Ok, first things first. On Monday, I sent a survey. Usually, people don’t respond to these things, but y’all showed up in droves, and some of the answers were eye-opening enough to prompt some changes to the show. Turns out, when you have a podcast about writing you get an audience of writers, and some of those people can really really write.
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This episode is presented by Mercury. When I started How I Write, I expected finances to be an absolute nightmare. I’ve got team members in four different countries. Things like taxes, currency exchange, expenses — I was dreading it. But here’s the crazy thing: four years in, banking has been maybe the easiest part. I honestly can’t remember running into a single problem! And that’s because I’ve been using Mercury.
I switched over from other, more traditional banks because Mercury is so well designed. It’s easy to get started and easy to use, while also feeling totally legit and secure. Mercury gives me all the tools to run a global company like virtual cards, unlimited users, and the ability to customize each user’s access level to exactly what they should see. And you know what: if anything goes wrong, their support line is super responsive (and actually thoughtful), which is really rare these days. I genuinely can’t imagine trying to run my business without Mercury.
This week’s episode is with the comedian Robert Mac. He came on the show to teach us what he’s learned from great comics like Jerry Seinfeld and Mitch Hedberg. I said, Robert, you’ve been doing stand up for more than a decade, and I want to know what you’ve learned about how to truly be funny, how to tell a good story.
The challenge is that dissecting humor is famously not a funny thing to do. So we decided to find our favorite jokes and one-liners and go through them one by one, in a conversation that’s fun, high-energy, and — of course — funny. As we did that, Robert taught us the principles of great comedy. And we laughed a lot. Hope you enjoy.
Transcript
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:03 The #1 rule of comedy
00:03:29 The incongruity technique
00:06:07 Changing scale and focus
00:06:36 Wordplay explained
00:09:53 Pattern recognition
00:12:13 Know your audience
00:14:59 Why winning isn’t funny
00:17:48 Using misdirection
00:22:21 The bait and switch
00:24:51 How one word changes a joke
00:28:53 Why writing matters
00:31:28 Seinfeld’s hidden technique
00:36:43 Misplaced focus
00:42:00 The rule of three
00:46:07 More wordplay
00:47:15 The power of short stories
00:52:46 The role of details and context
00:54:11 What it feels like to bomb
00:56:33 Robert’s writing process
00:59:08 What comedy can’t be taught
Robert Mac (02:03–02:12):
I want to start with a joke by Mitch Hedberg, a comedian that I’m lucky to have met before he passed away. He’s very famous.
David (02:12–02:17):
I used to do drugs. I still do. But I used to, too.
Robert Mac (02:17–03:09):
The reason this is funny is because comedy is all about showing things from a different perspective. That is exactly the number one rule of comedy: you take reality and look at it from a skewed point of view. That skewed point of view has an element of surprise, and that is what’s funny about it. So that joke is funny because his perspective is taking us from a completely different point of view. It’s called a misplaced focus, and he’s looking at things from a time perspective. “I do drugs. I used to. I still do now.” It’s basically your brain holding two different thoughts at the same time. As you figure out the conundrum of both of those being true, your brain figures it out and you laugh.
David (03:09–03:12):
Well, the thing about that is it takes two sentences to do that.
Robert Mac (03:12–03:13):
It takes two sentences.
David (03:13–03:14):
It’s not like a whole story.
Robert Mac (03:14–03:32):
No, you don’t need a background. You don’t need a backstory. It’s not one of those, “You got to know my aunt before I tell you the story about my aunt.” It’s self-contained, which is one of the beautiful things about Mitch Hedberg and Steven Wright. Oh, man, I just lost a buttonhole.
David (03:32–03:34):
So this Steven Wright, this is Stephen...
Robert Mac (03:34–03:54):
Wright, who was the first real comedian I saw live performing. I was raised on Steven Wright, Steve Martin, and Monty Python. I couldn’t get my head around Monty Python because it was so absurd and crazy. Steven Wright is also absurd.
David (03:54–03:55):
What’s his vibe? What does he look like?
Robert Mac (03:56–06:08):
His vibe? He’s this shaggy guy. He gets introduced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Steven Wright.” And you’re expecting this guy to run out on stage and he slumps along and, you know, nothing fancy. He’s not wearing a tuxedo, he’s not wearing a jacket at all. It’s just a guy in a crumpled shirt, and he kind of mumbles into the microphone, “Oh, man, I lost a buttonhole.” He’s just the exact opposite of what a lot of comedy at that time was, which is a guy in Vegas wearing a tuxedo. When you hear the joke, he’s saying something that we’ve heard before, “Oh, man, I lost a button.” But his take on it is he’s lost a buttonhole, which is sort of impossible. It’s one of these incongruities, which is one of the biggest triggers of laughter: something that’s surprising. Incongruity is probably the second most common trigger of laughter. It’s when something doesn’t fit. When you lose a buttonhole, that doesn’t make sense. When you realize, “Oh, I get it now. He’s conflating buttons and buttonholes,” that is where the laughter comes from. They say, and I’m a big fan of science, by the way, I follow it religiously, they say that way back, the first laughter was based on animals fighting, this play fighting. One part of the brain that recognizes fighting would be like, “Oh, no, we’re in a fight.” But another part of the brain that recognizes incongruity realized, “Oh, this is not a fight. We’re just play fighting, practicing.” That dissonance, having both ideas at once, the body reacted with a laugh. They say that laughter comes from having these two incongruous thoughts at the same time and then realizing that everything is okay. So biologically or evolutionarily, laughter was a signal that, hey, things are okay, no worries. To this day, if you can laugh at something, you have a little bit of control over it. It’s not nearly as daunting.
David (06:08–06:14):
I got another Steven Wright one: Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.
Robert Mac (06:14–06:33):
Right. That’s a perfect example of what he does. He’s changing the scale again, like some of those first jokes. He’s changing the scale. That misplaced focus. If you have the time, you could walk anywhere. He has a lot of jokes about the planet. It’s a small planet after all, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.
David (06:33–06:42):
Right. This is actually my favorite one: I went to a general store, but they wouldn’t let me buy anything specific.
Robert Mac (06:43–07:29):
This one has more wordplay. He doesn’t usually have a lot of wordplay, but general and specific are two different things that he’s putting together. A minute ago, I said I’m a big fan of science, and I follow it religiously. Those are two thoughts that sometimes don’t go together. Some people would call it irony when you have fighting or competing ideas. We should also point out to people watching that when you dissect a joke, sometimes it loses some of the magic, and we can get caught up in the details. But the bottom line is, it’s funny, and it works. A lot of jokes work because a bunch of different principles are in play.
