HERE’S THE THING: Can you really trust comedy critics?

Welcome to HERE’S THE THING, where I talk about comedy-related things in a very HERE’S THE THING-type way.

I got to see Norm Macdonald perform at the New York Comedy Festival last Saturday. I say “I got to see,” because the ticket was paid for by the wonderful Julie Seabaugh, a fellow comedy journo who’s launching a new stand-up review site in the near future. I was reviewing the show, see, and therefore the ticket was free, which I think might have tainted my opinion.

The “free” part isn’t revolutionary news or anything. It’s common knowledge that reviewers get free things—whether it’s access to movie screenings, retail copies of video games, or box sets shaped like a house that contain every episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. As a comedy critic for the last five years, I’ve seen countless free shows. Most of them are $5 UCB showcases or $14 Improvised Shakespeare Company evenings (easily the best use of $14 in all of Chicago—including two specials at Hot Dougs). It’s rare that I get to see something like a $60 Norm Macdonald show in a huge New York theater during the heart of the town’s biggest comedy festival.

The point is, I thought the show was just so-so. The girl next to me, who had paid big money for the tickets and was a die-hard Norm Macdonald fan, fuckin’ loved the show, even though there were long stretches where the entire audience was clearly iffy about what was happening, given their silence and polite chuckles. I know this because she giggled giddily to herself many times, and afterwards was gushing about it. She was way more forgiving than me, clearly. So would I have enjoyed the show more if I had financially invested in its success?

I think so. It’s a basic psychological principle that our brains will want to take more away from something we’ve put a lot of our resources into (to put it loosely). That’s why members of hazing fraternities claim to love their frats more so than members of non-hazing ones; your brain is gonna find a way to justify the shit you had to go through. My gut tells me that if I had put in my own money to be entertained, and that amount of money was not insignificant, I would probably be subconsciously seeking much more enjoyment from the show, and therefore like it more. To be fair, I didn’t dislike the show, not by a long shot. It was just okay, which is a wishy-washy reaction I think some other form of investment would have pushed me one way or the other.

There’s this notion of the critic in pop culture as someone who’s totally removed, casting judgment from his or her ivory tower (in my case that tower is made of tenuously patched plaster walls and cheap bagels from the bodega on my block). I’ve never liked that perception, so I’ve done everything I can to remain engaged. I’ve gotten to know comedians and studied the ways they work behind-the-scenes as well as on stage. I’ve performed myself, to get a better sense of the difficulties of the process. I think deeply about the state of modern comedy, and refuse to mock something or snark up a review just for a few self-serving yuks. Obviously it’s a process, and I’m still working on it, but the point is that I care an awful lot about getting my true opinion out on the page.

The financial thing is just par for the course I suppose. If it wasn’t for the free tickets, I’d literally go broke doing what I love, as opposed to going semi-broke. I just wonder how my experience at the Norm show would have been different had I paid for the ticket myself. Every time I mentally checked out even for a second (probably thinking about my Skyrim character—I settled on a Breton, BTW), would there have been something snapping me back to reality because I wanted to make the most of this bank-breaking experience? How many of my reviews have been even-so-slightly tainted because I’m lucky enough—and extremely grateful, too—to have the kind of job where my ideal form of entertainment is often comped?

I don’t really know. All I can do is write about my experience with the show, and hope that no matter what other psychological factors are at play, my opinion means something.

When Amy Poehler first met Nick Offerman, he was “super scary”

I’m working on a profile of Amy Poehler for Variety, and during our conversation, she had this to say about the first time she met Nick Offerman, the man of many faces, in Chicago. He looked…very different:

“I remember meeting Nick Offerman in the early ’90s before I moved to New York. He was doing straight theater, A Clockwork Orange on stage [with Defiant Theatre]. He had his hair dyed orange and shaved, all except for two devil horns. For years I thought he was a super scary badass. Which, by the way, he can certainly tap into that, but he’s like the most lovable, kindest, greatest guy—a total straight-up giggler.”

Yikes! Hopefully we’ll see that look on Parks & Rec’s next Ron and Tammy-related episode.

HERE’S THE THING: Something else is now called “Here’s The Thing” even though it’s a really generic name for a thing

Welcome to HERE’S THE THING, where I talk about comedy-related things in a very HERE’S THE THING-type way.

Alec Baldwin has a new podcast on WNYC which he’s calling “Here’s The Thing,” even though a more fitting name would be, “Here’s The Five Minutes Of Set-Up For A 23-minute Thing.” I haven’t listened to the whole first episode, which includes an interview with Michael Douglas, because every time I try to pause it in Chrome the voice actually doubles up and then hitting play triples the voice and so on and so forth, and there’s enough of a lag between them all that it just ruins any chance of understanding what’s being said. Plus it was boring. It’s like two publicists trying to out-uninteresting-story one another.

My point is, Alec (if that is your real name), there’s already one snoozer of a thing called “Here’s The Thing.” And it’s this thing. My thing is so bad, in fact, that I called it “HERE’S THE THING,” literally the laziest thing to call a thing. Your thing features Alec Baldwin, star of 30 Rock and star of the most mind-bogglingly mundane posters for 30 Rock anyone has ever concocted. Your thing trumps my thing, but you’re still going with ‘Here’s The Thing”? Don’t you remember those posters I linked to in the last sentence?

My point is: I’m in New York; you’re in New York. You need guests; I need a place to talk about “Here’s The Thing.” Let’s get a good thing going.

HERE’S THE THING: Lessons from Los Angeles about comedy, writing, and why lessons are bullshit

Welcome to HERE’S THE THING, where I talk about comedy-related things in a very HERE’S THE THING-type way.

