The Vagina Gonzalogues

100interviews:

“It has a head like a deer, stands upright like a man and hops like a frog,” reads an account of an unknown creature by 1700s explorers. “It sometimes sports two heads –- one on the shoulders, and one on the stomach.” Picturing such an animal brings up some pretty…

This is great. You should read this!

Jessica Pilot spent nine months hanging out at the Comedy Cellar. This is a really interesting piece which you should read. The one thing that’s confusing about it is the fact that she states several times that she wants to be doing comedy, except instead of making the trek to a decent open mic, she tried out her material on one of the club managers…

On a Wednesday night during the brief interval between the 9 and 11pm shows, I sat down with one of the club’s managers, Steve Fabricant, to test out some of my material…

I don’t exactly remember the first joke I told. All I recall is monologuing—okay, blathering—about the acid-induced time I lost my virginity and something to do with my Catholic grandmother calling me mid-coitus. Fabricant interrupted me before I could even deliver the punch line: “Who the fuck do you think you are? Sarah Silverman?”

How is the concept of doing an open mic at The Creek or whatever scarier to someone than the idea of trying out your material on one of the managers of one of the most respected comedy clubs in the country?

popculturebrain:

!!!

(Spoilers obviously)

So funny. Can’t wait to see this when I get the money together.

thecomicscomic:

molls:

As a fan of Choire’s and a personal friend and fan of James, I’m just going to leave this here and walk away slowly.

Molly, if it makes you feel any better, Choire and I already have had a friendly exchange of emails this afternoon. Although he has refused my challenge to a duel via Words With Friends.

I was going to write a post about that piece earlier on my Tumblr but I got lazy, but that piece really bothered me too. I’m tired of writers who don’t know very much about comedy weighing in on it in blogs and newspapers, making no effort to research or learn a little more about it. The Awl is a very good blog that delves very deeply into numerous topics that it’s writers choose to write about and it is surprising Choire didn’t bother going a little deeper here.. The problem is, most people think they are experts at comedy because they know a handful of stand-ups and watch sitcoms, but in reality, there is a whole world of live comedy they know very little about.

I’m not saying all writing about comedy should be left to the ultra-nerds, but there needs to be some acknowledgment that comedy exists outside of TV and film, right?

adamconover:

Bill Carter, writing in The War for Late Night about the years during which Johnny Carson secretly wrote jokes for Letterman:

The separation from the show that had been his life and utter preoccupation for thirty years had proved jarring for Carson. Friends reported that it had taken at least six months after he stepped down before Johnny could have a normal day — one in which he didn’t feel the withdrawal pangs. Even after he settled in to his postshow life, however, Carson could not turn off the trenchant comic instincts honed over a lifetime. He would read the paper in the morning, watch the news, hear about some zany event taking place somewhere, and the joke would simply come to him, like music. And what good is a perfectly crafted joke if you can’t tell it to someone?

… Johnny didn’t flood Dave with jokes, sending in only a few here and there whenever he felt they were worth. Letterman could not help but be moved, but promised he would judge the material as he would that from any other writer. … This was Johnny Carson, silenced by retirement, still using his comic voice, with Dave as the mouthpiece. Dave didn’t want to reveal the secret, and Johnny certainly didn’t want to offend NBC by having it publicly known that he was writing for the guy competing with The Tonight Show. So only a few insiders knew the source of the jokes, and which ones were Johnny’s when they got on the air.

Johnny himself took to watching the show every night wondering if Dave would use one of his submissions. (And if he, did, yes, Johnny would be paid his seventy-five dollars.) Whenever Dave did, Johnny’s joy was infectious, and he would call Lassally and excitedly tell him, “Oh my gosh, I got a joke on the air last night. Dave told one of my jokes.”

Lassally could hear the pride in Carson’s voice. “He was like a kid in a candy store,” Lassally recalled.

I found this really moving. What’s so compelling about the sagas of late night television is that, despite being at the absolute height of their profession, these are men who show time and time again that they care more about their craft and their fellow performers than they do about the immense amounts of money at stake. And yes, that applies to Jay Leno too, despite all his myopia — when so much of media is corporate, pre-determined and bereft of surprise, late night hosts still remain human.

A week after Johnny’s death, Letterman opened a tribute show by doing a monologue composed entirely of jokes Carson wrote for him, followed by a lengthy and touching interview with Peter Lassally, Carson’s longtime producer. The entire episode is on YouTube, and well worth watching.