David (07:29–07:42):
This has a little bit of that place is too crowded, nobody goes there anymore vibe. I said it the opposite. Yeah, it is. Nobody goes there anymore. That place is too crowded. Exactly. Yogi Berra.
Robert Mac (07:42–07:42):
Right?
David (07:42–07:44):
This has that sort of vibe.
Robert Mac (07:44–07:50):
Anything that contradicts itself is funny because again, it’s two opposing thoughts at the same time.
David (07:51–07:53):
And there’s kind of some wisdom about it there.
Robert Mac (07:53–07:58):
Yes, there’s always a little bit of truth and wisdom behind a joke.
David (07:59–08:08):
It is interesting that there’s an element of something being funny because it’s true. If it’s making people laugh, then there’s something true about it.
Robert Mac (08:09–09:07):
Exactly. A lot of comedy legends—I’m trying to remember the exact quote—Sid Caesar said that comedy is a kernel of truth that is built on. Somebody else said comedy is a fancy story with a little bit of truth at the end. There’s always an element of truth that is the starting point, and you zoom out or you tweak it, or you look at it from another point of view, or you exaggerate it, or you make it a character, or you make it absurd. That truth is still part of it. The change, the exploitation of it, and the playing with it is what makes it memorable. If you said the grass or my mother in law’s is large, there’s nothing memorable about it. But if I say my mother in law weighs a thousand pounds, then you’re able to picture it and remember it a little bit more.
David (09:07–09:09):
Right. My mother in law looks like the Michelin Man.
Robert Mac (09:09–09:11):
Right? Bingo. You get to see it in your head.
David (09:11–09:18):
You’re making something about that one that works because vivid seems important in hyperbole.
Robert Mac (09:18–09:24):
If you can make a picture in someone’s head, they’re more likely to remember it.
David (09:24–09:44):
I was reading this book about writing one time, and it was talking about metaphor. It was basically trying to make the point that a metaphor gets its potency as much if not more from being vivid as from being true. You have to make a metaphor vivid, otherwise, it just doesn’t land right.
Robert Mac (09:44–09:55):
No, you’re exactly right. There are so many jokes that people don’t make vivid, so it doesn’t stay with them. I have a joke about the truth.
David (09:55–09:56):
Bring it out.
Robert Mac (09:56–10:02):
This is an older one. Red Buttons said never raise your hands to your kids, it leaves your groin unprotected.
David (10:04–10:05):
Who is Red Button?
Robert Mac (10:05–10:06):
Red Buttons’ name.
David (10:06–10:07):
That’s not.
Robert Mac (10:07–12:13):
That’s a real name. He’s a comedian who was very old when I was very young, so I don’t know. He’s like an old vaudeville guy. What I love about this is if you hear just the first part of the sentence, raising your hand—never raise your hands to a kid—I’m thinking this is going to be some statement about child safety or the importance of protecting the youth and nurturing them for the future. But there’s a bit of a left turn, and it’s about protecting your groin. I teach comedy, and I speak at conferences to companies about using humor in the workplace. It does all these great things. In the process of this, I’ve learned something called pattern recognition, which I think is the hidden secret of what comedy does and how comedy works. When I say never raise your hands to your kids, our brains are thinking of a certain thing: the kids, the future, you have to protect kids. That is the pattern that we’re used to hearing. Patterns have helped us evolve and become the smartest creatures on the planet. “So it leaves your groin unprotected” is a left turn. It’s a surprise, and it gets the laugh. Here’s how well our brains handle patterns. If I say Romeo, you think Juliet. If I say peanut butter, jelly. So we got our cats, and we named them Peanut Butter and Juliet because they don’t go together. Our brains are so conditioned to think in certain ways that a good joke writer is able to manipulate how our brains work. They set up a couple of clues to go one way, and then the punchline is something completely different because they know that our minds will follow certain patterns. It’s the secret of comedy: how powerful our brains are.
David (12:13–12:55):
The other thing is there’s a sense—I hate this word, but it gets so overused—there is just a sense of empathy or connection where what you’re doing is you have to have a keen sense of where the mind of your audience member is. You have to have a sense of where they’re going now, what is the context, so that then you can shift it. Part of the reason that comedians have such connections with their audiences, and audiences with comedians in particular, is this sense of, “Wow, that person really gets me. They understand where my mind is so well that then they can make a joke out of it or something.”
Robert Mac (12:55–13:01):
You’re absolutely right. Have you taken a comedy class? Because that is rule number one: know your audience.
David (13:01–13:02):
Yeah.
Robert Mac (13:02–13:24):
If you know who they are, you’ll know what the patterns that they’re thinking are, and you’re able to connect with them. The minute you connect with them, that’s half the battle. You don’t have to prove yourself. You don’t have to explain the background of this story. Once you’re connected, you can take them anywhere. You reminded me of a funny story.
David (13:25–13:25):
Bring it up.
Robert Mac (13:25–13:37):
If I may, I was doing a show for a woman who was running for state lieutenant governor of the state of Maryland.
David (13:37–13:37):
Okay.
Robert Mac (13:37–14:10):
An Indian American woman had a fundraiser with a bunch of Indian businessmen to raise money. I asked her to tell me about these businessmen so I could write some jokes. They were all college educated and from India, but they live in the United States. They speak many languages, including English, which is important to me because I have a lot of wordplay in my act. Don’t worry, they’re smart guys, they’ll get everything. I have a joke about being in Bryce Canyon in southern Utah.
David (14:10–14:11):
Love that place.
Robert Mac (14:11–14:17):
It’s beautiful. If you don’t know, it’s these red sandstone arches and towers. It’s where they filmed the Roadrunner cartoons.
David (14:17–14:17):
Yeah.
Robert Mac (14:18–14:59):
Back when they filmed cartoons on location, before all the animal rights protesters came in and shut down the Acme Rocket Skate Company once and for all. Anyway, I mentioned that, which always gets a laugh, but this audience, nothing, because they weren’t raised with that TV show. They didn’t have that cartoon growing up, so a joke that always gets 100%, I got zero on it. It shook my confidence, and I had to win them back because I didn’t know that thing about the audience. The pattern that I thought they would recognize, they did not because it wasn’t part of their upbringing.
David (15:00–15:06):
We were sharing some comedy quotes before this, and one of the ones you sent me is that winning isn’t funny.
Robert Mac (15:06–15:07):
Charles Schulz.
David (15:07–15:09):
Winning isn’t funny.
