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Misery Loves Comedy Page #8
Yeah, but does that really exist?
And what... how can you break
somebody's heart, you know?
Their heart's gonna break
on their own or it's not.
Here's the evolution of it,
I think.
It's first,
I want you to like me.
Then I want you to tell me
that I'm normal.
And then, "Listen, can I tell you guys
about this thing that happened to me?"
And the relief of,
"Yeah, I totally get
what you're saying."
That's happened to me, too.
And I think the older you get,
the more mature you become,
the more you really feel
that connection.
Even if they're just sitting there
you really feel
that we are just talking here
and we understand each other.
And it's not so much
about me being understood,
it's about
we understand each other.
I...
This is a horrible thing,
but my dog, um,
died from a thing that I did.
Like, I removed a ramp from
the backyard to the front yard
and I forgot to put it back
and she extreme sports'd it
three-and-a-half feet
to her death.
And I felt terrible about that
and I do a whole shtick about it.
like, after shows,
people would be like,
"I sat on my rabbit!"
Like, you're, like...
"I squeezed my hamster too hard.
"Oh, yeah, okay,
right, right, like..."
You become a safe haven.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, uh, just...
Like, it doesn't become this private,
horrible, horrible thing.
And it took me years to really
understand that's what you're doing.
You know, the desire
to control an audience.
Or is it a desire to connect?
Is it a desire to say,
"Hey, we're all together,
"I'm part of you,
I got in there,
we have a recognition,
we know each other."
And thereby, I go,
"Okay, I do know who I am."
There's two kinds of laughs.
There's the kind of laugh
you get when you...
you do a good gag and do it well
and the audience laugh.
And then there's the other gag.
The other kind of joke you do,
when you say something
which reveals a truth
about the way men behave
or the way women behave
the room acknowledges is true,
all at the same time,
and they laugh,
a laugh of recognition.
And that kind of laugh
comes from the gut,
because they're laughing
'cause they go,
you've just shone a light
on what it is to be human.
You could, you know,
walk into a notes session
and you could threaten
to walk off a movie
if you change
one frame of that gag
'cause I am sure that this works
and I will not change it.
It ruins the character, if...
You don't understand
what movie we're making.
This is something that's
important to me and I am...
This is... I will
go to the mat on this one.
You show it to an audience,
if it doesn't get a laugh,
you're back in the editing room,
"Okay, let's blow this thing up."
What do we do here?
Let's recut it.
Anybody have any ideas?
And that's, I guess,
our greatest success,
is creating that image
in their brain.
If it's a story piece
and they can see it, hear it,
taste it, smell it,
and then, boom.
The fireworks go off.
Every comedian will tell you
the most entertaining
show to watch
is your good friend who you know
is really funny,
on stage, struggling.
Bombing so hard, but I had to
keep doing the impression
and I'm talking like Cliff...
Hey, there, Normy.
You know, the actual fact...
And I was looking, Jon Stewart was
in the crowd and he was going...
He was going...
Like...
There's a show where I've never
bombed so badly in my life.
I went on and I f***ing tanked.
I was a Saturday night.
I did two shows
and it was a living hell.
It was a nightmare and I bombed.
Never forget, it's the only time
I've ever bailed on my time.
You know, everyone bombs.
And again, you know,
what might be a bomb today
might be considered
grand art 10 years from now.
I find stand-up really tough,
'cause if it's not great,
I find that the actor in me
just wants to die.
I have to leave the theater.
If they're dying,
I'm dying worse.
I so vicariously
suffer with them,
but when they're
good at it, it just...
it's a mystery to me.
I don't get how they do it.
I wouldn't do stand-up
with a gun to my head.
What goes through your
mind when you just hear
crickets in the audiences?
Uh, failing on stage
as a stand-up
"They hate me,
"my life has no value, uh,
I'm alone,
get no laughs
on my set... like, none.
And I got off stage, 17,
and I went to the bathroom
and had a little cry
and then I got
in the car with my dad,
and my dad said, he goes,
"Aw, I don't think this
is for you, mate,
"this is not a bad little hobby.
And, you know, if it means
anything, I think you're funny."
You know, he was very
supportive, but he told me
to quit it and I did.
I did one more go,
and it went average,
and I thought, "Well,
this is it, it's not for me."
The one thing I think is a common
denominator of all comedians
and that is a bond.
Is that, uh,
pay attention,
you have to love
watching yourself die.
You have to... because
when you're learning it,
you're bombing a lot,
there's more than crickets,
there's hate.
There's, like, sharks,
and you're bleeding
and they're nipping,
and, you know...
One of the great lines
ever yelled at me,
"Why don't you go home
and gargle with razorblades?"
Which crippled me.
I laughed so f***ing hard,
I said,
"I'm done, you win, that's...
that's so good,
I'm gonna use it."
Probably one... maybe
the first or second time I ever,
like, bombed, I don't know why,
but my fight-or-flight
instinct kicked in
and evidently, it was flight.
I was supposed to do
seven minutes
and I got up there
and I already told the host
what my closer was,
and I got up there and I did
probably three minutes of my act
to silence,
and then I was like,
"Well, I have four minutes left
four more minutes of silence,"
so I just immediately
jumped to my closer,
which takes... probably
took about 35 seconds,
and I did my closing bit
and went, "All right, thanks."
Total time on stage was probably
four minutes, if that.
And then one of
"Yeah, I know, it sucks to eat
sh*t, but you can't do that."
I was like, "Oh, really?
I can't just bail if it's not going well?"
"No!"
This did happen recently,
semi-recently, Spinal Tap,
based on this movie I did
with Rob Reiner, Harry Shearer,
Michael McKean,
we have played live
for the last 30 years,
and we were doing
a show in Canada.
That's because at that point,
you're gonna
cut to a maple leaf.
Um, we did a live performance
and it was nothing.
I mean, zero. It wasn't...
There was no recognition.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Singing, playing, big bottom.
Jesus.
And then we said...
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"Misery Loves Comedy" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 Aug. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/misery_loves_comedy_13834>.
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