Tweet, Tweet!

All the cool kids are doing it. Wisecrack's doing it (@wisecrackzine), I'm doing it (@lpark1984), and even some of your favorite comedians are doing it.
Tweeting, that is. It's the newest craze but it's actually a pretty interesting way to see change happening and stay connected to people in 140 characters or less.

Thanks to this list of "85 Comedians to Follow", I am following some funny ladies:


She talks about everything from her new show Drop Dead Diva to the everyday observations that we've come to love from Cho.



Likes to geek out and recently talks about her love for affordable hotels.



This Midwestern stand-up's most recent tweet says: judged a childs beauty pageant today and stole the souls of a few would-be Jon Benet's. Their Moms were crying tears of blood. Hilarity ensues - a must follow!



Stand-up lady and co-creator of SheckyMagazine.com takes time out of her day to update us with her funny thoughts.



AT let's her tweeple in on secret shows, her projects and when her back massages take a turn for the worst.


*BONUS*

Even the "Executive Transvestite" is tweeting it up!


This is just something to start you off. There are so many others to follow on Twitter. Let us know who you're following and who we should add to our list.

Jen Dziura: Spelling out success in comedy

Comedy and spelling have a lot more in common than you think, and Jen Dziura is out to prove just that. As a founder [editor's note- our apologies, bobby blue is the founder] co-host of the Williamsburg Spelling Bee, an intellectual triathlon for adults, the New York native has her sights set on conquering not only the world of academic bees, but that of smarty-pants comedy as well. And with the recent success of her one-woman show, What Philosophy Majors Do After College, waiting in the unemployment line seems like the least likely scenario for comedy's queen bee. Hear what Jen has to say as she checks in with Wisecrack to discuss the correlation between grammar and comedy, getting back on her feet after failure, and Pee-Wee Herman in drag.


Wisecrack: Have you always known you wanted to pursue a career in comedy? Can you name a specific instance in which life drove you to laughs?

Jen Dziura: You know, that's a funny question, because I'm not totally sure what I'm doing now is exactly about pursing a career in comedy. I've always felt as though there's a Venn Diagram at play -- there's comedy, and there's my Platonic ideal of being the best possible public version of myself, and there's some overlap in the middle that is my working space.

I saw Sandra Bernhard's "Without You I'm Nothing" on DVD in a Queer Studies class in college, and I think that was pretty formative for me. And then I saw Josh Kornbluth's monologue show about being a math major, but at the time (in college) I was training to be an action adventure star in the movies -- I was captain of the boxing team for awhile, I did martial arts and rock climbing and bodybuilding and wrote a screenplay that I would theoretically star in, about a teenage lesbian superhero.

So it all took awhile to gel and come around to my running an adult spelling bee and telling jokes about philosophy. I can no longer do as many pull-ups as I once could.

W: Is there an inherent relationship between good spelling and good comedy? How are the two connected?

JD: I'm not sure about spelling, but there's a strong correlation between irregular grammar and comedy. For instance, just take a basic joke form such as the "your mom" joke. Compare:

What I love about your mom are (noun), (noun), and (insulting noun).

What I love about your mom are (noun), (noun), and (insulting independent clause).

Both forms have a "surprise" at the end in that the third item in the list does not actually belong in a list of things the speaker loves about the subject, but the first joke template obeys the principle of grammatical parallelism and, despite the nouns chosen, will likely end up only moderately funny; the second violates the conventions of grammatical parallelism, and is thereby already funnier. Try it!

Another good example -- the other day, I made some vegan ravioli for myself, and they were kind of hideously green, due to some kind of spinach pasta situation. Also, they had come apart in the pot a little bit and were leaking things like peas and beans. My boyfriend looked over and said, "Oh look, you made boiled terribles!"

It was such a funny comment because "terrible," of course, isn't a noun. I don't think "boiled disasters," for instance, would have been as funny at all; a great part of the humor was in the surprising (and technically incorrect) diction.

W: You seem to have a wide-ranging array of interests, from comedy to martial arts to nearly every facet of academia. Can you describe the process by which you brought all of these things together to formulate a bankable career?

JD: Well, thank you for assuming that I masterminded the whole thing! I think it was quite a bit more haphazard than that. And it involved a lot of failing. I failed at running a dot-com, I failed at shopping around a screenplay, I failed at making a living as an art school model, I failed at holding a 9-5 job, I failed at getting myself into the traditional comedy club system.