Robert Mac (15:09–16:00):
Right, and that’s Charlie Brown’s story. If somebody won all the time, there’s no conflict, there’s no drama, there’s nothing interesting about that. Carol Burnett’s quote is great, too. Hers is “comedy is tragedy plus time.” There’s always some loss. There’s always something about the underdog. Chris Rock had a recent special. He used to be the guy on stage who would talk about what it’s like to be a normal guy, an average guy. But his last special, he’s talking about his kids going to private school and living in this gated community, and he’s not able to connect. Nobody’s going to connect with a multimillionaire who’s famous around the world, but the lovable loser, Charlie Brown, the guy who’s struggling to win all the time, that is somebody we can connect with.
David (16:00–16:45):
It’s funny because you talk about “winning isn’t funny.” It’s amazing how many comedians instantly hit it off with an audience. I’m not saying they’re the funniest ones, but I’m saying they’re the ones that create the most connection in 20 seconds. They have something about them. They’re maybe a little overweight. They have a weird voice. They have a kind of a lame walk or something. They know this about themselves, and then they sort of exaggerate it as they come up on stage. Then they just mention it right away, like, “I know I need to lay off the carbs. I know.” All of a sudden, everyone starts laughing. It’s an instant connection, whereas a lot of times when I go to a comedy show, it’s a struggle to connect with the person because they’re too perfect, too refined.
Robert Mac (16:47–16:58):
I would say to your first point, if you can get a laugh, a joke is a setup and then a punchline. If the setup is something that you don’t have to say...
David (16:58–16:59):
So true.
Robert Mac (16:59–18:07):
If you walk out on stage, and the guy’s seven feet tall, he has a joke about being seven feet tall. He doesn’t have to say, “Hey, everybody in the audience who’s looking at me, I’m taller than...” He can automatically do the punchline because the setup is visual and unspoken, and the audience knows it before he’s even taken the mic. That is why sometimes people talk about their outfit, their hair, or their looks. When I started, it was a common trope if somebody looked like a couple of celebrities. “Oh, I know what you’re all thinking. I look like so-and-so and so-and-so had a love child,” right? You don’t have to say, “Here’s the backstory.” The setup is automatic. Let’s do another one. I read an article that said the Bible was the most bought and sold book last year. Harry Potter was number two. That means a book where a boy magician defeats the evil lord of the underworld sold better than Harry Potter.
David (18:08–18:16):
I’m laughing for two reasons. One, I think the joke is funny. The other thing is I now have X-ray vision into the joke, into why it’s funny.
Robert Mac (18:16–18:18):
And why is this one funny to you?
David (18:18–18:27):
Well, it’s got this misdirection, right? First of all, the Bible pops up, so instantly people kind of tense up when they hear the Bible.
Robert Mac (18:27–18:30):
Tension is a great way to build up a laugh.
David (18:30–18:39):
Right. Harry Potter’s number two. Okay, interesting. So, it’s also, I’m kind of engaged, right. I’m excited to see where this is going.
Robert Mac (18:39–18:41):
We have a curious setup. We have two different things.
David (18:42–18:48):
And then, “that means a book where the boy magician defeats the evil lord of the underworld,” where I obviously talk about Harry Potter.
Robert Mac (18:48–18:49):
Of course.
David (18:49–18:53):
Of course. Talk about Harry and Voldemort and all that. We got a scar on the forehead.
Robert Mac (18:53–18:54):
You can see that.
David (18:55–19:01):
Exactly. “Sold better than Harry Potter.” Wait, what? Surprise. The jig makes it funny.
Robert Mac (19:01–19:56):
Yes, and we call this particular type...I call it... and there are a million different people who have a million different terms for kinds of jokes. I would call this a “bait and switch,” because you’re offering two things. You’re talking about one, but actually, you end up talking about the other. “Oh, he’s talking about the Bible.” No, he’s talking about Harry Potter. We switch them. When you have two very specific things you’re talking about and you imply that you’re talking about one, you leave clues that make it seem like you’re talking about one, but you’re actually talking about the other one. That switch leads to a surprise, which leads to a laugh, which leads to this chemical dopamine that gets released in your brain and you laugh. Laughter is contagious. All of these things create comedy. Steve Hofstadter is a very famous guy. He’s a great jokesmith.
David (19:56–19:59):
What is a jokesmith relative to other kinds of comedians?
Robert Mac (20:00–20:14):
He really crafts a good joke. Some comics are physical. Some tell stories. He’s able to craft things and focus on the writing rather than the performance or the character or the outfit.
David (20:14–20:28):
How would you rewrite this in order to not make it funny anymore? What are the smallest tweaks that you could make to where the joke just doesn’t work?
Robert Mac (20:29–21:14):
It’s obvious that in the second part, he’s talking about the Bible, and he wants us to think Harry Potter so he could say Harry Potter was a number two book. The Bible is a book where a boy magician defeats the evil lord of the underworld. He’s playing his card and then it’s not funny. He’s worded it in such a way that it can only be this. It’d be very easy to switch it. If he changed Harry Potter to the Bible at the end, that wouldn’t be a surprise because you’d think, yeah, I know, you’ve been talking about Harry Potter and now you’re talking about the Bible. It’s just a perfectly crafted joke. It’s rock solid.
David (21:15–22:19):
If you’re thinking about work and how you can be more productive there, I recommend a tool called Basecamp. Basecamp is a project management tool that’s different from the other ones, which are loud and noisy and cluttered with feature bloat. Basecamp keeps things simple so that you can focus on what actually matters, which is just getting the work done. For us, Basecamp is a place where we can track what we’re doing with “How I Write,” when episodes are being recorded, where we’re recording them, the publishing day, all those sorts of things in one place for our entire team to look at. I had the founder of Basecamp, Jason Fried, on the show, and I noticed that he really cares about writing. He cares about manifestos, great copy, and telling a great story. He and his co-founder have written five books, and I can tell you that they bring the same care and attention to detail to their books as they do their software. If you’re thinking about work and you’re asking, hey, how can I be more productive? How can I make my team more cohesive? I recommend Basecamp. All right, back to the episode.
Robert Mac (22:21–23:26):
My favorite thing in the bedroom is when she puts on her nurse outfit and leaves for work without waking me up. It’s a kind of bait and switch. You’re thinking maybe one thing, but it turns out to be the other. I told this joke once at a 75 year old’s birthday party. He was retiring from the military. His family was in the audience. They were well dressed. It was a very formal event, very conservative with grandparents and kids. I did a joke that mentions the bedroom and a nurse outfit and the tension rises a little bit. But it turns out it’s not a role playing joke. It’s a joke about my wife being a nurse. The tension built. I did the punchline, everybody laughed, because that is one of the triggers of comedy. A good joke releases this built up tension. Freud was one of the first to discuss that.
