Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Comedy in Berlin
Comedy in Berlin
A Canadian company flew me out to Berlin to do an hour “wake-up” speech for their sales force after lunch. People ask me why I don’t do comedy clubs any more. Hmmmm, let me think a moment. Traveling first class, staying at 5-star hotels, taken out to French meals, an hour set to an appreciative audience, verses 8 shows a week for drunks while sharing a cockroach infested “comedy condo.” Corporate Comedy rocks and more on that later.
German comedy is very different than American standup. Germans love their Cabarets where the comedy is delivered Jerry Lewis style. Rather than personal revelatory comedy, they love political satire where the comic doesn’t hit the nail on the head, but jokes are clever and ironic.
I started to understand the nature of comedy in Europe at the Fringe festival a few years ago when I over heard a Brit talking to a German saying, “America comics have no sense of irony.” I lean over and said, “I over heard what you said and isn’t it ironic that I’m an American comic and overheard you?” He said, “No, and exactly my point.”
We Americans don’t understand irony. Not even Alanis Morissette, because “a fly in your Chardonnay” isn’t ironic, but unfortunate. Perhaps it would be ironic if you just came from a meeting of the society for pest control and voted no to the use of pesticides to rid the world of flies and you were toasting your success and there was then a fly in your wine. Or not. See we don’t truly understand irony.
American standup is self defacing, authentic, and shame based. “I just broke up with my boyfriend,” “I can’t get laid,” “My father was Nazi.” In other countries, these remarks are kept private. Perhaps that’s because American’s have such a short history and aren’t in touch with themselves in relationship to the rest of the world. Only 4% of Americans have passports. I was talking to a woman who told me she had a wonderful time in France – Epcot France. Disney’s version of France is where people eat Kraft cheese on Starbucks croissants and the “French” people are friendly.
While in Germany I was invited to headline at the Kookaburra Comedy club on English speaking night. How would a German audience react to my “hit the nail on the head Jewish humor? More next blog.
A Canadian company flew me out to Berlin to do an hour “wake-up” speech for their sales force after lunch. People ask me why I don’t do comedy clubs any more. Hmmmm, let me think a moment. Traveling first class, staying at 5-star hotels, taken out to French meals, an hour set to an appreciative audience, verses 8 shows a week for drunks while sharing a cockroach infested “comedy condo.” Corporate Comedy rocks and more on that later.
German comedy is very different than American standup. Germans love their Cabarets where the comedy is delivered Jerry Lewis style. Rather than personal revelatory comedy, they love political satire where the comic doesn’t hit the nail on the head, but jokes are clever and ironic.
I started to understand the nature of comedy in Europe at the Fringe festival a few years ago when I over heard a Brit talking to a German saying, “America comics have no sense of irony.” I lean over and said, “I over heard what you said and isn’t it ironic that I’m an American comic and overheard you?” He said, “No, and exactly my point.”
We Americans don’t understand irony. Not even Alanis Morissette, because “a fly in your Chardonnay” isn’t ironic, but unfortunate. Perhaps it would be ironic if you just came from a meeting of the society for pest control and voted no to the use of pesticides to rid the world of flies and you were toasting your success and there was then a fly in your wine. Or not. See we don’t truly understand irony.
American standup is self defacing, authentic, and shame based. “I just broke up with my boyfriend,” “I can’t get laid,” “My father was Nazi.” In other countries, these remarks are kept private. Perhaps that’s because American’s have such a short history and aren’t in touch with themselves in relationship to the rest of the world. Only 4% of Americans have passports. I was talking to a woman who told me she had a wonderful time in France – Epcot France. Disney’s version of France is where people eat Kraft cheese on Starbucks croissants and the “French” people are friendly.
While in Germany I was invited to headline at the Kookaburra Comedy club on English speaking night. How would a German audience react to my “hit the nail on the head Jewish humor? More next blog.
Comedy in Berlin 2
Comedy in Berlin 2
Most Germans I spoke to have great shame about the Holocaust. The Jewish Museum was filled with school tours. It seems to me that young Germans are fully aware of the atrocities that happened. However, I couldn’t find one person who heard what happened during World War 2 first hand from their grandparents. “They just don’t talk about it.”
I did my “Let’s REALLY talk about what happened” set at a local comedy club on English-speaking night. The evening started with Kim who is a cabaret singer from Australia who was very charming. Then Tamara Augustin-Ingram, a black American comic did a great set about being black in Germany. It was interesting as Germans don’t have a “Ghetto Rap” culture, but they know all about it from TV. Turn on German TV and there is everything from Chris Rock to the Nanny duped in German. And if you thought “The Nanny” was annoying in English…But they loved Tamara who I met when she attended the California Comedy Conference in Palm Springs.(And some of you think it’s too far to go from the Valley.) Also, performing was another American comic Robert Lyons who is from Kansas and came to Germany to become a soap opera star. He did a great five minute set. Next it was my turn.
