Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show - Part 3

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show – Part 3
The Preparations

I had added the Douchebag Dance to the set list and really only had about 8 more minutes to fill. But I went to see Dave Chappelle at UMBC about 10 years ago and he was over an hour late. He said he went to the University of Maryland by mistake but we all knew he was high. Both could be true. For an entire hour, the poor Student Events Board president tried to convince the crowd that he was coming, but the crowd was getting unsettled and angry and were likely already drunk or high themselves. Eventually, when the SEB guy walked onto the stage, the crowd would boo him and yell obscenities. Most of the crowd left before Dave got there, including me. I was determined to be prepared with enough material to make sure that wouldn’t happen to me this time. Only I didn’t want to rehearse. Or write stuff. Or think.

I realized weeks before the show how largely unmotivated to put in the effort to prepare that I was. The stress of planning the wedding, writing my final portfolio for my MFA class and this concert was shutting me down. I would get home and turn on a basketball game and feel guilty I wasn’t rehearsing my material, editing the wedding video or a thousand other things. Something about even looking at my notes from past shows was irritating me. I was mailing it in. I already knew that I had about 4 minutes of high-brow dick jokes that have gone over well for years and a few other bits that could certainly eat up the rest of the 4 minutes I’d need. It wouldn’t take long at all to rehearse. And so I didn’t. For weeks.

“So you nervous yet?” I had to field this question about 17 times a day for a month. I had actually reached a point of nerve saturation where I could no longer feel the anxiety I originally did when I got the e-mail. And I think the longer I put off preparations for the show, the longer I put off the anxiety. I’m not proud of that, but I think with everything happening in that month, I had reached stress level shut-down mode and this was my body’s defense mechanism. Somehow if I didn’t prepare for the show, I wouldn’t be nervous about it. This was, however, at odds with my need to be prepared. The anxiety over not being prepared was beginning to mount a counter-offensive against my anxiety over thinking about the show. It was a storm cloud brewing and only a matter of time before these two fronts collided. And lightning struck about a week before the show when I heard this.

“You should put that in your act.” This is another statement I hear about 17 times a day when people find out I do stand-up comedy. Some people think it must be so easy to be a stand-up comedian. At least in terms of finding material. People will say this to me whenever ANYTHING happens. And in some cases, when nothing happens. True story: I was eating something and dropped it on the floor. “You should put that in your act.”

How – in the hell – could I put that in my act?! Sure, people laughed when it happened and I may have even said something contextually funny at the moment. But this is not a stand-up routine. And the person who said that to me was dead serious and an alleged fan of stand-up comedy. How should I put this in my routine? Should I tell people I dropped my food on the floor? Or should I actually come out with a piece of pizza and throw it on the floor? The second one would probably shock a lot of people, but I don’t think the bit as a stand-alone piece is ready for the stage just yet. At least this incident gave me the jolt I needed to start turning the flywheel.

to be continued...

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show - Part 2

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show – Part 2
The Strategy

If you haven't read IHOP Part 1 yet, I recommend it. Of course I also once recommended that we lean a bottle rocket up against the rear view mirror and shoot it from the driver's side of a moving vehicle. You've been warned.

OK, I’ve been in the business long enough to know a couple things. Don’t try to do something that isn’t you – AND – play to the audience. These two things unfortunately contradict each other at times like this one. But I had a plan to compromise. First of all, idiots who don’t know anything about anything and get all their life information from romanticized broadcasts of people who get paid to sell the American Dream will automatically tell you to just be yourself. Funny is funny. Granted I’m not going to try impressions of DMX or Chamillionaire and I’m certainly not going to even wade in the race pool, but I’d be a fool not to think to try to play to his crowd somehow. Potentially 1,500 people are coming to see Aries, not necessarily me – though I’m sure to have a small following too. But I doubted my name made it to the 98 Rock spots. So I started to try to think of what I had in my arsenal that would go over well in front of his fans. I wasn’t about to sacrifice my integrity and resort to low-brow dick jokes. But I wouldn’t have too much of a problem with some high-brow dick jokes. And yes, there is such a thing.

But mostly, I wanted to do something physical. I don’t do impressions, but doing some sort of physical comedy would likely appeal to the same crowd. Unfortunately, I haven’t really tried anything physical in my act since my first few months. At least not in my stand-up act. My storytelling arsenal has quite a decent artifact of physical comedy in it. The climax of humor in the Logic, Luck and Love show is a segment I call “The Douchebag Dance.” It hits every time in front of a crowd predisposed to storytelling. But that doesn’t always translate to stand-up crowds, which are much less patient and forgiving. Thankfully, Vijai and Brad gave me two venues to practice it in the weeks prior to the big show. It went over well enough and I had gotten a decent idea of what I needed to change. And that bit would take 7 minutes, almost half the time I needed to fill. Plus, it was already written and as memorized as any bit I’ve ever done. Check.

