Comedy is Serious Business

Well it's October so it's time for an obligatory Halloween centric blog post. Instead of talking about my favorite horror movie, however, I'm going to do what I do best: talk about things that annoy me.

I appreciate a good scary movie now and again. I just recently watched George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" for the first time and I absolutely loved it. It had all the right ingredients for not only a great horror movie, but a great movie in general: fantastic story, a perfectly suited atmosphere, and to top it all off, it had an African-American in the lead role who was smart, well-spoken, and didn't die in the first ten minutes of the movie. Even more impressive was the fact that this movie was shot in the late 60s amongst extremely high racial tension. I don't know why it took me so long to see this movie, given my pro-zombie disposition, but I'm a better person for doing so.

The plot of all the great slasher movies from the late 70s into the 80s were all the same, but they were the pioneers of that genre and movies were (and still are) very entertaining. It's now about 30 years later and horror movies now just rehash the same story: there are a group of people who wander somewhere unfamiliar and they are killed one by one until the movie ends. Thing is, writers and directors of current movies do nothing to improve the genre; if anything, the movies now are worse. There is no time spent building up tension with foreboding set and developing a well established threat or villain. The concern now is more on how gruesome the deaths can be or there are "jumpers" every five minutes than actually making a good movie.

Nothing bugs me more than "jumpers" in horror movies. "Jumpers" is the name for when there's a long period of silence in a movie before something jumps out (hence the name) to startle the audience. Bottom line: jumpers are cheap, lazy ways to scare movie goers. There's no need for foreboding sets or well established threats when these movies are doing the equivalent of what a child does to scare a sibling. The worst part is that now the entire remainder of the movie is spent in anticipation, waiting for something to pop out unexpectedly. I get that's the point of the movie and that's why people see these movies in the first place, but for me, as soon as the first jumper appears, my focus shifts from the dialogue or plot to wondering which dark corner the killer will jump out from behind next.

What I think is truly scary are psychological thrillers. The horror movie slasher can always be defeated or outran, but what if the true horror is all in your mind (cue lightning and maniacal laughter)? Almost every episode of "The Twilight Zone" dealt with someone going losing their sanity but that's what made them equally terrifying and entertaining. Whatever was menacing them was all in their mind, therefore making the threat unescapable thereby making it even more terrifying. It takes actual writing skill to develop characters and then gradually break down the human psyche over the course of a movie.

A horror movie should not be about how much blood is shown on screen or how brutal a certain kill was, but rather making the audience feel unsettled and uncomfortable in their own mind. That's why so many people are afraid of the dark; they know nothing is there, but they're terrified of what could be there. And the best part is: whatever unseen, unspeakable thing is lurking in the unknown is being imagined by the scared party themselves. The best horror movie words to live by? Nothing is scarier.

When I “rebooted” this blog a couple of months ago, I tried to make my text posts more topic oriented rather than blog about my personal life. The reason being is that, frankly, I lead a very boring life. I’m the quintessential nerd: most of my day is spent immobile in front of a illuminated screen. Also, I always found personal blogs (with the exception of a few) very pretentious. When I hear the phrase “Oh, I totally blog about this!” or “You should definitely read my blog!” it makes never want to blog again out of fear of becoming that guy.

Now I’m going to break my one rule. I think enough semi-interesting things have happened in my life in the past couple of months to amass one semi-interesting blog post. I guess that’s enough build up, let’s get to it.

As of right now, I’m 23-years-old and just graduated college with a B.A. in Communications (concentration in theatre and comedy) with a minor in music. Why my parents would allow their child to do that, especially in this economy, is beyond me. And, if you couldn’t already guess, I’m extremely unemployed.

After sending job applications pretty much everywhere, I finally got hired at a hardware store whose name rhymes with “The Dome Depot.” Now let that sink in: I’m a stay at home nerd with a B.A. in theatre. I’ve never done anything physical or handy in my entire life. I took the job fully aware ofthe cosmic irony of the situation. Also because I was dead broke. A few days and training courses later, I was a certified garden associate.

I became very proficient in the art of bullshitting. I confidently sold lawnmowers, grills, soil, and fertilizer having never used these items before. When I wasn’t doing that, I was usually picking something very heavy up to put back down in another location. The job was murder on my legs (the floor, in its entirety, was comprised of industrial strength concrete) but the pay was decent.

After about four months, my appendix decided it had had enough of its meaningless existence and ruptured. If you want an effective weight loss regimen, have your appendix explode. You’ll have no appetite in which to eat your liquid based diet. Plus, an entire organ gets removed from your body so that’s about a pound or so right there. On top of that, no physical effort is necessary; you can sleep all you want. Don’t even get me started on the miracle that is painkillers.

