Real Characters
January 31, 2007 · Print This Article
Have you ever felt that you couldn’t face the world as yourself? Well you have something in common with some of the world’s most successful stand ups.
Today Brian talks about character comics. From those who tweak their own personality to those who develop whole new ones, we strip them all down and reveal the child inside.
Listener topics rule the day as well with a harsh review of the original not ready for prime time players and a glowing review of Demetri Martin.
We wrap it up with a rant for all of the animal lovers out there and our final future star of 2007.
Email: brianmcomedy@gmail.com
Give the show a call: 206-600-4325
Hey B-MO,
I’ve been a fan of all of your shows and have them all on my i-pod. I listen to your shows during work, and find myself laughing outloud at some of the comments. I am looking forward to bangin-the-boards with some hopefully meaningful comments. Just wanted to get in the first hello!!!!
Dammit Bmo!
Is this what I have to look forward to? I have been having an emotional week thinking about my life and here you are having one on your podcast. I’m 28 and engaged and do more domesticated things. OK now Im in a low.
Tough break man. I guess a picked a bad week to have my own personal revelation. You’ll be okay. Just resist the urge to clip coupons.
Thanks 7stud. I’ve never been one for meaningful comments, but I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
Hey B-Mo,
Our local airport has just announced a low fare carrier that goes to Las Vegas. The fare is $99 each way. Now I’ve flown to Vegas before from here in Fort Wayne and its usually about $250 each way. How can these airlines afford to go so cheap? Do they stop every 50 miles like a bus, or maybe its like a cargo plane with the live animals like you see on movies. Do they hire the pilots who just barely passed their training? Do they use cheap gas or something? Going with the unleaded with the jet fuel additive, like when leaded gas went away. I don’t understand.
Just listened to True Stories I Made Up and I was struck by how similar his delivery is to Jim Gaffigan. Has anyone else noticed that? It may just be that style of tell a joke, do an imitation of the audience’s reaction is a high squeaky voice, but I don’t think I would have been able to tell the difference if I didn’t know who I was listening to.
It’s funny that you point that out 7studd. It always seems to be ridiculously cheap to fly here, but for locals it’s a murder to fly out. I once heard that the casinos kick some money to the airlines on slow weekends to lower the fares. And they give me shit for trying to get a free buffet after losing my ass?
I never noticed the similarities before Brandon, but now that you mention it, Tosh is a little like an amped up Jim Gaffigan. Maybe that explains why I like them both so much…
I really liked this episode. But you want to talk about rants or whatever I have a story that happened to me, that I swear on my grandparents grave, is true.
This story contains adult content; read with discretion
So last August the misses and I were celebrating our 9th anniversary. We went to the family vacation house in North Carolina. Leading up to this we had been having some strain in the relationship, but then she discovered kink. Good for her, great for me. Any who, We are doing what two consenting adults do when you have no kids around and a whole house to yourself.
At one point she was acting like she was going to pin me down. With one hand, I held both of her wrists together and pushed her up. This impressed her. So I had her in a hold she couldn’t move her hands out of. So I did what any guy would do with the free hand. I started trying to poke on her butt.
I would soon find out she did not like this, because her reaction was a quick jerk of the leg. Now I don’t know if you guys are familiar with how some lubricants get sticky after a while, but when a vinyl boot comes in contact with that is is like glue. Yes, it was ripped open.
I grabbed myself and calmly said,”I’m bleeding.” My wife, who can’t see without her glasses, is now running loke a zombie around the room canting”oh,shit, oh shit, oh shit” repeatedly while feeling for her glasses.
I hoped into the shower to survey the damage, and it was like a scene out of Psycho. There was what seemed like a ton of blood, but I had to bring myself to look at the injury. The foreskin had been pulled away from the tip, resulting in a 2 inch gash.
I finally got it to stop bleeding, and am debating the emergency room. Literally, I told my wife,”I am about to be one of those stories.” At which point we chuckle. Then I notice she is still looking and laughing, so I looked again, and all I can say is, the turtle went way into the shell.
I cannot go to the emergency like this. So I decide to wait and see if the bleeding will stay stopped. We then go out to dinner, I had the sea bass, it was great.