David (23:26–23:43):
Let me read it. My favorite thing in the bedroom is when she puts on her nurse outfit. And you’re like, okay, vivid. We know where it’s going. Robert, you shouldn’t be saying that.
Robert Mac (23:43–23:44):
There are kids here.
David (23:44–23:50):
There’s kids here. This is a 75th birthday party. Very conservative room. What are you doing?
Robert Mac (23:50–23:55):
Yes, tension builds and she leaves for work without waking me up.
David (23:56–23:58):
What was so bad? What were you guys freaking out about?
Robert Mac (23:58–24:02):
It’s like the monster at the end of the book. It was me the whole time.
David (24:02–24:03):
Exactly.
Robert Mac (24:03–24:23):
Now, if you were to talk about changing one word, if I said she puts on her nurse costume, then you would think, oh, this is a role playing thing. It’s Halloween, and going to work doesn’t make sense. So it wouldn’t work if I said she puts on her nurse uniform.
David (24:23–24:24):
Uniform. Too serious.
Robert Mac (24:24–24:50):
Too serious. There’s none of the role playing. I had to pick a word that implied both dressing up for a bedroom activity and dressing up for work. Outfit was the one word that covered both of those because again, you’re leaving tips or clues that go to one direction and the punchline leads to another.
David (24:51–25:00):
I want to show you this from a wedding speech. Husband here and then wife to his right.
Robert Mac (25:00–25:56):
Last thing I’m going to say is that we’re expecting everyone here to have a great time tonight. That couldn’t be done better. We’re expecting everyone here to have a great time tonight. One of the things you cannot teach in comedy is timing. It’s something you just have to learn and the timing of that was perfect, because what he says, we’re expecting. Our pattern recognition tells us we’re expecting to have a child. We just got married. The truth of the matter, the truth that we’re playing with, is we’re expecting us to have a good time. He timed it perfectly. He gave them enough time to think, expecting to have a baby already.
David (25:57–26:26):
You know what word just came to mind? Plausible deniability. We’re expecting all of you to have a great time tonight. The transcript is totally kosher. I love it when my wife puts on her nurse outfit and leaves for work without waking me up. If you just read the sentence, it’s totally fine, but the way that you’ve meandered down
Robert Mac (26:26–26:57):
the path or the way you’ve paused to change the meaning for the audience. I knew a guy who was dating a fireman in San Francisco, and he said, I like how he puts out fires. Putting out and putting out fires are two completely different things that on the page look the same, but you add a pause and it changes. It’s all about the timing, but also the writing. Good writing leads the audience to what you want them to think.
David (26:58–27:36):
I was thinking about this speech where a guy was celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary. He said, “I want to thank my wife for 47 tremendous years.” Everyone looked around, and he added, “Three of them weren’t so great, but 47 were fantastic, and I want to raise a toast to that.” Something about that was just hilarious.
Robert Mac (27:36–28:16):
There are so many different ways that people will laugh. When you admit in front of your loved ones that three of those years weren’t the best, that’s something humbling and self-deprecating, which are also great tools for laughter. If you can laugh at yourself, you can laugh at others. Somebody had a similar joke about having three great kids and one that wasn’t. It’s the same idea as downplaying something. Laughing down at others is another laughter trigger. It’s called the laugh of victory. If you’re familiar with The Simpsons...
David (28:16–28:17):
Yeah.
Robert Mac (28:17–28:38):
Nelson laughing down at others is punching down. It’s not in favor these days as much, but making fun of yourself to allow other people to laugh at you is a great way to get an audience to laugh because it’s okay. You’re showing that it’s okay to laugh at us. We had three bad years, but 47 great ones, so come on, folks, it’s funny.
David (28:38–28:40):
It’s kind of mean and it’s kind of sweet at the same time.
Robert Mac (28:41–29:44):
That’s comedy. Sometimes it is a little mean. John Cleese has a quote that says there’s always an element of meanness because you’re making fun of something. Maybe not a person, but maybe you’re making fun of the truth or the situation. To me, comedy is all about writing. For some people, it’s performing. For me, it’s about writing because if you write a joke well enough, the audience can get it in their head without you having to tell them what the punchline is. Like this one: “I got a box of animal crackers that said, ‘Do not eat if seal is broken.’ I opened the box, and sure enough...” What are the next four words? “The seal was broken.” And if you’ve ever seen the seals, they’re the cute ones. This guy is a jokesmith who writes these great one-liners and used to write for Conan O’Brien. The point is, if you write well enough, the audience gets the joke, and there’s something about when the audience figures it out themselves. They’re more invested in the show, and they get to pat themselves on the back.
David (29:44–29:45):
Exactly.
Robert Mac (29:45–30:04):
They’re on the inside, in the cool club, not one of the people who didn’t get the joke. There are always those on the outside who try to get it explained to them. When an audience person gets to pat themselves on the back because of good writing, they’re more invested in the show because it’s more about them.
David (30:05–30:35):
Okay, animal crackers. What I like about animal crackers is that it takes us back to something playful. It seems like a lot of what you’re doing as a comic is getting people into a state of mind where they can laugh, like animal crackers are expired or something. There’s something benign about that, whereas if you were to have milk that said, “Do not open if the seal is broken,” all of a sudden, that’s kind of gross.
Robert Mac (30:35–30:36):
Yes.
David (30:36–30:41):
There’s a seriousness about potentially dying if you have bad milk.
Robert Mac (30:41–31:26):
Right, bad milk. The thing about animal crackers, though, is that if it was a different type of cracker or if it was milk, “seal” wouldn’t have the two meanings. The joke pivots on having two meanings of the seal: the seal of the container and the seal, the animal. That’s why he picked animal crackers instead of graham crackers or something else like that. If it was milk, there is something disgusting and vile about that, which is also another trigger: something that’s disgusting or taboo. That’s why sex jokes and fart jokes and bathroom jokes work because there’s something taboo, sickening, or gross about that.
David (31:27–31:29):
Okay, let’s talk about Seinfeld.
Robert Mac (31:29–31:30):
Sure.