I just returned from six days in Los Angeles, which was a trip I took for two reasons: 1) To visit my wonderful friend Dave Carp, who recently moved out there, and 2) to get some answers. Two years ago, I quit my job at The A.V. Club’s Chicago section so I could pursue freelancing full-time as a writer. Specifically, it was time to attack national-interest pop culture stories, and that required a move to New York—arguably the center of journalism in the United States. I felt unbelievably self-assured in my decision, and this is coming from a guy who doubts himself about the color of the iPhone case he buys or the toppings on a pizza he just ordered.

It was a crazy thing to do, and I felt great about it. But what I gained in mobility and day-to-day work customization (today I played video games and wrote about Bored To Death), I lost in automatic career direction. Without the indicators of advancement present working for a media outlet—or really any job—I was feeling lost. What was I working towards? I’d felt like I’d become a better writer, but did anyone care, specifically my editors? There’s that self-doubt again.

So I was in LA looking for answers. And even though I feel like I got more of them than I had anticipated, I realized just how little I know, how much work I have ahead of me, and how excited I am to attack the nebulous unknown.

Before I arrived, I stacked my days with meetings—lunch, coffee, or otherwise—that I hoped would illuminate some of what I’m hoping to accomplish. See, I’ve been a journalist for many years, and have enjoyed the occasional comedy piece I write for reading/performing series like The Paper Machete, or stories I’ve told at The Moth or my very own The Jukebox. I wanted to know what sorts of things writers do, and I mean “writers” in the most general sense. I met with comedians and industry folk, my editors at Variety whom I’d corresponded with via email but never met in person, the people I know at Earwolf, and writers on TV shows I really like. I recorded a few podcasts, ate really good Mexican food unlike seemingly all of New York, and spent a lot of time bouncing crazy ideas back-and-forth off Dave. It was a ridiculously productive three-or-so days.

And I’m only talking about half of my trip here. Because by the time Friday rolled around (I’d arrived Tuesday), I had what I thought was a pretty good handle on what I needed to be doing:

• Take stock in what I have by putting together a writing packet that demonstrates all of my abilities, not just tailored to a particular show or opportunity. Make it customizable.
• Be self-assured in what I’m doing. If I want to be the preeminent comedy journalist or whatever, tell people that, and stick to that as much as possible.
• Network more. Keep talking to people who do cool things, and let them know about the cool things I do. You never know what you’ll find in the fringes, what sorts of jobs exist you didn’t think existed.

Productive, for sure.

But then I got a text from Garry Shandling Friday afternoon that began the chain of events to undo all that work—in the best possible way.

Okay, I should back up. I have this strange relationship with Garry Shandling—which sounds a lot creepier than it is. I interviewed him ever-so-briefly for Variety last summer, since he was going to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal. What was supposed to be a brief 15-minute chat turned into something more like an hour, and I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps Garry doesn’t get to talk to many journalists these days, because he doesn’t need promotion or his “people” only let few people through. Perhaps he sensed my genuine curiosity in what he had to say, and admired my lack of star-struck-edness. (I certainly think Garry Shandling is a genius; I’m just not easily fazed by celebrity, which I suppose makes me better at my job.) Whatever the reason, it was a great chat, and I let him know that I would be in Montreal when he receives his award. He gave me his number and told me to call him when I got into town. Maybe he thought that was the end of it, but what he didn’t know is that I will never not take somebody like Garry Shandling up on that.

So I called, it went right to voicemail, his mailbox was full, and I sort of figured, “Ah well.” Then I saw him at the actual ceremony, introduced myself, and the first thing he said to me was, “You never called me.” I assured him that, indeed, I had called, he told me to text him next time, and within 24 hours I was headed to his hotel for a private meeting. Again, not as creepy as it sounds.

The meeting regrettably lasted only a few minutes, because he had forgotten the exact time of his flight and had to get going. But he told me that if I ever found myself in LA, he’d be happy to meet with me. Maybe he thought that was the end of it, but what he didn’t know is that I will never not take somebody like Garry Shandling up on that.

So I’d texted throughout my trip, we had vague plans to meet up Friday afternoon, and I hadn’t heard back. I headed to the set of How I Met Your Mother, where a friend works, and watched the cast of one of my favorite shows goof around on-camera. Then Garry texted, and I had to leave. Dave came too.

We met at the secret boxing gym he belongs to, and we decided to drive out to the beach and go for a walk. Because he only had his Porsche with him, and it only seats two, we had to take Dave’s car, so off we went in this beat-up green Toyota.

There’s a lot I could tell you about my walk along the beach with Garry Shandling (and Dave). But the first thing he said to me as we headed to the car was, “Is this off the record?”, which of course it was, and I want to respect that. It wasn’t really that personal of a talk or anything, but you never know, so in the interest of playing it safe, I’ll just say that it was pretty surreal. He’s really in-tune with people, the way they’re behaving, and what’s causing their actions. VERY. He told me things about myself that I didn’t want to admit were true, but very much were.

One of those things was probably really obvious to everyone except for me: I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. BUT…that’s not a bad thing. The hungrier I am, he said, the more opportunities I’m going to take advantage of and the more I’m going to figure all this shit out. That’s just it, too—I’d been talking to all these people, telling them what interests me, and secretly hoping they would say something like, “Aha, you should be doing this!” Which, of course, they couldn’t. I had to remove myself from the pressure others put on me—the pressures of a career, the pressure to find answers and be working towards something—and simply keep doing what I’m doing. Take a deep breath, I’m fine. If it sounds very Zen, well, then you can be sure it came from Garry Shandling.

I came to LA seeking answers, and I learned that the pursuit of answers is fruitless. So here I am, writing this blog post, part of my new and invigorated goal to trust my instincts and meander. I’ve worked all day sitting at my computer and writing, and the last thing I want to be doing is sitting in front of my computer and writing. But, at the same time, it’s the only thing I want to do.