When I got out of the hospital, I had a few weeks off from work in order to stay home and rest. This was an eye opening experience for me. I realized that even though I was earning a paycheck, I had no time to focus on my career. After a shift, I was too physically and mentally exhausted to write, I wasn’t performing stand-up, and my saxophones were collecting dust. As far as I was concerned, it was wasting my time. Mostly it was a hinderance keeping me from what I went to college for. I couldn’t see myself working at the hardware store anymore. I had to quit.

Oh, cliffhanger! Part two to come sometime soon.

Voice acting is something I find extremely fascinating. I think I first became interested in voice acting when I looked up Tom Kenny’s name on the Internet Movie Database a few years back an found that, in addition to Spongebob Squarepants, he did voices in almost all the cartoons I watched as a kid. For one person to have that much versatility with their voice completely blew my mind. After that, I looked up just about every cartoon and video game from my childhood and realized the same group of voice actors and actresses appeared in almost every single one. Making ridiculous voices all day and getting paid for it? That’s what I want to do for a living. To this day, I still watch cartoons just to see if I can distinguish which voice actor plays which character (at least, that’s what I tell myself).

But it seems that there’s some kind of glass ceiling in the field of voice work. No matter how many cartoons, video games, or television and radio commercials a voice actor does, it seems they are always overlooked when it comes to doing a voice for an animated feature film. It’s not like I don’t understand why, either. Studios would rather go with a marketable, A-list celebrity to voice the protagonist in their movie rather than the guy who played “Cow” on a cartoon called “Cow and Chicken.” However, here’s where the problem lies.

When it comes to acting, a great actor is able to convincingly convey emotion visually through the combination of dialogue, subtle movements, carefully chosen gestures, and facial expressions. When that same actor is cast in an animated role, however, you’re taking away the visual aspects of their performance. And not all actors can emulate their dramatic performances through just the voice. It’s like approaching a world renown concert pianist, taking all the white keys off his piano, and then still expect a fantastic performance.

By contrast, the only performance you get from a voice actor is perceived audibly. So all of the subtle movements, carefully chosen gestures, and facial expressions HAVE to be portrayed through the voice alone. It’s their main instrument. This is what makes a voice actor the ideal choice when it comes to casting an animated film. An “onscreen” actor may be emoting like crazy behind the microphone in the studio but, unfortunately for them, all that is going to be seen is a cartoon. Essentially, now you’re just hearing them talk. And, more often then not, most actors give bland, monotone voice over performances. The movie is now an animated audiobook. So, even though a voice actor’s credits may include “Various Background Noises” or, a step up from that, “Guy #4,” they have the knowledge and the capacity to give riveting, emotionally charged performances with just the voice.

*Just a quick, personal side note, but after watching interviews with the Japanese voice cast of “Street Fighter IV,” I found it interesting that a majority of the voice actors were avid fans of the Street Fighter series. Those who didn’t play the games were at least aware of the series and its popularity. In contrast, in the interviews I’ve seen, most English speaking voice actors rarely, if ever, play the games they do voices in nor do they express any interest in doing so.

I’m not saying all actors are bad voice actors. It seems that comedians usually give the best voice over performances because they have a tendency to over act, which is great because it’s giving the performance life and personality. However, because acting is all about the physical choices one makes, most actors have a hard time shedding that mentality when recording a voice over role, giving a boring, lackluster performance. Actors should leave the voice over work to the professionals and studios should cast experienced voice actors for animated features. Think about it, they wouldn’t cast a voice actor for a live action film, would they? Oh wait, they don’t do that either. Maybe it’s time for me to consider a different career path…

*I’m about to nerd it up hardcore, so brace yourselves. Also, let it be known that these are my personal opinions, not to be mistaken as fact nor am I forcing anyone to think the same as me. Especially since it’s a rant about zombies that I’m putting on the internet.

Zombies. You love them. I love them. Who doesn’t? We can’t get enough of the slow yet unrelenting terror of the overwhelming mass that is the living dead. And why is that? Mostly because we get a sick satisfaction of killing something human-esque. A satisfaction that can’t be achieved by killing something impersonal, such as a robot or an alien. However there’s also the lack of guilt that comes with blowing the head off a zombie because, hey, there’s nothing morally wrong with killing someone that’s already dead. So we can gun down hordes of infected until our fingers are sore and still have a clear conscious. It’s the best of both worlds.

And that’s what makes zombies great. Everyone loves watching the senseless violence of something that looks human meet a gruesome demise, be it firsthand through video games or viewing it on television or the big screen.

But recently something has happened to zombies. Something that’s taking away from the mindless enjoyment of gratuitous bloodshed. The one thing we see zombie movies for. It’s gradually shifting focus from the shambling monsters to the humans living amongst the outbreak. It’s stripping away the fundamentals of the classic, B-movie horror genre. And that something is called “story.”

