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.

And here it is:

You can check out their whole list here.

And if you’re not following me on Twitter yet, you should start and say hello when you do!

I went to Karaoke with my friend David Lew and we stumbled upon magic.

Watch and share with your friends. It really is amazing.

I’m entering another crazy contest, this one called “Live Off Groupon”. I would have to live entirely off their coupons without spending any money or having a place to live for a year. The prize would be $100,000, which I would immediately spend on delousing and malnutrition treatment.

Also I would get a lot of stories out of it.

Here’s my entry video:

We also had to visit a business that has been featured on Groupon:

Do you think this is a good idea? If I get it will you give me a toothbrush?

The Week of Fun is wrapped up, and every show ended up getting reviewed by The Stranger’s SLOG writer Kyle Regan. Here is a quote from one that mentions me:

“London’s bit… was my favorite of the night.”

There are lots of other quotes about many of the other people who performed during the week. You can check them out at the Week of Fun blog, with links to the original articles.