Lesson on the Craft of Stand-Up (and life, too, for that matter)
I came across a fun book a few years in a dollar story titled Comedy at the Edge — How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America , by Richard Zoglin, who is an entertainment editor and writer at Time. It was a fun read because that groundbreaking period of entertainment greatly influenced me. In fact, many of my sensitivities as a speaker, media producer, marketing communicator and writer came out of this heady time. This book reminded me of many lessons I learned in that time: 1. BE TRUE TO YOUR VISION. Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Albert Brooks, Andy Kaufman - all of them had a unique view of comedy to express, whether it was expressing subject matter that was previously taboo, intricate wordplay, maintaining your unique vantage point (i.e., gender, race) or simply turning the tables on the audience through irony. If you have such a vision, whether you are the next Jackson Pollock or Le Corbusier, stick to it. 2.OLD METHODOLOGIES PASS. The comedians i...