A Quote by Kurt Braunohler
It used to be if you wanted to be a comedian, you used to just do sets. You'd go up three times a night, just get better, and then some people would see you and you'd do 'The Tonight Show,' and then boom, you're a comedian.
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Some street jokes are just timeless. There's an old street joke about comedians. The joke is that a beautiful girl comes up to a comedian at the end of the night and says, "I saw your show tonight, and I just loved it. I want to go home with you, and I'll do anything you want." And the comedian says, "Were you at the 7 or the 9?" That's just a perfect joke, because it points out how egomaniacal and obsessive comedians are. Even though I'm not waiting for a groupie, I can completely understand it. It just defines how comedians are driven.
It’s been a very old thing for people to gather together and laugh at stuff. The first comedian in America really was Abraham Lincoln. He used to go to a pub near where he lived and stand in front of the fire and he packed the place every night and he would just talk and bust everybody in their guts. He was just a hilarious speaker and that’s what he did.
The thing is, I was never really a comedian - a comedian would scoff at the notion of me as a comedian because I've never done anything, really. I've always just been some guy who's funny.
I used to play Saturday night shows with different little groups. If I could get a show, I would do it. I used to do mad things - I used to go and do these shows and go on my knees and roll on the ground - when I was 15,16 years old. And my parents were extremely disapproving of it all. Because it was just not done. This was for very low-class people, remember. Rock & roll singers weren't educated people
One of the things I used to dream of is that if I could just be funny like Red Skelton, if I could be a comedian like Red Skelton - that's what I watched on TV - then maybe I would have friends. I just remember that if I told stories to my friends, they listened. And in my family, with nine people talking at the same time, it's really hard to get people to listen to you. We were all craving attention.
I always made people laugh, and everybody wanted me to sit at the table with them. I don't joke as much as I used to, but I can still be a little comedian every now and then.
I've been in radio, God, twenty years. I started as a stand-up comedian. I wanted to be Carol Burnett when I was growing up. Radio was just kind of an accident. I did morning radio in my hometown of Buffalo, then went to Rochester, then Chicago, and then New York.
Some rules are good. For example, off the top of my head, let's say a stand-up comedian or a talk show host wearing a nice suit - as a ponderer, I grew up like, "Why don't they just go up there in their army jacket? They're fine!" Then little by little, you think, "You know, it's kind of nice to look nice, like you made the effort." Then you're back at rule one; that was the original rule.
I used to say, as an assistant, I would go in and close my door for three hours after practice and just watch film. Now it seems like I'm in a meeting and then another and then another for three hours that have nothing to do with basketball. It's just different.
I used to do three or four songs a day, just write them - boom, boom, boom, and done - because of how spontaneous I was.
I'm not saying that I'm on some crusade to change people's minds. I'm just doing what I do. I'm a comedian, I'm trying to be funny... I think when they see a comedy show with an Iranian and an Egyptian and two Palestinians, I think they go, 'Oh wow, these guys are just like us.'
Someone said to me at a party once, 'Oh, yeah, you're a comedian? Then how come you're not funny now?' And I just wanted to say, 'Well, I'm just going to take this conversation we're having and then repeat that to strangers, and then that's the joke. You're the joke later.'
The real focus at first is to just become a good stand-up comedian, and then when you get to a certain level, then they allow you to do other things. You feel if you're overwhelmed by something or if you're not.
Black comics, they only watch Black comedians. You're a comedian; you're not just a Black comedian. You're a comedian. I try to get that through to everybody.
I wanted to be a comedian, I wanted people to laugh at what I was saying, not to be staring at my boobs or wearing a skirt and show off my ... I just didn't think that that was the best way to get taken seriously in that world.
I paid attention to not being a comedian, and just concentrated on being who I was. That is what you have to do. If you say you are a comedian that has been done before. If you just be who you are then you are unique. Everyone is unique.
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