Slow Comedy

"After a moment, he continued, “One of my favorite Bill Murray stories is one about when he went to Bali. I’d spent three weeks there, mostly in the south, where the tourists are. But Bill rode a motorcycle into the interior until the sun went down and got totally lost. He goes into a village store, where they are very surprised to see an American tourist, and starts talking to them in English, going ‘Wow! Nice hat! Hey, gimme that hat!’ ” Ramis’s eyes were lighting up. “And he took the guy’s hat and started imitating people, entertaining. Word gets around this hamlet that there’s some crazy guy at the grocery, and he ended up doing a dumb show with the whole village sitting around laughing as he grabbed the women and tickled the kids. No worry about getting back to a hotel, no need for language, just his presence, and his charisma, and his courage. When you meet the hero, you sure know it.”

He smiled. “Bill loves to get lost, to throw the map out the window and drive till you have no idea where you are, just to experience something new.” And you? “Oh, I’d be the one with the map. I’m the map guy. I’m the one saying to Bill, ‘You know, we should get back now. They’re going to be looking for us.’ ”

I've said it before on this blog, but it bears repeating, I'm routinely late to the game on a lot of different pop cultural phenomenons. When I was I was in 5th grade, my dad disallowed watching TV during the week, and this being the dark ages before the beautiful golden era of DVR, I have spent the rest of my life about a year or two behind on all things relevant.  As a person, this makes me a poor partner for water cooler talk, and as a comedian this leaves me woefully behind on my reference level.

This blog wouldn't exist without my annoying love for overanalysis and philosophizing, so let me explain why I think this is important.  This is counterintuitive, but spending time on my couch by myself watching more TV, movies, and listening to more music is a way to connect more with people.  I can't speak to how people interacted with each other even as early as 40 years ago, and I'm too lazy to do any research, but I'll say that communication probably relied a lot less on Chapelle Show and Anchorman (both circa 2004, see how far behind I am?) quotes, in fact I'm sure it didn't as those things didn't exist. American's access to a flood of art and kitsch is at an all time high, and the cultural vernacular is reflecting this.  Whether or not this is a good thing is a different conversation, but for this essay it's simply presented as a truth.  If this is true, becoming more knowledgeable about Breaking Bad is a way to connect with other people.

I've expressed my admiration for Brian Stack before, after only being familiar with his work on screen through the sketches he did on Conan, and was knocked off my feet by his amazing performance in Armondo during Just for Laughs.  I jumped on the opportunity to check out his interview and performance with Jimmy Carrane on the Improv Nerd podcast, and you should too.

The interview portion of the show reveals a lot of cool insights about Brian Stack as a person and also as a creative professional.  In my short conversation with Brian, he was disarming, kind, and intensely interested in learning about who he was conversing with.  His personality shines through even through the podcast, and Jimmy even introduces him as one of the nicest people in the improv community.  His description of the creative process while writing on Conan provides some insight into great ways to generate material.  Instead of putting pen to paper and grinding out sketch ideas and premises, simply playing and having fun with other writers and doing bits around the office creates some of the most fun and off-the-wall material to appear on Conan's show.  Even when he was touring with Adam McKay with Second City, material was generated by just doing bits and goofing around.

The improv was some of the best I've heard on Improv Nerd, and I was very impressed with how patiently they played and let things build.  They did two scenes in about 10 minutes, but there wasn't any false-starting at the top of the scene.  They hit the ground running right at the top.  The interesting thing is how they did that.  Both Brian and Jimmy give themselves strong character choices and points of view, and play the rest of the scene within the characters that they've created for themselves, and they make it seem effortless.  Brian's first character is an older farmer, and he admits right at the top that he's emotionally needy and high maintenance, and draws a huge laugh.  Not only did this hit because it was a strange thing for an older man to say, but it is also not something that people are completely forthright about.  

As an improviser, that's the inspiration I draw most from from watching Brian Stack perform.  He is constantly giving himself and others on stage huge gifts, and it makes it easy to play in the world that is built from those gifts.