I want to be a comedian.
The rock stars get all the chicks, the comedians have all the fun.
Backstage at a rock concert is a boring hierarchy of self-important pricks jockeying for access to tired musicians who are barely verbal to begin with.
Backstage at a comedy club is an endless visit to the fifth grade lavatory, where put-downs, insults and laughs are KING! (While everybody is looking at your prick. And why do they not have doors on the crappers? Can you take a crap in the school lavatory? Only during class, when you're alone, right?)
There's no comedy myth. There's no woodshedding alone in your basement, emerging fully-flowered as an icon on MTV. We've all seen the road to comedy. In the back of the classroom. Where Stevie or Adam challenged the teacher for attention. Issuing a running commentary on the absurdity of life.
But we lionize the musicians. It's otherworldly, they're on a unique path, they're testing the limits. Making a living in comedy? What, were you a victim of bad parenting? Didn't you get the law school memo? Comedy is a leap of faith. Believing you possess a gift and committing to work without a net. A financial net that is.
Unlike musicians, comedians are honest. Well, the nineties fucked up both, TV decimated both. Real musicians were replaced by good-looking automatons on MTV, who delivered vapid hits written by old farts in Sweden. And legitimate comedians, like Jerry Seinfeld, defected for the big bucks on networks, making a paycheck of $100,000 a week to play a two-dimensional character more important than telling the perfect joke. Oh, they ruined that too. With endless exposure of comedians' acts on cable. There was no longer a need to go to the comedy club, no longer a need to see an act live, you could see their whole act on "Improv Tonight", or Comedy Central, again and again and again.
Then again, it was worse in the music world. It's not like there was a bunch of good-looking joke tellers stealing the work of bizarre-looking class clowns. Then again, there was still work for people playing the role of a musician, whereas if you were a comedian, you were shit out of luck.
And today, musicians and comedians are derided. Shills looking to make money, not interested in perfection of their craft. Oh, there are still great players out there, but you can't be exposed to them unless you hunt them down, you don't see them on MTV and you certainly don't hear them on terrestrial radio. But, with this one movie, Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza have brought the comedians back. They've shown there's some thinking going on, some creativity and a TON of fun!
Oh, it's not limited to the boys. You get not only the late night classics like Cathy Ladman and Rita Rudner, on the couch you'll recognize the face of someone you know so well but can't seem to place. It's SUSIE ESSMAN! Jeff's wife on "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Oh, you remember...LARRY, YOU SICK FUCK!
Well, I guess that kind of disproves my point. Since Susie came to my attention via TV. Then again, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is improvised. Some say for freshness, but you know that Larry David is just too damn lazy. Like all comedians. He doesn't want to WORK, he just wants to tell jokes.
"The Aristocrats" rehumanizes TV dork "Drew Carey". George Carlin illustrates why he's the master. Actually, the essence is Penn's comment. It's not about the joke, but how you tell it. Kind of like music. You can have the greatest song, but if you don't DELIVER IT, you've got nothing.
So can I recommend "The Aristocrats"? As Penn says on the flick's so slow it's almost useless website, "We didn't make 'The Aristocrats' for everyone; we made it for our friends." THAT'S what's wrong with so-called art today. It's made for EVERYBODY! Believe me, when I was muttering comments under my breath in class I didn't WANT Linda Saalman to hear them up front. They weren't made for HER! I don't want the casual listener to like the same music I do. If so, there must be something WRONG! If we all liked the same thing, there'd be no war in Iraq, no Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If Coke ever succeeded in teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony it would be over, time to kill ourselves.
You know if you need to see "The Aristocrats". If you don't use the "C" word, if it ruins your day when you hear it, stay home. If you're a religious nut who believes four letter words are the work of the devil, stay home. If you need plot, stay home. But if you've ever heard a joke that made you laugh so hard you thought you were going to suffocate, or pee your pants, this movie's for you. If you ever marveled at how they do it, how they construct these jokes, this movie is for you. If you always wanted to be a member of the club, this movie is for you.
"The Aristocrats" is going to do for comedy what...NOTHING has done for music. It's the power of DVD. Fuck the theatrical release, it's just about the buzz, preaching to the converted. But when this flick hits disc, fourteen year olds, TWELVE YEAR OLDS, all over this great nation of ours are going to not only watch it, but STUDY IT! You know kids, they see the DVD once and they know every line. Still, they continue to watch it over and over and over again. It becomes part of their lives, the way 45s were part of ours. And just like listening to 45s made you want to be in the music business, to get closer to that power, that magic, "The Aristocrats" is going to inspire a whole cadre of young 'uns to become comedians. To hang out in the deli all afternoon trying to crack each other up rather than work in a stuffy office building slaving for the man. What could be more rock and roll?
It's a hard movie to explain. Because it's so simple. And although riveting throughout, not letting your mind drift, like a truly great movie, you don't laugh hysterically from beginning to end. But, when something does reach you, your body starts to writhe, you howl, it's like hearing "Satisfaction", you're completely infected, you can't break loose, you're fully alive.
And it's educational too. I'm not going to give up the secrets I divined, I don't want you to steal the building blocks of my material. But that's what it takes. If you don't know the scales, you can't play music. If you don't know what makes a great story, you can't tell jokes and you can't write.
The absolute highlight is Kevin Pollak. When he tells the joke in the voice of Christopher Walken you're mesmerized at the juxtaposition. This little Jewish guy embodying the bizarre New York actor telling this vile story in a halting voice that resembles no other. How did Kevin COME UP WITH THIS? That's the essence of great art. Creating something so OUT THERE that those exposed can only marvel, wondering WHAT POSSESSED YOU! That's what we revere. Pure inspiration. Genius.
(To get a taste of Kevin Pollak as Christopher Walken go to: http://www.cheeseware.com/movies.htm and in the lower right-hand corner, click on "Kevin Pollak-Christopher Walken".)
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