When Germans find out someone is Jewish, they usually make a point of being very nice and will pick up the check at a restaurant. I guess it’s sort of an apology. "Sorry about killing six million of your relatives let me pay for your schnitzel."
It was a shocker to them when I opened the show with this routine: “I’ve had a wonderful uplifting time in Berlin. I went to the Jewish museum, then to the holocaust tower, and on to a tour of a concentration camp. Then I when to a Brecht play about Waiting for Death. I’m thinking that a perfect end to this holiday will be a suicide. That’s the last time I book my travels via Kafka.com.”
There was a silence as if no one wanted to be the first to laugh at a joke containing the word “concentration camp,” and then they fell on the floor in laughter. I had to explain to the audience that being Jewish, it was “OK for me to joke” about my experience and I gave them permission to laugh. Once I explained the rules (Germans love rules), not speaking modestly, I tore the place apart.
All comics should travel. It gave me a new perceptive on being an American. So much we do, we don’t realize it, but we are being “American.” And that isn’t normal to other people. Being in another country, I finally truly understood the meaning of a comic’s “Point of View.”
More on Point of View and Premises in the next blog.
Most Germans I spoke to have great shame about the Holocaust. The Jewish Museum was filled with school tours. It seems to me that young Germans are fully aware of the atrocities that happened. However, I couldn’t find one person who heard what happened during World War 2 first hand from their grandparents. “They just don’t talk about it.”
I did my “Let’s REALLY talk about what happened” set at a local comedy club on English-speaking night. The evening started with Kim who is a cabaret singer from Australia who was very charming. Then Tamara Augustin-Ingram, a black American comic did a great set about being black in Germany. It was interesting as Germans don’t have a “Ghetto Rap” culture, but they know all about it from TV. Turn on German TV and there is everything from Chris Rock to the Nanny duped in German. And if you thought “The Nanny” was annoying in English…But they loved Tamara who I met when she attended the California Comedy Conference in Palm Springs.(And some of you think it’s too far to go from the Valley.) Also, performing was another American comic Robert Lyons who is from Kansas and came to Germany to become a soap opera star. He did a great five minute set. Next it was my turn.
When Germans find out someone is Jewish, they usually make a point of being very nice and will pick up the check at a restaurant. I guess it’s sort of an apology. "Sorry about killing six million of your relatives let me pay for your schnitzel."
It was a shocker to them when I opened the show with this routine: “I’ve had a wonderful uplifting time in Berlin. I went to the Jewish museum, then to the holocaust tower, and on to a tour of a concentration camp. Then I when to a Brecht play about Waiting for Death. I’m thinking that a perfect end to this holiday will be a suicide. That’s the last time I book my travels via Kafka.com.”
There was a silence as if no one wanted to be the first to laugh at a joke containing the word “concentration camp,” and then they fell on the floor in laughter. I had to explain to the audience that being Jewish, it was “OK for me to joke” about my experience and I gave them permission to laugh. Once I explained the rules (Germans love rules), not speaking modestly, I tore the place apart.
All comics should travel. It gave me a new perceptive on being an American. So much we do, we don’t realize it, but we are being “American.” And that isn’t normal to other people. Being in another country, I finally truly understood the meaning of a comic’s “Point of View.”
More on Point of View and Premises in the next blog.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Corporate Comedy Rocks!
Corporate Comedy Rocks!
I got a corporte gig in Berlin. A Canadian company flew me out to Berlin where they wanted me to liven up their lunch time sales meeting. I get first class air to Europe, all expenses paid at a five star hotel, and dinners in fancy schmacy restaurants. You might think, “That’s not a job, it’s a scam.” Hey, as Donna Summers said, “I’m working hard for the money.” Corporates are not that easy – especially lunch gigs.
I’ve performed in Vegas, Atlantic City, and now I’m workin’ a buffet in Berlin. People say that comedy is hard, but comedy is hardest when there is sunlight streaming into the room. There is something about daylight that is a comedy killer. That long with the fact that we comics usually perform for people who are drunk, not people who are hung over.
There are always challenges working these corporate gigs. At first they weren’t going to give me a stage. Actually, forget about a stage, they didn’t want to give me a platform.
“We figured you would just wander around the tables doing jokes.”
I’m not kidding. I was lucky there was a mic. I brought up the point that I needed a platform as I’m short – and people would need to be able to distinguish me from the waiters. I got the platform.