I had a good feeling based on the sheer number of people that would be in the crowd that every joke would garner at least a little laughter. One great thing about big crowds is that laughter begets more laughter. Also, people as a general rule, do not want to look stupid. And the easiest way to do that is to not get the joke. So people will tend to laugh if other people are laughing. One way to bring that to a screeching halt is to offend people in the crowd. Some people choose that as their style, such as Andrew Dice Clay and Bobby Slayton, but I don’t have the personality or the testicles to go that route. So as long as everything was serviceably funny and I didn’t offend anyone, there was no way in my mind that I could bomb. Unless I got too drunk.

So my strategy was set. The Douchebag Dance was added to my repertoire and I wouldn’t offend anyone, at least not until I got them on my side. And even then, it would just be a quick jab, then a smile of retraction, more self-defamation and on to the next bit. Oh, and the more dick jokes the better. I knew this would be in front of a lot of UB higher ups, but I also knew Aries would be right after me and nobody would remember any of my crassness by comparison. I don’t have the time to speak in detail of the not-so-subtle difference between TV and live comedy, but it is night and day in terms of raunchiness. Those same people who don’t know anything about anything are probably tilting their head and thinking “wellllll, I’ve heard Chris Rock tell some pretty dirty –“ no you haven’t. It’s not the same, not even close. Sorry, but you don’t understand. Laughter begets more laughter and raunchy dick jokes are more likely to result in belly laughter than the “Ha. That’s an interesting point” intellectual jokes that will translate better on TV. But as I began, that’s a story for a different day. Just make fun of myself and I’m sure I’ll be fine.

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show - Part 1

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show – Part 1
The E-mail

I proposed to Jenn back in September of 2010. Once we decided to plan the wedding ourselves to (unsuccessfully) save a little money, I decided to go on a performance hiatus. Because of how much anxiety I get and mental energy I give to write and rehearse each performance, I figured it would be best to concentrate all my mental energy and anxiety on the BIG performance, scheduled for May 28^th, 2011.

Many of my male friends would joke that I was taking it too seriously and that all I really needed to worry about was showing up, and my fiancée would probably put somebody in charge of that too. I wanted to punch these people in the face. These are good friends of mine. And I really wanted to punch them in the face. If I heard one more of my married guy friends tell me that “Lauren’s had this wedding planned since she was six” or “Kelly’s mom basically did everything,” I was literally going to make a ball out of my fingers and throw it in the direction of their face. And then when I would have to turn down an offer from the unmarried majority of my friends by saying something like “I can’t do car bombs at Tommy Fatso’s roof party tonight, I have [insert wedding bullshit] to do. And it’s Tuesday. And I’m an adult,” the unmarried majority started barking the same hilarious generalities they’ve heard from hack stand-up comics and formulaic romantic comedies. That time I actually did punch somebody in the face. With my mind.

The point is that I was taking a scheduled break from performance. I made an exception for the Logic, Luck and Love Valentine’s Day performance at Atlas because when a con man offers you magic beans, you buy them. And though I was tempted by several Dustin-friendly themes at the Speakeasy and concerned about a nearly year-long on-stage storytelling absence for my casual fans, I stayed the course. I certainly didn’t need to worry about doing another 5 minutes at a stand-up open mic night any time before the wedding. And I was right.

On Wednesday, April 13^th at 3:33pm, I got an e-mail from Brittany Trombly of SEB, who I could pick out of a lineup, but would probably never have to. The e-mail basically offered me more money than I’ve ever gotten to do a longer set than I’ve ever done in front of more people than I’ve ever performed in front of. I hadn’t even finished reading it before I had already given myself an ulcer on the inside of my mouth and shit not one, but an entire litter of kittens. I named them all Brittany.

Once again, another man with more magic beans. I had to buy them. Unfortunately, the event was May 13^th, 15 days before the wedding and the day of the UB golf tournament. Fortunately, it wasn’t on my actual wedding day. Or worse, the day before. Because that would have started a huge fight I’m happy to have avoided. Also fortunately, the e-mail said “upon approval from the Artist’s management,” which gave my brain an out that would keep my ulcer from developing into a Stage 4. The Artist (capitalized like that in the actual e-mail) was Aries Spears. Because when you think of low-brow racial humor and impressions of rap artists, you think Dustin Fisher. I was positive Aries’ management wouldn’t want some “Have you thought about this social construct this way” white comic warming up his crowd. And I was wrong. They couldn’t have been more indifferent.

