Last night I was MC at Station 59, I got off to a pretty slow start,
dying on my fat, stupid ass trying to do material to the crowd, but
after I made the decision to abandon material almost entirely, the
show got a lot more fun, and we ended up having a great show. This
post isn't so much about me though, as it is about the night itself.
For what I think was the first time – unless my memory is missing a
particularly brutal moment somewhere – I saw a comic get COMPLETELY
BRUTALIZED by a heckler. It was harsh, it was rough, and it was very,
very lame.
The heckler had been a little talkative during the show, but nothing malicious or even offputting, and I did actually promise him no one was going to burn him after he moved down to a table at the front. He piped up though, in the middle of a set of a guy who had never been on stage before, and was clearly having a tough time getting laughs. The guy was talking about conspiracy theories and government corruption etc. etc. and reminded me a lot of Alex Jones actually, like on that Stanhope video where they get Alex Jones to go up before Stanhope and he just rails at the audience for like fifteen minutes. This guy had the huge, muscly stature of Jones, and the crazed maniacal passion about conspiracy to back it up. I met him last Tuesday too, and he was a nice guy.
But this audience member down the front, who as just mentioned, was getting a little boisterous, piped up after four or five minutes of the new guy's set, in which there were, admittedly, very few to no laughs, and said, “come on man, it's a comedy night.” Stunned Silence. The huge Alex Jones figure on the stage was visibly deflated and almost immediately shuffled off, defeated, and I came back on and had to clean up the mess of tension left in the room after a bar full of people had just seen what looked pretty definitely like a guy trying to do something for the first time get cut down mercilessly by a cowardly prick.
The guy from the front table came up to me almost immediately after I introduced the next act and said he didn't mean to upset the guy, or ruin his act, and I believed him. Stupid as fuck though... he explained, “I thought he might be able to play off of me.” Feeble rationalizations, as far as I'm concerned.
I didn't tear into the guy, as much as I wanted to, because I'm almost certain that he was telling the truth and really didn't understand what he'd done, but I was like dude, look at the reaction, think about what you're doing before you do it, it's this guy's first time, he's already struggling, how is he going to be able to “play off of you”? Anything you say is just going to interrupt his rhythm and undermine his already wavering authority over the room. It sucked, it massively sucked. I made it as clear as I could to this guy that he'd done a really shitty thing to this guy who was giving comedy a shot, and then the unexpected came out.
“I'm getting up next week so we'll see I guess.”
Oh fuck yes. You'll learn very quickly then, brother, that authority over a stage is something that needs to be won, and no one but the comedian can win it for themselves. As much as this guy thought he was helping the man on stage by giving him “something to play off”, that act of, in his mind, charity, or in the audience's mind, spite, destroyed the performer's confidence, and ruined his evening. If the comedian knows what they're doing, you'll know that they're in charge. If they're still learning, then there's nothing you can do to help them out other than sit quietly, listen, and laugh when you think it's funny. Anyone reading this, please remember that if you ever find yourself in a crowd watching comedy. That's all.
Peace, Taco.
The heckler had been a little talkative during the show, but nothing malicious or even offputting, and I did actually promise him no one was going to burn him after he moved down to a table at the front. He piped up though, in the middle of a set of a guy who had never been on stage before, and was clearly having a tough time getting laughs. The guy was talking about conspiracy theories and government corruption etc. etc. and reminded me a lot of Alex Jones actually, like on that Stanhope video where they get Alex Jones to go up before Stanhope and he just rails at the audience for like fifteen minutes. This guy had the huge, muscly stature of Jones, and the crazed maniacal passion about conspiracy to back it up. I met him last Tuesday too, and he was a nice guy.
But this audience member down the front, who as just mentioned, was getting a little boisterous, piped up after four or five minutes of the new guy's set, in which there were, admittedly, very few to no laughs, and said, “come on man, it's a comedy night.” Stunned Silence. The huge Alex Jones figure on the stage was visibly deflated and almost immediately shuffled off, defeated, and I came back on and had to clean up the mess of tension left in the room after a bar full of people had just seen what looked pretty definitely like a guy trying to do something for the first time get cut down mercilessly by a cowardly prick.
The guy from the front table came up to me almost immediately after I introduced the next act and said he didn't mean to upset the guy, or ruin his act, and I believed him. Stupid as fuck though... he explained, “I thought he might be able to play off of me.” Feeble rationalizations, as far as I'm concerned.
I didn't tear into the guy, as much as I wanted to, because I'm almost certain that he was telling the truth and really didn't understand what he'd done, but I was like dude, look at the reaction, think about what you're doing before you do it, it's this guy's first time, he's already struggling, how is he going to be able to “play off of you”? Anything you say is just going to interrupt his rhythm and undermine his already wavering authority over the room. It sucked, it massively sucked. I made it as clear as I could to this guy that he'd done a really shitty thing to this guy who was giving comedy a shot, and then the unexpected came out.
“I'm getting up next week so we'll see I guess.”
Oh fuck yes. You'll learn very quickly then, brother, that authority over a stage is something that needs to be won, and no one but the comedian can win it for themselves. As much as this guy thought he was helping the man on stage by giving him “something to play off”, that act of, in his mind, charity, or in the audience's mind, spite, destroyed the performer's confidence, and ruined his evening. If the comedian knows what they're doing, you'll know that they're in charge. If they're still learning, then there's nothing you can do to help them out other than sit quietly, listen, and laugh when you think it's funny. Anyone reading this, please remember that if you ever find yourself in a crowd watching comedy. That's all.
Peace, Taco.
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