Jim Mendrinos - The Evolution of the Comedian, STAGE TIME - The Magazine That Stands Up For Comedy

DVDs
Chondra Pierce - A
Piece of My Mind

Live Comedy from the
Laff House: Make
Room for Comedy

Redneck Comedy
Roundup 2 - Bill
Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy
and Ron Shock.

Southern Gents of
Comedy - Ron White,
Vic Henley, Steve
McGrew and Otis Lee
Crenshaw

Laffapalooza #6 -
Jamie Foxx, JB
Smoove, Gerald Kelly
and Wil Sylvince

Laffapalooza #7 - Rob
Stapleton, Loni Love,
Jo Koy and James
Hannah

Laffapalooza #8 -
Rodney Perry, Tony
Roberts, Earthquake

Paul Mooney -
Analyzing White
America

Russell Peters - Two
Concerts...On Ticket

Dave Attell - Insomiac
Tour Uncensored -
Dave Attell, Dane
Cook, Greg Giraldo and
Sean Rouse

Mike Epps -
Inappropriate Behavior

Jeff Cesario - You Can
Get a Hooker
Tomorrow Night

Kims of Comedy -
Steve Byrne, Bobby
Lee, Kevin Shea and
Dr. Ken

Alonzo Bodden - Tall,
Dark & Funny

Jim Gaffigan - Beyond
the Pale

CDs
Don Rickles - Speaks

Jackie Mason - The
World According to Me

Jake Johannsen - Jake
This Dot Com

Brad Montague -
Double Live

Eric Schwartz - Wimp
Pimp

Kathleen Madigan - In
Other Words

Drew Hastings - I'm
Just Like You

Jesse Joyce - Joyce to
the World

Marc Maron - Not Sold
Out

Mike Birbiglia - Two
Drink Mike

Tom Rhodes - Hot
Sweet Ass

Jimmy Shubert -
Pandemonium

Ron White - You Can't
Fix Stupid

Books
Oliver Double - Getting
the Joke: The Inner
Workings of Stand-Up
Comedy

Ed Driscoll - Spilled
Gravy: Advice on Love,
Life, and Acceptance
from a Man Uniquely
Unqualified to Give It

Brad Stine - Live From
Middle America: Rants
from a Red-State
Comedian

Sandi C. Shore - Sandi
Shore's Secrets to
Stand-Up Success: A
Complete Step-by-Step
Workbook

Judy Brown - The
Comedy Thesaurus

Movies
March 24
Health Inspector -
Larry the Cable Guy
and Bruce Bruce star in
the comedy with
support from Lisa
Lampanelli.

April 7
The Benchwarmers -
David Spade stars with
screenwriter/comedian,
Nick Swardson, Craig
Kilborn, Norm
MacDonald and Adam
Sandler in a comedy
about a three-player
baseball team that
challenges Little
League teams.

Phat Girlz - Mo'Nique
and Godfrey star in the
comedy about love and
acceptance.

April 14
Scary Movie 4 - DeRay
Davis co-stars in the
spoof comedy with
Anna Farris and Regina
Hall.

The Wild - Eddie Izzard
lends his voice in the
animated feature.

May 19
Over the Hedge - Garry
Shandling, Wanda
Sykes and Omid Djalili
lend their voices in the
animated movie
starring Bruce Willis,
who replaces Jim
Carrey as the lead
character.

May 26
Little Men - Keenan
Ivory Wayans directs
his younger brothers,
Shawn and Marlon
Wayans in a comedy
that co-stars Tracy
Morgan, Gary Owen
and John Witherspoon.

June 16
Wordplay - Jon Stewart
shares his passion for
crossword puzzles in
this documentary
featuring Bill Clinton,
Bob Dole and Ken
Burns.

June 23
Click - Adam Sandler
stars in the comedy
about a man who finds
a universal remote.

Stand-up comedy is a wonderful art form. It is one
of a very select group of art forms born in America,
along side jazz, country music, and the sitcom. It is
also the only performance art form that mimics the
evolution process of fine art.

