Day 11. Shit talking, and what it does to you scientifically.

3 things first.

1. Please read blogs entitled day 1 through day 10.

2. I was unable to get this spell checked, I wrote it in an email and sent it to myself.

3. This is a blog I wrote a month ago specifically for comics. You will find though that everything that I write works towards you too. Just replace the word comic with Co Worker.

When I walked into my first comedy club at 12 years old, I was blown
away. I will never forget it. My dad took me. I had a stomach ache
I was so excited. I walked in and knew this was my life immediately.
Why? It was a place for people to go who literally are purchasing
happiness. They are actually buying laughs.

They are living in the moment, and forgetting everything that is “wrong” with the world. When you are in that state, its impossible to worry about the crap in your
life. You forget about the ex that cheated on you, or your taxes in the
future. You even can change your focus so much that you forget if you
have a disease or handicap, etc. Its so amazing.

Right when I got into the club in Seattle Washington, four big gun
Seattle comics walked in. They were so cool. They were also all
friends. One comic would go up and do some stuff, while the other
comics just sat in the back dying, then the others would go up. It was
a group connection that I knew I wanted to be a part of for life….

We are so lucky to do this. Comics’ jobs are literally 10 minutes to 1
hour a night of having fun (other then travel, which can also be
awesome, depending on how you use it). The more we focus on that, the
better we become as comics….it literally forces you to associate more pleasure to life and it opens your mind up. It destroys the
negative beliefs that stop you from being funny, in the moment, or your
best.

This is why its not a coincidence that when you see a comic who talks a
lot of shit about other comics, that comic is usually not that
successful. The reason is because that comedian is focusing on what is
wrong with other comics versus what is right with them. Or what is
right with themselves.

I honestly can’t think of one comedian that I haven’t heard a bad thing
about. I tried but it has never happened. Why is this? Also, the
bigger the comic, the more shit you hear.

There is a comic (that will remain nameless) that became enormous in the
last couple years. Literally becoming a household name. I used to work
at the Laugh Factory every night with him. He was arguably the best at
killing. Man, the guy would just crush and had so much respect from
everyone.

Then he became huge….everyone loved him. After a while you heard more
and more comics talk shit. Many of them had never seen him live, or
even knew what they were talking about. they just wanted to jump on the
drama band wagon to bring the guy down.

I was at the Improv one night and I was sitting at a table with 4
comics. At one point, they started talking about him badly. I could
tell not only did they not know what they were talking about, but they
were relentless. Complaining about stuff that didn’t even make sense,
but I guess if your focus is on the bad in someone, you will come up
with anything. One guy said “the guy doesn’t even tell jokes.” What is
this? Fucking vaudeville?? If your focus is in the negative you can say
that sucks I guess, but if its in the positive, you can say wow, what a
pioneer in comedy. He kills without telling jokes? I feel he was so
amazing at actually communicating with the audience that it actually
moved what is possible with comedy.

Then someone said how its ridiculous that he is doing these multi
thousand seat venues. ARE you retarded dude? He is actually showing us
that you can do anything as a comic. He went from nothing to giant giant
rooms. You don’t even have to envision it. You want to see if its
possible to go from nothing to a multi thousand seater? Pick up his
DVD!

USE THIS shit to motivate you! We could all be doing huge venues and
bringing comedy back and making a new huge Comedy boom! STOP BITCHING
you fuc*ing baby. Grow, because this guy did. He helped start selling
out clubs again. You know what’s really funny? I have never heard that
guy say one negative thing about anyone. THAT’S why he is big. That’s
why he is connected. That’s why he is funny. He knows that his time is better spent creating. He also doesn’t subscribe to the cowardly theory that “It is easier to knock down someone else’s building, then building your own.”

Finally, I got up from the table, and said to the comics, “Do you know
why this guy is so big? Because if he were at this table and joining
you guys in ripping apart some other comic, he would have left and
started writing.”

That’s it. The biggest, or funniest, or most unique, or happiest comics
don’t spend their time focusing on what is wrong with other comics.
They are focusing on using those comics as models for their future. Or
for them, worse case scenario, they use their hatred of those comics to
change comedy and make it different and better. This applies to all people in all life. The people who MODEL after the successful people versus hating them make it.

When I went into the clubs or watched Comedy Central, it was very easy
to watch comics and get inspired. I would watch Steve Martin, David
Cross, Andy Kindler, Todd Glass, Louis CK, Dane Cook, Patton Owsalt, and
take in that a continual different thing about each one makes them
unique. I was blown away by all different styles and learned a lot
about how much is possible. Those comics all did the same thing. They
had their favorites and used them as inspirational ways to teach themselves crowd interaction, rapport, different energy levels, material, etc. then they added themselves.

In any arena, when people slam people who are doing well. They aren’t
bringing down the other person, even though amazingly, that is their
intent. They are truly bringing down themselves for many reasons.

1. They are training their own focus on what is wrong with people versus
what is right. This has them habitually seeing everything as bad,
enjoying life less, and becoming negative for the people around them. All people have good and bad things with them. Therefor it’s possible to talk shit about someone, or treat them like a god. Its all in YOUR focus only.

2. It always gets back to the people. It really does. It seems to me
like anytime I hear something said bad about me, (which by the way is
usually completely inaccurate information, created by someone who associates negativity to connection (and no one ever asks the source directly
if its true, or finds out what really happened. ( this is a third set of parenthesis.) ))It makes me uninterested in working with them.

I could be taking these comics on tour with me, and referring them to my other headlining friends, but I don’t want to bring that negativity. I just got a pilot and will be casting it….I will only bring ridiculously optimistic people because that is the only way to make it in this town.

I see so many comics that rip apart a comic, then the comic will walk in
and those guys just kiss his/her ass. Unreal. What brings us to be
able to be such traders and cowards? If I have a problem with someone,
I love to go right to them. Because I want the drama minimized, and I want to
take care of what ever the problem is. Not just dwell on it, exagerating my own stress levels.

3. Science is showing that when you keep anger or anything negative
about another person, you actually are releasing stress into your own
blood. This stress is a toxin/poison that actually just lowers your
life span. Literally health wise, It feels so much better to chose to see the best in people.

4. IT HURTS COMEDY! If comics were constantly saying what is great
about other comics, this industry would be through the roof. Clubs
would be booming everywhere, because comics would have this comradre (no spell check)that is appealing to the general public. Amazon always says, if you
like this, you will like these too. They don’t say, here is a book you
also will hate, and this one sucks too. This is why Amazon is a huge
successful company. They tell you what else is great.

We are the next generation people. I am so excited to be able
to work with the best comics ever and do everything I can to make sure
they are enjoying working with me.
I see the possibility of comedy making a big boom again.
I am definitely going to do everything I can to “boom” it for me, and
everyone around me. I hope you accept my invitation to join me in
getting these clubs selling out so we can get more, all working together
making it huge again.

We could be working together to sell out club after club, so more open
up and more of us can work always.

Instead of taking your time figuring out what is wrong with every comic
to make yourself feel better….take the initiative to use their success
to show yourself what you can do. Write like crazy and enjoy that you
are able to do this.

PS. I don’t like Carrot Top.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Rambling Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.