to take a shower."
The second came after the shower while she was digging through her box again: "Hey, baby, why are you so nervous?"
Let me count the ways.
The third was the last thing she said: "Beware the man with nine fingers for he is the harbinger of evil and despair." (Just kidding.)
The last thing she said as her taxi pulled up (The boyfriend must have been busy.) was, "Gotta go." Then she was in the cab with her little cardboard box and gone from my life forever. I sat down for a few minutes waiting for Allen Funt, then left for the show a little different from my experience, but probably no wiser.
I wonder how she will tell the story.
From the moment you hit the stage a thickness pervades the space. Tension. Your body feels like a heart attack is coming, but it never quite goes that far. Cold, clammy, adrenaline seeps out of your pores because your mind doesn't know how to use it.
Vocabulary is a word you couldn't define, and you struggle with your composure. The Roladex in you head is accessing every bit of RAM you've got, digging through material, editing, deleting, selecting, all the while talking. Constantly talking. What are you saying? You're not really sure. It's a program you are running while you search your data-banks for something that will diffuse the apathy that rushes over you like waves hitting a small child. What is going to get these people? There has got to be something?
Material goes by fast. You are speaking more rapidly every second. You've stopped waiting for laughs a long time ago. Even though you've only been on stage for a few minutes you've gone threw half of your act. At this rate you will have nothing to say, and you’ll still be accountable for ten or more minutes.
Insecurity. Greatest fears realized. Your soul is crying and the audience responds with indifference.
This stuff has worked so many times. It has created primeval laughter, grunting and snorting, howls, and beer through the nose. Right now, however, a silence three feet thick accompanies years of comedy work.
Dying is just that, a slow agonizing depletion of your life juices. It's like starvation. The laughter, groans, and applause are sustenance the feeds the fire of your creativity and charisma. It's the only place where energy given off can create more energy. The degree of audience response is the catalyst to how much you've got to give to them. Great response is benefited by exponential growth of performance.
But the opposite is also true. Without any response the audience is a parasite sucking the energy out of you. Each joke that bombs draws a greater chunk of you strength. You're a car that gets two miles to the gallon that must go 300 with five dollars.
The strain takes it's toll. You begin to switch gears every few jokes, trying different styles.
The cute comic: "I was trying to explain to my daughter why I had to be away from home so much, and she said, ‘That's okay, Daddy. Then I can love you so much more when you're home.’"
(They yawn at that)
The pissed off comic: "Aren't you sick of those Jehovah's witnesses coming to the door at eight a.m. …?"
(Not a religious crowd)
The topical guy: "Isn't Saddamm Hussein a dick?"
(Guess that's old news)
Mr. Energy: "Hey, I'm over here. No, I'm here. Touch me. Yeah, Hammer time."
(Is anyone breathing out there?)
Laugh at your situation: "Hey, is anyone breathing out there?"
(Not only breathing, but breaking into discussion groups.)
The dirty comic: "What do you mean you won't blow me? I took you to McDonald’s."
(Boo. Boo.)
Attack the audience: "Hey, what's your name? Yeah, you, Buddy. Look over here. Rick, huh. What do you do? For a living. Nothing? How do you know when you're done?"
(Did I just hear the safety click off of a forty-five?)
Old jokes: "Two Jews walk into a bar. It's busy. They buy it."
You’re fighting for one little titter from the crowd. Anything that could be conceived as a laugh, just to get off the stage. But every chance is gone. You've given up, and your feeble attempts only turn audience boredom into mob contempt. With one last deep breath to make your last try, you suddenly hear yourself say, "Goodnight, thank you. You've been an audience," and you drag your drenched, aching body off the stage. Your expression is one of a man who has seen the specter of death, and he didn't come for a happy chat. Out of this room is all that you want, but you can't leave. No strength. No place to go. You’re scared to go back to your room because everybody you work for will be calling to say you're out of the business. The career is over.
Sitting at the back corner of whatever back corner you can find, you wait for the lynching from the crowd. Will they spit on you as they file out? Show business is the most personal of any career. They don't like the act. The don't like you, and since you made them sit through it… it's their right to tell you about it.
Strange, that no one goes up to a guy in the mall and says, "You suck, you suck. I hate your prices."
The next five hours after the show are spent going over every detail. What should I have said or done? Think funny, fool. Think funny.