What do you think?
Comic Lives
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
July 27, 2020
'Comedy is identical to sex. You know how you can be feeling and you want to have sex, and you can be feeling bad and you want to have sex? It's because sex is another mental place completely. You're another person when you're doing that. You're in another sphere' – Jerry Seinfeld
Who better to regale us with fascinating analogies of what comedy is than this man? This book really delves into the lives of comics and what drives them with great stories from the likes of Emo Phillips, Steven Wright and 'Bobcat Goldthwait.'
Does anyone else miss when comics were mostly misfits, freaks and weirdos. Where it felt like the NORM was to be some sort of nutcase, or performing as one and 'regular guy' comics like Jay Leno or Seinfeld were really outliers. This book features a disproportionate number of out there comics, and I commend it for that.
Now I feel like with the rise of Rogan and this constant comparing comedy to working out and martial arts, it's become more of a bro sport than ever before.
I feel like in the 80's in particular you had Richard Lewis, Gilbert Gottfried, Emo Phillips, Steven Wright and Sam Kinison rising.
We get to hear about life on the road for these guys, the writing process and whether or not comedy is actual an art-form.
It's obviously all outdated. There was a time Steven Wright, just 3 years in, gets plopped onto the tonight show and then his life changes forever. Nowadays you'd need to build an internet following and amass fans with a podcast, none of which is true for 80's comics.
Honestly, this was a book that reminded me of what comedy is to me. Comedians put it all on the line on stage and often in their lives. Many of these stories are people who quit comfortable jobs or took tremendous risks to move to NYC and LA to make it as comedians. They had an inner calling and followed it, facing fear and rejection before gaining rewards. And sure, there's a nice hero's journey side to that. But they have to get up and do it again night after night.
The 'comedian's' journey has always appealed to me because it does not pull any punches about the difficulty and challenges you must face.. The act of performing comedy itself is incredibly hard and scary to even think about. It's not like poetry or screenwriting where one can romanticise sitting in a comfortable air conditioned room with a coffee whiling the hours away with one's imagination. Not that those professions are easy, but they are at least physically comfortable. The comic has to go to the extremes of physical stress – heart pounding, flooded with adrenaline like an athlete, just to get the job done in a single night.
Comedians don't have advice that some writers have, you know ohh I try to come up with it but writer's block blah blah blah. No. they all say they just do it. Night after night. It doesn't matter how depressed you feel or not in the mood. Get on stage. It's like that Gertrude Stein advice about writing that has been lost over the years. When people told me what it took to be a comic, I finally felt like people were telling the truth about what was needed as an artist. And I tried to rise to that challenge.
Comedians are not respected as artists. Why the hell not? Maybe it's because comedy has such a specific goal – to elicit laughter. Maybe the definition of good art is that everyone can react to it differently. You think the Mona Lisa smiles. I think it's false. My aunt thinks she's a lesbian. It's all valid. In fact, this diversity of interpretation gives it greater value. But comedy is limited to one reaction and in fact any other one would make it a failure. Perhaps this singular accepted reaction makes it at least a lesser art form.
At the same time, art is only one thing. Art. Nothing else. It has no other function but to be appreciated in whatever form it's in. But comedy feels like it has a function – to make people laugh, which maybe diminishes it's value. Isn't the purpose of the best art just to be appreciated as a work of art? Isn't 'functional' art more like pornography, or a nicely carved chair? I mean of course I may have some preference for whether the chair is well-designed or unique or colorful but all that really matters ultimately is whether I can use it to sit on.
Comedians are writers. A lot of comedy has rhythm in speech like a musician, imagery as fine a poet, description and characterisation on par with novelists. Not to mention skill at story telling up their with anyone in the literary world. But they are not respected as creators in those mediums, at least not as artists. Perhaps comic works are like videogames – they contain lots of art forms, but those things are just dressing up the 'goal' – to get laughs. Just like how in a videogame the soundtrack and the story and design are all just dressings for the gameplay mechanics.
The oldest argument is that the nightclub setting diminishes comedy as art. In a place with mostly drunk patrons indulging in it as a break from drinks and snacks, it'll always be associated with the baseness of the setting. But comedians nowadays play stadiums and arenas like rock stars, so I'm not sure about that argument.