I also tried a lot of things that didn't stick. The martial arts didn't stick. Some other things I've tried that didn't stick include skydiving and lesbianism. (No connection).

Somewhere in the middle of all the failing, when I was living in East Harlem in one of those hallways that people cordon off with a shower curtain and rent out as a bedroom (welcome to New York!), someone asked me to host an adult spelling bee. That was in 2004. And I've been doing that every other Monday since then. The high-water mark may have been when the New York Times ran a story about the bee on the front page of the style section, and that night, Bill Maher made fun of us on his show. It was in the "New Rules" segment -- as in, "New Rule: Adults must stop acting like children. The kids are going to spelling bees in bars!" I think the low-water mark was when Law and Order: Criminal Intent put out a casting call for, um, an actress to play a "female 20-something host of an adult spelling bee in a Brooklyn hipster bar." Seriously. I sent them something ("You know, I could just make a cameo as myself -- ever hear that story about the time Charlie Chaplin entered a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest and came in third?") but didn't get anywhere. Finally, the episode came out, and of course it was awful. As in, the Brooklyn "hipsters" had bleach-blond gelled hairdos and earnestly said things like, "I just want to ROCK, man!" In other words, they were straight out of a 1987 Pop Tarts commercial on Nickelodeon. I never did get to see who they cast as me, because the spelling bee scene had been cut -- there was just a mention that the "hipsters" had attended a spelling bee before one of them was murdered. Jeff Goldblum got to be all, "Kids these days! Spelling bees! Pshaw!"

Anyway, the spelling bee happened and became very popular, and then I started running geography, math, trivia, and vocabulary tournaments for adults, and somehow word got around the internet that I tell a lot of grammar jokes, and then I was in a pilot for a show on the Sci Fi Channel that didn't get made, and every once in awhile something awesome would happen, like the time I had this piece on McSweeney's that was getting a lot of hits, and then someone posted it on Fark.com, and then someone trying to be mean commented that I look like "Pee -Wee Herman in drag" and I said, "Oh my god, it's true!" It was a great feeling, like finding a long-lost twin. But a twin with his own playhouse!

Keep in mind, though, that this all happened really, really slowly, over a period during which I couldn't help being aware that I am aging, as are we all, and that Hollywood cares about this sort of thing an awful lot. I'm waiting to get some really good crow's feet so I can have diamonds embedded in them. Don't steal my idea!

So, no master plan. I just realized, over years of trying things, that I am good at hosting intellectual game shows and being nice to people even when they get the answers wrong, and that I'm good at telling jokes for smart, polite people. If I could just tour from library convention to library convention ... oh, a girl can dream!


W: What is your favorite word to spell, and why?

JD: For years, one of my favorite words was "apropos," because I learned that word as a young teenager from a translation of Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground" in which the book's second part is called "Apropos to the Wet Snow." Could that possibly have also rhymed in Russian?

Here are some of my favorite words from the Williamsburg Spelling Bee:

chionablepsia - snow blindness

rhinorrhagia - nosebleed

horologium - timepiece

discalced - barefoot, especially of a monastic order

poetomachia - an Elizabethan "War of the Theaters"

kakidrosis - smelly perspiration

Of course, that last one shares a root with:

kakistocracy - rule by evil men

Which reminds me a bit of:

hecatontarchy - rule by one hundred rulers

Which reminds me that this word is not "rule by eight rulers," which would instead be "octocracy":

ochlocracy - mob rule

And then there are the classics: lepidopterology, triskadecaphobia, trichotillomania, rhododendron, hyacinthine, hippopotamian. For the literature buffs: Lilliputian, Brobdingnagian, quixotic. Many of the hardest words are not from Romance languages: schipperke, aebleskive.

And if I'm going to go all meta on your ass: sesquipedalianism.

W: Ten years from today, what is the life of Jennifer Dziura going to look like?

JD: Hopefully no chionablepsia, rhinorrhagia, kakistocracy, etc.

In comedy, I'm really moving away from telling 15 minutes of jokes here and 15 minutes of jokes there.... I'm just going to develop one big show every six to twelve months, and do that show a few times, and then go back inside my head for a few months. I admire people like Mike Daisey, who do just that. Spaulding Gray's "Swimming to Cambodia" was really seminal for me. Of course "seminal" is a pretty gross word. And it's funny, I've donated eggs -- maybe I should insist that creative works that really influenced you be referred to as "ovoid." Of course, that just means "egg-shaped," which, in virtually all cases of seminal works, is simply not true.

