How to Talk to Anyone (Junior Talker #5) by DeYtH Banger (you can read anyone TXT) š
- Author: DeYtH Banger
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Most mothers suggest that if you donāt have anything nice to say, donāt say it at all. The more modern advice, however, might be: If you donāt have anything nice to say, at least be funny when youāre saying it.
Anthony Jeselnik has nothing nice to say about anything. His persona is that of an arrogant prick, constantly airing grievances and confessing evil deeds. Frequent targets of abuse include family members, small children, and any woman with the misfortune of being one of his girlfriends. Through sheer commitment to character, though, and a deep respect for old-school joke crafting, Jeselnik has elevated ābeing a dickā to an art.
While the comic mostly sticks it to those in his own sphere during stand-up showsāand fellow comics in his beloved appearances on roastsāhe takes out his animosity toward the world at large in his Comedy Central show, The Jeselnik Offensive, which has just been renewed for a second season. The former Late Night With Jimmy Fallonwriter chafed against the kind of news-based jokes he had to write on that show. Now, he has his own outlet dedicated to rants about the horrible things he finds most interesting.
Of course, nobody gets laughs merely by saying horrible things. Thereās a certain finesse to itāa strategy built on misanthropyāof which Jeselnik is the undisputed master. The cranky comedian recently shared with Co.Create the tricks to cracking jokes by being a jerk.
APPEAL TO YOUR AUDIENCEāS DARK SIDE.
I found it was tough to get people to laugh at the kind of absurd one-liners I was telling when I first started out. But once Iād written a joke where the twist at the end was mean, the reaction was so much bigger. It was just guttural. That was a lightbulb moment for me, and I thought everything should have a mean twist. I think the biggest laugh is when someone laughs at something they donāt think they should be laughing at. Itās just a different kind of laugh, and thatās the only laugh I want from an audience.
DESENSITIZE THROUGH QUANTITY.
Everything I say is mean, so that makes everything less mean. If Iām up there talking about relationships and making fun of milkshakes and then all of a sudden I have a rape joke, it would make it seem that much more awful. If everything is rape and death, then it takes the pressure off of those things. People can feel a little better about laughing at something awful when itās surrounded by other horrible things.
SMUGGLE MEAN IN WITH THE HUMOROUSLY TRAGIC.
When I wrote for Fallon, my favorite stories were the more tragic ones that people could still make fun of. Like when the inventor of the Frisbee dies. Itās a chance to make a funny, silly joke about that, but it was also making fun of someone who just died. Those things were great to me. Somebody dies in Florida because they drank too much bleach? Thatās the kind of stuff that I love.
GO AHEAD AND OFFEND PEOPLE; THEYāLL GET OVER IT.
People always say āOh, that offends me,ā like itās something that matters. Being offended doesnāt hurt you. Nobodyās ever gotten hurt by being offendedātheyāre just offended for a little bit, and then they get over it. Thereās a guy from New Zealand who was demanding an apology from me for this shark bit I did on the show recently. And I couldnāt care less. I would never apologize for anything. Heāll forget about it in a week. It doesnāt matter. He doesnāt know who I am. The criticism was āHow can you make fun of New Zealand sharks when you wouldnāt make fun of 9/11 or Newtown?ā Iāve made fun of both of those things a few times on the show.
BE MEAN FOR THE RIGHT REASONS.
I donāt feel bad making fun of a tragedy because it already happened. Itās over, so why not joke about it now? People might even appreciate it. Laughing after a tragedy takes the power away from it. And that power always goes away. Any tragedy is tragic forever, but one day it suddenly becomes okay to make an Aurora joke or a joke about Gabby Giffords. It depends on why youāre making the joke. Are you trying to get attention for yourself? Or are you really trying to make people laugh at something. I think one is more noble than the other.
PEOPLE LIKE BEING INSULTEDā¦. SOMETIMES.
I like being insulted, if itās a good insult. Thereās something about not taking yourself seriously thatās really fun. Especially if someoneās good at it. When Jeff Ross makes fun of me, I laugh every single time. Itās almost like a badge of our friendship. If I know that he worked hard on a joke for me, it makes me love him. When some idiot on the street makes fun of me, I donāt appreciate it as much.
USE āTHIRD THOUGHTā TO MAKE MEAN TWISTS SURPRISING.
If I give you the setup of a joke, a punch line might pop in your head right away. Thatās the first thought. But if your punch line is the first thought, nobodyās going to laugh at it because theyāve all already thought of it. If you sit there and think about what else might happenāthe second thoughtāthat could be an okay joke. But the third thought is where you really blow people away, because itās something that they would have put together eventually, but it takes a while. When you look at a premise, just think about what the smartest take on it would be. Ask yourself, āWhat havenāt I heard before?ā
THE BIGGER THE TENSION, THE BIGGER THE RELEASE
Being shocking is like working with a different kind of canvas. Iām painting, just like everybody else, but thereās something about having that shocking or taboo word in there that amps up the tension. Sometimes the punch line is something offensive, sometimes the setup is offensiveāwhere it just makes people uncomfortable. Thatās when you can really pull the rug outābecause theyāre looking one way. You build up the tension and then release the tension, and everybody laughs. I just think you get a bigger laugh when youāre talking about offensive subjects.
