So our entertainment sectors in modern society are divided up into certain realms — music, the visual art, the written word, and comedy, to name a few. Of all of these art forms, I don’t think there’s any question, comedy is the newest. In fact, it’s typically held that the first prominent “stand-up comedian” of all time was Richard Pryor, in the 1970s.
Now, then, theoretically, if we examine the attributes and personal earmarks of Richard Pryor, we can then deduce the primary essentials when it comes to erecting a paradigm of stand-up comedy, itself, as an art form (which I somewhat tenuously proffer that it is on the strength of lots of celebrities who have done it in the last five decades). Well, let’s see. He’s black. He’s dabbled in homo erotica. He’s skinny and he’s got a jerry curl… UH THE GUY JUST DOESN’T FIT IN. Let’s put it that way.
And I think sometimes it’s the case that when you’ve got so many components to you that society deems irregular, or abnormal, the whole situation gets ironically turned on its side and it ends up being you, not the detractors or the “normal people” [1], who has the most to say. But this gets me to the primary point I’m trying to make in this post: comedy, not to say being “an endeavor of diminishing returns,” per se, is something like an endeavor within an inverted merit paradigm. I mean, the people with the best lives would make for the worst comedians, and vice versa. It’s an enterprise in which having a lot of pet peeves and just nauseated moments definitely works to your favor, especially in this day and era in American when people seem to really like things cutting and adversarial.
So the idea of making a concerted effort to “be a comedian,” to me, seems ludicrous. I mean, it’s either there or it’s not. The best comedians are probably those who are so pi**ed off, crazy (Dennis Leary, anyone?), put off or just generally DOOMED that they can’t really so much DO anything else other than make people laugh, with, of course, a side of booze and coke, in most cases. In ancient Greek tragedy they would stage such things as “satyr plays,” which were designed as comedies, typically appearing singly and following at least three or so serious tragedies. Today, our society is so hectic and mired in calamity that we make an entire industry out of the “satyr” realm, if you will — this spiny attitude making us haughty enough to think we can see through everything and make light out of the purported “powers that be” and “pillars of the community.” The real scary part is, we might be right.
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[1] Of course I hark back now to 311 and their classic line “I was warned of your ‘normal’ behavior”
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[2] A couple of books have been written about how social media trolling has pretty much become the cornerstone of our culture and I have to say I largely agree.
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