So, I’m standing on a little platform in the center of the room with no one in front of me and 35 sales people to each side. There is a window behind me making people squint at the sunlight streaming into the room.
Corporate comedy always starts off a bit awkward. They’ve just come from a Powerpoint demonstration on sales projections and are not in the “comedy club mentality.” To ease them into my schick, I spend a lot of time preparing customized material. A week prior to the event, I spoke to the director of marketing as well as a few sales guys themselves. They told me that they were stressed about working out of their car, dealing with wacky pharmacists, and upcoming Canadian legislation called Bill 102. This ended up in a “Pharmaceutical Rap Song.”
“Got into the drug sales game
But I can’t pronounce drugs name
Now I’m getting really confused
Cause here comes bill 102
With this bill 102
We are all going be screwed
Cause feds policy's not written by a genius
More like Butthead and Beavis..”
Then I had to deal with the fact that I was Jewish and in Germany. I had to comment on it, but what? I turned to comic, Ritch Shydner for advice. He said, “Say, ‘I’m Jewish. Hey, wasn’t there something that happened 60 years ago? That’s over right?”
That worked. Emily Levine has a great German-Jewish joke, “When I performed comedy in Germany they told me, ‘You’re cute as a button.’ But then I was afraid that they meant that I would be ‘cute as a button.’” Great joke.
The gig went great. The good thing was that the audience was mostly Canadians. Canadians are friendly unpretentious people who laugh easily. When I perform in Canada I say words I wouldn’t say in the States, such as “Nipples!” Not only do I not say that word when performing for the American humor impaired corporate culture, I take them off before stepping onstage.
I was a hit. The director of marketing asked me to perform at another gig in February 07. I was invited to join the group for a 5 course meal that night and a tour the next day and partied with them into the wee hours of the night.
OK, OK… maybe it is a scam.
I got a corporte gig in Berlin. A Canadian company flew me out to Berlin where they wanted me to liven up their lunch time sales meeting. I get first class air to Europe, all expenses paid at a five star hotel, and dinners in fancy schmacy restaurants. You might think, “That’s not a job, it’s a scam.” Hey, as Donna Summers said, “I’m working hard for the money.” Corporates are not that easy – especially lunch gigs.
I’ve performed in Vegas, Atlantic City, and now I’m workin’ a buffet in Berlin. People say that comedy is hard, but comedy is hardest when there is sunlight streaming into the room. There is something about daylight that is a comedy killer. That long with the fact that we comics usually perform for people who are drunk, not people who are hung over.
There are always challenges working these corporate gigs. At first they weren’t going to give me a stage. Actually, forget about a stage, they didn’t want to give me a platform.
“We figured you would just wander around the tables doing jokes.”
I’m not kidding. I was lucky there was a mic. I brought up the point that I needed a platform as I’m short – and people would need to be able to distinguish me from the waiters. I got the platform.
So, I’m standing on a little platform in the center of the room with no one in front of me and 35 sales people to each side. There is a window behind me making people squint at the sunlight streaming into the room.
Corporate comedy always starts off a bit awkward. They’ve just come from a Powerpoint demonstration on sales projections and are not in the “comedy club mentality.” To ease them into my schick, I spend a lot of time preparing customized material. A week prior to the event, I spoke to the director of marketing as well as a few sales guys themselves. They told me that they were stressed about working out of their car, dealing with wacky pharmacists, and upcoming Canadian legislation called Bill 102. This ended up in a “Pharmaceutical Rap Song.”
“Got into the drug sales game
But I can’t pronounce drugs name
Now I’m getting really confused
Cause here comes bill 102
With this bill 102
We are all going be screwed
Cause feds policy's not written by a genius
More like Butthead and Beavis..”
Then I had to deal with the fact that I was Jewish and in Germany. I had to comment on it, but what? I turned to comic, Ritch Shydner for advice. He said, “Say, ‘I’m Jewish. Hey, wasn’t there something that happened 60 years ago? That’s over right?”
That worked. Emily Levine has a great German-Jewish joke, “When I performed comedy in Germany they told me, ‘You’re cute as a button.’ But then I was afraid that they meant that I would be ‘cute as a button.’” Great joke.
The gig went great. The good thing was that the audience was mostly Canadians. Canadians are friendly unpretentious people who laugh easily. When I perform in Canada I say words I wouldn’t say in the States, such as “Nipples!” Not only do I not say that word when performing for the American humor impaired corporate culture, I take them off before stepping onstage.
I was a hit. The director of marketing asked me to perform at another gig in February 07. I was invited to join the group for a 5 course meal that night and a tour the next day and partied with them into the wee hours of the night.
OK, OK… maybe it is a scam.
