ghts from the ammoline // (Scott Johnson).
Ammo Grrrll has more LIFE LESSONS — FROM STANDUP (The Next Five). I wish she had shared these with me before I retired. She writes:
IN COMEDY, OR IN LIFE, YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE
I have always been amazed, flabbergasted, and even gobsmacked at how intimidated people are about what they think of me. They will go to great lengths to avoid being “disapproved”, how they will grovel, and how deeply they will change their opinions.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not cute to be an annoying, pointlessly contrarian jerk. Why the fear of being “unfriended” on Facebook or harassed on Twitter? I believe that a lack of a solid foundation of love in early family life is one reason. Comedy comedians seem to have a special way of craving love, even though it is not true for me. Joan Rivers stated that she felt love only when she was on stage.
One time in my career, I worked for a group home health agencies. Before I left the resort, the client gave me copies of the eval sheet. There were 200 eval sheet. I was rated a 5 by 119 people. Four people didn’t give me the highest rating, so they gave me 4s. One person rated me as a 1. I thought the lady must have mistakenly believed 1 was the best. But, no. She had written her own review: “I don’t care for this kind of humor.” Oh my God, someone absolutely HATES me!
Half the way home from Brainerd, I cried! My husband gave me a very rough talking-to. “You got 195 5s? Good grief, lady! You can’t take this little bit of heat! It was a bad experience, but I got over it. Many! He was always supportive. He felt that I needed to be rubbed at the right moment. He was right.
It is impossible to appeal to everyone, no matter what you do. I know of a decorator who did an amazing job painting and papering a house to a wealthy woman’s specifications. She hated his original ideas and forced him to do it again. He got paid twice. I am convinced that the hatred that politicians instill in me is why I would never run for anything. I was familiar with several Twin Cities TV peeps. All of them said that they were subject to constant criticism for their appearances.
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This could, however, be a whole column in itself. It’s easy to romanticize an old night job when you’re in a rowdy bar in Wisconsin.
A private client hires you to entertain his sales team. Her agent claims she’s funny, her husband says she’s hilarious, and here she is Sharon Boss!” You may be questioned about your life choices.
Standing on a folding chair and using a Mr. Microphone to entertain the pheasant hunters It’s okay, the folding chair will still look great to you when you’re “up North” at a resort, and the client has ignored your request for an 18-inch riser in your contract. In a fit o’ pique at the “prima dona”, who unreasonably wants to be taller than the seated audience members, the client places you on an end table he found in his storage closet. It was only after the show that you realize it was on wheels.
When you’re working in the “Small Room” of the Carlton, Tom Arnold introduces you and says that you are “our next comic is a funniest lesbian working right now…haha, Susan… She’s NOT funny!” Your audience is now completely confused when you speak about your husband or children.
One of the most hilarious and inadvertently funny events was for the mostly deaf coders at a Lutheran Nursing home. Terrible microphone. Terrible acoustics. A few inattentive Scandinavian geezers, in wheelchairs, are waiting for their afternoon tapioca pudding. For 20 minutes, there was silence. After the “show,” a sweet old gentleman approaches me and says: “Dat vuss is so funny, that I vuss afraid that I vuss going laughing and embarrassing you!” Oy.
WHO IS WISE WHO LEARNS FROM EVERYONE?
In a past column, I mentioned my sadness at an interview I saw with a young black woman comic. She lamented the fact that “I wish there was more comics who looked like me.” This question is never asked. It is assumed that mentors can only be those who “look like us”. False! False! Our Talmud asks: Who is wise?
Jack Benny and Bob Newhart were my biggest influences on timing. Louie Anderson, Minnie pearl, and The Smothers Brothers are great for clean, funny, good-natured comedy. Joan Rivers and Norm McDonald are the best for absolute fearlessness on stage. For my 100 first shows at Dudley Riggs, I was practically an apprentice to five young men a decade younger than me. They taught me a lot of what I know, despite my best efforts to avoid them! I was not the only one of those “reluctant” or unaware role models, although Minnie Pearl, in particular, came close.
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There are ups and downs in life. There are many shows in comedy, including great shows, bad shows, and blah shows. Sometimes, they all happen in one weekend. It is important to be able to accept it. It was an emotional high to be on Prairie Home Companion for the first time. On Thursday, I attended a benefit at a historic theater in Duluth where I received my first standing ovation. After those two triumphs, I was booed from the stage at the University of Minnesota Morris’ outdoor music festival on Sunday. Sometimes God requires you to be humble.
There are both good and bad people. ASSOCIATE WITH GOOD PEOPLE!
Showbiz, like many other “worlds”, is full of jealousy, backstabbing and false friends. It was a snake pit 40 years ago, when I started. And it has only gotten worse. Fred Allen said, “You can take all of Hollywood’s sincerity and place it in the navel a fruit fly and still have enough room for three caraway seeds or an agent’s heart.”
One mentally ill man from Minnesota, who didn’t “make it” in Los Angeles to where he thought he should, was a decent impressionist. Jay Leno told me this (on a flight from New York City to Pittsburgh, in which we were seatmates on the plane. How cool was that? This person used to call Johnny Carson’s answering service and leave unflattering messages in Jay’s voice. Sometimes, roommates would steal audition requests from their roommate and erase the answering machine tapes.
Jay, on the other hand, was a great guy who signed autographs and took photos of every person who came down the aisle to meet him, even the Captain. This was a great thing, but not as impressive as the next: Bill Arnold, a great comic, Christian, and good friend, stepped in when Scott was undergoing chemo for bone tumors. He did all the shows and took Scott’s corporate bookings. It must have been between 25 and 30 years ago. And I am happy that Scott is still alive, performing well and doing well. One guy like Bill is worth a lot of jerks.
