1. What do you think of the word “comedienne?”
It’s silly. Any time someone is identified or classified as a “female comedian,” “Comedienne,” or other gender/race/religion/orientation distinctions, you’re subconsciously qualifying anything you say about that person. If I refer to someone as “a very funny female comedian” I’m bringing gender into a conversation where it does (should) not matter. Did they mean “she’s funny (FOR A WOMAN)” or “among female comics, she is funny”? It feels condescending. “Here’s a FUNNY woman,” sounds to me as if most of them aren’t, but OH BOY SPECIAL TREAT: we found a funny one. Get ready to see a unicorn, you guys.
Why say it? No emcees say, “up next, please welcome a very funny MALE comedian..” So when you do that to distinguish a comic as female in their introduction or in conversation, you’re separating them as being in a different category from their male peers. It trivializes their comedy as if they’re a novelty act or a gimmick. They’re comics.
2. Would you consider yourself strong willed or unable to buckle to fear?
I’m certainly strong willed. I don’t experience stage fright, if that’s what you mean. They say most people’s biggest fear is public speaking. I’ve found that with comics, that’s not really an issue. Generally, we seem to have the exact opposite fear: that nobody is there to listen to us speaking. For whatever reason, I like being in a position where I’m the center of attention & everybody else has to shut up & not speak unless spoken to or they get thrown out of the building. That’s the ideal social situation to me.
3. How do you like NeverRepeataJoke.com?
The premise “Never Repeat A Joke” seems to reject the time-honored wash, rinse, repeat process. The site is nice, clean & well organized. I am thoroughly impressed by Ramzy Sweis Sold-out. You are VERY green. I’m guessing that “#28” indicates that this is your 28th performance ever. I would rather die in a fire than have any video online of any performance I did within the first 5 years of doing standup. To me you are the personification of the business of comedy.
4. Would You consider Never Repeating a Joke?
Todd Barry recently filmed a special at the end of his “The Crowd Work Tour” where he didn’t tell ANY jokes he’d written. He just riffed on the crowd every night for months. Todd was hilarious at these shows because he is a comedy veteran who has the chops to pull that off.
I’ve been doing comedy 15 years now, but I couldn’t do that successfully. I can go up with an idea of what I want to say & riff it out. I can do crowd work just fine but I wouldn’t want to do that for an hour long set. I certainly couldn’t go up in front of an audience that paid good money to see a quality show & do all new jokes. I better be really good or I’ll lose fans, never get booked in that venue again & work myself out of the business.
In Jerry Seinfeld’s documentary “Comedian,” another comic tells Jerry that he’s going to open his set with new material he just wrote and had never performed before. Jerry tells him that it’s suicide. It’s a slow burn. Stand-up seems like a cool thing to do but the reality of doing this for a living is probably depressing to people. A comedy career isn’t made out of one big break. It’s built out of thousands of them over the course of decades.
5. Have you won awards? Been on TV? Tell us more.
I’ve been on The Daily Show on Comedy Central, ABC’s “Nashville.” What most people don’t consider is that this super duper famous comedians gets that reaction from everybody they meet, everywhere they go. It’s tedious. If you meet me treat me like a person, not a potential trophy photo op you’d like to post online.
The requirement of being a star is to become an enslaved body. Just flesh — a commodity, & renounce all autonomous qualities in order to identify with the general law of obedience of society. The star is a byproduct of the machine age, a relic of modernist ideals.
The most famous star I know is David Letterman. He is very gracious, kind & generous when he certainly didn’t have to be. It’s a long story & I won’t bore you with it, but I’m still in touch with his staff & am very grateful to them & Dave for all they’ve done for me over the years.