this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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[–] FlyingSquid 65 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Fuck comedians like that. I did standup comedy for years. I wasn't a modern day philosopher, I was a guy that (hopefully) made you forget about the shitty week you were having for 5-15 minutes depending on the set (I was never a headliner).

I spent a lot of time crafting my jokes, I did a lot of rewriting and honing and testing of material. I wasn't a philosopher, I was a joke engineer. That's really the best way to look at most standup. It's joke engineering.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Got any good one liners from your old sets?

[–] FlyingSquid 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Sorry, not that I would want to write in text form. Part of the engineering process for me involves things like getting the inflection just right when I tell it. Also, I've forgotten 99% of it and I'd have to go dig up old notebooks in storage. I haven't been on stage and behind a mic in at least 15 years. Also, I did somewhat longer-form stuff than one-liners in general.

I had a good long bit about how dogs are better than kids because they're stupid so you can trick them more easily into doing things to amuse you, but it really is in the way you tell them.

That said, as someone who now has a kid and dogs, I stand by that statement. Fake throwing a ball and having the dog try to find it is one of the funniest things in the world to me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Well, you could try it with your kids and see how it goes 😁

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I already know what would happen. My daughter would ignore me and continue talking about obscure anime most Americans have never heard of or whatever. Teenagers could not give less of a fuck. I forgot about how that was.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Get her to help you make meme templates from that obscure anime, as a bonding exercise. ;)