The going back inside my head business is really crucial for me, and I've come to terms with the fact that stand-up comedy does not create a huge overlap on the Venn Diagram with what I know my mission to be. I've never been one of those comics who needs to be on stage five nights a week. I'm going to save it all up -- you can come watch me once or twice a year. It'll be more special that way. You'll be more likely to buy me alcohol when it's over, because of the extra specialness. Hmmn, you know what's never happened? Cute young men don't come up to me after the show and ask me to autograph their chests. I would like to autograph some chests. I just realized that that's a goal.

My current one-woman show is called, "What Philosophy Majors Do After College." I'm doing it August 7th in New York at The P.I.T., and then taking it on the road. Then, a book, a comedy CD.... Over the next ten years, I'd like to do a live show a year or so, and do more projects for television, hosting a reality show or variety show, ultimately landing a talk show. (Have I mentioned that Dick Cavett is a national treasure? That's what I mean when I say "talk show.") I'm going to have some kids who are really good at spelling. And a nanny who makes mimosas.

Also, I just moved into this Wall Street apartment that has a 25th-floor balcony, and I put a hammock on that balcony, and every time I lie on the hammock and look up the side of my 50-story building, I imagine that Batman's on his way, which I think can only be a plus for my creative process.


Read more from Jen in her McSweeney's pieces:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2006/7/10dziura.html

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2007/3/2dziura.html

The First Queen of Comedy: Moms Mabley

The extraordinary Moms Mabley performed with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Cab Calloway, wrote with Zora Neale Hurston, and went on to play Harlem's Apollo more than any other entertainer.  She was the first female comedian superstar, with a career spanning more than sixty years. 

Mabley has quite a background.  Orphaned by the age of eleven, and a survivor of rape, she had given birth to two children who had been put up for adoption before the age of sixteen.  She was forced by her step-father into marrying an older man.  With the encouragement of her grandmother (a former slave, whom she later based her stage persona on), Mabley ran away to Cleveland, Ohio.  Ohio is where she joined the vaudeville circuit and began her stardom. 

Featured in 24 comedy albums, she went on to produce and act in at least nine plays and seven films. By the end of her career, she was making $10,000/week for her stage appearances alone. Cited as a hero and influence by many comedians, she remarked, herself, on how often she saw white comedians sitting at her show with pen and paper in  hand.  She had no problem confronting these material thieves. 

From Moms Mabley's BookRags Biography:

Though Mabley's act may seem stereotypical to some, it was really quite a clever show business ploy. While attractive young women, particularly black women, could show little in the way of intelligence or sexuality without condemnation, "Moms" was safe—a laughable figure of fun. From behind the shabby clothes and mobile toothless grin, Mabley could offer sharp-witted insights and social commentary that would have been unacceptable from a more serious source. Beloved by African-American audiences, Mabley's whole persona was an "in" joke among blacks, and she did not hesitate to focus her scathing humor on whites and their ill treatment of other races. She also demonstrated glimmers of an early feminism with her jokes about old men and their illusions of authority. One of her trademark jokes was, "Ain't nothing an old man can do for me, but me a message from a young man."

I could find just one video clip of Moms Mabley comedy online.  It's not the most biting social commentary, but you do get to see her perform:

 There's some question over whether or not Moms was gay.  Besides "Moms," a hit play in '87, blog posts and a few academic papers, relatively little has been written about her.  What a shame.

More on Moms Mabley's Life

Web Comedy Reveiew: Chick Comedy

As the name implies, Chick Comedy features comedy by  women, for women, on a woman-friendly pink, lipstick-kissy background.  Videos include comedy news, stand up performances and solo sketch shows, ranging from amateurs to videos featuring Chelsea Handler, Natasha Leggaro and Melinda Hill.  

The most popular video at Chick Comedy, featuring Anjelah Johnson:

Overall, this is the Cosmo of women's comedy sites: Pretty girls being heteronormative to the max (while making jokes!).   As the women's wing of the site Comedy Time, I'm going to go ahead and posit that it wasn't created by women.  Or anyone under 30 (who says "chick" anymore?).  But it's still nice that it exists.  It gives new comedians a place to be featured and discovered by fans who are bored of Comedy Central's typical dude-itude. 