And so it was written. I now had about 4 weeks to develop a strategy, sort through all my material, create a set list, rehearse and rewrite. It was starting to get tough figuring out what was wedding-related or Lyric-related stress. Oh yeah, the event was taking place at the Lyric. Yeah. The 2,500 seat Opera House. But they only expected about 1,500. Whew!

...to be continued...

Catching Up

Catching Up

Hello friends. Lots has happened in the last couple weeks. First off, I opened for Aries Spears in front of about 800 people at the Lyric, my biggest performance to date by a landslide in all quantifiable terms. Then I got married, which includes all things leading up to the wedding, the actual date, and 9 days of married life including the Honeymoon. I had planned on writing about all this stuff while relaxing at Virginia Beach, but it turns out that going to the beach and not opening a computer won. I’m not too disappointed. BUT, I do want to tell you all about my amazing month of May. In the meantime, check out this video so you can understand why I didn’t bother writing last week.

Thanks!

Dustin.

Double Feature Duel: Requiem For a Dream vs. How To Train Your Dragon

Double Feature Duel:
Requiem For a Dream vs. How To Train Your Dragon

Only the second installment and I already changed the name (Thanks, Annie). Anyway, this is another one pitting two completely different movies against each other, but this is one that I have no idea who is going to win. I’d have probably had to tweak my system a bit if a movie nominated for 6 Oscars lost to a movie with a 32% on the Tomatometer Rating System last time. But not this battle.

Requiem for a Dream is the final movie in my quest to see all the movies by Darren Aronofsky. Some were decent (Black Swan, Pi), one sucked (The Fountain) and this one was a really riveting peak into the lives of a couple drug addicts, shot in a way to take you with them on their journey. How To Train Your Dragon is a DreamWorks buddy film about Viking times where a clumsy, scrawny youth accidentally grounds a super-special dragon and they become friends. Believe it or not, these movies were written by completely different people.

Funnier: Kind of another no-brainer unless there’s a sadistic meth-head out there who revels in the drug-induced pain and panic of others. Plus, Marlon Wayans is in Requiem for a Dream. Point, How To Train Your Dragon (0-1)

Better Turn: It’s hard to really pinpoint when Dragon’s Act II started, but it doesn’t matter. Requiem had such an emotional scene when the main character came to visit his mother after starting a profitable dope-dealing business to find that she was getting unknowingly (to her) high on her diet pills. It showed an earnest love for his mother, which we weren’t really sure about yet, and a powerlessness to help anyone else out of their situation, as he was too messed up to really dig his own way out of his. Point, Requiem for a Dream (1-1)

Better Ending: I really would have liked to see one of the four main characters make it out of Requiem. All four suffered pretty gruesome fates, depending on your take on Jennifer Connelly’s situation. But the quick montage with the disturbing music and the violent clips were pretty moving. I had to watch it several times to get it. This led to the imperfect but moving dream sequence, mirroring all four of their nights, with the camera pulling back to find them all in their beds. Meanwhile, Dragon’s ending was cute and feelgood, but typical and predictable by kid’s movie standards. Point, Requiem (2-1)

Better Message: Requiem’s message is not simply “don’t do drugs,” though I can see how one would confuse them. It delves a little more into how anyone can get hooked, knowingly or not. Dragon’s message is the same as most movies of this nature. Give the people who aren’t like us a chance. They may not be all that bad. Also, just because we always did something this way doesn’t mean we have to do it that way now. Maybe it’s been done before, but Requiem was a little too over the top to really have an effect on the way I see the world. Point, Dragon (2-2)

Better Acting: Ellen Burstyn was amazing in Requiem. I couldn’t believe she didn’t win Best Actress (which she was nominated for) until I found out it was the year Julia Roberts won for Erin Brockovich. She puts this movie into a much different category than it would have been had you had to concentrate on Marlon Wayans any more. Dragon is an animated movie. I should have started and ended with that. Point, Requiem (3-2)

More Creative: Tough choice here, but I feel like movies about drug addicts have been done. This one brought the mother into it and it was shot very well, but I can appreciate the idea of trying to fix a dragon’s tail feather to make him functional again. That was pretty cool. However, the plot of Dragon was pretty formulaic and Requiem’s “Juice by Tappy” commercials were a creative way to make the film even more disjointed and disturbing. Point, Requiem (4-2)

Watch again: Another tough choice, as I’ve waivered back and forth with this even as I’ve been typing. I feel like I could watch Ellen Burstyn’s performance many times over and that’s where I’m leaning now, though I’d rather see either compared to the last two movies I saw. Point, Requiem (5-2)

Overall: Well, I’d probably rate both of these movies pretty high on the bug rating, but the facts have played themselves out and made Requiem for a Dream the winner of this Double Feature Duel. Thanks for reading and I’ll probably have another title for this column next time.