OK, so I haven’t done anything AS exciting as working in a TV studio this past week, but I did get a car.
(This isn’t actually my car, but it’s the same make and model… it’s been too gloomy in Toronto these days to take adequately mood-uplifting car photos, so I figured stealing someone else’s would be good enough.)
No big deal.
(It’s totally a big deal.)
This post is several weeks in the making – this past January 30th, a Canadian comic icon, Don Ferguson, of the epically successful Royal Canadian Air Farce came to speak to the students of the Humber School of Comedy.
Here’s what I got out of it:
When I got the music, I got a place to go!
The Air Farce got their start back in old days of r-a-dio…. radio. Is that how you pronounce that? Radio? Ferguson and the late Roger Abbott met in Montreal, where they began performing sketch comedy together in front of live audiences. They would perform in theatres before they got picked up to do radio, which was advantageous to them because they learned by the reception of the audience what went well, what didn’t go so well and ultimately what worked.
It was then that they understood how much the audience wanted topical, current material. *For those of you who don’t remember, Ferguson took the role of many a politician on Air Farce, including this one:*
(Oddly enough, a similar reaction to that which I had when leaving Ottawa.)
Here’s what you could do with a live audience and with radio vs. on TV with a laugh track:
Ferguson mentioned how comedy, and particularly Air Farce’s TV sketches, demands precision. Something can be funny if written a certain way, but then if you re-word it, the message won’t come across quite as clearly. THIS is something extremely relevant to all aspects of writing for comedy, and probably especially to stand-up. I’m currently in the process of conducting some massive edits to my stand-up bits. It’s true, sometimes it hurts to kill your babies, or at least to dismember them, but it ends up with more laughs, then bye bye toesies!
It’s as easy as that! The pressure, he said, isn’t off as soon as you get a show.
“You can’t let up for a MOMENT. It’s like being a pro-athlete.”
Crossing the Border = Security
If any of us Humber kids are in the mindset that comedy will provide us with any kind of job security, Ferguson reminded us that his longest contract was one of five years. That’s it. Everything else was shorter than that, normally one or two-year contracts with Air Farce. That might make some people nervous, but Ferguson believes security can breed complacency in a business like this one. The anxiety, fear and nervousness is what a comedian needs to stay sharp.
How’s that for noble, eh?
Ferguson and Abbott were asked to work on the American sit-com TAXI, but they declined as they’d realized “what Air Farce was doing on Radio was more important to [Canadian] listeners than ANY sitcom would mean to US viewers.”
___
At this point, we skipped into a Q&A with Ferguson in which he gave us tips, tricks, encouragement and advice. Because I pay so much for tuition, I’m going to keep this segment of our Prime Time with Don Ferguson private. If you want more details, be sure to check this book out; a work that will serve to remind us how relevant; how important Air Farce really was for Canadians ever since their days back in R-A-D-I-O.
(Next on the schedule… Brie needs to dye her hair again!)
As you may have gathered from the last late-night post reflecting my predictions of the inevitable discovery of my colleague’s talent by Hollywood or what have you, and the subsequent benefits of that association/friendship I shall reap, her play went rather well. As did all performances Wednesday and Thursday nights. Thus, our second year “Ten Minute Play Festival” and most of ours’ first attempt at play-writing comes to successful completion.
There were some neat ones, some serious ones, some non-verbal ones and it was always fun throughout to ask “which one of my colleagues wrote this one?” and to be pleasantly surprised at the answer.
Anyone who knows of my history as a tour guide at Vimy Ridge would not be surprised to discover I was the playwright of “the one about the WW1 brothel.” It turned out well! It was serious against a backdrop of ridiculousness; drunken and horny soldiers, Brandon in drag as the “Madame” of the establishment, Ron successfully pulling off a full “under the slip” boob grope to an unsurprised and perfectly-deadpan French whore, Ashley. And my two leads, Kyle & Paige, keeping the romance and escape plan serious and honest while all this other nonsense is going around them.
It’s so rewarding to see the words you’d written and rewritten and rewritten performed on stage with the help of a seasoned director who can make your vision appear, and extracting emotional responses you hadn’t even considered in the writing process. There’s also some interesting feeling about seeing the actors work hard at memorizing their lines and becoming these characters; putting in the effort so that they too, can make your vision a reality.
I hope I was able to do that for the two roles for which I was cast – one as a middle-aged strict Russian dance teacher, propositioned by two jocks who just really need to pass their ballet exam to make the football team, at whatever cost. 😉 – and Gracie, the teen dog who’s getting too old to play pretend with her dog-brother and her human mother who wants nothing more but to create the most beautiful Dog Wedding in history.
Whether it was that or Romeo learning to appreciate his wing-man, or an English teacher getting his funk back. Getting past St. Peter into Heaven or curing his son from his own online game persona. Buttoning down and finally applying for that first job at No Frills, or watching the Tooth Fairy struggle to get the job done…it sure was nifty to see the talent and creativity of my colleagues’ brainboxes come to life.
Bravo, all!
… but in the meantime…
ASHLEY: Then how did WE survive?
BRIE: Wheatgrass.
ASHLEY: What?
BRIE: We were in the freezer with the wheatgrass. Haven’t you worked here for like forever? You should know that not only does wheatgrass prevent cancer and detoxify your body, it’s also resistent to thermo-nuclear blasts when cooled and kept in a confined space such as our refrigerator.