The Shacktacular Liz Feldman

Shack Talk w/ Ben Stiller & Amy Adams - watch more funny videos

Liz Feldman, a Brooklynite living in LA, already has quite a 

following from her After Ellen webshow "This Just Out with 

Liz Feldman." She now hosts Funny or Die's "Shack Talk," 

(essentially a straighter version of This Just Out). Both 

shows feature comedic monologues, interviews with famous 

people, a flashy blue velvet sport jacket and a room full of 

laughing staff members.

If you live near Temecula, California, you can catch Liz in 

person this weekend, hosting the "Pretty Funny Women" 

show... check her myspace for more details.

Women ARE Funny: Notes from a Feminist Male Comedian

Over the last month four different female comedians have spoken with me about the troubles in being a female comedian. One said that comedy was rough for women because club owners, bookers and producers often hit on the comedians, making it difficult for them to rebuff these advances and still get booked on shows. I, occasionally billed as a feminist male comedian, do notice the difficulties women go through in this business. It is harder for women to get booked than it is for men.

In the early eighties when I started going to NYC comedy clubs regularly as a fan, bookers were less likely to hire female comedians. They said that audiences didn't like women comics, that all they did was talk about their periods and complain about men. Some club owners were even quoted as saying that women simply weren't funny enough. It was very rare to see more than one woman in the line-up, even if the show had a dozen comedians.

And unfortunately, when people see a small amount of truth in something, they may believe the whole thing. The small amount of truth being that in fact there was a percentage of working female comics who did talk about their periods and complain about men. Sure, male comics talked about their girlfriends but they were more likely to say "MY girlfriend stinks" whereas the females were saying"ALL men stink" and for an audience there's a difference between the two statements. I'm not her boyfriend but I am a man, and I'm therefore being insulted for my gender.

Some generalizations may have had a bit of truth twenty years ago, but no longer.

It's been my observation lately that at amateur shows and open-mikes in NYC around thirty five percent of the comedians are female (this is more than a guess-- I've been counting). The percentage of professional female working comics is probably much lower. But before the statisticians start calling, I do need to point out that you can't compare the two-- you'd have to look at the proportion of female amateur comics several years ago vs. working comics now (and not just in NYC) because it takes years to go from starting out to making money. And maybe only one percent ever make it to the professional level.

It takes a long time for things to change. Right now one NYC comedy club, Laugh Lounge, is owned and booked by a woman, and the person who first auditions comedians at The Comic Strip is also a woman. Many other clubs have women who book/produce shows. And if you look at who is booked at some rooms, the proportion of women seems to be on the rise. There's no Title IX in comedy, but there are women who are doing all they can to help other women succeed. Change is happening. Not terribly fast, but faster than it would happen without the women in comedy who are there helping other women. But there is a group of people who can help women comedians even more than the bookers and other comedians can. It's you. How can you help? Keep reading.

Some people say that one reason that men are more successful in the business world is that while women tend to seek consensus, men are more likely to try to win people over to their point of view. Genetics? Upbringing? Sexism? A combination of all three? We don't know. I will say this about comedians-- search for comedians on the web and you will discover a lot more male comedians than female comedians, and the men's sites are more likely to have content that draws you in-- as an example, look at my site (www.BrainChampagne.com) or Steve Hofstetter's (www.SteveHofstetter.com). Of course there are exceptions-- Laurie Kilmartin's website (www.Kilmartin.com) is a good example of a woman's comedy website with a lot of content. But only 15% of the comedians choosing to list themselves on ComedySoapbox.com are women, and an equally small proportion of the comedians who regularly post blogs, one of the site's most popular features, are women. Marketing is very important in comedy-- the more we promote, the more people we get to shows. And it's putting people in seats that gets us booked.

I've learned that the comedy business is half about being funny and the other half is about people. The business really runs on favors. You gave me a spot last year when I asked for one, so I'll tell my agent about you. You introduced me to this booker, so come open for me on the road. You gave me a ride home when I was sick and it was raining, now I have a TV show so come audition for it. Successful comedians have learned to be nice to other comedians-- more than half their help as they start in the business will come from other comics.