David (31:30–32:16):
I have a theory, which is that a lot of what makes Seinfeld, and Larry David in particular, funny is that you take a small inconvenience or something annoying that a lot of people have felt. What you’re doing is exaggerating the thing, but then you’re naming the thing. Now the thing that we’ve thought about but never even thought to put into words has a name and has become a thing, and then it gets exaggerated. Larry David has done that move 150 times, and it’s a very effective move. This is from Seinfeld, which he obviously worked on.
Robert Mac (32:16–32:17):
We adore.
David (32:17–32:20):
Elaine wants to say hi. She’s with her new boyfriend. What’s he like?
Robert Mac (32:20–32:20):
He’s nice.
David (32:20–32:22):
Bit of a close talker. A what?
Robert Mac (32:22–32:26):
You’ll see. This is Aaron.
David (32:26–32:26):
Hello, Aaron.
Robert Mac (32:26–32:28):
Hello, Aaron. So how long you folks in town?
David (32:29–32:30):
Oh, three more days.
Robert Mac (32:30–32:46):
Three more days, and then we’re off to Paris. I love France. I was just there last year. In fact, I still have an envelope full of French francs. I’ll give them to you. I have a friend who works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. How’d you like a behind-the-scenes tour?
David (32:46–32:48):
Really? You could do that?
Robert Mac (32:48–32:56):
Easily. It wouldn’t be any trouble? Of course not. When could we go? How about right now? I’m ready. How about you, Jerry? I’m sorry. You sure?
David (32:57–32:58):
Could examine the artwork up close.
Robert Mac (32:58–34:23):
Maybe I’ll catch up with you. Oh, you must be Kramer. I’ve heard about you. I love how Jerry is the only one who doesn’t back away. He’s just standing up to him. That show is about nothing and making it big. You said exaggeration and hyperbole, and that’s exactly what it is. It gets something universal. That’s another thing comedy does: it grabs something universal and makes it big so that everyone can relate to it. If you put a name on it, it’s easier to relate to. There’s also the low talker. Everybody goes, oh, I know somebody like that. Cut to Jerry wearing a pirate shirt because he agreed to wear the pirate shirt. Again, one of the goals of comedy is to find something specific and make it universal so everyone can experience it. That’s what his career is based on: finding those little things that we haven’t identified. He recognizes it, makes it bigger, and puts a name on it. So everybody goes, yeah, I know about the no tuck in the hotel bedroom, and I know about the low talker and the quiet talker. He’s got thousands of those—Larry David does.
David (34:23–35:04):
Exactly. Seinfeld did an interview with Howard Stern, and he talked about how a lot of good comedy comes from being a bit irritable, kind of constantly irritable, and being sensitive to what drives you insane. You’re just way more irritable than the average person. But then you play with that, you work with that, and that leads to the joke. It’s universally funny when someone’s like, hey, you know this thing? It’s kind of annoying when they do that. You’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robert Mac (35:04–36:01):
It’s the laugh of recognition. Something that you’ve experienced that I’m identifying. That’s one of the laugh triggers, recognizing something. If I said, who here remembers dial-up modems? And people in the audience go, yeah, yeah, I remember that. They laugh. It’s not funny, but that recognition starts the joke, starts the laugh process. I would say one of the first skills a comedian has is being an observer. They take note of stuff, and they write notes down. If you’re a sensitive observer, maybe you get annoyed easily, and you twist that truth that you’ve recognized and make it exaggerated. You somehow tweak it so other people can see the humor in that. These are all steps along the process of writing a joke: you notice it, you exaggerate it, and you represent it to the audience in a way that makes it entertaining.
David (36:02–36:14):
Yeah, and a bit of a close talker, huh? You’re like, wait, I know what that is, but I’m not quite sure what that is. What’s that? Then you just see it over and over, exactly. You’ll see it over and over, and then it comes to life.
Robert Mac (36:14–36:15):
Right.
David (36:15–36:16):
And then also like a good.
Robert Mac (36:16–36:23):
No, “it comes to life” is exactly it. You say something, and now we demonstrate it. Here’s the theory; here’s the proof.
David (36:23–36:33):
And a good bit lives with you because I know some close talkers, and every time I see them do it, I just think of the bit.
Robert Mac (36:33–36:43):
How can you not? He’s demonstrated it and identified it with the name. That will always have that name because he was the first one to put a title to it.
David (36:43–36:44):
Show me something.
Robert Mac (36:44–37:43):
Okay, what do we got now? Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Nobody knows who came up with this. This is 100 years old. Actually, I think this came out in the ‘50s. We were talking before about how sometimes comedy is mean and cruel, and this demonstrates that. It also demonstrates what the founder of The Onion magazine has identified as “comedy filters.” One of the filters is a misplaced focus. Lincoln gets assassinated, but this person is focused on... You know what they’ll tell me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but tell me about the play. So it’s about taking things out of what should be focused on and focusing more on this other thing. This also requires some background knowledge.
David (37:43–37:45):
I was going to say I didn’t get it at first.
Robert Mac (37:45–37:46):
Okay.
David (37:46–37:55):
Then I realized that we were talking about Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, the assassination. Then I thought, wow, that is wildly inappropriate.
Robert Mac (37:55–37:56):
Inappropriate.
David (37:56–38:08):
Like, dude, I’d say that, but I had to do a lot of work to get it. Once I did the work and I filled in the gaps, it was like I was part of the joke. I was like, okay, that’s pretty funny, but I didn’t get it immediately in writing it.
Robert Mac (38:08–38:18):
You want to make it as concise as possible without having too much backstory. So, Mrs. Lincoln...I’m hoping that there aren’t very many Lincolns that we know of.
David (38:18–38:21):
Right. Ms. Smith wouldn’t work.
Robert Mac (38:21–38:26):
No, no. Or even Kennedy would work because that has a cache to it.
David (38:26–38:28):
Other than that, Ms. Kennedy, how was the drive?
Robert Mac (38:28–39:06):
Yes, how’s Dallas? Aside from that, did you get some sun? Same idea. You nailed it. It requires a little bit of historic knowledge or cultural background, which is another way you can get a laugh. If I were to do that joke to people who didn’t know American history, that joke wouldn’t work unless I said, by the way, we had a president. He was assassinated during a play. It cuts all the setup out.
David (39:06–39:08):
But if you’re in England, maybe you could do that with Princess Diana.
Robert Mac (39:09–39:14):
Right, right, because those people have that background. Know your audience here.
David (39:14–39:15):
There’s a great tunnel in England.
Robert Mac (39:15–39:18):
Yes. Do we have any pictures of it? Any paparazzi?
David (39:18–39:22):
She loved it so much that she decided to stay. It’s terrible, but.