ASHLEY: How do you even know any of those words?
BRIE: D’uh. It’s in the Booster Juice employee training manual.
Ladies and gentlemen, the founder of modern planking: Mr. Tom Green:
Every couple weeks at Humber, we have guests, people who have achieved a recognizable amount of success in the comedy industry, come speak to us about their experiences in the business.
See:
Last week was no exception. What a treat to find out Tom Green would be taking a break from his stand-up tour to come talk to us Humber comedy geeks! #fun, right?
Now let’s be honest, I’m not the #1 hugest Tom Green fan of all time. BUT, as a friend (and former girlfriend) to some pretty huge TG fans, it’s fair to say I’ve been following his career for a long time now, I guess since he had his show on MTV. I feel like one of the few people in the Humber crowd that remembered his marriage to Drew Barrymore and his battle with testicular cancer (two issues that were, to my surprise, NOT brought up in the Q&A!) In fact, I’d even met him before, in his hometown of Ottawa. He was doing a book-signing for Hollywood Causes Cancer at the Chapters on Rideau. I told him he had a nice suit. It was pinstriped. I should probably read that book.
ANYWAY. Let’s rewind. Tom Green, Mark Breslin pointed out, is one of the founders of shock humour, reality television (of the non-sociological-research-based-variety) & comedy-rap. He was so influential in Canada that Macleans once had to decide between featuring Tom Green or Jesus as a cover-story! (They went with Jesus, btw.)
He’s like the precursor to Ali G-type stuff in that he started subverting what TV is and going places TV hadn’t gone before. (Humping a dead-moose, WHAT?) Tom Green tapped into the American zeitgeist and started doing stuff that set the precedent for stuff like Jackass and a bunch of other crazy MTV stuff. And for what? Because he’d consciously taken note of the funny that comes from unsuspecting people’s reactions to bizarre situations.
Right? We love that shit! That’s one of the reasons shows like The Office are as funny as they are!
Sidenote: The main reason I’m writing this is so I can use words like subvert and zeitgeist.
Tom Green encountered some pretty significant difficulties seeing eye-to-eye with the higher ups in Hollywood, who didn’t really understand his vision. One of his bits of advice to us was to know where to draw the line between keeping your vision intact and handling the bureaucracy of the industry. (Presuming we ever get that opportunity. Fingers crossed)
Another was to separate yourself from the rest with your hard work.
Green admitted he never wanted to be a big-shot movie star, that he was given creative control of Freddy Got Fingered and that that’s why the movie is how it is. His ambition was to be a Letterman-style talk-show host, and now he interviews celebrities on his Internet TV channel at tomgreen.com.
He’s also returned to his roots, touring the world performing stand-up comedy. (Tom started doing stand-up at 15, performing at Yuk Yuk’s in Ottawa!) I probably should have gone to check out one of his sets, but I was performing one of my own last weekend and I wanted to make sure I was prepared for that.
(It went really well, btw.)
Another great experience with an influential comic, thanks to Humber College. (If this is the kind of stuff my tuition pays for, it’s totally worth it!)
Stay tuned, as one of my future posts will tell you the tale of the exclusive performance of Andy Kindler for us Humber kids at Comedy Bar!
Just when I thought the universe was giving me a little break, I complained about it and somehow the universe found a way to take a shit in my mouth.
What a nice treat it was to find out just before the Holidays from the City of Toronto that my rent was going down! Not a huge decrease, something like $8 and some cents.
Instead of being happy about it, I complained about how much more difficult it will be to write all those extra numbers on a check instead of the nice rounded amount I paid initially.
“It’s just easier to write BLAH-hundred” But here I was writing “Blah-blah-blah hundred and blabitty blah cents.”
As the fates would have it, (or more like the capitalist pigs who own this property would have it,) they’ve jacked rent up an extra $20 and some. So now, not only do I have to write out an un-rounded amount every month, but it’s also a fair chunk more expensive than it was in the first place!
That’ll teach me to complain.
The other day I accidentally left a candle burning and I left my apartment for several hours. When I got back, there was such a delightful odour in the apartment and thankfully (and more importantly,) the place hadn’t burned down. My boyfriend said to me: “You scare me sometimes;” words I’ve only ever heard uttered to people losing their marbles.
Am I losing my marbles, maybe?
Note to self: Work out the ol’ brain more with daily sudoku.
You think it’s over. You tell the cashier at Shopper’s Drug Mart that this is it. The last item on your Christmas shopping list. You go home to celebrate. You begin wrapping everything up and realize…
Nope.
I still need to get a basket to put all this person’s stuff in, because it’d be weird if they opened them up individually. Individually, it’s a weird gift, but in a basket, it makes sense.
This person’s basket looks to empty, I should go buy more chocolate to fill it up, or something like that. Maybe a candle?
This person didn’t get as much stuff as this person. They’re going to think I like this person more than them. I’d better go buy them something else so they don’t get that impression.
I hope I don’t see this person until this time, because I won’t have a gift ready for them in time.
Oh shoot, I keep forgetting to send those Christmas cards I’d written at least a week ago. There’s no way they’ll get them on time for Christmas now. Should I even bother sending them?
It. Never. Ends.
Merry Christmas Eve Eve everybody! I need to go find more baskets.
Brie Watson 