Comedy's Tragic Case of The Clap

The irony of comedy is that the very manifestation of its appreciation -- applause -- is also its downfall.

In his NBC days, David Letterman exploded the borscht trappings of late night joke shows. His arch humor was entirely different than anything we'd seen before ("I don't mind the swelling, but I can't stand the itching") and the show let it breathe, never feeling the need to clog the proceedings with audience "energy." Indeed, my favorite recurring moment on "Late Night" was Letterman's reaction when a joke failed. His smile would broaden, his head would bob, and, often, a small, tenor-pitched "hee heeee" would escape his lips. It was almost as if he was honoring the proud comic history of failure. That wistful discomfort was its own joke and it was a great one.

Now the problem is not that the material isn't as fresh as it used to be (although it isn't), but that every joke, every bit, every utterance is quickly showered with lengthy, dutiful applause. When everything is sanctified, the genuinely good comic material, and, worse, the rhythm of a full routine, loses out.

But even the best late night comedy show on television -- "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" -- isn't immunized from the applause curse. Go ahead. Count how long the sycophantic clapping and whoo-whooing lasts after Stewart is introduced or after he introduces one of his correspondents. 45 seconds? A minute? Listen to the extra loud laughter and clapping ("I have to prove that I get it!") that follows, or even cuts into, a joke.

I'm not asking for silence. Just for the entertainees to allow the entertainers to earn their adulation once in awhile.

You're Uninteresting. Here's Proof.

There are now 1.3 million unique monthly users of Twitter, the social networking site that allows you to let fortunate souls know what you’re doing at any given time. That number is dwarfed by the 120 million active users of Facebook, whose most popular feature is a Twitter-like window in which you can also inform your "friends" of your waking hours minutiae.

After studying this reality-TV-era phenomenon, I don’t know what’s worse...the stultifying banality of the posts themselves, or the fact that people now rush to the computer (or fire up the phone) to report every ass-picking moment of their lives.

Here’s a sampling of recent posts I encountered on Facebook (with names changed to protect the boring innocents):

* Joe is going downstairs for some sprinkles and ice cream – Would almost be charming if Joe had children.

* Alice fell down the stairs last night and sprained my ankle – Quite a shame that you didn’t sprain your typing fingers.

* Donna flipped a lot of pancakes this morning! – Really?! Was there syrup too??? How ‘bout butter???? Did you cook on a skillet or a frying pan?? Need…more….details!!!!

* Faith is wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! – Even the Muslims?

* Tom is loving the fact his fantasy football team went 10-1-1 and has a 1st rd bye in the playoffs – Checking injury reports during work, eh? Can unemployment be far behind?

* Dave is getting ready to hang Christmas decorations – Can’t wait to experience the garish magic of those porcelain angels.

* Bob is happy that Rutgers may actually go to a bowl game this year – Congrats on that Chia Pet Bowl birth. I’m sure the Florida Gators are devastated.

* Fred is happy that the deal in Switzerland was signed – Relax, jet-setter. Selling paper towels overseas doesn’t make you a business magnate.

* Rick is amazed how cold it has become in the Northeast – It’s late November. And the first part of your word "east" is “North.” 1 + 1 = cold.

Proposition Hate

Transcript from the Vice-Presidential debate, which precluded the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California:

GWEN IFILL (Moderator):
Senator Biden, do you support granting same-sex benefits to couples?

JOE BIDEN:
Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.

It's what the Constitution calls for. And so we do support it. We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.

IFILL:
Senator, do you support gay marriage?

BIDEN:
No.
_______________________________________________

The bizarre nature of that moment (effusive human rights defense followed by uni-syllabic dismissal) shows, once again, how political expediency trumps common decency. It also proves that religious hysteria is the vicious undertow to many of our civil issues.

Let us recount, and easily rebut, some of the “arguments” against gay marriage:

1) Marriage is about procreation.
By all means, let us ban marriage for infertile couples as well. Menopausal? You’re finished. Impotent? Sorry, Viagra Vick…no wife for you.

If you believe that those who cannot conceive children should not be denied the right to marriage, then why make a case against the gay population for the same reason? Further, it has been proven, time and time again, that children raised in gay households have no more difficulties -- in terms of sexual orientation or future success -- than those of heterosexual unions. According to Bureau of Census statistics, "twenty-five percent of children today are born out-of-wedlock to single women, mostly young, minority, and impoverished; half of all marriages end in divorce; and married couples with children now make up only twenty-six percent of United States households. It is unrealistic to pretend that children can only be successfully reared in an idealized concept of family, the product of nostalgia for a time long past." [Columbia Law Review, April 1999. (Social Norms and Judicial Decisionmaking: Examining the Role of Naratives in Same-Sex Adoption Cases. Lexis-Nexis 3/27/01).]

2) It is an affront to the institution of marriage.
That was the same argument made in support of the illegality of whites marrying blacks, and no right-minded person still stands by that ghastly vestige. And how often do we hear variations of this argument: "If we let a man marry a man, what's next? A man marrying a dog?" Marriage -- like slavery, a woman's right to vote, equal pay and so on -- was never on a slippery slope. It is on an evolutionary and righteous continuum. Besides, many a heterosexual marriage is an affront as well. Larry King, anyone?

3) The majority of Americans are against it.
True – the latest polls indicate that 61% of Americans do not favor gay marriage. But our government’s job is to protect the rights of all of us, including those that are gay, not to uphold the irrational prejudices of the masses, as California is doing in this case.

