great rabbits in english comedy

hottie at comedy central flavor flav

Hottie at the Comedy Central Flavor Flav roast

schatar-charm-school

Picture of Schatar 'Hottie' Taylor (Flavor of Love, Charm School) at

Comedy Central's Flavor Flav roast.

Many more pictures at Concrete Loop

i love comedy and comedyloves me

I love comedy. And comedy loves me black.

I'm a comedian. I do comedy. In short, my life has become comedy.

I was getting my hair done at the beauty salon. A young man walked in

and said he was selling boot-leg DVDs, and that he had "The Passion of

Christ" on DVD. A little old black lady, who didn't miss a beat,

chimed back, "No thanks baby, I've got the book." I thought that was

so right on. But then he said, "There's a book?"

I've been doing a lot of traveling as of lately, performing at

colleges and universities in the Midwest and the South. At one school

I performed at, a kid was heckling me. I shot back, it was a friendly

fire of course, and the student body loved it. Then I found out at the

end of the show that the kid had turrets. I was recently performing in

Kentucky, it was my first time there, and I was really impressed with

the hospitality in the South. People kept asking me "How y'all doing?

How y'all doing?" I just kept thinking, it's just me here, but we're

all fine, thank you. I did a show at an aviation college. The students

were great, - very sharp and surpringsly charming. Unfortunately, they

were all obese and I couldn't help but think, "How are you going to

fly a plane if you can't even fit into a cock pit?" I just got booked

to perform at school that I had applied to and was denied! Now that is

going to be a show!

I've also been taking acting classes, which has been a crazy amount of

fun. While stand-up comedy is my first love, acting is becoming a

close second. Losing yourself in a scene is completely therapeutic. I

was doing a cold reading with my partner in class last week. My

character gets angry in the scene, so I gave her a little sass. My

acting teacher stopped us and asked me if I was a black person.

Confused, I said "Uh, yeah...I'm black." Lovingly, he said "That's why

that attitude comes so natural for you. Go with that." These are the

moments in my life where I'd like to think "What would Oprah do?"

A very close friend of mine recently came out to her family. She was

pretty upset about telling them she was gay. I told her I could

empathize. It's always an awkward moment when I have tell people I'm

black.

You know, people often say "You can't make this stuff up!" and "The

2006_09_08_mmsbullpen_archive

LOOKING FOR COMEDY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD

Written by Hombre Divertido

This film is intriguing, but will leave you looking for comedy.

Albert Brooks is a funny man, and his deadpan and sarcastic delivery

are ever present here, but there are just not enough quality lines to

deliver.

Like a good joke, this film opens with a set-up that is encouraging

and certainly creates anticipation. Like a bad joke, this film ends up

going nowhere and the ending leaves the audience unsatisfied and

disappointed.

In somewhat of a mockumentary, the U.S. government called upon Brooks

to travel to India and Pakistan in order to discover what makes a

300-million strong Muslim community laugh. Though the premise is

controversial, and the fish-out-of-water concept should be ripe with

laughter, the humor never really materializes, other than that which

is sorely forced.

There are a few genuine funny concepts here that have Brooks written

all over them. An office on the same floor as his in India is full of

people taking calls. Each time Brooks passes said office on the way to

his, we hear the people answering the phones in different ways from

Target Customer Service to Onstar Roadside Assistance to Dell

Technical Support and many more. The concept of all such services

originating in one office in India is terrific; unfortunately the

execution is so subtle, that it does not quite come off.

There are many such poorly executed bits in this film. Brooks does a

stand-up act for hundreds of Muslims that, for lack of a better term,

bombs. Brooks asks if they understand English, and raises his own hand

to indicate how he wants them to answer. The entire crowd raises their

hands. This leaves the audience of the film to speculate whether they

do understand English, or are just following the proverbial leader.

Again, the concept of a comedian looking for an out to a failed

routine by hoping that the audience does not speak English, only to

find out that they do is classic Brooks, but the poor execution,

causes the bit to bomb as well.

Probably the most unsatisfying aspect of this film is how rapidly it

winds up, while the audience is still waiting for it to get started.

The ongoing bit about the size of the report that Brooks is expected

to write generates a few laughs, but the fact that the trip is cut

short due to some conceptually funny irony, and the report never

really gets finished, is ironically indicative of the film itself. At

98 minutes, there was a lot more work to be done here.

The extras on the DVD are nothing to speak of. An added commentary by

Brooks probably would have made this film worth having, as it

hopefully would have answered some of the questions.

Recommendation: As you sit waiting for the Brooks humor boat to pull

into port, you will smile at a few dinghies floating by, but in the

2007_07_01_archive

2004_09_01_archive

WEB ALERT!!! I have a new story published on The Enduring Vision web

site. Here's the Link: EnduringVision

Yanks Routed

The Cleveland Indians routed the Yankees by the incredible score of

22-0 last night in the Bronx. Well, at least the Yanks are giving the

New York Giants a good preview of what their season will be like.

RNC Speakers

The GOP convention is showcasing speakers like George Pataki, Rudy

Giuliani, and Arnold Schwarzenegger... leaving voters wondering if

this is a Republican convention or a pro-choice rally.