Robert Mac (39:22–39:47):
Yes, but it’s the same idea. It requires a little bit of background, and again, it requires you to know your audience. What do they know? I’m older than a lot of crowds or other comedians that I work with. Sometimes the audience is much younger, and if I were to do a Princess Di reference, they might not get it. If I did an Eartha Kitt reference, they might not get that.
David (39:47–39:48):
I don’t even know who that is.
Robert Mac (39:48–40:03):
Eartha Kitt is. She played Catwoman in the old Batman TV show. If I did an Ella Fitzgerald reference, that wouldn’t work, but if I did Beyonce, it would. So you have to know where your audience is.
David (40:03–40:26):
You know what’s funny? I don’t know if this is a cultural thing, but the Lincoln joke, I think, is funny. The Kennedy joke, I think, is funny, but the Princess Diana joke? I went too far when I did that. There’s something about that that was mean-spirited. Whereas, the first two, there’s an element of cruelty, but it’s benign. It works. If you joke about this thing, maybe it’s too much, too soon.
Robert Mac (40:26–40:28):
Too recent, yeah.
David (40:29–40:34):
Maybe there’s, like, a. It’s not my people, so it feels like now that’s not.
Robert Mac (40:34–40:39):
Okay, because it’s a different group, and you’re being mean. Whereas before, it’s okay. It’s one of us.
David (40:39–40:39):
Right.
Robert Mac (40:40–40:42):
I can make Polish jokes because I’m Polish.
David (40:42–40:43):
Yeah.
Robert Mac (40:43–41:57):
I can’t make a Mexican joke because now I’m talking about them. Maybe that’s it. You’ve said “benign” a few times. Some theorists have tried to quantify what makes a joke, why people laugh. Louis CK said you can’t, there’s no formula for jokes. But these guys claim that a joke is something that’s funny, that crosses a line, but it turns out it’s benign, so nobody gets hurt. Somebody slips on a banana peel and they fall, and they get up and walk away. That’s funny because people shouldn’t slip on banana peels. It’s okay if somebody slipped on a banana peel and fell and didn’t get up, and a pool of blood started to come out of their heart, that would not be funny, unless you’re a very jaded comedian, in which case it’s very funny. There is this line of, if it’s benign, it’s okay to laugh because laughter means things are okay. Maybe for you, that line is the British can laugh about that, but I’m not part of that community, so I can’t make fun of it.
David (41:57–42:00):
Did she get some sun? I think that’s very funny.
Robert Mac (42:00–42:52):
Well, enough time has gone by. Here’s another joke that requires us to know a little bit about what’s going on in current events. P. Diddy, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby walk into a bar. Do not go to that bar. The cool thing about this joke is I can update it all the time. Unfortunately, there’s always somebody new in the news, so I can get rid of Bill Cosby and put in Jeffrey Epstein. That’s exactly what I was thinking about. There’s always an update, and this joke does very well. It’s because it combines a couple of these different laugh triggers. There’s the rule of three, which we haven’t talked about, which I think people get. Things that are in threes are funny. Two isn’t a pattern. One is not a pattern. Two might be a pattern. Three is definitely a pattern.
David (42:52–42:57):
But with the rule of three, the third one breaks the law of the first two, right?
Robert Mac (42:57–44:26):
It can, yeah. Sometimes just having three seems natural because we’ve established a pattern. Oftentimes the third one is completely off the rails. This one, it’s just three that are all very similar. The thing that makes them similar is kind of taboo and creates a lot of tension, but then the joke is a joke about jokes; it kind of steps out. That’s another technique of humor called meta jokes, jokes about jokes. Generally, three people walk into a bar. The bartender typically says something, but that joke says, “Don’t even go to that bar.” It’s breaking the fourth wall to talk about a joke. I have an old friend who I started with who got out of comedy 30 years ago, but he had a joke where he said, “I broke up with my girlfriend.” The audience would go, “Oh.” He’s like, “No, it’s all right. I needed the material.” It’s a joke about comedy itself. Sometimes your perspective is so far removed and you can have fun playing with the idea of jokes. That one does that. That one is also the rule of three, and that one creates a lot of tension. It’s a great way to start a show because people are engaged. They’re like, “Where is this going? I hope it’s not going where I think it’s going.” I get a big laugh and win them over and then take the show where I want to go with the rule of three.
David (44:26–45:01):
I was talking about how the third one often breaks the pattern. I found this little infographic. Running a marathon takes this amount of energy. Climbing Mount Everest takes this amount of energy. Getting under your desk to connect some cords in the back of a computer. It’s hyperbole, which we’ve been talking about. It breaks the pattern of the first two, which we’ve been talking about. This is a very different kind of benign. I think that often just speaking to the most mundane things and showing the ridiculousness of them works really well.
Robert Mac (45:01–45:11):
Misplaced focus. If you were to show that and cover up one of the first two and only had two things, the second one being the plug, it wouldn’t be as funny.
David (45:11–45:11):
It wouldn’t work.
Robert Mac (45:12–45:25):
Third builds a little bit of tension. We’re going somewhere. Usually the third one does break things, break the mold of the first two. The first two were what? Physical trips or something? What was it?
David (45:25–45:27):
It was running a marathon.
Robert Mac (45:27–45:27):
Running a marathon.
David (45:27–45:32):
The two most extreme things, like you run a marathon.
Robert Mac (45:32–45:32):
Geez.
David (45:32–45:35):
Then you climb Mount Everest. That’s stuff that needs.
Robert Mac (45:35–45:36):
Yeah.
David (45:36–45:37):
You know what could be bigger than that?
Robert Mac (45:38–45:39):
Trip to the moon.
David (45:39–45:40):
Jumping from space.
Robert Mac (45:40–45:45):
Yes. No, it’s the. I got the USB thing upside down.
David (45:45–45:54):
What works in writing, too, right? It wouldn’t work to say “the pursuit of happiness, life and liberty.” It has to be “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Robert Mac (45:54–47:11):
The third one has to be a little bit different to stand out, to pop, which is what comedy is: making one of them look at things from a different point of view. Let’s see what we got left. I only have a few left. This is a comedian named Dan Gabriel. He says in Japanese, the word problem is the same as opportunity, which I think is great, because I’d much rather say I have a drinking opportunity. It’s got some wordplay in there, but what I love about it is Dan is my friend and a funny guy, and the more you know him, the more his jokes work. As a comedian, I find I like comics better when I get to know them because I get to see the truth in their stories and in their jokes. And again, comedy is about finding a universal thing, like drinking, and making it specific and interesting and funny so that everybody can get it. So it’s universal, it’s individual and specific, and I love wordplay, too, and this has got some wordplay in it. You don’t need more, and it doesn’t. It ends right there. You can put it in other bits about drinking, or it can just stand alone by itself. One more? I have one more. Should we do it?
