LOUIS CK LIVE 2022

 LOUIS CK LIVE

November 17 2022 Louis CK performed at Brisbane Entertainment Centre. I've seen many of the great comedians  especially Billy Connolly, Robin Williams  and Steven Wright. The only great on my list who never came to Australia was Garry Shandling.  As much as I love Jerry Seinfeld seeing him live didn't interest me. Of the others I've seen Dylan Moran who was extremely good.

All of these comedians take you on a journey because they have to, if you're doing stand up for a period of hours it has to be more than just jokes or a series of stories. the only disappointing thing about Louis was that he was on stage for only 75 minutes but I didn't feel robbed or anything.

Louis takes you on a journey that is always going to start in a weird place, but with him it's like starting at the bottom of Everest and in that 75 minutes you are going up that mountain until you reach the peak.The journey is great but reaching that peak really is as funny as anything you will ever see.  He is the funniest comedian of them all. 

The main reason you love a comedian is that you feel you think the same , or have similar routines in your head. I once did a routine at an Open Mike  venue about Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. A year or so later I saw on You Tube  Louis doing the same subject and crazily we had some of the same lines. ( Like it's an interesting film in which Christ gets the fucking shit beaten out of him for an hour and a half).

I had thought he'd never come to Australia (again- he did a Melbourne and Sydney show around 2011/12) but due to his wrong doings which I don't condone at all , I think he will return in the next 2-3 years.

 

 

 

THE CANNIBAL COOKERY BOOK SKETCH

 THE CANNIBAL COOKERY BOOK SKETCH 

Earlier today I watched a few minutes of one of those cookery shows, something I never watch , but whilst doing so I asked myself the question. Where's the sketch?" Within about 30 seconds the answer came to me. The Cannibal's Cookbook.

1. I asked myself why I haven't seen a sketch on this theme before. Like it's obvious. 

2.  Next: First reference. Jeffrey Dahmer and the head in the fridge. 

3 Do I do it as interview with the cannibal taking questions or do I do in a Ronnie Barker style with the e cannibal in a kitchen and those monologues were written in a style in which Ronnie asks himself the questions. "And where do I find a butchered up body at this time of night you may ask, well here's the answer".  The answer is you do both because the interview can be a prelude to the cannibal having his own cooking show.

4 Other things that come to mind when writing this sketch Obvious Chinese and or Indian.

Ok  Straight away I think of the Cookery Show

Cannibal : And here is my Chinese dish, come out Mae Wong. Lovely isn't she , Mae will be served with rice and oyster soup.

The next thing is what will he be cooking?

My first thought once again obviously all the exterior human features. Head, eyes, ears, lips, arms , hands, legs and feet. Then there's the interiors , brain, heart, liver and kidney.

All of these have to be combined with a cookery term such marinated or stewed or casserole.

But what will really make this funny or make it work as far as recipes.

A.Marinated liver. No  

B Silvia's marinated liver. So so. 

C Annoying Landlady's marinated liver.  That's more like it. let's get specific here, he's a cannibal and he eats people who annoy him.

So I'm making up a name for this cannibal character and a dozen have gone in and out and then it hits me, yes the obvious hits me. It has to be pop culture icon Hannibal Lecter in full face mask.

1. It's a satirical sketch so there's no rights to the name etc.

2 He's the biggest cannibal name in the business.

3 He will grab every kid's attention. "Did you see the Hannibal Lecter sketch, that was disgraceful". At this point I'm not thinking disgraceful but I want it to be distasteful. ( pun not intended).

 4. No lines like : 

So what possessed you to be a cannibal.

You could say I had a hunger for it . ( None of that ) Something similar though.

 

 

HANNIBAL'S LECHTER' S COOKBOOK INTERVIEW

 

Host :  Good evening , my next guest needs no introduction. He is world a renowned serial killer and cannibal and master chef. Currently do time a life time in prison with the special title "Never to be released' this man has murdered more people than most of us would dream of. Give a warm welcome to Hannibal Lecter.

CUT TO Hannibal Lecter in face mask.

Hannibal : Hi Guys.

Host: I've got to say Hannibal, that's an impressive entourage you have with you behind the screen.

Hannibal:  They are eight highly trained SAS men who will kill me as if I as much as sneeze.

Host: Give a big hand to the SAS they do such a great job.

Hannibal:  Maybe.

Host: Before we get to the cook book Mr Lecter I'd like to discuss your history of murders, if that's fine with you. It says here Thirty two alleged murders.

Hannibal:  Twenty nine. Alleged. the others are pure coincidence.

Host: Twenty nine.

Hannibal: Well who's counting really, I mean someone turns up dead two blocks away from my house, they are have their tongue cut out , their lungs and kidney removed, their fingers and toes cut off and everyone points the finger at me. Next thing I know they say I am number one on their suspect list.

Host: Yes, those accusations must hurt you.

Hannibal: You bet, sometimes they hurt me so much I could just cut their heads off and eat their brains,  with a mushroom sauce but so be it.