Before you throw your computer at a wall in disgust, let me plead my case. Think about the plot of any “Friday the 13th” or “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie. If you answered “some guy kills a bunch of people,” you’re absolutely correct. Their simplicity is what made those movies memorable. Now, think of the plot to “The Walking Dead.” It’s okay, I’ll wait. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s such an intricate combination of a constantly changing, ensemble cast with complicated relationships between characters based on lies and deception built on a heavy, brooding plot that you forget zombies are even a threat. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that this is the reason this series is so popular, and I respect the art of character development and story telling. But I wanted zombies. If I wanted character arcs and sophisticated plots, I’d watch a soap opera. And that’s exactly what “The Walking Dead” is. A soap opera. In the foreword by the series’s author, he blatantly states that he wanted the focus to be on the humans rather than the zombies. It’s a soap opera where the characters occasionally run into some zombies. That is, if we’re lucky.

At first, the movie “Zombieland” looked like it had everything I could want in a movie about the undead. Over-the-top violence, a quirky, well-balanced cast, and it even had a cameo from Bill Murray, who stars has himself. But the Bill Murray scene goes on for so long that he stops being a cameo and turns into a costar. They were so busy palling around with Bill Murray that, when I first saw this movie, I actually forgot that I was watching a movie called “Zombieland” and that the characters were in fact looking for a safe haven from the zombie apocalypse.

I’m not bad mouthing Bill Murray. If you’re still reading, then you probably understood that. It’s that his scenes take so much away from an otherwise entertaining film. It seemed like the only reason Bill Murray’s scenes were in the movie was to wave him in front of the audiences faces’ as if to say “Look who we got to do the movie!” One of the main characters literally gushes over the fact that he’s meeting Bill Murray. To Bill Murray. On screen. The scenes advance the plot in no way and only end when (spoilers) one of the main characters accidentally shoots Bill Murray. Had his abrupt death not happened, the movie could have ended when the main characters first arrived at his house and the movie could have been retitled as “Bill Murray and Friends! (also some zombies?)”

This is just one movie and one graphic novel turned television show amongst dozens that boast the word “zombie,” “28 (period of time) later,” or “(noun) of the dead” in the title yet the actual undead have the least bit of screen time. The rest of the time, the main characters are too busy fighting amongst themselves to even care about the dead who have risen to feast on their insides. And I get it. “Man is the real monster.” Okay, the original “Night of the Living Dead” covered that. Can we just have scenes of zombies dying in ridiculous ways for two hours?

So far, the only pieces of zombie media that that has gotten it right are the video games “Dead Rising” and “Left 4 Dead.” Little to no story. Extremely violent. Hordes of zombies. Thoroughly entertaining. You learn about characters through their dialogue as they kill zombies, rather than setting aside 45 minutes of character development before even mentioning the z-word.

In short, I like “zombie movies.” Not dramas with moral lessons about society where the undead occasionally make an appearance. Why is it that zombies are the only monsters whose movies serve as a metaphor for humanity? That doesn’t happen with any other B-movie villain, so why zombies? No one is expecting a zombie movie to be thought provoking and emotionally moving so stop trying to make them that way. I want characters one-dimensional, the number of infected overwhelming, and my onscreen executions stomach-churning. And, honestly, shouldn’t all movies be that way?

There needs to be a major reformation in the way movies are reviewed. I’m not saying that I have the best taste in movies (one of my favorites is “Good Burger”) but it bugs me how there is a certain, unwritten standard that all movies made must uphold. Why is that? The main purpose of a movie is to entertain. If a movie keeps your interest for it’s entirety, it accomplished what it was made to do. Not all movies have to be thought provoking or emotionally charged. Sometimes we just want to see a guy shoot something for two hours. Yet we feel ashamed that we saw “Guy Shooting Stuff for Two Hours” because it got an abysmal review.

I think the main problem lies with who it is exactly that critiques these films. Can someone explain to me why the guy who saw and raved about “The King’s Speech” is also seeing and reviewing “The Green Lantern”? Most movie critics see “Citizen Kane” and “The Godfather” as the best movies ever made, so there’s a bias when they have to sit and watch the latest, mindless action film. Why waste their time? They know what they’re getting into and weknow what we’re getting into when we fork over the $11 to watch things explode and have our senses numbed. They write things like “poorly written dialogue” and “convoluted story” in their reviews like it’s a surprise. Now, people who would have genuinely enjoyed the movie steer clear because some online critic gave it one-out-of-five sour lemons. On the flip side of that, a movie can be described as “emotionally stirring” and called “the film that will define our generation” so a person races out to see it, only to find it the most boring thing they’ve ever had to sit through.