Schwarzenegger's Compassionate Conservatism

Governor Schwarzenegger talked about how the GOP is truly concerned

about everyone, including "hopeful immigrants and the elderly." But

the best way to show concern for both those groups at once is to take

all the old folks who can't afford prescription drugs, and help them

move to Canada

Bush's Heroism

Most Republicans say they continue to be in awe of President Bush's

great courage in the days after 9/11. The delegates are most impressed

by the big risk he took by putting his arm around that fireman at

Ground Zero without checking if he was gay first.

Bush's Intro

During a video-link introduction of his wife, President Bush told the

Republican convention that, "my life has been better since that

wonderful day Laura said yes to me." But Mrs. Bush wasn't sure if her

improv comedy theory motivation

Improv Comedy Theory: Motivation

Being an Asian comedian, I like to break things down to their

components and figure out how things work. Improv is no different to

me. My desire is to perform the best improv comedy that I can. In

order to do that, I need to understand what works and what doesn't

work. As a result of my years and years of performing and now that

I'm teaching improv, I am coming close to understanding what works in

improv and why. Also, what doesn't work in improv and why? I'm going

to do a series of blogs on Improv Comedy Theory. I'm going in no

particular order.

Today, I want to talk about motivation. By motivation I mean

character motivation - what motivates your character to act or react

the way they do.

Rookie Mistakes: When new improv performers step on stage as a

character, I generally see a strange and wacky character. Maybe they

have a foreign accent, speech impediment, or they walk or move in a

weird way. The other thing I see is the overreaction. Characters

tend to be super angry, super horny, super happy. I believe "over the

top" best describes these characters. If done well, the audience will

laugh when the character walks on stage - Mission accomplished. Now

what? The rookie has nowhere to go except to maintain this kind of

energy.

So you've got this great character, what do you do with it? The

answer to simple - History. Simple answer but difficult execution,

especially when you created this character 10 seconds before walking

on stage.

How do you execute motivation? By making motivation and history the

first thing you think about before you add character traits and

attributes. If you can create a character that has history that

person now has depth. After that, when you add personality traits the

character has dimension.

What is motivation/history? In real life, people are not happy, sad,

angry, high strung, insecure, romantic, etc. because it's their

personality. They exhibit these emotions for a reason. I'm may be

insecure, because I don't trust myself to make a good decision. I'm

high strung because I don't trust people to live up to my

expectations. When I have 10 seconds to come up with a character, I

ask myself, what my character wants from the other actor's character.

Once I identify what I want, then I decide how I'm going to get it.

Will I be aggressive? Passive? Cunning? Once I know what I want and

how I act to get it, when as the scene progressing, I can develop

history.

This past weekend, I was playing Potpourri Replay. The premise was an

alligator escaped from a farm. A little boy sees the alligator and

decides to make it his pet. The alligator then eats the boy. We had

to replay the scene in three styles: Shakespeare, Western and Musical.

I was the little boy in the scene and because I was going to get eaten

4 times, the goal is to make the approach to the scene different each

time.

The set up scene was easy, the boy's motivation was he wanted a pet

because he has no friends. He finds an alligator that will be his

friend. . And then he gets eaten.

In Shakespeare, the boy's motivation was the exploration of

friendship. And in Shakespearian fashion, the boy monologues about

the virtues of unconditional friendship be it between people or

animals. And then he gets eaten.

The Western was my favorite. The boy's motivation was that he was man

enough to have a real pet. He was kicked out of his home, because his

father thought he was a sissy boy for playing with cats and poodles.

To prove his manhood, he takes an alligator as a pet because he knows

his dad will be proud. And then he gets eaten.

Finally for a musical, a young boy with dreams of making the world a

happier place sings about the wonderful things in life, such a bright

colors, flowers and rainbow. Even a pet alligator, can be a

wonderful, colorful experienced. And then he gets eaten.

A boy taking in an alligator as a pet is a weird concept. Just that

idea the scene is in danger of going nowhere. But when you add

motivation, you have a scene that can come to life.

The Crazy Character. So I have this crazy character that I think the

audience will love. If you don't have history or motivation, you'll

find that your crazy character will appeal to the audience for just a

few seconds. You essentially have a one note character.

I see this alot from rookie players. They come on stage with a

character that has a really heavy ethnic accent. Then they go into a

series of ethnic stereotypes. And that's it. Aside from being

offensive, all this crazy character really has is an accent, and the

only comedy you can pull out of it is stereotypes and then raising the

stakes by becoming increasingly more and more offensive. That's fine,

but you run the risk of alienating your audience and coming off as a

racist moron.

By giving the character a history and motivation, you can take this

character with the accent and give him dimension and reason to act the

way he does.

I have a character that I like to use in Good Advice, Bad Advice. His

name is Bruno LaFontaine and he's...let's say incredibly effeminate.

Other people have described him as gay. But I definitely play this

character over-the-top effeminate/gay. What makes the character work

is not that he gay and everything he does is pick up guys and play

into other stereotypes, its his history. I made him the current Mr.

Universe but he used to be a dancer in Musical Theatre. I use this

character in Good Advice, Bad Advice, because he can relate to the

audience is a funny way. When an audience members asks, whether or

not they should quit their job. Bruno speaks of a time when everyone

expected him to be a dancer on Broadway, but he's not a dancer. He's

a body builder. (It's funnier on stage).

Whether Bruno is gay or not is not the most important thing for the

scene. Bruno being incredibly effeminate is secondary to a character

who finally is happy with himself because he's following his passion

of being a body builder and not a dancer.

I'd love to hear your comment about this article and whether you agree

or not.

Alan

www.mypalal.com

www.themeparkshopper.com