Adam Conover's Personal Brand

Feb 23

adamdnewman:

I’m not qualified to give any real comedy advice, but I have learned that walking around the park and going over your set in your head can be a lot more productive than doing an open mic that costs $5 in front of 8 assholes.

It definitely can be! But I’ll say that this is advice that some comics need, and others don’t.

I do know lots of comics who obsessively try to hit as many mics as possible in a night, whether or not those mics are helping them; but I have seen just as many use this reasoning as an excuse to not to go to open mics at all. If you’re doing one show a week because “open mics aren’t worth it, and I’d rather spend the time writing,” you’re not going to get better.

But none of that is to detract from Adam’s point, which is a great one — taking the time to think about what you’re doing onstage is just as important as getting up. The trick is making time to do both.

Feb 21

[video]

Feb 18

FRESH OUT is returning to UCB East tonight at midnight! This month, the incredibly funny Annie Lederman will be my co-host, and our guests are Brad Austin, Joe Pera, Emily Heller, Robert Dean, and Anthony P. Devito. UCB East also now has a full bar, so take a break from where ever you’re drinking and come drink with us instead! It’ll be a late night loosey goosey blast.

FRESH OUT is returning to UCB East tonight at midnight! This month, the incredibly funny Annie Lederman will be my co-host, and our guests are Brad Austin, Joe Pera, Emily Heller, Robert Dean, and Anthony P. Devito. UCB East also now has a full bar, so take a break from where ever you’re drinking and come drink with us instead! It’ll be a late night loosey goosey blast.

Jan 31

I’ve had a great three months in Los Angeles. Tomorrow I’m flying back to New York, where everyone will ask me, “How was LA?” and I will reply that everything you’ve ever heard about LA is true, and I’ll mean it. It’s a city about which there is literally nothing more for a New Yorker to say, except “thanks.” To ring out my time on the west coast, I’m performing tonight at one of my favorite shows in Los Angeles — Holy Fuck at the Downtown Independent. Some of my favorite comics are on the show, so come out, laugh a lot, and clink glasses with me!

I’ve had a great three months in Los Angeles. Tomorrow I’m flying back to New York, where everyone will ask me, “How was LA?” and I will reply that everything you’ve ever heard about LA is true, and I’ll mean it. It’s a city about which there is literally nothing more for a New Yorker to say, except “thanks.”

To ring out my time on the west coast, I’m performing tonight at one of my favorite shows in Los Angeles — Holy Fuck at the Downtown Independent. Some of my favorite comics are on the show, so come out, laugh a lot, and clink glasses with me!

Jan 25

Why you should donate to the Creek Kickstarter -

Nick Turner writes about what the Creek means to New York comedians:

I perform maybe a quarter of all of my NY stand up sets at The Creek.  Way more than on any other stage, I have learned how to be a comedian at The Creek.  No other full time comedy venue allows the freedom and the stage time together that this venue provides.

There’s are roughly 10 open mics a week on two stages.  There is a podcast network with roughly a dozen podcasts with tens of thousands of listeners. there are 20 independently produced comedy shows a week.  Stand Up, Sketch, Improv, Short Films, Plays, Music, and any other relevant kind of comedy that exists is showcased here.  If you look closely you can see The Creek in the background of dozens of comedy shorts made by people who know that whatever idea they can conceive, it can be realized within these walls…

I was going to write a post on this subject, but Nick says it better. If you support comedy in New York City, support the Creek.

Jan 23

Cagots, the Pointless Minority -

The Cagots were a persecuted minority in France and Spain from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. They were considered unclean and cretinous, were barred from most professions, and could only receive Holy Communion on the end of a stick — all of this despite the fact that there was no discernible difference between them and the rest of the population.

Cagots were shunned and hated. They were required to live in separate quarters in towns, called cagoteries, which were often on the far outskirts of the villages. Cagots were excluded from all political and social rights. They were only allowed to enter a church by a special door, and during the service a rail separated them from the other worshipers. Either they were altogether forbidden to partake of the sacrament, or the Eucharist was handed to them on the end of a stick, while a receptacle for holy water was reserved for their exclusive use. They were compelled to wear a distinctive dress, to which, in some places, was attached the foot of a goose or duck (whence they were sometimes called “Canards”). So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same communion cup as non-Cagots. The Cagots were restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and rope-maker.