David (47:11–47:29):
Let me show you one. I like this little story from Louis CK, and I want to hear about stories, like short stories, setting the context fast. This one’s 24 seconds, but I think it goes through the whole arc.
Robert Mac (47:29–47:32):
A good laugh in 24 seconds is good.
David (47:32–47:34):
I remember I was in a taxi.
Robert Mac (47:34–47:38):
I think in New York, and the driver was Muslim, and there was
David (47:38–47:40):
a woman crossing in front of us,
Robert Mac (47:40–47:53):
and he honked at her because she went after the light had turned, and she gave him the finger. And he said to me, do you know, in my country, if a woman showed you this finger, I could get out and beat her to death.
David (47:54–47:58):
And if I drive by here a week later, she’d still just be laying there.
Robert Mac (48:02–49:09):
That’s horrible, but it’s funny. Stories are great because sometimes punchlines don’t land. But a story has an arc, and people are invested in the arc, and so they tend to work more because they just, the nature of the story has a beginning, middle, and end, and the end is so funny. He’s able to deliver it because he plays a character. If he did it as himself, people may not like you if you’re the bad guy, but if you put it in somebody else. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a ventriloquist. The puppet guy is nice, and the puppet is the horrible one. So your anger isn’t at the performer. It’s at the little puppet or the character that you play. When he does the voice, he just has to do it a little bit to show some separation. This isn’t me, this is the driver. And he sets up the story perfectly. I was in New York. I was in a cab. The guy was from a different culture, and that’s really all you need to set up a story. You don’t need to know what he was wearing, where he was driving to, what day of the week it was. A story is just the important things that happen.
David (49:09–49:16):
I have a dear friend who is a horrible storyteller, right?
Robert Mac (49:16–49:18):
Not you, but a friend of yours.
David (49:19–49:56):
It drives me nuts. The reason why this person is such a bad storyteller is they share the wrong details and get caught up on the wrong details. I’m always like, you just don’t need all this setup. You could have 10% and it’d be fine. You need buy-in when you’re telling a story. You can tell when you’re telling a story when someone clicks in, and you want to get there as fast as possible. When a story is laborious, it’s almost always that they’re just sharing too many details and the wrong details.
Robert Mac (49:56–51:04):
If there’s too many details that you don’t need, then the punchline or the important part of the story is lost, because we have to wait through this. I lived in Hollywood a couple of years, and I got to take a screenwriting class at UCLA in their writing program. I totally lucked out. One of the things I remember is the professor said, a story isn’t everything that happened. The story is only the important things that happen that keep the plot going. I don’t need to know what the guy was wearing when he walked into the bar. I just know that guy walks into a bar. That’s all you need. It makes the jokes more concise. I know another guy who is a horrible storyteller, and he had a great story: He drove Bob Dylan around in a limo for a day. But the way he tells the story is he delivers that part first, and then it’s all this other unimportant information. I was temping for a guy at a chauffeur agency, and he called in sick that day. And all of a sudden we’re getting down to why the guy was sick. He ate some bad shellfish. No, the important thing is you drove Bob Dylan around, and he loses it because he got caught up in unnecessary details.
David (51:05–51:22):
Let me show you this. This is from a podcast that I did with Mitch Albom. Do you know who that is? He wrote a book called Tuesdays with Maury, and we were talking about how do you tell good stories and stuff like that. The point that he made comes to detail. So check this out.
Robert Mac (51:23–51:42):
My family had holiday celebrations, and I was just interested in watching them tell stories. And I would notice there was a distinct difference between my aunts and my uncles. My aunts would get caught on the details. Was it 1945? When was Manny born? Was he born in 46? And then the uncles would tell the war stories.
David (51:42–51:43):
So there we were.
Robert Mac (51:43–51:44):
See, we were coming over the hill.
David (51:44–51:50):
We heard the shots. Then I turned to the guy next to me, I said, they’re shooting at us. And I’m saying, that’s how you tell a story.
Robert Mac (51:50–51:51):
Story.
David (51:52–51:55):
Like, I love that point. It’s just the core things.
Robert Mac (51:55–51:58):
Well, I would argue a little bit with that.
David (51:58–51:59):
Oh, tell me. Good.
Robert Mac (51:59–52:35):
I would say if somebody said the year was 1945, blah, blah, blah, the kid was born, good. But if the aunts are, the year was 1940, or was it 1946? They’re interrupting themselves, right? Details are important because they paint a picture in the head. Sometimes a joke starts with this nebulous setup, and the punchline is very specific. The specifics of it are what is required to make it work. A war story he can get away with, he doesn’t need the details of,
David (52:35–52:37):
because war does a lot of the work for you, right?
Robert Mac (52:37–52:44):
When you say we’re on the battlefield and we’re catching fire, people can visualize that. It doesn’t matter what year or what month that was.
David (52:46–52:47):
Show me what you got.
Robert Mac (52:47–53:04):
It has some specifics and requires some cultural knowledge as well: pop culture stuff. The Notorious B.I.G. once wrote a song where he predicted his own death. Do you understand what that means? Biggie Smalls was also a medium, man.
David (53:04–53:04):
That’s good.
Robert Mac (53:05–54:08):
This is Mark Christopher, another friend of mine. It’s a great joke if you know that Notorious B.I.G. also goes by Biggie Smalls, and you have to know a medium is somebody who is a foreteller of the future. Some people don’t get that, so that joke doesn’t always land. There’s really no way to fix it without ruining the joke. Or maybe earlier in the set, you could talk about how Notorious B.I.G. is also known as Biggie Smalls and kind of plant that seed, so the information is in the audience’s head. Then, later, when you get to it, it makes sense. The details are what make that joke funny, but again, if the audience doesn’t know those details, they won’t get it. That’s one of the downsides of comedy: sometimes a joke won’t land. I have hundreds of jokes posted, and somebody has always said, “I didn’t get this one. Explain this one. Why is that funny?” If you explain it, sometimes when you break it down, it’s not funny, which we’ve demonstrated today.
David (54:11–54:13):
What’s it like to bomb?
Robert Mac (54:13–54:15):
What’s it like to bomb?
David (54:15–54:15):
Yeah.
