Too far

Jews are cheap. Asians can’t drive. Black people are criminals. Women should be barefoot and pregnant. Priests touch little boys. 9/11 was hilarious; so was the holocaust.

No, this isn’t the set list for the next Daniel Tosh special. This is just a small sample of the kinds of topics that can get a comic in trouble with a crowd. Make the joke just as clever as it is shocking and offensive, and you’ve got yourself a winner. Make the joke generic and mean-spirited, and you’ve got yourself what many comedians call a “groaner.”

A “groaner” is what happens when people think a joke has gone “too far.”

That’s a phrase I feel like I’ve been hearing my entire life. “Too far.” Just typing it makes me feel like a pompous dick.  There is nothing worse than when someone proclaims something as “too far” when in a group of friends. The moment it’s uttered a barrier is put up in the middle of the room with a big sign on top that says “things thou shall not say.”

I suppose you have to understand how comics behave when surrounded by other comics. It’s almost like this unspoken competition to see who can get the rest of the group to react strongest to whatever obnoxious thing they’re doing or saying.

When a comic performs a joke about a touchy subject, they’re taking a risk. They know they’ll be entering onto some people’s sacred ground and micturating on their rug. Pee (that’s what micturate means) on the wrong rug, and an audience can turn on you. And I don’t mean you have to have a Michael Richards style racial temper tantrum to make people hate you.

The best example of this that I’ve seen first-hand was when I opened for one of my favorite comics Michael Malone (you will now buy his fantastic new album here). Malone loves to work with the crowd and set himself up for some hilarious improvised moments.

I was sitting in the back with the other opening act that night. The crowd at Goonie’s Comedy Club was almost full; about 110 people. Some well-intentioned club employee decided to seat a bachelorette party front and center. To a comic, a bachelorette party means that there will be somewhere between four and eight people in the crowd that want all the attention on them. They have been drinking. They have been screaming. They have purchased penis-shaped paraphernalia.

And now, they are supposed to sit quietly and enjoy a show. That’s like giving a kid with ADD a fist full of pixie sticks five minutes before the end of recess. They’re just set up to fail.

Fortunately, this party of three was behaving about as well as you can expect a bachelorette party to. Malone had about twenty minutes left in his headlining set before he finally decided to ask the bride-to-be when the big day was. The conversation was generally uneventful until Malone asked her what her fiancé did for a living. She responded with “you’re just gonna make fun of me.” She said it in a way that would reinforce the dumb blonde girl vibe she was putting out. The pink boa and penis-whistle weren’t doing her any favors either.

Malone, just asking for trouble, continues to press her on the occupation of her future-husband. Sheepishly, she says he’s a “manager.” Malone, like a pro, keeps pushing until she gets her to say that he manages a Kwik Stop gas station. Malone’s brain begins to overflow with jokes so quickly that you start to see punch lines in the whites of his eyes.

 In a drawn-out smartass tone, Malone asks her “so when you told your friends and family that you were getting married… no one… said anything?”

Blondie is the only one in the room not wetting herself.

“All I’m saying is that your friends clearly don’t have your best interests in mind.”

Even her two bride’s maids are wiping tears from their eyes at this point.

The bachelorette remains silent and glaring for the remaining 15 minutes of the show. She was probably just practicing for married life. The show ends with Malone’s “sex whip” joke, and with 109 people walking away with sore cheeks. Now, as far as I know, Malone has no material on the typical racy subjects that force comics to tip-toe a sensitive line. But, he took someone somewhere they didn’t want to go. He went --here we go-- too far.

Whether it’s not being okay with a joke about Japanese earthquake victims, or your husband’s dead-end job, people have  boundaries. I can’t expect everyone to be copasetic with every joke, no matter how vile or immature. My advice to people that listen to jokes, is to take a step back and think harder about why you put up that barrier between you and laughter. Is the judgmental “I just bit into a lemon” look on your face really worth the energy if the alternative is a smile and a chuckle? More times than not I would say the answer is no.

My advice to people that tell jokes is to take as many risks as your little heart desires. If you’re at the same point in your “career” as I am, the worst thing that could possibly happen is a room full of people that won’t remember your name roll their eyes at your joke about Michael J. Fox. Just remember, the only way you’re going to have success with it is if it’s funny, and not just abrasive. Louis CK can get away saying the “N” word because he’s the funniest guy on the planet, not because he has some special privilege you don’t have.

There is humor in absolutely every aspect of life, and if an example of something you can’t find anything funny about just popped into your head, then you’re not looking hard enough. And if that great joke you have about lupus just isn’t working, then you’re not doing it right.

I’ll step off my soap box now. Quick fact before I go. I referenced urination three times in this post. Too far?