Comedy Archives - Page 296 of 298 - Ben Rosenfeld

October 21, 2008November 29, 2023

Are there any topics that are off limits?

A friend of mine: “Basically I’m an admin in sexual health for men with prostate cancer. They have erection issues and all of that fun stuff after the chemo.”

Me: “So your work has a barrel sized viagra dispenser?”

Friend: “Nah, their issues are more serious, they either need injections straight to the penis, have curvature that requires surgery or worse. I also get to ask people about the intensity of their erections on a scale of 1 to 10. 5 is where they’re barely able to penetrate.”

Me: “Wow, you must really like boners… This could be comedy gold. If you could take such an uncomfortable topic, and make an appropriate joke that releases the tension, it’ll kill.”

Friend: “Nah, nah. I don’t like to talk about work during stand up. It’s not good to make fun of people with cancer… Almost everyone knows someone who’s had it… AIDS jokes are okay though.”

Me: “I don’t think any topic is off limits. Just some topics are much harder to make funny. But those topics have the most payoff potential. And this is so uncomfortable, if you could make it inoffensive, it’ll be great.”

DISCUSSION FOCUS: What topics, if any, do you consider off limits for comedy? Death? Diseases that you can’t avoid? 9/11? God? Why? If nothing is off limits, why?

Wanna try stand-up comedy yourself? I teach a Comedy Class in NYC. I also do private one-on-one comedy coaching (in-person or via Zoom).

More Stand-Up Comedy Tips:

October 20, 2008

One liner day

I received a lot of really positive feedback after this set. It seems that shorter jokes are working better for me. The downside of this is shorter jokes mean I have to remember a longer list of jokes for my set. I suppose as long as it’s getting laughs….

The facetime and the laid vs laid off jokes need to be reworked. I’m thinking of trying, “I don’t understand some of the intracices of the English language. Why is it when you’re a jerk at work, you get laid. When you jerkoff at work, you get laid off?” I’m still not sure how to tighten the facetime joke. I think saying “40 minutes” instead of “40” could’ve helped. Suggestions welcome…

October 16, 2008

The HJ Protest Song

This is a hysterical music video I just came across that I had to share. A little crude, but you can’t argue with facts:

October 16, 2008

Too Dirty?

“Great job, but you gotta clean it up. Cmon. I can’t have you talking about coming in girls on stage.” Some places will let you know what kind of material you have to avoid before hand, others will end your set early if you say something you weren’t even aware was dirty.

As you may have guessed that’s what happened last night. I found out while taking a leak in the bathroom that this particular place doesn’t like you to do many jokes about female anatomy or if you’re gonna do them, you gotta go as metaphorical as possible.

Question: Will changing “coming in a girl without a condom… the first night I meet her” to “Not using protection for a one night stand” or “Going raw when you first meet someone” take the laugh out of this bit? Or is even that still too dirty?

October 16, 2008October 16, 2008

A Rant About Facebook Profile Photos

There’s a website called “Help a Reporter” and I came across this request today:

“If you’re on Facebook, who’s in your photo and why? Do you just depict yourself or maybe a display of your kids. Maybe it’s you and your significant other. Who’s in the photo and why? And do you have any feelings on the choices other people make? Seeing just someone’s kids in their photo makes you think … ? Ditto for email addresses like thesmithfamily@aol.com. Share your thoughts. Thank you.”

My response:

Hi there,

I have 3 kinds of Facebook profile photos:

Me doing something funny or crazy (making fun of the Rocky statue, snowboarding tricks, etc) with nobody else in the photo
When I’m interviewing for jobs, I put up a very standard photo of myself, in a suit or other situation where I look presentable
Me looking like the pimp that I am, with each arm around an attractive woman

My pet peeves of profile photos:

Huge group photos – congratulations, you have friends. That I can barely make out your face leads me to believe you’re the ugliest one in the photo. By far. Otherwise, why would you hide in the crowd on your own profile page?
Photo of you with your significant other (unless it’s hysterical). Do you really need to advertise how whipped you are? It’s bad enough you don’t say “I” or “me” anymore and that everything is “we”, but you can’t even have your own identify on Facebook? If you have her in your photo, but she doesn’t have you, you’re probably gonna get dumped. If you both have it, I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Random cartoon / celebrity / political movement photo. You’re about as original as Rocky V.
Photo of you with a baby that’s not your kid. This can be effective if you’re trying to scare guys away, otherwise who cares about the random child you played with for 4 seconds at Aunt Sallie’s house 5 months ago? He’s probably adopted anyway.

Let me know your pet peeves in the comments section… You can also email geekfactory@gmail.com with the subject “FACEBOOK PHOTO” by 6PM on October 18th if you want to have a chance to be included in their article.