Wednesday, September 5th, 2012
Thought the open mic begins at 9:00, I arrived at 9:45 due to a combination of having difficulty finding parking and leaving late.
One of the first things that I noticed is that there is no community here from which to draw conclusions about a culture. The comedians get up, perform, and leave the stage. One may not be able to conduct an ethnography in these conditions. Watching comedians perform is not observing a community, it's commentating on their performances. I stay anyways. The thought did come to me that perhaps I could conduct an ethnography of an Improv troupe. My local theatre is hosting a Improv 101 in the near future.
Jokes that I notice throughout the night:
- Jokes about sex
- Jokes about drugs- weed, coke.
- Jokes about race
- At one point there was a joke about smoking weed while having sex
- There were also jokes about TV shows and Movies
- These jokes were not as perverse.
- These jokes tapped more into the stream of pop culture
- I wonder if comics tell jokes on these premises because it is a shared experience that the comic and the audience has. That may be true for all jokes.
The first three jokes seem to suggest that here in this open mic performance, the perverse is the norm. Almost every comic makes fun of a topic that would not come up in day to day conversation. However, I should note that these topics don't come up in my day-to-day conversations, but perhaps they are often discussed among others.
After the first comic I see performs, the next comic is introduced. The host goes in detail that he has performed in over 4 rooms and many shows. It seems that he is a high status individual because e has performed in many places and many different times.
I also wonder what makes each comic unique. Is it their size, race, or voice? Some comics seem to point out their race or voice. Their names may also make them unique. One female comic went by the name of Pixie Rose, which made me question if that was her real name and that was one way of uniquely identifying yourself in a room of many comics. The comics do not seem to be in competition with each other as there is no prize, but perhaps they strive to be unique somehow.
Some traditions I noticed:
- New comics
- It was a comic's first time performing this night. The said that he had some rules for the audience for the new comic's set
- No judging
- Be supportive
- Applaud the new comic as he comes to the stage
- Additionally I noticed that the comic had his own tradition- he brought many friends.
- It is interesting that a new comic is given so much support, when the host and the audience could easily have reversed their positions by basically giving him no mercy. Intead the new comic is cherished and coddled.s
- 3 item minimum
- The host only said this once
- May not be a tradition, and more of a business requirement.
- Headshots
- A headshot is a picture that a comic has to give to promoters.
- When the host introduced one comic, he said that this comic could host, but first he needed a headshot.
- It seems strange that a headshot is needed when comedy is all about the jokes, there is no need for a headshot on stage. However, there is a need for the headshot for the advertising and promotional materials.
- Additionally, the comic is judged by their headshot. The host said that the comic's previous headshots were not good enough, he needed to get better ones.
- Audience Participation
- Many comics engaged in a call and response segment of their performance.
- They would ask a general question- "Anyone hear smoke weed?" And the audience would yell back
- This may not necessarily be a tradition, but may serve as a confirmation to the comic that he is still being heard.
- Thinking quickly
- One comic was given many laughs and applause for thinking of a joke on the spot. That is probably "worth more" to be a quick thinker than to be well rehearsed.
- Timeline
- The general timeline indicates the status that one has as a comic.
- The opener is given respect. It is an honor to open the show.
- After the opener, the various amount of open mic comedians perform while the host introduces each comic.
- If a comic has high enough status, they are invited to jump in the line up of open mic comedians and do a few minutes, even though they did not sign up to perform that night.
- Finally, the feature comic performs, he is given at least 15 minutes to perform, while the open mic comedians are given 3-5 minutes.
- It seems that the more time you are given to perform, the higher status you are among comics.
- Age and High Status
- It also seems that comics are given high status based on the amount of times that the have performed or if they are retired and coming back to perform.
- It also seems that older comics are well respected and that exceptions to that are pointed out.
- One comic was young and the host pointed that out. The host said that the next comic was going to make the older comics mad because this comic was young and had a lot of talent.
- This suggests that older comics are given a higher status or more respect, but having more talent overrides that
Some of the comics discussed race and the demographics of the room. One comic asked for the people of different races to shout out. Based on his audience participation, it seemed like there was a lot of white males, but not too many black males. There were also white females, but no black females nor any hispanics. The comic did not ask about asians. I'm not sure what the point of the comic doing this was. One comic admitted to having white guilt twice. He said that he watched Tyler Perry movies and then at the same time accused Tyler Perry being racist in his portrayal of Blacks in America. This comic also seemed to note his privilege as a white male, while making fun of a female comic that had performed before him, he made a joke about her sexual promiscuity. He then apologized saying "I'm sorry, I'm just a white guy who..." He did not finish the sentence, but it is curious he noted his race and sex while apologizing, as if noting his privilege.
I left the open mic once all the comics finished performing. I did not stay long, but I did not notice many of the comics talking to each other, instead I saw them speak to the friends that had come with them.
I will follow up with this next week, however I may have to give up on the ethnography idea and just study the performance of comics through a sociological lens.
and 
. Both of these books are ethnographies. The former is a book that a journalist wrote after attempting to live off of a minimum wage job for a year. The latter is written by John Howard Griffin, a civil rights activist who discovered what it was like to live as a black man in the south during the early civil rights era by artificially darkening the color fo his skin. Since I was already engaged in both activities, ethnographies and stand up comedy, I always wondered what it would be like to combine the two. I decided that one day I would do an ethnography of comedy. Today was my first foray into that venture.
. Authored by one of the premier sociologists, especially among ethnographers, Gary Alan Fine. This ethnography covered the rituals and traditions of Pen and Paper Role Playing games, as told by a participant-observer. It is a very good book that I highly recommend. From this book, I reverse engineered that questions that an ethnographer should ask. In the future I'll write those questions, but today I wanted to write about my first attempt at conducting an ethnography.