Stand up for stand up
By You Can't Hear It On The Radio
October 3, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
When I was nine-years-old, a friend of the family gave me a Christmas gift that stayed with me more than almost any other gift from childhood. The gift was a tape of Bill Cosby’s stand-up and for years, I listened to it literally every night as I fell asleep.
As far as I can tell, it was essentially a Cosby mix tape - none of the routines that were on it seem to appear together on any Cosby release, so there was obviously some thought that went into it. I basically wore it out. This was the mid-'80s, long before burned CDs and iPods, so even if I still had the cassette tape I was given, I wouldn’t have a single place to play it in my house.
To the best of my memory, the tape started with the three “Noah” tracks (part of the motivation for the gift, no doubt), “Noah: Right”, “Noah: And The Neighbor”, “Noah: Me And You, Lord”; then moved on to “The Chicken Heart”, “Tonsils”, “To Russell, My Brother Whom I Slept With”, and then “Fat Albert (Buck, Buck)”.
It was fantastic and I would kill for that cassette tape now -- just as a sentimental item. Fortunately, in the age of digital music I can pretty much re-create the mix tape’s playlist. Each of those routines are hilarious - Cosby, then as now, is an unparalleled storytelling comedian. I believe it was my first exposure to stand up comedy.
Cosby is a groundbreaking comedian in a lot of ways, but what's most telling about his skills is the reverence that other comics have for him. In Jerry Seinfeld's documentary on stand up, Comedian, there's a scene where Seinfeld, Chris Rock and other comedians are sitting around a table discussing Cosby's skills, stamina and command of an audience and it's very clear they are in awe of him.
A few years later, I would discover Steve Martin’s A Wild and Crazy Guy in a pile of my stepmother’s cassette tapes. It remains an absurdist masterpiece, performed by a man whose audience knew every beat, every word, every punchline, and yet still manages to keep the performance fresh and funny. In Martin's autobiography - Born Standing Up - he explains that, oddly enough, his immense popularity would basically force him to quit stand up. It's a great book and fascinating window into the development of Steve Martin as a comedian and actor.
Even now, more than 20 years after first hearing both Cosby and Martin, I have most of the routines memorized and they still make me laugh. Throughout my life, I’ve enjoyed stand up albums, buying a few here and there. But that’s increased of late, partially due to the ease of access, but also because there are a lot of great albums out and available.
Cosby and Martin aside, most of my favorite comedy albums are more modern. It’s probably a function of accessibility more than anything, but there are a lot of fantastic comedians working today (and one who regrettably isn’t).
Before I get into some of my favorite current comedians, I want to spend a minute on the late, great Mitch Hedberg. Hedberg was the master of the short, seemingly non-sequiter joke that sometimes took a minute to figure out and led to explosive laughter. Hedberg died in 2005 and leaves behind three fantastic albums. I’d suggest starting with Mitch All Together.
Moving on to comedians who are still with us, I’m going to start with one who, whether he likes it or not, is the current spokesman for the stand up community – Marc Maron. Maron is the host of the incredibly popular podcast – WTF with Marc Maron – and the source of an ongoing master class in stand up comedy. Not specifically Maron (though he is hilarious), but the combo of Maron and guest – most often a working stand up – discussing the craft, business and life of a stand up comedian. Listening to WTF doesn’t require a working knowledge of active stand up comics, but it does help to provide depth and context to their work and the genre.
There’s an episode guide available and I encourage you to dive in, starting with your favorite comedian or actor. I highly recommend the two-part episode with Louis C.K.; Mike Birbiglia's interview of Maron for the 200th episode; Garry Shandling; and Conan O'Brien. Also riveting are Maron's interviews with Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook. All the episodes are worth listening to, not the least of which is that if you don't, Maron will resent you.
After listening to nearly 200 episodes of WTF, I’ve learned to notice and appreciate just how much more there is to stand up than “saying funny things”. The best comedians are performers in the truest sense of the word. There’s an obvious skill and method to storytelling and joke telling, and blending the two while still engaging an audience is an absolute talent. Many of the stand ups I’ve heard on Maron’s show talk about how they aren’t actors, or aren’t real actors – I disagree.
Standing up on a stage and telling jokes requires a great deal of skill. To get a joke over, to time your cadence and choose your words, to engage an audience, all of those things take a great deal of preparation and care and to inhabit them is something only a skilled performer can do. There’s a good reason that so many stand up comedians do end up as actors – they have a confidence and skill borne of practice and hard work as performers.
Maron himself is a fantastic stand up, using honesty and self-flagellation as humor weapons in his joke onslaught. While you can see all of those things on display on the WTF podcast, they’re more clearly shown on his most recent stand up album, This Has to Be Funny.
It's difficult to choose a favorite from my favorite comedians, so I won't. But my favorite albums from each of them are linked to their names below. Louis C.K. and Mike Birbiglia have been my most listened to of late. It's obvious that, in general, I prefer story-based comedians and these are great ones.
Some of my other favorite comedians (warning, much of the language is not safe for work):
David Cross (YouTube)
Chris Rock(YouTube)
Aziz Ansari (YouTube)
Patton Oswalt (YouTube)
Mike Birbiglia (YouTube)
Louis C.K. (YouTube)
I’d never claim to be an expert on stand up or stand up albums - after all, the list of comedians I haven’t listened to is as impressive as it is long - Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, George Carlin, Dave Attell, Steven Wright... But I do love comedy albums and you can't hear them on the radio. I hope you'll check a few out.
--Noah
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