Most performance mediums such as theater and
especially music, have spikes in popularity that
define a genre. Pop culture creates a fertile ground
for a music movement, and up pops punk or soul.
When the times change, that style of music
becomes immediately dated and the popularity
drops off dramatically.

Even in evergreen music like classical and jazz, the
style of what is popular is beholden to the times,
and seemingly disassociated from the previous
popular styles. (Listen to Beethoven then to Charles
Ives; they seem more different then alike.)

However with fine art such as painting and sculpting, you can trace an evolution of
styles, with each generation borrowing unabashedly from the one before it. Each
generation of artists taking the advancements in the tools of their trade, and applying
them to the age-old concepts of composition and contrast, creating something that is
at once unique and new, yet comforting in its familiarity.

Stand up is like that. You can keep looking back at the art form and see how little it
has changed. Like America’s pastime baseball, and another of her artistic off springs
the sitcom, it is the familiarity that keep it popular. The overwhelming similarity from
generation to generation is exactly the reason why comedy draws lifelong fans, and
that fandom is passed down from generation to generation. One always knows the
boundaries of a stand up, so you can feel comfortable in the medium.

I see comics echoing the past masters every day. That’s
not to say that they’re unoriginal or unimportant. What
each new generation of comedians provides in infinitely
more important than style, they redefine substance. Mort
Sahl found substance in being deliberately confrontational
in his point of view.

Lenny Bruce redefined substance by exploring the darker
side to humanity. Richard Pryor redefined substance by
sharing his humanity even when it was vile. Sam Kinison
redefined substance by exploring the darker side of
humanity, and Jerry Seinfeld redefined humanity by
exploring the curiosity we all have with the ordinary.

Stand up is a youngish art form, having evolved out of the
tradition of the endmen in the minstrel shows. From there it
took on a life of its own, having grown in popularity from
vaudeville, through burlesque, and finally into the popular
comic behind the mic style we have today.

Along the way, stand ups shed their need to disguise
themselves. Probably the best example of this was when
Will Rogers left the comfort of being a “Rope Trick Act” in
vaudeville to become a monologist. The art form also shed
its need to disguise itself, which is why comedy groups and
teams are becoming less and less popular as stand ups
become more and more confident in the art.

Stand ups also became more comfortable in their own
comedy, having left the security of gag writers, opting
instead to sink or swim using their own humanity and
artistry as a backdrop. While all of these changes had an
impact, the art form itself is relatively unchanged. A
stage, a performer, an audience, an opinion - that’s it.

You can hear the echoes of past performers in the voice
of the current ones. Every time I see a comic delivering
punchlines at 100MPH, I hear the echo of Bob Hope. Each
time I hear a comic deliver a line, then an aside seem-
ingly under his breath, I hear the echo of Uncle Milty.

It is not the style that makes a comic an artist; it is
the substance behind the style. That is why new
comics are the life-blood of the art form. They bring
the fresh perspectives to the art form, and while
their performance may be a bit lacking as compared
to the veteran performers, they push the veteran
performers to evolve the substance of their act.

Where will stand up evolve to in the next 100 years?
It will probably look about the same as it has for the
last 100 years, only the artists and topics will change.

I want to take a moment to thank Tasha for bringing back this column, and also to all
of you who kept writing to me and asking when and where it would appear next.
I want to do my best to make it more interactive, so I want to offer you guys a choice
of what the next column will be. The choices are:

1. The Great Comedy Teams

2. The British Comedy Invasion

3. The Rise & Fall of the Comedy Clubs

Send your vote to: Mendrinos@Jim-Mendrinos.com. The winning column will be
published next issue.

Comedy Writing Tip
Here’s a tip that helps me to kick off the column, whenever I get an idea I write down
not only the idea of the joke, but also two other things; why the idea is funny to me,
and what other things the idea reminds me of. This allows me to come back to the
note any time and figure out the point of view of the joke, and also allows me to find
other jokes along similar lines so that I can turn a one liner into a longer bit.