Jokes about dead people

Immediately after a celebrity dies, the jokes start. Sometimes within 3 minutes of their death texts begin with jokes. After Michael Jackson's death the sheer volume of Michael Jackson jokes posted on twitter was staggering. Sometimes, we comedians are akin to vultures. A corpse is not even cold and we're already rummaging through the bones for a laugh.

Of course, comedians write these jokes to meet a clear demand. People like to hear jokes about the dead. Often, the more offensive the joke the better. To get academic, possibly this is due to comedy being uniquely suited for coping with things that frighten us. What frightens us more than death? But that might be overanalysing it. It might be as simple as the fact that people have an appetite for comedy that breaks taboos. Sex, body fluids, religion... these are all comedy staples. Is there any taboo greater than laughing at someone's death?

Add to this the fact that celebrities are real people but they also aren't. Unless you are a close friend or family member you don't really know them as a person. What you know is their media persona. Beyond that celebrities in modern society are ideas. They are mythic. Their personal lives are fuel for dozens of publications. Their foibles are consumed with a relish. Robert Downey Junior for example, back in his off the wagon days, was not just an addict in the public consciousness, he was the uber addict.

Laughing at a dead person - not really acceptable. Laughing about an idea/icon/cultural transcendental form - more palatable.

Real people or not, I personally have mixed feelings about the plethora of jokes about the dead. There's something disrespectful about making a joke at the expense of someone who is dead. Unless they were a truly vile dictator or murderer, I often think death is a good time to let bygones be bygones. They are dead. Leave them alone.


But on the other hand. They are the jokes about the dead which work and are not disrespectful. They are the opposite. They are an homage of sorts. My comedic homages succeed sometimes and fail at sometimes. After Douglas Adams died, I had 42 seconds of silence for him at a comedy show. The six people in the room who got the joke liked it. Patrick Swayze just died and I did a joke. I hope it's more on the homage end of the spectrum than mocking the dead end. Judge for yourself: it's at my 'Joke of the Week' blog.

Either way, I meant it to be the former. And finally, in closing, when I die, jokes would be appreciated.

Post Mortem

22 Days Later. Not a Zombie in sight. The Edinburgh Festival is about over. I have one more show. I plan to party like an energizer playboy bunny after the show so I'm writing my last Edinburgh blog now. Here is my post mortem. It's a final big fat motherload blog looking back.

FLYERS

I have a huge box of unused flyers. Some 1000 or so. What can I do with them? Do the exact same show at the exact same time next year and recycle? Burn them in some kind of heathen ritual? A squadron of paper airplanes?

THE SHOW

It transformed. It began as 55 minutes of pure entertainment. Joke joke joke and no big message. Then 2 reviewers clearly thought I was mediocre. Crushed, I rewrote the show and made it more poignant by adding depressing anecdotes about the Rwandese genocide, quotations from Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Chesterton, and a few surreal, self referential jokes. This got the desired effect. I got a good review. An odd thing happened then however. I realised that I preferred the version of the show with more laughs and less originality and depth. I reverted to the old version but now I wasn't satisfied with that either. So, back to the drawing board and I came up with something altogether different. A kind of hybrid between the all giggles version 1 and the way too earnest version 2.

MONEY

Lots of comedians lose thousands every Edinburgh Festival. I have not. REASONS: I wasn't in one of the big venues so my rent was much lower. I may even have made a profit. On the downside, choosing not to be in the big venues means I struggled to get reviewers, industry or awards judges to the show. Still, I do not regret this choice as getting into financial ruin from a show about the credit crunch would have been a little too ironic. I had fun. If I come back next year I think I'll do a venue like The Lot again.

AUDIENCES

I was lucky. My lowest audience number was 23 in the first weekend. (Well there's one more night, but so far so good). My average was 35 and my highest was 106. I don't know why. I went to see a comedian who is funnier than me and even though he was at the Gilded Balloon, he had 7 people in. That's the harsh reality of the festival. It's not always the funniest person who gets the most success. So many other elements contribute. Who has the the best marketing? Which theme is most intriguing to the press? What's on the poster? And so on. I was lucky.

PROFESSIONALISM

A helpful press agent said my website looked to amateur so I redesigned it. www.daliso.com. Unfortunately I just finished it and the festivals over. Ha!


REVIEWERS

This happened at another comedian's show. After it was over, 2 of the audience members hugged him and thanked him for a brilliant show. That evening all he kept talking about was a bad newspaper review. Hey man chill out, 2 people loved your show so much they gave you a hug and thanked you. I also saw one woman in the audience laughing to the point of tears. What's more important?

