WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT STAND-UP COMEDY IN 2022? (IN PRAISE OF THE ROUGH PART OF TOWN)
STANDUPWORLD.COM
WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT STAND-UP COMEDY IN 2022?
Besides the fact that I’m still not doing it anymore? That audiences are still safe from my mediocre bullshit? So, so, much. It’s an amazing time to be a stand-up comic and a great time to be a gonzo stand-fan. (Speaking as one.)
Stand-up may very well have never been as strong as it is now. As solid, as varied, as diverse, as daring, as accessible, as interesting, and as God damn funny as it is in the world today. All over the world today. From Los Angeles to New York to London, on to Paris with several silly stops over to Mumbai, comics are getting up and doing their thing in clubs, theatres, amphitheaters, at festivals, on tours, in arenas, and on streaming outlets with a wild and wooly freedom the art form has never before experienced.
I personally live for the edgy stuff. I like comics that misbehave and piss off the prims. I always have. From Richard Pryor and George Carlin, Cheech and Chong, Lily Tomlin, Dice, Sam Kinison, Joan Rivers, Russell Brand, Sandra Bernhard, to Ricky Gervais, and Dave Chapelle. I’ve always liked the trouble-makers, so this is a bang-up time for me.
Stand-ups are supposed to be counter-culture and in many ways they became the opposite. So many comics are playing to audiences of trained seals. Clapping at all the politically correct horse shit premises so obediently that even when they’re done cleverly there’s still zero amount of danger to it. There’s nothing to it that’s revelatory because we all know that’s what you’re supposed to be thinking and supposed to be saying and supposed to be clapping at.
Luckily we have the Dave Chapelle’s, the Bill Burr’s, the Bill Mahr’s, the Jeff Ross’s, and the Dave Atell’s. The Dom Irerra’s, the Chris Rock’s, Earthquake, Ricky Gervais, the Sara Silverman’s who are all grandfathered in with the guts and gumption to say what they want to say. Yet beyond that class of brass ball jokers, even more exciting is who’s behind them, not on the bench but already on the ice racking up wins. Some seriously out-there grinders, slinging shit and not giving a rat’s ass if you’re feelings are hurt or not. I’m sorry, but it makes for some really, really funny stand-up these days. Piss in your pants stuff.
Remember, you can always stay home or change the channel. Opera makes me nauseous. Harkens back to a lot of Jews getting beaten up in European alleys. Rich swells pulling up to the Grand Opera houses in gilded carriages, using Jewish backs as mud ramps, but I don’t make a big deal out of it. I don’t whine. I don’t go.
I’m nuts about comedy that takes me back to listening to the dirty, naughty, Richy Pryor albums, or Redd Foxx, or George Carlin’s seven words. As far as the newer acts, this new vanguard, these ragged band of misanthropes that have taken the license to say whatever the hell they want to say, a license that no one can give you but yourself, are all raw, electric, and watchable as hell. They’re pissing straight into the wind with truth on their side. They love what they’re doing, and it shows. Shane Gillis, Rosebud Baker, Tim Dillion, Yannis Pappis, Dan Soder, Chris Delia, Joey Diaz, Tony Hinchliffe, Whitney Cummings, Sam Morril. Brian Holtzman, Steven Crowder, Andrew Schultz, Jimmy Dore, Yamenika, Brian Simpson. These are just a small group of these nut-jobs too. There are so many more.
Here are three more things I love about this crowd. One; Very important too; They put asses in seats. Audiences adore them. They desperately want to see them on every level. In little comedy clubs, all the way up to the arena’s that Billy Burr is packing them in as quick as if he were selling seats in phone booths. Fans love it raw and prickly. Funny. That’s what they want. On podcasts, specials, vinyl, and anywhere they can get it. Comedy audiences want the truth told by their comics, and they want the rules broken—all around the world.
