Comedy 101 (or The Reeducation of Crash Thompson)

Hey all!

Funny story. I actually created this blog months ago (in fact, it may have even been years), but never got around to actually posting anything. I wasn't sure what kind of slant it should take. Hell, I didn't even know what to call it so I just named it after the song that was randomly playing on my iPhone at the time (a deep cut that I'm not even particularly fond of from Oleander's "Unwind".)

But now that I'm doing stage-comedy again I figured this might be a cool place to open-journal about my various experiences. Nothing much really. Just some light reflection and observation as I pursue the goal of being a comedian. I'll mostly be sticking to stand-up or Couch News related stuff, but I might slip in an op-ed piece here or there if something comes up in the comedy world.

Comedy is the name of the game, so that's what we're gonna stick to here.

So... where to begin.

How about that name change? WTF, right? Eh, it's no big deal, really. In working onstage in the past and using it on Couch News I found out something very disconcerting about my moniker.

It's freaking hard to say.

At least for club MC's and people unfamiliar with me. The 'sh' sound at the end of "Crash" just doesn't flow well into the nonfricative 's' and plosive 'p' of Sprong. Even in shooting Couch News I often found myself tripping up over saying my own damn name. It's probably unconvential enough that my first name is verb without having it literally crash phonetically into my last name.

I needed something that rolled off the tongue a little better. You know, something that doesn't sound like you accidentally sneezed in the middle of your sentence. (The first time I told my name to another comic that was his reaction. I had to repeat myself 3 times before he realized it was a name, not an allergic reaction.)

"Thompson" was my maternal grandpa's name. He was a kind, humble, quiet man and one of the few people close to sane in my family. I loved the way he carried himself, and he was always a bit of a role model for me. If I'm going to change my name (I mean, you know, again) it'd probably be best to stick with a family name. So it is.

So with a new name and new material I took on the stage again for the first time in years last month. I wanted to get back onstage for the same reason I always want to get back onstage... I missed it. I'm an entertainer at heart and if I'm not doing something creative for an audience, I get "the itch." I.E., the insatiable and everpresent need within my psyche for self-expression through a creative outlet. After the most recent episode of Couch News (the infamous "Lost Episode") I was burned out beyond belief. Everything went wrong with that one and the show itself was starting to spiral into something bigger than I could handle on my own. So, for the time being, I'm taking a much needed break from it.

Don't get the wrong idea, though. Couch News isn't dead. Just lying dormant while I continue to reevaluate what direction I want the show to take and how to more effectively fit it into my schedule. (Seriously, editing all the time was REALLY starting to turn me into a hermit. I mean, you know... moreso.)

The original purpose of the show was to have something to market and promote while I was doing stand-up, but I suppose I'd gotten too caught up in the fun of making the series. (Not to mention the time constraints of editing and shooting screwing with my ability to make the drive down to Indy.) I wanted to get back into something more conventional. Get back to being a real comedian. Hear and feel an audience's reaction as opposed to just talking into a camera. You just can't substitute that with anything. Once you've gotten one laugh out of a crowd, you're instantly addicted. It's an irreplaceable rush.

So on December 14th, I took to the stage again. I wanted to try some all new material. Something fresh. Something edgy. Something I'd never done before. This would be the first show where I wouldn't have to censor anything for any reason whatsoever. I decided to go crazy.

I've always admired Alt-Comedians such as Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, Dave Attell, et al, and I really want to develop an unconventional voice like theirs. Not that I mind the more traditional styles of Jerry Seinfeld or Dana Gould, I just want to be something different. Stick out a little. George Carlin was famous for saying that the job of the comedian is to find the line with an audience and always be stepping over it.

So, for probably the first time, I really stepped over that line...

And bombed like Nagasaki.

At the time it was horrifying (as it always is), but it wasn't really a big deal. Comics bomb. Especially new ones. There's no getting around it. It's the labor pain of shaping your comedic voice. A comic who doesn't bomb is like a baby that doesn't cry. It doesn't exist. And when they're young they do it all the time.

It wasn't even the worst bomb I've ever had to endure (I'll save that for another post), but it went FAR worse than what I was expecting. I'm not going to sit here and analyze everything that I did wrong. Why do that to yourself? But I will elaborate on the biggest lesson learned (or better, reminded) from that experience:

You gotta win the audience FIRST.

I was a little too cocky walking up there. I fed them an act with jokes about abortion and Wilford Brimley raping dolphins (like I said, EDGY!) and somehow expected the entire audience to just jump right on board that train.

"Abortion? Porpoise molestation? Please sir, tell me more!"

It's not that the material was bad. I don't think so anyway. There was some damn clever bits in there, I'm certain of it. I think it was more that the audience didn't know me or trust me just yet.

When Carlin told an abortion joke, you practically expected it. You knew him and you trusted him to take you into that area. Or, for example, when Sarah Silverman talks about the Holocaust. You're shocked, but you trust her enough to know that she's going to deliver something extra big for making you endure the uncomfortable set-up. You trust them because they're professionals and they've had the time to set-up their tone and give you an idea of what's coming.

My abortion jokes led in at about 1:30 into my act, and up to that point I really hadn't won anyone over yet. A more perfect recipe for awkward silence I've yet to discover.

You don't always have to be feather-soft on your delivery, but you have to reassure the audience that you're clever and that your up there to make them laugh... not make them shriek. (No one shrieked, but a few exasperated 'oh my god's really put me in my place.)

You do have to step over the line, at least if you want to be a truly good and innovative humorist, but the implied portion of that little parable is that you have to convince the audience to go there with you. Otherwise you end up on the other side with nothing but crickets and the sound of you're own voice echoing off the walls. And believe me, the LAST place you want to wind up talking to yourself is onstage.

Eh. You live and learn by your crash and burn. So it goes.

It's good that I got it out of my system. I learned a lot about how to approach a new audience, and thankfully no one was so exasperated as to 'boo' or heckle. Overall, I came out okay. Hopefully it makes a better comic out of me.

I'm going back onstage on the 11th (same time, same place. If you're in Indy come see me!), and I think I'm going to try a bit of a different approach. I'm doing what every comic does and I'm building on the stuff that works. I did get a few laughs last night, and that makes it all the worth while. Hopefully next Tuesday, I'll get some more.

Hope to see ya there!