The most respected comedy appears to be the kind that is elevated to incorporate strongly elements of tragedy. Richard Pryor burning himself and living to tell the tale. George Carlin speaking truth about everything wrong in our society.
Who better to regale us with fascinating analogies of what comedy is than this man? This book really delves into the lives of comics and what drives them with great stories from the likes of Emo Phillips, Steven Wright and 'Bobcat Goldthwait.'
Does anyone else miss when comics were mostly misfits, freaks and weirdos. Where it felt like the NORM was to be some sort of nutcase, or performing as one and 'regular guy' comics like Jay Leno or Seinfeld were really outliers. This book features a disproportionate number of out there comics, and I commend it for that.
Now I feel like with the rise of Rogan and this constant comparing comedy to working out and martial arts, it's become more of a bro sport than ever before.
I feel like in the 80's in particular you had Richard Lewis, Gilbert Gottfried, Emo Phillips, Steven Wright and Sam Kinison rising.
We get to hear about life on the road for these guys, the writing process and whether or not comedy is actual an art-form.
It's obviously all outdated. There was a time Steven Wright, just 3 years in, gets plopped onto the tonight show and then his life changes forever. Nowadays you'd need to build an internet following and amass fans with a podcast, none of which is true for 80's comics.
Honestly, this was a book that reminded me of what comedy is to me. Comedians put it all on the line on stage and often in their lives. Many of these stories are people who quit comfortable jobs or took tremendous risks to move to NYC and LA to make it as comedians. They had an inner calling and followed it, facing fear and rejection before gaining rewards. And sure, there's a nice hero's journey side to that. But they have to get up and do it again night after night.
The 'comedian's' journey has always appealed to me because it does not pull any punches about the difficulty and challenges you must face.. The act of performing comedy itself is incredibly hard and scary to even think about. It's not like poetry or screenwriting where one can romanticise sitting in a comfortable air conditioned room with a coffee whiling the hours away with one's imagination. Not that those professions are easy, but they are at least physically comfortable. The comic has to go to the extremes of physical stress – heart pounding, flooded with adrenaline like an athlete, just to get the job done in a single night.
Comedians don't have advice that some writers have, you know ohh I try to come up with it but writer's block blah blah blah. No. they all say they just do it. Night after night. It doesn't matter how depressed you feel or not in the mood. Get on stage. It's like that Gertrude Stein advice about writing that has been lost over the years. When people told me what it took to be a comic, I finally felt like people were telling the truth about what was needed as an artist. And I tried to rise to that challenge.
Comedians are not respected as artists. Why the hell not? Maybe it's because comedy has such a specific goal – to elicit laughter. Maybe the definition of good art is that everyone can react to it differently. You think the Mona Lisa smiles. I think it's false. My aunt thinks she's a lesbian. It's all valid. In fact, this diversity of interpretation gives it greater value. But comedy is limited to one reaction and in fact any other one would make it a failure. Perhaps this singular accepted reaction makes it at least a lesser art form.
At the same time, art is only one thing. Art. Nothing else. It has no other function but to be appreciated in whatever form it's in. But comedy feels like it has a function – to make people laugh, which maybe diminishes it's value. Isn't the purpose of the best art just to be appreciated as a work of art? Isn't 'functional' art more like pornography, or a nicely carved chair? I mean of course I may have some preference for whether the chair is well-designed or unique or colorful but all that really matters ultimately is whether I can use it to sit on.
Comedians are writers. A lot of comedy has rhythm in speech like a musician, imagery as fine a poet, description and characterisation on par with novelists. Not to mention skill at story telling up their with anyone in the literary world. But they are not respected as creators in those mediums, at least not as artists. Perhaps comic works are like videogames – they contain lots of art forms, but those things are just dressing up the 'goal' – to get laughs. Just like how in a videogame the soundtrack and the story and design are all just dressings for the gameplay mechanics.
The oldest argument is that the nightclub setting diminishes comedy as art. In a place with mostly drunk patrons indulging in it as a break from drinks and snacks, it'll always be associated with the baseness of the setting. But comedians nowadays play stadiums and arenas like rock stars, so I'm not sure about that argument.
The most respected comedy appears to be the kind that is elevated to incorporate strongly elements of tragedy. Richard Pryor burning himself and living to tell the tale. George Carlin speaking truth about everything wrong in our society.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review