The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified as Cagots.

Which goes to show that humans don’t even need a visible basis, much less a justification, to discriminate against one another, to create sub-groups of people whom we subjugate and disenfranchise — it’s just something that people do, a natural impulse that we need to work against. Xenophobia is so powerful that it can make us afraid even of those who are exactly like us.

Jan 18

Adam helps Raphael prepare for a commercial audition, over Twitter. -

Gotta say that this was a lot of fun. I’m shocked that over the two hours we were spamming Twitter with this nonsense, I somehow managed to gain three followers.

“You oughta knowsky, brosky! Let’s chomp into a clump of chewy pastries pronto.” Classic Sorkin dialogue!

(Source: boringoldraphael)

Jan 17

Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory -

The above This American Life piece on how Apple products are manufactured in Shenzhen, China, floored me, for the following reasons:

  1. Mike Daisey, the storyteller to whom the bulk of the episode is dedicated, performs a piece of theatrical alchemy that’s absolutely amazing. He doesn’t justtell us about the bizarre, often awful working conditions under which our electronic devices are made, he places us there, mentally and emotionally. He makes the truly alien understandable, and gives us the ability to truly empathize with people we can barely imagine. That’s not only great storytelling — it also provides us with an intimate understanding his subject of a sort that journalism is often unable to provide, despite the fact that “intimate understanding” is so often the point of journalism.
  2. Other shows — most other shows on NPR, even — would be content to broadcast Daisey’s story and leave it at that. But when the story is over, Ira Glass does something remarkable — he fact-checks it. The result? Most of it’s true, but a few details are unverifiable or were, perhaps, isolated incidents. But yes, the thrust of Mike’s story checks out. And finally,
  3. Other shows would be content to say, “Hey, isn’t this horrifying?” and leave it at that. Instead, Glass goes on to interview a range of writers and activists, and gets a range of opinions on the issue — notably, Nicholas Kristof points out that factories like these contribute enormously to ending poverty in third-world countries. Finally, Glass notes in the close of the show that the entire episode you just heard was produced entirely on Apple computers. Which is to acknowledge, tacitly, how difficult and complex this problem is, because, after all, if it weren’t for the amazing yet troubling Apple products that brought you this program, you wouldn’t know how troubling nearly every piece of electronics you own is.

All of which is to say that the synthesis of storytelling and journalism that This American Life has developed and recently perfected is totally unique in American media, and immensely effective. I can’t think of another outlet that combines the intimate, empathetic aspects of storytelling with the rigorous chops of journalism, and to such great effect. Ira Glass and his contributors have been doing some amazing, historic work.

All of which is to say, go listen to this with the lights off.

Supplemental materials: Here’s what Apple’s done in response to this piece. It’s pretty good, but they still have a long ways to go. And Mike Daisey is a fascinating performer who I’m currently fascinated with. Here’s his account of how he adapted the piece from his live stage show; here’s a comprehensive list of his work; and here’s an unbelievable video of eighty-seven Christian protesters walking out of one of his shows because he said “fuck.” And here’s his unbelievable followup to that incident.

A number of his monologues are available, ironically, in the iTunes store.

Jan 09

publicschoolshow: Next show is coming up: Tuesday, January 10th at 9pm! Brian Bradley * Adam Conover * Craig Gerard* Chris Regan* April Richardson *Tami Sagher * Megan Soule* Hosted by the slippery Joey Slamon  RSVP for a soul massage.  Hey Los Angeles! Come to M Bar on Tuesday, where I’ll be telling a story at the fantastic storytelling show Public School! If you come, I promise the story almost probably won’t be about you.

publicschoolshow:

Next show is coming up: Tuesday, January 10th at 9pm!

Brian Bradley * Adam Conover * Craig Gerard* Chris Regan* April Richardson *Tami Sagher * Megan Soule* Hosted by the slippery Joey Slamon 

RSVP for a soul massage. 

Hey Los Angeles! Come to M Bar on Tuesday, where I’ll be telling a story at the fantastic storytelling show Public School! If you come, I promise the story almost probably won’t be about you.