Host: Yes. And did you cannibalize all your victims or just some? 

Hannibal : What do you take me for, a pig? No! In most cases I just enjoyed the killing. I ask you , could you eat a politician. I bet the answer is No!

Host  It is No!

Hannibal: Of course it's No. You would create such a bad vibe from eating them and belly pains. yuk yuk yuk.

Host ( nervously) :  Let's get back to the book. I'll open at a random recipe and you explain. Grilled postman with a bean salad. Can you explain that.

Hannibal:  Self explanatory , he he he. best with olive oil.

Host: Virgin olive oil?

Hannibal: The virgin's the dessert.

Host: The Annoying guy on the bus....... soup. 

Hannibal: Self explanatory. Again. I don't like stupid questions.

Host: They're not questions, I'm just reading out the recipes.

Hannibal: Don't push it buddy. I have little patience.

Host:  Ok Mr Lecter. Ah yes and here's another one. Here's a funny one Chef's Surprise.

Hannibal : Very good choice, the last thing a Chef expects is to be standing over a nice hot stove and suddenly his throat is cut and a minute later his or her naked body is stewing in a enormous pot with lots of garlic, barley and beef stock for flavour. Voila! Chef's surprise.

Host: That's great.  So Mr Lecter, so what will you be having for dinner tonight?

Hannibal  You . I've just removed my hand cuffs.

FADE TO BLACK 

Host AAAGGGGGHHHHHH

Hannibal: Could someone get me a glass of  Penfold's rose.  Please.

THE END

 So that's as a first draft written in about an hour and I've covered the major laugh angles which I was looking for and with a lot more work this could be a very funny sketch.

 

 

WRITING A COMEDY SKETCH

 WRITING A COMEDY SKETCH

It's a bit like everything else in life. If you do it long enough and do it properly it then comes easy.

Your stock standard sketch would usually go for a minute and half to about 5 minutes. the process is the same.

The sketch is like a pop song. The song has a verse  a chorus and somewhere in there is a crescendo.

If the sketch goes for one and a half minutes there is one verse, one chorus and one big laugh somewhere. it does not have to be at the end as a punchline but it helps. Each minute and a half has the same process.

My basic sketch is the two person sketch. It doesn't matter who the people are, the sketch is like an interview. Whether its boy meets girl or cop meets killer one is interviewing the other.

In the sketch interview questions are asked and the wrong answers are given. That's the comedy.

My basic sketch is done in 4's with four lead up lines each which get to the point  and another 4 lines each to the big joke. That's not set in stone of course but it's a good guide.

It's a sketch so the lead up lines are in rhythm like song so that the performers are singing a duet. This makes it comfortable for the performers but it also gets smiles from the audience because they see the humour in the rhythm.

Me. I've devised a little strategy that if it's a confrontational the protagonist abuses the other party with The "Go fuck Yourself" Sketch.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. The Go Fuck yourself signals the end of the sketch.

2 It's my signature

3 I don't want anyone to say my humour is nice and clean and "He doesn't have to use bad language to get laughs'. I'm not writing for Christians nor my mother, I'm writing for 11 year old naughty boys.

Once you learn this it should be like shelling peas. It might take a life time though.

That's about it.

THE LOST COMEDY SKETCHES

 LOST COMEDY SKETCHES : Especially the DUMMY COP.

I've had quite a pile of comedy material for too long. On Sunday it was time to sift through and see what I had. I was of the belief that I had lost many of my sketches over the years. To my relief I've hardly lost any if any at all.

I do have most of the stuff on discs or those plugins but now I know exactly what I have. I can either get it scanned if possible or even re type and save it all again. I have no problem with that because some of the sketches will need to be rewritten. really all the sketches should be rewritten at some time.

I didn't learn a lesson but I should have gone through all of this stuff ten years ago or even fifteen years ago and just sort it out properly. Would have saved some unnecessary anxiety.

One sketch I had presumed lost was one about a cop whose partner is a ventriloquists dummy. I had no idea what the title was , possibly Dummy Cop which would have made things easier. I had done a series of sketches called Mullumdimby Vice and it was an episode of that series of sketches. Once I found that sketch though I realised I had just about all of my material.

This is an important sketch to me. It's very good or very funny. I sent it to a show which premiered in the year 1998. They never got back to me, but this sketch was the opening sketch in their first episode.  I wasn't credited nor did they call me it. It was just plain stolen.

The version which appeared on TV wasn't 100% of what I submitted, there were of course subtle and even unsubtle changes. 

This was the last straw as far as theft of my material was concerned. It was the theft of this sketch which made me make the choice of trying stand up comedy. To protect my material ( As if that worked).

Anyway, I have over 100 complete sketches, mostly "off the wall" to sort through and rewrite. Rightly or wrongly I've gone down this path as opposed to writing sketches for established comedy characters as they already have their writers. They will be retyped, rewritten and improved and stored on a device.

 All good.