Phil Mause's Blog

More Random Observations

matt.alland — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:47:53 +0000

I have been trying new material and some of it is working so I can do longer sets. I have been thinking about the economics of standup comedy and wonder whether the demise of the sitcoms is “clogging the pipeline” with too many standup comics. In the past, many of the best went off to do TV - now maybe more are staying around and making it hard at every level to move up. I don’t know but when I see established professionals doing an hour at a marginal site on a Saturday nite for $100, it makes me wonder. Anyhow, I’m continuing to work on dialect, writing and new material.

matt.alland — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:42:16 +0000

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New Material

matt.alland — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:22:38 +0000

I have been developing some new material including some very risky but potentially interesting stuff - its always a bungee jump to try the new stuff but I have a bunch of gigs coming up and I think I will pull the trigger. I will give a report next week on: 1. Homeless in Bethesda, 2. Sean Taylor; 3. my New York tutors; 4. Hugo Chavez, Monica Lewinsky and Slobovan Milosevic; and 5. My African Safari. Keep Posted.

A Moment with Phil Mause…

matt.alland — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:11:34 +0000

Did another set at Damons in Hunt Valley Sunday - for some reason this room really seems to work for me although my set was competing with the last 5 minutes of the Giants-Packers playoff game. I still have trouble figuring out what my target audience is. I often do better with older crowds but Damons is a very young room. I seem to do a lot better away from DC than in DC but that may be because its hard to find audiences in DC that haven’t heard my material and I think part of my approach is to surprise people with a real twist of a punch line that they aren’t looking for. Anyhow off to a new room tonite - Takoma Station. I think it is important to keep growing - this year’s objectives include sketch writing and the speakeasy storytelling open mic. Boy the stock market/economic picture seems screwy. I really underestimated this whole subprime mortgage mess. If interest rates keep going done, I may borrow some money and buy a comedy club - maybe in Hawaii so I can go out there, retire and do standup whenever I want.

The Mystery of Standup

matt.alland — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:56:59 +0000

I am continuously perplexed about the place of standup in American and world culture. Almost alone among the art forms, it does not receive governmental or charitable subsidy. Why should the opera be subsidized rather than standup? Perhaps because standup is viewed by the “elite” as a kind of “low brow” form of entertainment. On the other hand, standup may serve vital social functions as a form or release of pent up social frustrations. It also can serve as a “bonding” mechanism - groups of people who disagree and may even be hostile suddenly discover that they laugh at the same jokes. Standup may also be the first place in a society that discontent or dissatisfaction with public policy measures or consumer products rears its head. It’s all very confusing. I am also confused about the “stealing material” issue - let me preface this by saying I don’t do it. But the bigger issue is why standup is different from music and drama in which performers use material authored by others. Suppose a standup comedian acknowledged that some of his material was authored by others and than performed it (perhaps more effectively than the original author). I know this sounds like heresy but wouldn’t such a system have the potential for producing a funnier product (combining the best material with the best performers). I am just throwing out some iconoclastic hand grenades here for comment.

My birthday. 63.

matt.alland — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 07:59:29 +0000

Doesn’t really seem that long. Started standup three and a half years ago and I feel I have been doing standup half my life. New material still comes hard - I can sit down and try to write for hours and have nothing happen and then get a good idea when I’m thinking of something else. I am beginning to see movies as nothing more than elaborate setups for punch lines. Sideways spent 48 minutes setting up the drinking out of the spit bowl scene but it was worth it. Little Miss Sunshine spent half the movie setting up the corpse scenes but again it was worth it. I bet the writer thinks of the funny scene first and then writes the rest of the script to set it up. Scoop sets up a lot of great Woody Allen lines - I’m not sure it works in any other dimension. It sure seems a lot easier to set up a punch line that way than on stage as a standup comic. I wonder who was the first standup comic - I wonder if the first standup comic was intentional - maybe it was just a guy who got up intending to be serious and broke everyone up unintentionally - leading others to come up with the idea of standup as an objective on its own. Oh well - three more years until Social Security - I wonder if it will help me in social situations.