4) Being gay is a choice.
Right. Gay people want to be hated and ridiculed. No, science has made it quite clear that sexuality is innate. Simon LeVay indicated a clear difference in hypothamic structure between homosexual and heterosexual men. Dean Hamer, a Harvard trained geneticist, looked at 40 families with two gay brothers. Hamer and his team found evidence in 33 of the pairs for a genetically maternal influence in the determination of male homosexuality. Hundreds of other, agenda-less studies point in the same direction.

Nonetheless, I find that having to come up with a "no choice" argument is, in and of itself, offensive and patronizing (the poor gays...they can't help their deviant behavior). Would it be acceptable to discriminate against homosexuals if their orientation was a choice?

If you have to think twice before answering this question, shame on you and your fellow, Bible-enabled bigots.

Banish These Phrases

* Stay hydrated -- I work with a number of "running enthusiasts" whose conversational palette is of the numbingly dull "minutes-per-mile/calories-burned/heart-rate/need-to-lose-another-2.25-pounds" variety. But it is only when they constanly blather about needing to "stay hydrated" that I get the urge to chew glass. Is the phrase "drink water" too jejune for the "sports science" set?

* Very unique -- Unique is an absolute, meaning one-of-a-kind. Therefore, the "very" is flat-out erroneous. The next time you attempt to qualify this perfectly solitary word, ask yourself a simple question: Would I say "extremely extreme?"

* Low hanging fruit -- This is the most offensive of the great business-cliché triumvirate ("thinking out of the box" and "thirty thousand foot view of the customer" being the others). In case you live in another orbit, the phrase refers to particularly "ripe" or easy opportunities. Unfortunately, it sounds like a clunky euphemism for elderly genitalia.

Is Less Candy More Fun?

America’s candy manufacturers would have us believe that there is an inverse ratio of fun to size. How else to explain the pervasive “fun size” chocolate bar found in your grocery store? All but the most Gestapo-like fitness addicts know that the “fun size” is the opposite of fun; it is a sugar tease… a mere amuse bouche for the junk food set.

As you can see in the chart below, the percentage of fun rises dramatically as the package size (shown along the x-axis) increases.

White Collar Vulgarity

“Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.”
-- Eric Hoffer (1902 – 1983), American Writer and Social Critic

Could it be that the prescient Mr. Hoffer saw clearly to the BlackBerry era?

My job as an ad agency Creative Director requires at least five live client presentations every month. Each one is the culmination of weeks of research, dozens of speculative designs, thousands of miles of cramped flights and countless forlorn nights in express hotels. But the theatricality of the show itself – the buzz of performance, the excitement of my audience, the knowledge that what I've crafted has genuinely resonated – fully trumps the foregoing discomfort.

Then it happens. One of the executives to whom I'm presenting casually unclips his or her digital brick, stares down and engages in the familiar thumb gyrations.

I’ll leave it to others to decry our social transition from tête-à-tête to tap-tap-tap. Mine is a more specific argument. I fully acknowledge that the BlackBerry (one of which I own, so don’t paint me as some digital-averse freak) is a remarkable tool, at once serving all inbound/outbound communication and entertainment needs. But its use in the aforementioned scenario is vulgar beyond compare. Worse still, it appears to be increasingly accepted as “the way business is today.” Is one hour of undivided attention too much to ask? Has the need to appear important overtaken basic civility?

Enough is enough.

The next time a busier-than-thou jerk looks down at their BlackBerry while you are presenting (or merely speaking in a smaller setting) I suggest three potential steps to forever eradicate their rudeness:

1) Without breaking your verbal stride, approach the offending party and stare directly at them.
2) If that doesn’t rouse them from their device torpor, stop talking altogether and see how long it takes for the silence to work its awkward magic.
3) If that still doesn’t do the trick, say the following in the most sickly polite manner: “I’m terribly sorry that our presentation has gotten in the way of your critical e-mail. Please let us know when you’ve finished and we’ll happily continue.”

Motivational Breach

Littering the fishbowl landscape of your place of business is something far more insidious than cube farms, bad coffee or HR Directors who haven’t been laid since the Millard Fillmore administration.

It’s the ultimate pseudo-philosophical garbage, spun as panacea: motivational accessories.

You’ve seen them on the bookshelves and desktops of many an executive – plaques, prints, calendars, and, yes, even stuffed animals (“Reach for the Stars” plush starfish, anyone?) meant to “inspire.” One Web site, where you can buy these ghastly items, has even coined a cutesy-poo name for them: “Successories.” That’s right. Hallmark stock imagery + believe-it-and-it-will-come-true bunk = executive success!

One motivational print, simply called “Achievement,” shows a small group of healthy trees sitting at the pinnacle of a barren mountaintop. The quote underneath: “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” According to the Web site’s promotional copy, “In an act of sheer will, the trees achieve the unthinkable by thriving in this unlikely setting.”

Three problems: 1) Rocks are loaded with nutrients which readily allow trees to grow on their surface, so the act is hardly “unthinkable”; 2) Trees have no will, thus their growth has nothing to do with pluck; 3) Is there a soul on earth for whom these bromides actually work?

Imagine an insurance salesman aimlessly walking the halls of a monolithic company, lukewarm coffee in hand, halfway to his monthly quota. He approaches the “Achievement” print, recently encased in a faux mahogany frame, and is quickly mesmerized by its powerful balance of imagery and words. He’s suddenly filled with the urge to do his job with more passion and purpose than ever before. He wants to grow, dammit! And he knows that from this day forward, he will sell Medicare Supplement Insurance with the same verve that allowed a bonsai tree to take root on a sedimentary rock!

Sound realistic? I didn’t think so.

What is this cottage industry known as “motivation” anyway? Are we so infantile that we cannot glean enough motivation from the prospect of our paychecks or, better still, from the innate rewards that come with a little sweat?

But if all else fails, don't fret. The “Leap to Success” plush frog can be yours for only $5.99.