Playing With Fire

Recently I shared a video of a hilarious moment from one of my recent shows. I spent a few minutes roasting a guy in the audience. If you pay attention to that clip you’ll see that of everyone in attendance, he was the one laughing the hardest.

As a performer you have to be aware of your surroundings. You need to be able to read the room and know what kind of environment you’re in. When you’re aware of the situation you can start pushing boundaries and taking chances. But it all depends on where you’re working.

The jokes I make at a corporate event are different from a college show. And both of those rooms are way different from the comedy clubs I work when I’m home in Chicago, which is where that clip was filmed.

That video is one of my favorite moments this year. It’s everything that I want my show to be: memorable, hilarious, fun, and totally unique to that particular audience.

Every time I do a show I’m looking for those moments. If someone does something stupid, I’m going to call them out on it. If someone says something funny, I’m going to make it funnier. And if I do something dumb, then I’m going to roast myself. (Case in point: ten years ago I ripped my pants during a show. I proceeded to ridicule myself for ten minutes. The audience loved it.)

As I was making that joke I was watching that dude and making sure he was cool with it. I was also watching his friends and listening to the rest of the room. They were all laughing. If you listen close you can even hear his friend say “This is my favorite!” Those signs were all I needed to know that I was in the clear and we could all have fun together.

Yet, some people reached out to me to tell me I was demeaning to the audience. (Someone offended and outraged in 2019? No way!) They felt I was being rude or alienating the crowd. They seemed to believe that I should perform passively and never push the envelope or have any opinions onstage.

I once heard a performer say that they didn’t do any political jokes because they “don’t want to alienate half of the audience”. Fair point. But, I feel differently about it.

I don’t want to go onstage and only say things that everyone will agree with. I don’t want to play it safe so everyone will like me. I want to go out there, say what I think, and not be scared what you think about it.

I want to play with fire.

Last weekend at my show I made a joke about “impeachment”. I had a couple Trump voters in the audience who started booing.

After the show one of those guys got in my face and said, “Leave the politics out of it!” (Hmmm, triggered much?) I laughed.

If they had been able to take a joke and not been so sensitive, they would have heard the second part of that bit where I ridicule myself and the whole “resistance” movement. But, they were too quick to boo so I had to double down.

We’re living in really strange times. There’s no nuance any more. Everything is hyper partisan and divisive. It’s exhausting.

I feel it in my audiences. I sense it in performers I share the stage with. It seeps through in everyday conversations, everything I read, and everything I watch. As my wife would say, “Everyone is too woke to joke.”

Here’s the thing: if you don’t like something, then maybe it just isn’t for you. Maybe you aren’t the intended audience. Maybe instead of complaining about it or posting bad reviews you can just go find the things that are intended for you.

If you don’t like a sandwich then don’t tweet about it, just go find a different deli.

If you didn’t like a movie you don’t have to berate the people who spent months working on it from the safety of your blog. Just find a different film to enjoy.

And if you can’t take a joke, then don’t go to a comedy club.

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Other Thoughts:

• I started a new series on YouTube called “STAGE TIME”. I’m sharing fun clips from my shows there now, so be sure to subscribe.

• I was just on the Eager To Know Podcast. Check out my episode here.

• Get tickets to upcoming shows.

• I was talking to someone about a movie I saw recently and they said “Everyone online said the ending sucks so I don’t know if I’ll see it or not…” What a shame our opinions and ideas are so easily formed by stuff we see online. Maybe don’t read other people’s thoughts on a thing and decide for yourself? Recommendation: I just saw “The Peanut Butter Falcon” (not the movie I referenced above) and it was great. Don’t read a review or check Rotten Tomatoes, just go see it for yourself and enjoy.

Demand Their Respect

I got heckled for the first time in a while last week.

There was a group of people who had taken full advantage of the open bar and were being loud and obnoxious all night long.

The event was an exclusive night of mystery with a lineup of four of the finest performers in the city, including myself. One hundred guests, four entertainers, and non-stop amazement.

It’s held once a month at a luxury hotel downtown, complete with fully catered hors d'oeuvres, live music, and some of the most mind-blowing acts you’ve ever seen. Plus, a national magazine was interviewing us that night for a feature article coming out later this year.

So yeah, it was kind of a big deal.

Which made it even stranger when those six guests started being so rude. They started yelling things out during the other performers’ shows. Not clever things, not helpful things….just disruptive, rude comments that were distracting the other guests and making it hard for the performers to concentrate.

My fellow entertainers were doing their best to be polite and stay in control of the situation, but word got out and other guests were quick to alert me of “the people in the other room who think the show is all about them.”

Honestly, I’m not sure you can even count these people as hecklers. They were in a world of their own. They were having loud conversations without a care in the world for anyone else in their general vicinity. They weren’t trying to disrupt the show on purpose and they weren’t trying to outsmart the performers. They were just a bunch of a**holes.

Ordinarily I would be patient with a heckler. I would kindly ask them to repeat their comment and make a simple joke along the lines of “Settle down, this is my show!” or something similar. It would get a laugh, win everyone over, and get the heckler on board.

But last week was different.

I’d been watching these people be rude for several hours. I’d seen them yell across the room, interrupt the shows, and refuse to stop talking while my friends were performing. And by the time I got onstage it was really starting to piss me off.

So I took control of the room and began my opening mind reading demonstration.

“You’re an Aquarius, aren’t you? Born in February…February 10th?”

Everyone oohed and ahhed and applauded loudly as I read each person’s mind in turn. Then, as I continued with my act, I heard a group of people talking in the second row. They were at it again.

So I dropped everything. I stopped what I was doing, walked towards the group, and waited for the room to get quiet.

“You have the wrong idea,” I said.

“I do 150 shows a year and I chose to make one of those shows this one. So when I’m onstage I demand your respect. A lot of people in this room paid a lot of money to see me do this. And now I’m up here working and you are disrespecting me while I’m at work. So, yes, this is an interactive performance but it’s participatory on my terms, NOT yours. Understood?”

The ringleader of the group looked at me in horror, shocked that she was being reprimanded in front of other adults. Then, she shut up and didn’t speak again for the rest of my time onstage. They may have left at some point but I can’t be sure, because I was worried about the other 94 people who wanted to see a good show.

I can’t stand people who disrespect me during a show and I refuse to put up with it. I honed my skills doing difficult gigs in tough rooms for little pay and now I realize that while I was struggling to find my voice and learn my craft, I was slowly building up a confidence that can’t be shaken.

I have a confidence in myself now that is only born out of doing a thousand shows. I know when I walk onstage that I am good at what I do. I’m positive that what I do is worth watching and worthy of someone else’s respect. And so, I don’t have to put up with anyone’s bullsh*t any more because I already spent years doing that.

What I’ve learned is that if you value your time and respect your craft then you don’t have to put up with a heckler.

Your family will tell you to have a backup plan or a teacher will tell you to get a real job. People will act like they know what’s best for you, without taking the time to really listen to your plan. And time and time and time again people will shut the door to your dreams in your face.

Those are the hecklers on the journey towards your chosen destination. Those are the people who want to tell you what you should be doing, even though they don’t want to work as hard as you do. They’ll always be there, eager to disrupt and disrespect, and it’s up to you to shut them up.

You have to demand their respect.