Does Anyone Remember Laughter?

Dino -1991, originally uploaded by Dark Sevier.

Sitting down.

Scotty Baron and Dark Sevier- 1991, originally uploaded by Dark Sevier.

I lost my sense of humor doing stand-up. Ha ha.

It was the early 1990's. Los Angeles California. Jerry Seinfeld was the King of Comedy, but relatively unknown. Bill Hicks was still alive, kicking every PC dogma that came walking down the Boulevard.

A&E's Evening at the Improv was defining the comedic craft for the rest of the decade. We all suffered for it: the comics, the audience, the art.

I bought it. I was in. I came to Hollywood to make it big, baby. The comedy biz was booming. In the mid 80's there were fewer than 50 comedy clubs in the country. By the early 90's there were over 500 possible gigs for the chuckle hucksters that were willing and able to work the road. Some of us hoped to bypass having to gig the comedy underbelly by being "discovered" in Hollywood. The cable comedy shows were multiplying, but they all seemed to be taking their que from the master packagers, the McDonalds of comedy, The Improvisation. The Improv discouraged improvisational comedy, ironicly. Ain't that funny?

The steriotypical Improv comic was wacky. Geeks. Freaks. Self effacing hacks. Really slick one trick ponys. No edge, no power, no guts. All they needed was a tight seven minuites and a willingness to prostrate their craft in front of the club owners, Bud Friedman and/or Mark Lonow . They were the perceived gatekeepers to the industry (I have my theory on how that came to be so, but it's too laden with animosity and conjecture to spill here, now).

The comics tried to unionize several times. They are a hard lot to get togeather for anything serious. As they should be. Perfect to a flaw. There was a comedy blacklist in the seventies when they tried to organize. Scabs took the stage in LA and NY, and for the most part still have it.

After honing my act and building my craft for a whopping thirteen months, I was ushered into "The New Faces" of the Improvisation. I was one of thirteen chosen out of over two thousand auditioning comedians. I was stoked, but puzzled. Why did my favorite contemporaries not make the cut?

We, the farm team, were encouraged to "hang out" at the Melrose club. There we would gain exposure to industry people. we might be "seen by someone". If a paid comic was unable to show, or the audience wasn't too badly bludgeoned by the idiocy and bitterness of the "regulars", we might have the supreme good fortune of being able to step in front of that famous (fake) brick wall. For no pay.

And we did. For several years, some of us. For several years some of the most incisive wits among us continued to audition, and fail to make the cut. This is my opinion of course, humor being a subjective thing. All I have, really, is my experience and perceptions of the whole thing.

Here is my favorite one;

A thirteen year old comic, Casey something, form New York spends the summer in LA with her nanny working out her act at all the open mic's in town. She's honing her craft for the big audition in front of Bud on the Melrose stage. Her big night comes. She does a great job in the two minuites alloted; great stage presence, solid, thoughtfull, and mature material for her age. She gets to sit at Bud's table for her critique. According to my agent at the time, who was sitting at the table with Casey, Bud congradulated her for a good job done, then began his critique:

"The joke about the Yuppies( "Yuppies are now writing childrens stories. The only problem is: they don't have any morals."),it was good, but have you thought about using the word ethics instead of morals? People might identify with that word better."

Casey was mortified, she was kicking our agent under the table in a plea for help. She was flaberghasted herself but managed to segue the canversation around Bud's mental wreckage. When my agent told me the story, I decided to quit the Improv Farm Team. and comedy. The guys that had been shaping my art were morons. I had been shaping my craft to fit into their pea brains. The perameters I had willingly squeezed myself into were pea braining me.

I see the comedian as serving the roll and function of the Court Jester, the closest advisor to the King. The Jester had the delicate task of holding a mirror up to the court to show them their folly, but in a way that didn't threaten his neck.

As a republic we need to be shown our folley so we can laugh at it. The laughter brands our folley so we can more easily recognise it when we face it again. Without the laughter, we live in isolation, in the delusion that all this is serious business. Life is not just politics and car wrecks. There is beauty and love and hilarious lessons to be learned.

Laughter is the best medicine. Where are our doctors?





(to be continued...)








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