My brother thinks he can do stand-up...

[arzoo]

He started about 2 months ago. I think he's really funny. Warning - crude humor ahead...

[shmokes]

He's good.  Some of that stuff was really clever.  I also have a couple brothers who do standup.  One of them is really good.  No video to prove it, though. 

[ChadTower]

Standup takes a serious amount of guts.  It might be the easiest way in all of entertainment to get killed the hardest.

[arzoo]

He's done maybe 10 performances now but he still goes into a "fear comma" before he gets on stage. But he's starting to look more relaxed. Next show on December 22nd at Gotham Comedy in NYC.

[hypernova]

He doesn't quite have the "presence" on the stage to really elicit the laughs.

Does he cuss profusely because of nerves, or is that the way he is?  I think it detracts from the experience, personally.

He's got some good ones in his act, but I think he's got a ways to go still.

[shmokes]

He's done maybe 10 performances . . .

[shardian]

Getting started in stand-up has to be super difficult. Most of the  pro's have a 'set in stone' act that they can do blindfolded. Getting started, you wouldn't have that. I know I couldn't do it.

[arzoo]

He's been talking with some promoters at a couple of NYC clubs and the feedback has been positive. But before a comic gets to the level where he/she gets "paid" to do stand-up can require thousands of performances and can take years of 'paying your dues' - and of course you have to be funny.

[ChadTower]

You have to be more than funny.  You have to be articulate and emotive.  You also have to be able to deal with a drunk heckler while handcuffed.  That heckler can use any slur, any insult they want, but you can't.  The heckler is only talking to you - you're talking to a room full of drunk people of all races, ages, orientations, etc.  There is so much potential for the wrong retort to set someone off and get your head kicked in in the parking lot it amazes me that we don't see that in the news all the time.

There aren't very many comics with security to protect them and there are even less like Joe Rogan who mostly don't need it.

[Ginsu Victim]

There aren't very many comics with security to protect them and there are even less like Joe Rogan who mostly don't need it.

Speaking of Joe Rogan and hecklers....

NSFW language warning.

[ChadTower]

The lines about the lawnmower and the nickel slots are vicious.   

You can definitely only do that if you're pretty damn sure any given 3 guys in the audience won't wait for you in the parking lot.

I can't find it right now but there is a youtube vid floating around of him walking on stage in the middle of a Carlos Mencia act and eviscerating the guy as a liar, cheat, and content thief.  Awesome.

[Ginsu Victim]

Joe was the one onstage and he made a joke about Carlos "Menstealia" and Carlos jumped up there to confront him.

NSFW.

[ChadTower]

Yep, that's the one.    

[shmokes]

That's funny . . . we talked about Mencia in my intellectual property course this semester.  Stand-up comedy is a strange world legally speaking.  When Carlos Mencia steals jokes it is copyright infringement.  And he's making A LOT of money using other peoples' material.  But there is just a culture of self-policing in the world of stand-up comedy.  They use shame and peer pressure to enforce intellectual property.  But they have the legal right to sue and collect damages.  He cannot legally go onstage and use that material.

[Ginsu Victim]

But they have the legal right to sue and collect damages.

Dude, he steals so much it would be a class action suit

[ChadTower]

He does it on TV mostly, too, not so much for the stage.  He makes a LOT of money with other peoples' stuff.

[ChadTower]

No idea, that's why I'm not an attorney representing standup comics.   

[Ginsu Victim]

But how are you going to prove that you're the one that wrote the joke?

A time stamped recording of you using it first?

Here's enough of a time stamp:

[shmokes]

But how are you going to prove that you're the one that wrote the joke?

How does any author prove he is the author?  Someone may step forward and show that J.K. Rowling actually stole the Harry Potter stories from him, but until that happens . . . until we have evidence, I think we can assume that she's really the author.  Just like we assume that Mencia is the author of the material he uses until we see a video of some other comedian using the same material . . . but earlier.  I'm sure Mencia doesn't steal EVERYTHING he uses.  He just steals a helluva lot of it.  And he doesn't even make it his.  He doesn't even change it up.  It's ---smurfing--- lazy.

[ChadTower]

We're not a court of law.  We can assume whatever we want.  I assume everything out of that dude's mouth is stolen, in his act or outside of it.  In fact I think he reads this forum and stole a bunch of posts to put on KLOV.