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As I write this I’m watching a schism form in the standup comedy world.

It was touched off recently by this blog from Doug Stanhope:

http://www.dougstanhope.com/journal/2010/7/12/comedy-death-camp.html

He basically hates life, comedy classes, and cute little bunny rabbits. He couldn’t hate the idea of teaching comedy more if it stole his girlfriend.

 

 

 

It was responded to, indirectly, by Kyle Cease here:

http://kylecease.com/blog/thoughts-and-response

He believes through the power of positive thinking you can move mountains, develop a rock hard six-pack, and whiten your teeth. Not to mention get better at comedy.

 

 

 

So who’s right? It’s worth noting that both of them are quite successful, but their attitudes couldn’t be more different.

Is comedy something that can be taught or are comedy teachers preying on the vulnerability of newbies?

I actually think there’s some good warnings in what Stanhope wrote. Comedy is a field where it WOULD be easy to prey on someone’s ignorance, and ultimately developing your own voice is something you have to do on your own. Nobody can do that work for you.

Yet the idea that you can’t get ideas or inspiration from other people further along the road than you seems ridiculous to me. Let me lay out my thinking here in simple logical analysis that will annoy everyone except my old Philosophy teachers:

Many professional comedians feel comedy can’t be taught.
Yet they all agree they weren’t as good when they first started.
Because they learned to be better.
So comedy can be learned.
But it cannot be taught.

Sounds unlikely.

So while doing the work on your own is necessary to get better, if you want to add training, how do you decide if it’s worth it?  I’d suggest looking at a couple things:

1. Can person you’re learning from do the thing you want to do?

2. Have they shown they can transfer some of that ability to others?

This applies to a lot of skills you’d want to learn in life, be it comedy or competitive eating. Since there’s no formal body for approving comedians (at least until Carrot Top opens his school), these are the criteria I’d work with.

Doubtless one of the reasons I’m less scared by the idea of standup classes is that I came from the world of improv comedy first. There it’s easy to find out both of those things about a teacher or class, and it’s basically expected that you’ll take classes, just like if you’re an actor, musician, or dancer.

Nobody says you have to take a particular class to do those things well, and some successful people do it without formal training. But most people do get some, because generally speaking, it helps.

There is also the issue of which path you’d want to take in life. Do you like the idea of getting smarter with other people? Or does contact with others distill the rare genius that only you possess? I don’t know about you, but surrounding myself with cool people makes me better, not worse. Not as in I am cooler for knowing them, but my brain actually works better and I come up with better ideas in that environment.

Einstein would debate other physicists in long, detailed letters over the course of years. If he didn’t do that he may never have had the breakthroughs he did. He wasn’t sitting in a room alone all day, he was throwing ideas back and forth with his super smart, questionably-groomed friends. And that’s where my best ideas will probably come from too.

 

 

Feel free to leave your comments and fashion tips.

This Lady!

And, by extension, not me.

I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me, though. I won’t be able to lift you all into the upper class the way I’d planned, but we can still huddle together out in the cold, eating twinkie cakes and cans of beans.

The SocialNext social media blog interviewed me about my participation in the Fiesta Movement, and what that means for the future of humankind.

Ironically, I have the time to post this now as the Fiesta is being fixed in the shop…

In my Fiesta mission to get the ultimate profile picture, I go to professional photographer John Ulman. He has to keep snapping away no matter what pose or wig I’m in. See the pics at: flicker.com/dartanion

I got mentions today in a couple Seattle blogs for the Fiesta Movement program.

Metblogs Seattle has a handy link to my first “mission” site of Mount St. Helens

and Seattlest is very concerned with punctuation.

There’s going to be more posts and ridiculous videos on this whole thing, but for now you can check out my Fiesta Movement Profile for updates.