Saturday, May 7, 2011

Who deserves success?

Audience intentionally picks wrong answer on French millionaire

I just read this very interesting article about how different cultures react in "who wants to be a millionaire" when the participant chooses to "ask the audience". While the American version has people typically answer with what they think is correct, other countries will intentionally pick the wrong answer to mess with the player. Why do they do this? In France, they say they'll pick the wrong answer on a question they think is too easy for the player to ask the audience, because they don't think he deserves to win. In Russia, they have a general mistrust for people that gain sudden wealth.

Personally, I don't like when people gain sudden wealth either. I don't like that people are born in to wealth, I don't like lotteries or gambling, and I also don't care for companies that succeed too quickly. (Like Wal-mart, or Starbucks)

A lot of people seen the Will and Kate wedding, and they thought, what a lucky girl. She was once a commoner but she won over Wills heart and now, she's a princess. Watching some of the news, it showed all these girls waving signs that said, "MARRY ME HARRY". The whole thing left this foul taste in the back of my mouth. Can't society understand what's really going on here? These are people that haven't worked to get their fame and fortune. They were born in to it. The monarchy is a remnant of a time where dictators ruled the world. You were either born in to power or you killed to get there. Prince William is nothing more then a descendant of one of these dictators, and it's disgusting to have witnessed the world make a big deal about their wedding.

I could go on about how I hate the monarchy and how I'm embarrassed to have the queen on all of our Canadian money, but that will have to be another post.

Who really deserves the success they have?

I've been thinking about this more lately. I feel like our money system is flawed. I think the problem is the value that we put on things. Artistic value is all over the map. Some person can draw a flower and it's a million dollar painting, another can do the same thing and no one is interested. It all depends on who and where its sold. How much is your time worth? How much is an opinion worth? What about an idea? What about hard physical grunt work? Why do the people that slave all day get paid less then people that push pens?

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

dreaming about stand up

I had two dreams about doing stand up last night. The first I was in Brandon and there was a big festival happening. Denis Leary and Norm Macdonald were there and I was headlining. Denis asked if I was nervous and I said yes. I remember looking at my joke list and seeing a lot of different topics but I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do with them. I started writing down jokes that I remember at the bottom of the list.

I've heard people say that you can't read or see numbers in a dream. The words usually look all jumbled and don't make any sense. I clearly remember seeing the words in this dream.

My second dream I was following either Louis C.K or John B. Duff, I can't remember which, and they did a whole set on making the bed. I remember ignoring all my prepared material and improvised the whole set on the same topic. It was odd, because I haven't really been able to improvise yet.

Some day, I'd like to get there. I was wondering what really good improvisation is. Is it the ability to come up with an original joke on the spot. Or is it just that you have so much material in your head that you can work it in to any category.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

laughter

On Monday, I went to Dylan o Conners to do some comedy and the only people there were other comedians. Scott, the guy who organized it, felt bad for not promoting it enough. I still had fun, I think it provided one of the funniest moments I experienced in the Winnipeg comedy scene. When one comic was onstage, he noticed a couple people heading inside, and someone mentioned that we should all laugh really loudly when they come in like we're having the best time. So we did, and man did we laugh. It was so funny.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

comedy in a church

I had this dream last night that I was doing a comedy set in a church. I did alright, and was asked to another set, but the woman asking was very mean about it. She said, "just make sure you fucking smile while you're up there"
When I went up, no one was paying attention, people were talking to each other and I just gave up and walked away.