I’ve found myself running into situations, lately, where I inadvertently use some comedian slang with friends who have no idea WTF I’m talking about. Horrified that my burgeoning readership (now in the dozens!) might be confused by the jargon, I reacted the way I usually react to problems: by unthinkingly disgorging an enormous amount of writing.
Usually this solution of mine just results in a bunch of emo nonsense that I file away, too ashamed to ever look at again. But in this case something arguably useful has resulted:
Please let me know if you have any suggestions, revisions, etc. I promise not to get too defensive and emo.
I like the glossary. I find myself talking like that when people ask me how it went, but then I explain as I go, and then they look at me like I think they’re an idiot. I can never guess.
It’s funny you talked about the host being the low man. I think it’s a seattle thing. I talked to Jesse Case (not sure if you met him or know him yet) and he’s from nashville. He said the host is THE most important job there and you get paid for it.
Crazy to think about it. Why do we torture our new comics by making them host? It’s a valuable skill to learn. But it can make or break a night really. I have first hand experience of sucking the life out of a crowd from a poor hosting job that was my fault. I got a pep talk from Jesse the next day and it changed my life. Everything changes my life these days though. I’m so dramatic.
Andrew J Rivers
June 14th, 2009
That’s some great feedback, Andrew, and I think you may be right about the host being low man just in Seattle. I actually had a chance to hang out with Jesse at the last All-Stars and he made a similar point to me, about how the host is an incredibly underrated position.
I’ll change the entry to reflect the possible Seattle-centric nature of the definition. Until you and I go national, and we can see for ourselves, right??
CJ
June 15th, 2009
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