Thereās shock comedy where all youāre really doing is saying AIDS at the end of a joke. And then thereās comedy thatās talking about AIDS but has a smarter twist to it and that helps me get away with a lot. The joke would stand on its own, even if it wasnāt talking about abortion or something.
PRETEND THEREāS NO LINE (BECAUSE THERE ISNāT ONE).
Thereās no line. Comedy can go anywhere, as long as you can make it funny. Thereās a Laurence Olivier quote: āThereās no such thing as overacting.ā You can go as big as you want; you just have to fill up the spaceāyou have to see the character get to that moment. So you can talk about anything horrible, you just have to build to it, or put it in a context that makes sense. Where people might say, āOh, you definitely canāt make fun of that,ā all that interests me is trying to make those things funny. People probably have their own lines, but my job is to push that line as far as I can or obliterate it completely and make somebody laugh at something they never thought theyād be able to laugh at. Iām not trying to give the audience what they want; Iām trying to give the audience what I want, and make it palatable.
Dara Ć Briain: āIād like to maintain this plateauā
The comedian has reached an enviable point in his career where he is happy to continue doing what heās been doing. But heās no less irritable or interesting for that
Dara Ć Briain is hungover. Sitting in a hotel room in Dublin, the previous night was spent at the premiere of Noble. āI would characterise this interview as being slightly hungover. Not quite as coherent, or as on the nail. Eh, thereās a struggling for the words here and there. So, sorry about that.ā
Despite the woolly head, heās animated and full of chat. His upcoming stand-up show, Crowd Tickler, is bound to be another success. Thereās something very solid about Ć Briain. Heās smart. Thereās an edge to his opinions, a quickness, and a dexterity of intelligence that suggests you could throw any topic at him and he would probably form an enlightening and enlightened point of view on it.
The narrative is well-known now: from ColĆ”iste Eoin on the Stillorgan dual carriageway, he went up the road to UCD, excelled at debating and eventually veered towards comedy. Like the best comedians, Ć Briain isnāt just about the gags. If he was in a journalistās contacts book, you could call him for a line on a bunch of topics: science, maths, Irish man-in-London syndrome, video games, the Irish language, and, oh yeah, comedy.
Running away with the circusWhen did he realise that performance was a thing? āThatās a very good way of putting that question,ā he says, poking fun at the inevitability of it. āThe traditional way of asking it is: when did you first realise you were funny? A version of that question gets asked so often that Ardal [OāHanlon] had a standard answer, which was, āThe government sent me a letter when I was 11ā, which I think is a fantastic stock response.ā
His actual answer is: in university, attending debates and admiring that skill, āenvy being a great driver at timesā. He came up with some gags for a debate about the presidential election in 1990 and they got a huge round of applause. āThis weird spike went off in a part of me I didnāt even know was waiting to receive that jolt. Bloody hell.ā
He considered being a barrister, that being the more traditional path given the notion of doing stand-up in Ireland in the 1990s was a bit out-there. āIt was as exotic as: I will run away to the circus.ā He goes on a tangent about people on unicycles, and acts out people flinging knives at a woman rotating on a board.
Being at the helm of Mock the Week probably gives him a better perspective on the tropes and trends that come and go in comedy. Heās not a fan of cliches, like the one about comedians and depression, which gets asked all the time, āmuch as Iām sure if youāre a female comedian you get asked: whatās it like being a female comedian? We all get asked about depression. But we all know people who have actually had depression. Do you see them do many gigs? Do you see them going, āI want to go on stage and tell jokes or write jokesā? Nobody ever goes, āYour teeth look fantasticā. āWell, the best dentistry comes from a very dark place . . .ā ā
Another thing that bores him are stand-up routines about the song Blurred Lines, ābecause now this is the badge that people are quick to assert, their feminist credentials at the moment ā male comedians, by the way,ā he clarifies, quick to say that female comedians doing great feminist routines are totally separate to this. It happened with science too, when that became a common stand-up topic. āI donāt do it [the feminist stand up cliche] because I felt itās slightly irritating. When science was the kind of thing for people to drop in, I was slightly, āWell, where were you all when I was in UCD actually doing this stuff?ā Iāll spare the patronising male attempts at doing a feminist routine now, out of the sheer professional courtesy that I found frustrating when people suddenly all decided they were into science.ā
Last year, Ć Briain said something quite nuanced about the issue of gender balance on the type
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