WOMEN

It was entirely unnecessary for the Chortle website to say all the awards were male 'again'? What do they mean 'again'? Sarah Millican won an award last year? Nina Conti won a Barry at last year's Melbourne festival. And I saw two newspaper articles asking whether women are funny. Why do they keep beating the dead horse? Just shut up already. Anyone with eyes and a brain stopped asking that stupid question years ago. And the nominees were all white. All in this venue or that venue. So what. They were all funny people. That's more important. If a person who isn't funny is nominated, by all means complain. Otherwise, I'm not interested.


NETWORKING

Three men are sitting in a bar. A woman walks past. They all follow her with desperate longing in their eyes. These are not three testosterone filled men staring after a nubile supermodel. They are comedians and she is a respected agent or TV producer.

FAVORITES

In no particular order: 'Cowboys and Iranians' - Pat Monahan. 'Typical Woman' - Sarah Millican. 'Lifeboat' - Mick Sargeant. 'Remember, Remember the Fourth of November' - Ava Vidal. 'Mercy Madonna of Malawi - written and directed by oops I forget'. And of course 'An African Perspective - Westerners Calm Down' - How could my show not be one of my favorites?

WHAT'S NEXT?

Back to comedy clubs, finishing my novel, and writing another one man show. The next one's not for Edinburgh. It is for Africa. More on that when it's finished.

Chit Chat Snap

When two comedians are talking and something funny happens it's like a game of snap. You know the card game where you fling cards out until two cards of the same suit or number land on top of each other. You both yell snap and try to slam your hand on the deck first.

With comedians if something hilarious comes out of a conversation, the first person to say 'I'm going to use that on stage' has claimed it as material.

So:

Daliso and Tony Vino: paralysis during dates -- 'SNAP'
Daliso and Ava Vidal: depressing event bringer uppers - 'SNAP'
Daliso and Cat Davies: 'SNAP SNAP SNAP'
Daliso and Gary Delaney: Fame shame -- 'SNAP'

OK. Now I think any comedians reading this are going to be very guarded around me. Or start yelling 'Snap!' in the middle of restaurants and pubs. The latter would be more fun.

The empathy problem

There are two jokes I do in my one-hour show which have been getting a dramatically different reaction from when I do them in 20 minute sets in comedy clubs. The jokes are about certain painful things that happened to me when I was younger. In a comedy club the jokes are guaranteed to elicit some of the biggest laughs. In my one man show I get less people laughing and a few 'awww's of pity.

It puzzled me at first but as I've tweaked the show and rearranged my set I hace realized the reason. My comedy club set is a series of random jokes, many of which are filthy anecdotes, silly puns, or totally implausible tall tales. Surrounded by jokes like this, the 2 jokes about a painful experiences in my past are received simply as clever word games. They work on the level of unorthodox set up followed by surprising punchline. The truth of the jokes is irrelevant.

The jokes in my one man show are more personal and clearly 100% true. By the time I get to the jokes in question, the audience can't simply see them as clever set ups and punchlines. They can see the truth of the jokes. Instead of laughing, they feel empathy.

I did these 2 jokes once in Malawi within my normal comedy set and everybody laughed except my mother. She was concerned and later needed to know if this joke was fiction or truth. Similarly, close friends of mine have mixed reactions to the joke. It is interesting to me how empathy can be an obstacle to comedy.

A lot of comedians for instance, do self deprecating jokes about their physical appearance, lack of sexual prowess (not me of course! :) ), poverty...etc. I've noticed that these comics get bigger laughs if they deliver the joke with a big smile or a similar way of indicating that they are not overwhelmed by their shortcoming. When a comedian seems to be moaning or genuinely hurt by the story they are telling, the reaction will often be pity, not laughter.

A man slips on a banana peel. It's funny. Laugh laugh laugh. A man slips on a banana peel in the middle of the road and a bus slams into him. Not funny. Because the damage is permanent.

I think to get the huge laughs from my past trauma jokes I get in comedy clubs, I would have to either blur the certainty that the incident is true, or act as though I am now totally healed and 100% past it.

I don't want to. In the context of a one hour show the big laughs come back later so the pathos is not necessarily the enemy of comedy. It is an odd decision though because this is a comedy show and I know with a few small changes I could make the jokes funnier.

I guess funny is just one consideration.

And that's that.

Burlesque and laughter

I was the guest show for a burlesque troupe called the Glitter Kittens today. Their show is on for 3 more days so if you can, do check it out. It is a free show! Usually when I host shows I bring on teethy, overweight or hairy comedians. Bringing on half-naked athletic young women was a refreshing change. However I did need to concentrate significantly more - remembering my jokes in the presence of women in corsets was a comedic sudoku.

