Who needs illegal immigrant labor, anyway?

[sspadowsky]

How odd, that the ones I used to hang with didn't.

I'll bet that either their shit was never stolen, or never good enough that anyone would want to steal it. Fuck 'em. Every single one of the comics I currently hang out with thinks that joke thieves are hack pieces of shit. And they're right.

Let's say you're a blues artist, and you've written all these great tunes, and people have heard of them, but maybe don't know who you are, because you picked the wrong guy to manage you. Then you walk into some bar and see four thieving British fucks playing your music as if it were their own, and getting cheered, and getting paid insane money, and the crowd thinks they're the geniuses who came up with it. You'd be pretty pissed, wouldn't you?

We're talking about some mentally fucked up people. Kind of hard to take what they say at face value. You should watch them. See The Aristocrats.

Saw it, loved it, bought it. It's not hard to take what they say at face value at all. They're far more interesting than most people you'll run across on a daily basis. It's shallow and stupid to write off something they say just because they make jokes for a living. Besides, when faced with a choice of whom to hang out with, gimme the fucked-up people every time. They're a lot more fun than "normals."

[KevinTheOmnivore]

I don't hang out with comedians like you two do.

[sspadowsky]

It's an exclusive club, baby. Nicholson don't even get past this velvet rope.

[El Blanco]

Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore

I don't hang out with comedians like you two do.

Past tense. I outgrew that after college.

Individually, some of them are pretty cool, decent human beings, but in a group, when a topic like "joke stealing" appears, it just gets pathetic. The only thing worse is "selling out".

[mburbank]

Okay, okay.

Paralell generation and joke stealing both exist. You can't always tell the difference but mostly you can. Accusations of joke stealing come from people showing up at an open mike or showcase night and later telling a version of a joke they have never told before that was very similar to a joke another comic told that night and has been telling.

In the comic community 'joke stealing' is frowned upon. Nothing is more frowned upon than established comedians who go slumming at local clubs and later do jokes in a professional setting that they have never done before that are very similar to jokes done by comics at those clubs on the night the established comedian was there.

As for what comedians are like, in my experience, a higher percentage of them are fucked up jerks than you'd find in say, a group of accountants, or lawn care professionals. Comedy isn't something you go into professionally because your well adjusted and happy. On the other hand, they can be, you know, funny. It doesn't get your taxes done or cut your lawn, but you laugh. Who you hang out with is your own choice. Who the fuck cares?

Delivery vs. material. They are both really important, and I never seen a truly great comedian who didn't have both in spades. That being said I have seen great writers bomb more seriously than I've seen comics with great stage presence bomb. Again, so what? To me that has more to say about audiences than comedians.

Comedians learn from each other, the copy technique of each other, but Sspad is right that joke stealing is shitting where you're eating, most comics don't do it, it can't be stopped, but it's loathed by comics the way good doctors hate plastic surgeons and MD's who practice to support a drug habbit.

I think Mencia is a joke stealer. But way before I thought that, I thought he was a totally shitty comedian, with a little bit of delivery skills, but whose material virtually always sucked. When he steals, he steals low rent material which he then delivers worse than the original stuff. But he's famous because like Larry the Cable guy, he caters to peoples inner retard. Git r' done. Duh duh duhn.

Yeah, I'm way down on the comedy totem pole. But I worked full time in the comedy world for eight years, I opened for Ron White who could beat Larry the Cable Guy to death with just his booze breath back when nobody knew who the hell he was, I coached miserable fucked up comedians for eight years and managed to keep a roof over my damn head, so when I say Menicia sucks huge ass even if he isn't a joke stealer, you have NO DAMN CHOICE but to acknowledge that I'm TOTALLY RIGHT.

[El Blanco]

Originally Posted by sspadowsky

I'll bet that either their shit was never stolen, or never good enough that anyone would want to steal it.

I was refering to stage presence and delivery being more important than actual lines.

Fuck 'em. Every single one of the comics I currently hang out with thinks that joke thieves are hack pieces of shit. And they're right.

I didn't say joke stealing was cool. It is wqrong and the people that do it should be called out.

However, I think the accusation is thrown around way too easy. That video Joe Rogan made a while back shows Mencia and a few comedians telling similar jokes. But they were easy jokes. Its entirely possible for two people to seperatly come up with a shitty joke.

Let's say you're a blues artist, and you've written all these great tunes, and people have heard of them, but maybe don't know who you are, because you picked the wrong guy to manage you. Then you walk into some bar and see four thieving British fucks playing your music as if it were their own, and getting cheered, and getting paid insane money, and the crowd thinks they're the geniuses who came up with it. You'd be pretty pissed, wouldn't you?

At them? Sure. If they knowingly stole my work. But then, again, I should get pissed at the retard that didn't copyright it to begin with.

Saw it, loved it, bought it.

So, you see how a bunch of different comedians took the same joke and did it themselves, right?

It's not hard to take what they say at face value at all.

It can be when they are crying about how wronged they were.

They're far more interesting than most people you'll run across on a daily basis.

At first.

It's shallow and stupid to write off something they say just because they make jokes for a living. Besides, when faced with a choice of whom to hang out with, gimme the fucked-up people every time. They're a lot more fun than "normals."

Except when they are crying drama queens that always have to hog the attention.