My solution: when movies are reviewed, have the films sorted by genre and have a different critic who specializes in that particular genre critique the movies in their respective genre (you follow that? Good). That way, a movie about pirates and robots isn’t being compared to the dramatic period piece that’s playing two theaters over. Each film can stand on it’s own within it’s appropriate genre. Or, better yet, we can stop reviewing movies altogether. Let people form their own opinion about the movie they’re watching. What you think about a film shouldn’t be based on someone else’s experience. You be the judge of that.

I always thought that what made a person a movie critic is the ability to understand the finer points of a film, not having your own, unwavering set of expectations that you judge every film you see by. Not every film maker is trying to appeal to your ridiculously high standards. Instead of calling “Guy Shooting Stuff for Two Hours” mindless drivel, a good film critic should say “Although I didn’t particularly care for the film, there is a certain population that would appreciate the part where the guy fires a chainsaw out of a shotgun.”

I’ve heard that performing stand-up comedy is like getting up in front of a group of people and masturbating. This sums up the mentality behind stand-up comedy to a tee. There is an overwhelming feeling of vulnerability when it comes to standing onstage and getting a room of complete strangers to laugh at jokes based on your own personal, life experiences. Also, it only lasts a few minutes (Hiyoooo!).


It may not seem like it, but performing stand-up is hard. There is an art to crafting a genuinely funny joke that the whole audience can relate to. From there, it’s a matter of trial and error. Finding out of a joke works or not. Finding out what part of a joke works or not. Finding a way to make the parts that don’t work, work. Then there is, of course, the “stand-up” part, which entails getting on stage—alone—and making people laugh for anywhere from five minutes to an hour. Not to mention it takes years to get discovered and even longer to get to the level of Louis C.K. or Ricky Gervais. However, it seems as though only a handful of comedians nowadays actually take the time to write good material and the jokes get even worse with up and coming comedians.


Now, I must say I am part of these up and coming comedians (I’ve been doing stand-up sporadically for about two years now) and I’m by all means not the best comic ever, but I can tell the good comedians from the bad ones. When I first started taking courses, my instructor always stressed how important it was to keep your material as clean as possible and to try and stay away from toilet humor. This made sense; with clean material, you have more of a chance to be booked for a television gig without having half of your set bleeped out and, since most people are ordering food while you perform, you don’t want to talk about poop the whole time. It also made you a better writer, having to draw from personal experiences for your jokes rather than resorting to blue humor.


Imagine my surprise when I started doing open mics and new talent shows at comedy clubs and 90% of the jokes told by the other comedians were about drugs, vulgar sex stories, and copious use of the word “fuck” (warning, this blog post may contain the word “fuck”). The other 10% consisted of “you had to be there” stories that had the performer’s friends in the audience howling with laughter, leaving the rest of the crowd confused and me enraged. How is it that the jokes I spent months fine tuning and killed in all my classes get moderate audience response while the mere mention of marijuana would send the audience into uproarious applause?


I must shamefully admit, however, that whenever a female comedian takes the stage, it elicits an involuntary eye roll. Almost all the female comedians I’ve seen do one of two things: tell female oriented jokes that alienate all the (straight) male members of the audience or tell overly explicit stories seemingly to prove something. What exactly it is that they’re trying to prove is still beyond me. Anyone, regardless of gender, is capable of telling a great joke that people can relate to so I don’t understand why female comedians feel like they have to try so much harder to do so. Ellen DeGeneres is hilarious without resorting to these two methods of telling jokes so the “glass ceiling” that most female comedians seem to be experiencing is self imposed.


I know you must be thinking, “Oh, well maybe you just aren’t as funny as you think.” I’ve had a couple of people approach me to perform regularly at their club and a script that I cowrote is a finalist in the New York Television Festival Script Writing Contest held by Fox (boom), so I feel pretty vindicated. I’m not trying to turn anyone off from becoming a stand-up comedian, nor am I going to quit but these are the things one must deal with when attempting stand-up as a career. Now, if I were a successful comedian with a steady income, this post would have a more optimistic ending.


*Here’s a link of me performing stand-up. It’s from when I first started and you can tell I’m nervous but I got great audience response that night. Shazaam!

Actually, this is the first post.  It just seems like everyone titles their first post "First Post" or something similar so I wanted to have something a little different but lack the creativity to think of anything phenomenal because it's 3:45 a.m.  The posts on my Tumblr were getting overshadowed by .gifs of Pokemon and pictures of television shows from the 90s so I started this blog for the sole purpose of posting only text...posts.  Okay, maybe there'll be some pictures, possibly of Pokemon, but I promise to keep them under control.  So, absolutely no one, enjoy my stream of consciousness as I post about movies, comedy, voice acting and other nerdy things.

*Number of times the word "post" appears in this post: 10 (including the title)