The Nervous Listener

 
 
 
 

Transcript:

You have to learn to hear your words as other people hear them.


That’s difficult.


We’ve all got different life experiences, cultural backgrounds, family situations, genetics, what have you…


And we say stuff to each other, and a lot of it gets lost in translation.  We’re not hearing the same thing that the person speaking thinks they are saying.


Life is just one big game of telephone.  None of us ever really completely understand each other.


That’s why people have exchanges like, “I didn’t intend for that to happen or I didn’t mean it that way.”  And other are screaming back at them “Context doesn’t matter!  Your intentions don’t matter!  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”  Stuff like that.


But if you’re going to be a comedian, you have to work very hard to try to understand other people.


Cuz you’re gonna say stuff, and they’re gonna hear that stuff - and then you gotta figure out what they think it means.


And once you have an’ idea of what they think it means, then you can figure out if that was what you were actually trying to say.


A lot of misunderstandings happen between comedians and audiences.  I’ve watched too many comedy shows; everybody’s not always on the same page.


It’s difficult.  It’s a difficult skill to cultivate.  Cuz stand-up; you’re standing in front of a group of people, and you’re just trying to keep your cool and say some stuff that you thought about for a long time and practiced saying and maybe you even wrote yourself some stage directions, “Hey, when you say this part, do this with your foot, that would be funny…”


So you’re doin’ this little song and dance, but at the same time, you can’t be too in your own head about that song and dance.  You need to be paying close attention to how everyone is reacting to the song and dance.  You gotta be in sync with your dance partner.


Sometimes I think I don’t have enough brain capacity to handle that.  Ideally, you would just go off instinct an’ figure it out.  There’s some comics that can be quite brilliant at that.  Rory Scovel comes to mind.


I haven’t hit the required amount of stage time to quite relax into it and just let it flow in that way.  It still takes more concentrated effort than I would like.


But I try to cut myself some slack.  It’s not easy to have a playful, funny, interesting conversation with an entire room of people all at once.  There’s a lot of other conversations those people could be having.  They’re sitting next to lots of other people.  They’ve got options.  They’ve got conversational options.  So you better have somethin’ good to bring to the tables.


But where I’m at now, I try very hard to watch individual audience members and see how they react to what I’m doing and then I make note of that when I go back to rewrite my jokes.


A lot of my revision process is still on the page after the show.  I have a harder time adjusting on the fly, in the moment, but I’m getting better at letting audience feedback inform my rewrites.


I used to be too panicked on stage to allow any nuanced evaluation of particular reactions from audience members.  It used to be: did it work or not?  Ok…not sure how we fix that if it didn’t…


But now I have enough awareness on stage, I can parse the feedback a little bit more.


So, that’s just an interesting observation about growing as a comic.  When you get started, it’s like having a conversation with someone you’re too nervous to talk to.  You’re thinkin’ about what to say too much.  You’re not really listening to what they’re saying.  You’re not adjusting what you’re saying appropriately, based on what they’re saying.


And comedy shouldn’t be a conversation with someone you aren’t nervous to talk to at all.  You should be a little nervous.  That’s what makes it fun.


There should be some risk that they aren’t going to get it.  That means you’re introducing new and fresh topics for conversation.


But if you come across as too much of an abstract weirdo or too crass or whatever, ya gotta be able to pull it back.


With comedy, you wanna be a little bit of a loose cannon at the dinner party, but you don’ wanna get kicked out of the dinner party.


You gotta make sure people are hearing what you’re saying as an attempt to liven up the dinner party.  You’re not trying to crash the dinner party.  You’re just trying to be more interesting than the hors d’oeuvres.


And people want you to be more interesting than the hors d’oeuvres.  They’re paying attention to you.  They want you to be good at this thing they are staring at.  So try to listen to them, and it will help you figure out how to have a better conversation.


Comedy is a conversation.  Doesn’t happen in a vacuum.  Part one is you saying stuff.  Part two is seeing how the audience takes in and processes that stuff you are saying.  Part three is reevaluating what you’re saying based on their reaction.


If you want to keep your art vital and alive, you gotta stay active in that conversation.  If you don’t, it’s gonna get stale quick.  You’re not gonna have anything interesting to contribute to the party.

Michael Franke