Robert Mac (54:16–55:28):
There we was, 1945. Bombs were falling. It’s the worst feeling ever. It’s giving your best material, and when a joke doesn’t work, you start doing all of your stuff—the hits, the things that will work. And when those don’t work, you just feel like you don’t exist. I was doing a show once at a resort, an MGM resort. We were in a suite 18 floors up, and you could look out the windows. There were beautiful views, and the audience was sitting on couches facing me. I was doing jokes that were bombing, and I couldn’t even make eye contact, so I was just looking out the windows the whole time, thinking, “Do these windows open?” because I just wanted to leave. I just wanted to nosedive out of there. Bombing is brutal, and sadly for me, and I’m sure it’s the same for many performers, the last show you have is the one that you remember. If the last show you do is horrible, the only way to get rid of that stench is to perform another show.
David (55:28–55:32):
Okay, how often, honestly, do you think it’s the audience’s fault versus your fault?
Robert Mac (55:34–56:32):
I have a good friend who used to say, “It’s always your fault if you’re not doing your job. If you’re not getting laughs, you’re not doing your job, and it’s up to you to do your job.” I agree with that in part. If I’m doing the same jokes that have worked thousands of times before and they’re not getting laughs, it might be on them. There are so many things that can interrupt that. If they don’t know there’s a comedy show and it’s a surprise, like at this birthday party that I did; if there’s a TV on in the background; if somebody else is talking; if there’s music playing; if there’s some other distraction; if it’s not my crowd—like the one I told you about, it wasn’t my audience, and they just didn’t buy what I was selling, and they were eating all the birthday food—I’d say it’s half on me. I should connect better. The first thing to do is connect to that audience, but if I don’t know them, how do I connect?
David (56:32–56:48):
Walk me through it. You kind of have an epiphany for a joke—like, “Maybe that could be funny,” an observation, a story that pops into mind. Walk me through the different steps from that to, boom, “I nailed it on stage.”
Robert Mac (56:48–57:06):
Wow, good question. How much time do we have? There are a lot of different ways. Sometimes I’m just walking down the street and there’s a sign, or I see a guy, or I see a dog who’s wearing a prettier sweater than the person who’s walking the dog.
David (57:06–57:10):
I see there’s something odd, like an Hermes scarf-type situation.
Robert Mac (57:11–57:52):
Something odd or interesting. My brain just goes, “There’s something in there,” so I write it down, or I dictate it into my phone. Then I sit down. I have a writing time every day, most days. Occasionally, I will sit down and spend my time writing jokes. So I look at my notes, and I see, “Oh, there’s a dog wearing a sweater.” I just free-write whatever comes to my mind: everything about dogs and sweaters. Sometimes things connect, and sometimes they don’t, but for the most part, once I start writing, new ideas come, and a joke comes out of that.
David (57:52–57:55):
So you feel like it’s kind of like making a collage with words?
Robert Mac (57:55–58:06):
It’s making a collage, putting a bunch of ideas together and seeing which ones bounce off each other and which ones rub against each other. You wouldn’t see somebody dressing up a cat. Cats don’t like that.
David (58:07–58:08):
That would actually be funny.
Robert Mac (58:08–58:09):
Yes.
David (58:09–58:11):
At the same time, that is a funny premise.
Robert Mac (58:11–58:25):
Right. I had something the other day that I thought was funny. My normal pad did not work, so I had to use a different thing to scroll on my home computer.
David (58:25–58:26):
Like a mouse?
Robert Mac (58:26–59:07):
Yeah, the other thing was out of battery, so I was using the scroller thing on the mouse, which required a thumb. I’m like, “Oh, I’m glad I have a thumb. Dogs don’t have a thumb.” Then I got the idea of, what if there was an Internet just for dogs? That’s the premise, and I haven’t filled it out, but what would be the websites? What would be the cookies? What would happen if there was an Internet just for dogs? Would the porn sites just be other dogs or cats? That’s a note in a notebook that, at some point, I’m going to sit down and write out, but it just struck me as odd, so I scribbled down the idea. I have a notebook of ideas, and when I have time, I flesh them out.
David (59:08–59:21):
Last question. You teach comedy, so as you sit down to structure the curriculum and say, “Hey, these are the things that I want to teach people about comedy,” what are the core principles, the core beats that you try to share?
Robert Mac (59:22–61:07):
It changes a lot, but for the most part, I talk about how laughter evolved. I discuss the things that trigger laughter, and how if you know those things, you can write to them. Then I talk about these filters or techniques that you can add to an idea to make the jokes pop. We’ve talked about some of those, like hyperbole, misdirection, misplaced focus, and taboo. There’s a guy I mentioned, Scott Dickers, who founded the Onion. He says there are 11 of these, which he calls comedy filters. I teach those and then I talk about the process of what comedians do. They observe something, they process it, they write it down, and they rebuild it in a way that has an element of truth, but also an element that makes it interesting or exciting so that somebody else will find it enjoyable. If you were just to get the truth and rewrite it in another way that didn’t change too much, it wouldn’t be funny. For example: “My mother-in-law, she weighs a thousand pounds. She weighs as much as two 500-pound sofas.” That’s not funny. But if I found another way of saying it that was interesting or exciting or pushed some limits, then people could recognize some truth, but also realize that there’s something interesting or fun or exciting or laughable about that observation. It’s all about getting something universal and making it specific so that it paints a picture in someone’s mind. So those are the things I would focus on and try to do in an hour or over a course of five weeks, depending on how much time I have for the class.
David (61:08–61:09):
Hopefully, I’m a little bit funnier now.
Robert Mac (61:09–61:35):
Well, practice. Watch a lot of comedy, read a lot of comedy, and if something strikes you as funny, write it down and explore that. Hit me up and we can bounce ideas. It’s about a different perspective, so another set of eyeballs is very helpful when you’re starting a comedy career. You have blind spots, and I have blind spots. Another point of view, another set of eyes, gives you insights. You might hear, “Oh, I didn’t think of it that way.”
David (61:35–61:54):
I was listening to a pastor preach, and he said if I’m not becoming more loving as I get older, I’m living my life wrong. If I’m not becoming more generous, more kind, I’m living my life wrong. And you know what? If I’m not becoming more funny as I get older, I’m living my life wrong. I agree with that.
Robert Mac (61:54–61:55):
Amen.
David (61:55–61:56):
I agree with that.
Robert Mac (61:57–61:58):
Robert Mack, this is great.
David (61:58–61:59):
Thank you.
Robert Mac (61:59–62:01):
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
David (62:01–62:02):
Of course.