At one point in the show I did a sequence of religious jokes and then brought on one of the kittens. She came on in a nun's habit. This was an unplanned coincidence. How serendipitous! I must say however, that Scarlet's nun's habit's dance routine has forever changed how I will view the Sound of Music. Now, I'll always be wondering whether Julie Andrews is wearing red lingerie under her habit. And you know what, she probably was. Perhaps in an earlier draft, Rogers and Hammerstein's script read:

'vinyl tight dresses and skimpy g-strings,
these are a few of my favorite things'

Now, on the other hand, my one man show 'Westerners Calm Down' is predominantly clean at the request of my venue. At tonight's performance there were probably 3 minutes in the whole hour you wouldn't want a child to hear. I therefore took this burlesque hosting as an opportunity to let out some of my innate filthiness. It celebrated at being let out of the bottle. Though I do think I showed admirable restraint. The venue the burlesque was in has leaky walls and I resisted all my urges to make 'dripping', 'moist'...etc innuendos. So there.

The life problem

I haven't written any new blogs in a few days. I haven't written much of anything actually. In the first week of the fringe I wrote 3 chapters of a novel, a lot of jokes, some scenes of a sitcom, and a bunch of blog entries. Then, for the last few days life has interfered. Between promoting my show and promoting I've been watching shows, socialising, stuffing fried food down my buccal cavity, going on misguided quests to slay dragons, talking to red eyed strangers.

You always hear about those hedonistic authors and musicians who managed to write huge volumes or opuses (or should it be 'opii') between drunken nights, orgies and cocaine fueled rampages. When did they ever have the time?

I think writing is solitary. You can't be a total hermit of course because if you are you have nothing to write about. Whenever I see a comedian whose jokes are all about what's on television I want to get up and scream 'get off the couch and live you fool!'. Of course too much getting up and living can be a problem. Don't get me wrong, I've been having a blast. Giggle fueled euphoria, naughty escapades under a bridge and ghost hunting. What's to complain about?

Still. I saw one comedian who is usually brilliant do terribly because he clearly had a terrible hangover. My worst show of the festival so far was after a night of two hours sleep. You'd think you don't need to be fully lucid to be a comedian. After all it's an hour of performance not a 9-5 job. But it does. And as for writing, lucidity is a must - for me anyway.

But the madness is so fun!

As a post script I must mention that the play 'Mercy Madonna of Malawi' is very brilliant. Check it out if you're up in Edinburgh. However, if before the show begins, the director makes a speech in which he says there are only three dentists in Malawi, you should be aware he's talking nonsense. It is well meaning nonsense (as it is to further raise empathy for Malawi's poverty) but nonsense nonetheless. There is a Dentistry association of Malawi. My brother is a doctor in Malawi and he could off the top of his head think of ten (in one city). There is no need to overstate the suffering in Malawi. Yes, there is a lot of poverty but making it out to be in the dark ages is borderline offensive.

The play itself which is performed by Malawian performers is wonderful. It gives enough of a true insight into Malawi's suffering while also celebrating the magnificent elements of the culture. Why not let it stand for itself?

Ego Tripping

Yesterday I went on about the best part of being a comedian. What's the worst? I'd say it's ego. For one thing, as a comedian, your ego is always taking a bashing be it some audience members not liking a joke, not getting a role you auditioned for, a bad review. There are a lot of arrogant performers. Sometimes I think delusions of grandeur are simply necessary to survive the repeated wallops to your ego. I was miserable today as a result of an ego bashing (no need to go into it; I have now realised how trivial the actual incident was). Even so, I dragged myself onto stage heavy with negative emotions.

Now this was a problem because my style is one of optimistic, energetic ranting. When I am not happy it affects the performance. I wonder if cynical negative comedians have this problem. When their life is going well, are they less funny? In lieu of actual positivity, I faked it, and I wonder if the audience could tell?

Ego is a problem, and not just your own. The other problem is the ego of other performers. There are comedians who obsess about 'Who was the best comedian of the night?' 'Why is he famous when I'm not?' 'Who will get such and such award?' Performers who constantly ask such irrelevant questions depress me.

Any time you get more laughs than a performer with these obsessions, a better review than they do or achieve any modicum of success, it's a nightmare. Equally, when they do better than you, they are insufferable and smug. OK. I am being deliberately vague and not naming a particular performer because I don't want to mud sling in this blog. I've also got over the incident which angered me before my last show.

I've written a joke about what happened into the show. Hopefully it will get laughs. Or my ego will suffer :)