We get back home and I survey the damage, and it opens back up like a fresh wound. So off to the emergency room we go.
When we walk in, fortunately there was only 1 nurse and the doctor. I couldn’t tell the story with a straight face. The doctor got me in an examination room, sat me on the table facing the door with my pants around my ankles. He looked and said I needed stitches. So he walks out, and leaves the door open. Now in walks 2 female nurses, the turtle is way in defense mode, and my wife is giggling, so I felt the need to state that it “is actually bigger than it appears right now.” not like they cared, I have no idea why I felt the need to say that.
The docter came back and started stiching me up, it took nine stitches. He was nervous as hell, and when I told him this was the second time I have had stitches in the turle neck, he just freaked. I explained that the first time was when I was 6 and a toilet lid slammed down on it.
as soon as he finished, he placed the sharps in the container, threw his gloves away, and left. He didn’t even clean me up, or give me a damn wetnap.
Anywho, I will always remember that anniversary. We had one hell of a monopoly game that night.
and the answer is, yes, all is well and no scars to speak of. Took 4 months to completely heal. Also, yes, it hurt like hell, and I had the worst case of blue balls since high school.
Hope you guys had a laugh, I know I did after it all was said and done.
whew
Wow Snappy. I usually say that the key to a good story is details. In this case, any and all details should have been left out. I’m gonna go vomit now.
I have one question….how was that sea Bass prepared?
Oh and Bonna, now have Snappy’s story to look forward to as well as domesticating. It all works in trade. In fact, sex will become harder to get when your position, as a married man, may be that the sex is unlimited but in truth…you’ll just have to earn it and that’ll depend on how many loads of laundry you did.
Smack is right, you get more sex when you are single. Then when kids come along, your hand becomes more of a friend than you want to admit…
But all in all, it is good to have someone around. Oh yeah Bonna, the blow job becomes as rare as a Yeti, so get them while you can, LOL
And Smack, The Bass was a almondine with a nice chardonay to go with it.
Here’s a character stand-up that cracks me up- Bobcat Goldthwait. Of course I’m probably the only one who would admit to this, but he killed me in his day.
Wow… I’m just going to try to take a trip in the way back machine to before I read that post above…
Anyhoo, I got this youtube link from a few people saying how funny it was
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
Now I am torn. My gut reaction is that it is lame and that the guy’s delivery sucks. However, I have to give it to him, it seems pretty original and kept me interested… even if not laughing… through the whole thing. I thought I’d throw it out there to see what you all think.
I though that clip was great. A little corny at times, but that’s because I hold a prejudice to guitar acts, not his fault. I respect anyone who takes that kind of time in developing material. My “material development” generally involves tequila.
I’m actually a huge fan of Bobcat. I wouldn’t say he has a character, but a voice. I’ve seen him live in Dallas, and I have his most recent album, “I Don’t Mean to Insult You, But You Look Like Bobcat Goldthwait.” Definitely funny, if all you think about is Policy Academy, you should check him out. Funny.
That was the thing I was so conflicted about. The guy clearly did a great job in developing material, he put together an interesting story, but I just didn’t laugh or crack a smile once through the whole thing. I thought he rushed the delivery in a lot of places and the guitar thing threw me because in some places he was really stretching to make the lyrics fall into the same tempo for all the songs and I thought if he didn’t speed through it he could have made it sound more natural. In fact, I think he had too much material, I think he was trying to do a 10 minute bit in 5 minutes.
Great show again!
Remember you talking about that documentary, ‘When Stand Up Stood Out’ and thought I’d mention another documentary that I’m sure you’ve heard of called ‘Open Mic’ filmed by Jason Dudek which follows this guy, Dan Aubrey, trying to break into stand up (and not doing too well) and this other guy, Butch Bradely, who is successful in getting a TV appearance and focuses mainly around the LA scene.
Despite it being quite old now (a lot of it was filmed in 2000) it’s a great movie to see how hard it is to break into stand up and insight into what makes a good stand up. It features inteviews with Richard Jeni, Jackie the Joke Man, David Chappelle and many, many more. Well worth a watch.