Want to know the reason that comedy clubs put on theme shows such as Latino comics or gay comics? Because they attract an audience. Vote with your feet-- if you see that NYC's Gotham Comedy Club is putting on an all-women show, go to it. If the room is full the owners will notice and put on more of these shows. They'll probably also put more female comics into the regular line-up. If you go to The Comic Strip because Judy Gold or Veronica Mosey or Karen Bergreen is playing, mention how much of a fan you are within earshot of the person at the door. Amateur comedians are told that one step in getting noticed is when the waitresses at comedy clubs start talking about them-- they see a hundred comedians a week and what they say carries some weight. More importantly, if you, a paying customer, let it be known why you went to a show, you will be heard. It's not exactly as scientific as the Nielsen ratings, but it works.

Why aren't female comedians getting their share of TV shows? Where's Laurie Kilmartin's sitcom, or Jessica Kirson's? I don't know. I don't think TV executives are geniuses, and surely they prefer going with what has already worked instead of risking something new, but if the few female-centered shows were drawing in huge ratings, the networks would notice. There seem to be a lot of television shows about young women-- they're all on UPN or WB. How are they doing? Obviously well enough that we're getting more of them. It actually took Fox to put on a number of TV shows about black families (after very few of them on network... "Good Times," "The Jeffersons" and "The Cosby Show" come to mind) and now there are a lot of them. And black people are what, fifteen percent of the country? Women, you're are more than half, and I'm pretty sure you all own televisions.

Why aren't there any women hosting late-night talk shows, traditionally a job given to a stand-up comedian? I don't know. Joan Rivers had a shot at The Tonight Show but she blew it. Frankly I really liked her on Monday nights but I don't know if I could have watched her five nights a week because she was, to me, more of a character than a person I wanted to invite into my home on a regular basis. I would quickly get sick of having so much of her. I would have said the same thing about Rodney Dangerfield, by the way. But perhaps this is still the result of sexism. Possibly women in comedy have to be more character-driven in order to get to the top, and then at the top they're locked into their character. Roseanne and Ellen got sitcoms, but Jay Leno got the comedian's biggest prize. I think he does a fabulastic job and I'm thrilled he buys some of my jokes, but when Johnny Carson retired part of me wanted Rita Rudner to get the job.

A long time ago people said that women would never be TV stars, until Lucille Ball proved them wrong. In the eighties people said that the traditional sitcom was dead because it had been done to death, until "The Cosby Show" showed that the problem was not the sitcom format but simply that we needed better sitcoms. For a long time people said that standup comedy as a TV show or movie theme wouldn't work, until Jerry Seinfeld proved them wrong. Some people even say that Kevin Costner will never be in a movie without baseball. Eventually he may prove them wrong too. There will consistently be number one sitcoms starring women. Maybe even, shockingly, with me, a feminist male, as the head writer of one of them. What will make these shows number one? When you all watch them. That's what made Oprah the Queen of daytime TV. Viewers. It's as simple as that.

And before you go completely batty, remember that while the winners of all three seasons of "Last Comic Standing" were men, not one has a TV show. Pamela Anderson has had how many?

You want more female comics to succeed? Get yourself to their shows. There are thousands of comedy clubs in big cities, in little cities and even occasional professional comedy shows in small towns, all over the United States. Comedy is a business; it runs on money. Your money is your vote. Go out and vote.

Shaun Eli

Feminist Male Comedian (sm)

(Copyright Shaun Eli Breidbart, All Rights Reserved)

This article originally appeared on www.BrainChampagne.com in 2006.  Republished with permission. 

Try this incredibly fun, rewarding interactive experience!

Pic by Flickr's Pink Sherbet

Alright folks.  This is an interactive blog post.  Here's what we need you to do:

1.  Look to the left of this column.

2. Scroll down and check out the list of comedians and shows (then come back, we'll wait).

3.  Get upset about who we've neglected to link to.

4.  Leave a comment about who we should include on the list.

5.  Go back and check out some of the phenomenal comedians already listed.

6.  Enjoy some sherbet, like our technicolor tween model.

"Funny & Fine" Sexy Comedienne Poll at Huffpost

A "Who's the sexiest comedienne?" poll is going on over at Huffpost today.   

Gah.  One on hand, sure, these women are extremely crushable and Huff gives them props in the intro.  But must we recognize their awesomeness with a beauty pageant poll?  

Yeah, yeah, they're doing the same to male comedians on Thursday.  It still doesn't sit right with me.  

Thoughts?

Marie Claire's Quotes from Comedians

I keep getting emails about this article, and even though it's not brand new, it deserves some link love.

Marie Claire has gathered dozens of comedians' comentary on gender, race, appearance, etc. It's an interesting read, although I find myself craving actual interviews, rather than sound bites.