If you have heard WBAI's CCCP show, you may agree that its attempt at humor is somewhat pedestrian. KPFA does not have that problem so, for the third time, here is their Sunday show, Twit Wit Radio. Before they dumbed down the audio menu and reduced the audience to a limited few, I think this program would have done well at 99.5.
For one hundred points: Would Juliana Forlano learn anything about humor by listening to Twit Wit Radio?
ReplyDeleteSDL
A sense of humor cannot be taught.
DeleteFunny you say that. About fifteen years ago a former friend of mine invited me to come along with him one afternoon to a club where the back room was being used as a comedian wokshop. A friend of his was part of this and asked if he'd come check out his act. Well, after sitting through (or is that tortured by?) three "comedians" before he finally got up and did his bit, I learned that humor isn't taught but learned through life experience, for starters. The funniest thing that hour or so I spent there was seeing that the guy leading the workshop was the stiffest, most unfunny American since Bob Hope. He led the thing like it was a psychology group meeting.
DeleteAnyway, on a related subject. I once did an open mic comedy routine. I was with a couple of friends and they kept pushing me to put my name down to do a routine. I didn't want to, so I finally gave in, with malice aforethought. It was cut off in about 15 seconds with me being told to leave the club. It went like this.
"Good evening. Before we start, I want to get one to get one thing out of the way, so I can enjoy myself tonight. OK, all the Jews against that wall (pointing right)! Everyone else over there (pointing left)! (snapping fingers) Schnell! SCHNELL!"
You should have seen the jaws hit the floor. Anyway, mic cut and four of the bouncers surrounded me, telling me I should exit. My friends? Well, that's how I am when you push me to do something I don't want to.
SDL
I never did comedy before a live audience, just on radio. Your story reminds me of a night when I took a comedian friend of mine to a "comedy night" at another friend's club, Pearl's Place.
DeleteMy friend, Sam Theard, was genuinely funny and a gifted musician/songwriter (he wrote "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You," and "Let the Good Times Roll," among other songs, and made several recordings in the 78rpm era).
Anyway, we sat through several routines that would have made Hope sound hilarious, and when one of the performers walked off the bandstand muttering that this was "a dead room," Turning to me, Sam said "there's no such thing as a dead room," then he asked me if he could have a go at it. I arranged that and Sam very quickly had them bouncing off their chairs with laughter.
Just as they laughed the hardest, Sam said "Thank you," and returned to his seat.
Then there was the time I spent an entire night walking around in Central Park with Richard Pryor, who wanted to be on my Saturday midnight show, "The Inside." I still could kick myself for deliberately missing that opportunity! As Richard later told me backstage at the Apollo, "You win a few, you lose a few."
Bring back the Eutricians!
ReplyDeleteHum a bar and I'll fake it!
ReplyDeletei guess now that black history month is behind us
ReplyDeletewe will be hearing a lot less black programming now.
hahahaha !!!
You obviously did not hear Murillo this morning.
DeleteYou forgot their new word for gentrification.... these bozos now call that "genocide."
ReplyDeleteI have one word for the lot of them: "dummies."
i see international working women's month has been preempted , but on the flip side
ReplyDeleteblack history/struggle/ whining month has been extended until further notice !
I thought it was Mumia Month. Didn't I hear someone shout "kill the pigs"? Or were they saying "Call the pigs"?
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