Yet, that’s not what the news, the media, the polite crowd, and the studio/network bosses are telling them. They’re telling them they’re getting canceled and ruined if they joke about certain treasured beads and baubles. Run out on a rail to the edge of town and beaten like a red-headed step-child, then left in a bush to die. They’re telling themselves that too, these pinheads that run media and shit these days. That they’ll lose everything if they broadcast or stream certain words or taboo subjects. If they don’t color inside the lines they’re supposed to be coloring in, useing their platforms to remake the world into a perfect place by next Wednesday morning. If they don’t listen damn closely to this quarter’s newest pack of aggrieved slobs with the freshest set of catchy letters strung together into a dangerous amalgam. BLM, ANTFIA, BTO. (Bachman Turner Overdrive? Remember when we all had to listen to them too?)
Two; Even more important than ‘one’ the smart comics, the Tim Dillons and The Shane Gillis’s aren’t listening to the media bosses or the aggrieved mobs. They don’t care. They’re not afraid anymore. They believe in themselves, trust in their talent and the audiences. They also have faith in their ability to reach them without these insecure, unsure, fair weather, passionless executives that are running eight out of ten places that supposedly gate-keep the entrances to acceptance and success for these artists.
Big smile now here for, Number Three; Except for Netflix there is not one company/network/ studio, a smart sharp, hot stand-up fears or blows in the year of our Lord 2022. And, even Netflix, by the way, has to bring comfy knee pads and lots of mouthwash to get a good blow job these days, because comics know damn well, for Stand-up at least, Netflix’s time at top too may well be limited for reasons out of their hands.
Let’s not forget that we live in a world where comics like Sam Morril and Mark Normand have made their own specials and sold them on all kinds of streaming sites from YouTube to Roku to ‘Fat Fred’s Streaming Service,’ and they’ve both hit over ten million views and are still going strong.
Amazon and Vimeo and all these others have opened the gates, and a Whitney or a Sebastion, a Bert Kreisher, let alone a Joe Rogan, can and soon will put his own special up and market it themselves and make a lot more than Netflix or HBO or anyone else will pay them and guess what? They’ll own their shit!
Kevin Hart? A good special. Ten bucks? Internationally? Marketed smartly? Three million units? Four? Five? Chapelle? Burr??The next Chapelle? The next Burr? Burr, Hart, Chapelle, and Rogan together? One night? Simulcast? Fifty bucks. Around the world? On ‘Fat Freddy’s streaming service?
Twenty million units?
Now we know why Ted Sarandos very smartly didn’t sell the Chapelle farm over a few jokes and a bunch of clowns parading around in his parking lot. God bless the guy for backing Dave Chapelle, and really for that matter, for saving Stand-up, yet again.
So, yeah. It’s a great year for Stand-up. This bullshit pander-emic is almost over. Comedians are getting strong, new ones are funny and fresh, and long at the craft pros like Dave Attel, Jeff Ross, Jessica Kirson, Tim Allen, Bobby Kelly, Paul Virzi, and Brian Holtzman are finally getting the wind at their back. Just For Laughs is stronger than ever. Austin Comedy Festival is alive with new iterations, Edinburgh is perineal, and ‘Netflix is a Joke’ is finally going to pop. New-fangled clubs like the open air venue, Supernova in Hollywood are thriving. Vinyl is selling like crazy. Podcasts aren’t even close to dying out; in fact, just the opposite. Just spend some time listening to Andrew Santino’s Whiskey Ginger or Bobby Lee’s podcast or any of the stuff Russell Brand is doing every day on what seems like about eight podcasts.
Take this all in and you’ll understand why comics aren’t spending much time kissing ass anymore.
And me, I’m just getting started. I love the idea of reporting on the world and having some fun while doing it. I’m old enough that I don’t care and young enough that I still do. Fuck it. Funny is too important to worry about being nice.
Anway, I love people that do stand up, and I love people that love to laugh.
Laughter is too healthy. Too important. God bless the funny people!
WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT STAND-UP COMEDY IN 2022? (IN PRAISE OF THE ROUGH PART OF TOWN)
no mention of Mort Sahl?