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    • The rise of the female heckler broken down by comedian J-L Cauvin

    J-L CauvinComedian J-L Cauvin penned a missive in today’s Huffington Post about the female heckler. What he does is break down his last 10 years of comedy, only able to recall two times he’s been heckled by men and that he’s seen a “big rise in women sharing their opinions, sound effects and ‘making it about them’” Cauvin is even able to break it down into 5 types of female heckler he’s witnessed – Bachelorette parties, minority passive aggressive, disapproving woman with weak husband, the cougar table, and wooo girls/”No idea how to respond to a joke” lady.

    Speaking from personal experiences this past week alone, I’ve witnessed “cougar table” and “woo girl / don’t know how to react” female hecklers at two different comedy shows in the city. So maybe he’s onto something? Read the rest of this entry

    Kurt Metzger and UCB incident spawns debate on compenstation for comedians

    Metzger UCBI’m sure many of you comedy junkies have heard by now about the dispute between comedian Kurt Metzger and UCBeast (Upright Citizens Brigade East). If not, allow me to fill you in – UCBeast hosts numerous shows, including several stand-up comedy shows. You want to go to one of these shows? It’ll cost you 5-10 bucks, not a bad price for a solid night of comedy, however, this is where Kurt Metzger has a bit of a gripe with UCBeast. You see, they do not pay their comics. Kurt, a damn fine comedian, first pointed this out after doing a show at UCB.

    Near the end of last year Metzger performed at a sold out, 120 person show at the venue called The Great Debate. Metzger did some sh*t talking from the stage about this fact and later posted this fiery rant on his Facebook page (which is awesome for rants BTW) stating, “I don’t know who the fuck runs UCB but they have tremendous improv balls to charge money for a Friday night show and not pay the comics anything. I would LOVE to meet you in person.”

    About a week later Metzger returned to UCBEast to perform on The Great Debate, complained about this issue some more and rather than himself getting banned from the theatre, his friend’s show (whom he was doing a favor for) got booted from UCBEast completely. Cringe Humor posted the rundown of the canceling of The Great Debate at UCB from it’s producers Michael Shawki and Jeff Wesselschmidt. Read the rest of this entry

    The Chicago Tribune thinks it’s okay to be a heckler, here’s why they’re wrong

    Statler and WaldorfA really polarizing story was recently published by The Chicago Tribune that basically was in defense of the heckling of a comedian.

    If you aren’t familiar with the term, “heckling” is when someone in the audience becomes disruptive during the time a comedian is on stage performing. This can range from something as simple as talking amongst your table too loud to being drunk and disorderly and yelling back at the person on stage – disrupting both the comedian/show and and making it awkward for everyone in the room.

    The Tribune article states that heckling is a time-honored tradition and suggests that comedians get better through having to deal with drunken and disorderly people and this provides for a more exciting experience for everyone involved. It also breaks down the different types of hecklers – like happy hecklers (the fan), ones constantly checking phones, drunk, productive (?) hecklers and so on. Categorize them how you’d like, they’re all a bummer.

    While every comedian has their own way of dealing with a heckler including but not limited to trashing on said person until they leave or shut up, asking club security to remove them, to (unfortunately) physical entanglements. Regardless of how a comedian deals with hecklers, it’s pretty safe to say almost all comedians would rather not deal with them and focus on the show. Read the rest of this entry

    Some thoughts on the Chris Brown and Jenny Johnson Twitter flame war

    This weekend singer dancer Chris Brown got himself into a bit of a Twitter flame war with a comedy writer Jenny Johnson (who we recommend you follow if you don’t @JennyJohnsonHi5) for she’s pretty good with the joke.

    The events went as follows, Sunday afternoon, Chris Brown made a pretty harmless statement and Johnson tagged it with a mention of what happened a few years back with the beating of then girlfriend Rihanna which left her badly bruised. Since then, Brown has done the apology tour and is now trying to adopt the Michael Jackson/professional athlete school of thought that “he can dance or throw a ball really great so all the sh*tty stuff he does in his personal life should be forgiven.” Read the rest of this entry

    Youtube to start dropping original content channels, what does this mean for comedy?

    With an insanely large amount of daily viewers Youtube is the current haven dujour for comedians to showcase everything from their sketch writing to clips of them doing stand-up. At the beginning of the year the company announced they’d take a shift in tone and launched 160 channels of original content that features anyone from viral video makers to realtime producers. Basically it’s their intention to turn themselves into a TV network.

    Some would argue that it’s a step away from the DIY, Joe-public can become viral vibe the site had since its launch so with the new news that they are going to act even more like a network and go ahead and cancel 60% of its channels that aren’t “doing well” in the ratings department and will no longer be funded by Youtube. Read the rest of this entry

    Sarah Silverman’s PSA addressing new voter laws

    Sarah Silverman recorded a PSA for the website www.letmypeoplevote2012.com in an effort to raise awareness about the new voter registration laws that were passed in states all across the country and will effect millions of Americans this election season.

    Silverman goes into more detail about the laws in the clip. Bottom line, figure yourself out so you can get out there and vote for your candidate of choice this November. Yes, voting for a President is a bit more involved than voting for an American Idol but it’s way more important since Adam Lambert doesn’t shape any laws or policy, he just rocks.

    A Few Thoughts On The Latest Joke Controversy, Daniel Tosh Edition

    Daniel Tosh has found himself in a bit of hot water, and for all the wrong reasons. Here we go again.

    The comedian was recently on stage at The Laugh Factory where he got on the subject of trying to make fun of evil things in the world like gang rape, an anonymous and offended participant in the crowd felt it was her place to speak her mind rather than realize she’s watching a comedian tell jokes. Read the rest of this entry

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