I don’t have anything to add to this, I just find it really cool.

megsokay:

…I think the thing that’s personally getting me down (and I feel hesitant to discuss this, but here goes…) is I feel very acutely like many people were more supportive when I first started. Like, they expected me to move up the ladder faster for some reason, and because I haven’t, they have no time for me. I’m really interested in having a long career in comedy. I want to pay my dues and use my first few years to experiment. What’s weird is that people give me shit for trying a different approach or for writing a weirder punchline. Like, I’ve literally been mocked on stage by other comics more than once in the past week (singular week) for trying new stuff.  And then, when I do have a good set (and I know it’s good because people who don’t know me are laughing and tell me later it was good), it’s like those same people still have shit to say about me. To my face. So I feel very much as though there’s a whole block of people who have decided what I can and can’t do on stage, and that’s very demoralizing. And I feel like many of them have decided that I shouldn’t do comedy. (I would love to go into how I feel that girls aren’t allowed the same timeline to prove themselves as boys, but that’s a whole other can of worms not worth getting into here.)

Still, I’m trying to summon strength from all of this. Because I think that by going through all of this so early (I’m only 9 months into stand up, for Christ’s sake), it’s going to set the tone for the rest of my career. I’m learning that I have to do stuff that I believe in.

Here’s my two cents, which I hope make sense:

No one expected you to move up the ladder faster. I don’t mean you personally. I mean any newcomer in general. No one really puts that much thought into them because they’re all focused on their own successes and failures.

Stand-up in New York is very ruthless and everyone that developed and evolved here, that went from not getting laughs on stage to getting laughs on stage, has had the same stories of being made fun of from the stage and to their face. I don’t think it’s accurate to say girls aren’t allowed the same time line as guys. Guys get it much, much, much worse. Look at the guys who get picked on. It’s relentless.

I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to develop naturally. But people’s advice can sometimes steer someone in the right direction. The problem with a lot of stand-ups is they give advice in the most blunt and insulting way possible. As a result, many people dismiss the advice.

Most people around you, even the people who seem successful, are working at getting better. One of the nice things about stand-up is if someone bombs for five years and suddenly starts killing at every mic, the five years of bombing doesn’t matter. It’s erased. It’s a real meritocracy. All you have to worry about is getting consistent laughs and not letting people’s comments hurt you on a personal level. After all, no one’s worth as a human being is measured on their material.

gabydunn:

“Neighbors’ comments about the girl, which we reported in the story, seemed to reflect concern about what they saw as a lack of supervision that may have left her at risk,” said Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for the paper.

Nope, New York Times. Still wrong. Her clothing didn’t leave her at risk. Her choice to hang out with older kids didn’t leave her at risk. Why are we just accepting, in print, in one of the world’s most highly-regarded papers, that rape is going to happen to a child???? 

THE ONLY PEOPLE AT FAULT HERE ARE THE MEN WHO CHOSE TO RAPE AN 11 YEAR OLD GIRL. 

The factors as to why she was raped are singular as such: Men decided to rape her.

And maybe articles like this that continue to ask what the victim did wrong. THE ANSWER IS NOTHING. THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS NOTHING.

The point that should be addressed is, why do we live in a culture where a group of men can decide to rape an 11 year old? A sick thought that shouldn’t even be crossing their minds, let alone acted upon?

That’s the real tragic mystery. Not what a child did to invite her own rape.

I read the article and the focus of it is really weird…

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

At the same time though, I do think the parents of the girl should have been more responsible for the girl’s safety. It sounds like they were allowing her to spend way too much unsupervised time with older kids involved in various crimes.

Five suspects are students at Cleveland High School, including two members of the basketball team. Another is the 21-year-old son of a school board member. A few of the others have criminal records, from selling drugs to robbery and, in one case, manslaughter. The suspects range in age from middle schoolers to a 27-year-old.

I think the inclusion of this is weird…

They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

But this is not…

“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record. “How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?”

Obviously, the people completely at fault are the rapists, but it also does geniunely seem like the parents are bad at being parents and I don’t think it’s unfair to call attention to that fact.

I am on the fence if this article is putting blame on the girl or simply calling out that good parenting could have prevented the tragedy from taking place. Parts of the article’s tone did strike me as innappropriate.

ifc:

-saturdaynightlive:

somuchfunithurts:

For a guy who overcame so much to finally get to where he was, this is horribly sad news. His WTF interview from a little while back was amazing.

Incredibly sad news. Download his interview on WTF with Marc Maron here. As said, DeStefano overcame many challenges in his life including drug addiction and a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS, before achieving success last year as a finalist on Last Comic Standing. He was set to debut his one-man show A Cherry Tree in The Bronx in Barrow Street Theatre on Wednesday.

May he rest in peace.

I fortunately got to see him workshop his show last month - it was beyond fantastic. You’ll be missed, Mike.

Like I’ve been saying to friends this morning, I’m sure this isn’t the saddest thing about his shocking death, but Mike was blowing up. He had a great year and accomplished what so many comics dream of when they first start. I’m sure he had bigger goals on the horizon and it’s so sad to think of all the squandered potential.

Like I said though, that’s not the saddest thing about this. The saddest thing about this is the loss his friends and family feel. I’m sure first and foremost they miss him as a human being.