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Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton
This is an audio journal of actor, David Walton (Fired Up, New Girl, About a Boy, Bad Moms, Power:Ghost) as he builds a standup comedy set in public with the help of comedians and friends. New episodes every Thursday.
Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton
Ep 4- Joke Structure and Premise Mining
Is it possible to be both a spiritual guru and a bully? A loving parent and an accidental trauma-dealer? On this episode of Starting Stand-Up, David Walton explores his competing personalities while teaching us how real comedy gets made. From his dad's ill-fated suit fitting to the gentrification of recreational drugs, watch as random thoughts become structured bits in this raw, unfiltered peek behind the comedy curtain. Bonus: meet Sid, David's id, who really wants to try being on the receiving end of things."
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Does anyone here enjoy shitting on people's chests? Okay, you see that there are no Germans here. Anyone here? A part of Putin's war cabinet. Do you see what I'm saying? This is a safe place we're in. We can relax and we can connect. We can connect deeply, like an avatar Dude. I love Avatar so much.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine connecting your hair to a dragon and getting like a mini orgasm and just flying around jungle lands just by thinking I'd kill to fuck a dragon. I mean fly a dragon.
Speaker 1:Oh man, that's rubbish, that's rubbish.
Speaker 1:Hey, welcome back, or welcome first-timers to Starting Stand-Up. My name is David Wald and I'm so happy you're here. We are building a proper stand-up set, my very first in public and it's been a very fun, exhilarating experience for me. We're just beginning, so if you found us, I thank you. I hope you'll stay and let's get right into it. We're going to learn some things today. I'm learning some things today.
Speaker 3:And my hope is that you you also learn.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get to it. So this is the new knowledge of stand-up that's got me so excited and has me looking back on all these old shows of mine and all these rants I did with a renewed excitement that that wasn't just a colossal waste of time, that there are ways to make everything that I was doing way tighter and use it use it properly for a real stand-up show. So today we're going to share some of these early rants and then I'm going to break them down a little bit. I'm going to mine what could be used in a real show. So I'd like to talk to you about this structure of a stand-up comedy joke, and you'll notice it now anytime you watch stand-up, and it it starts with an attitude. So every joke carries an attitude all the way through it.
Speaker 1:Now, evidently, the four most common and popular and useful and effective attitudes are either something an attitude of isn't it hard? That's one. It's so hard when X, or isn't it scary, or isn't it weird, or isn't it stupid when? And then you come up with a topic and so, for example, you'll hear a rant about passing along insecurities to our kids and how easy it is, and so the topic would be. Fucking your kids up is easy. Then you get into what's called the premise and that premise. So you have your topic just kids or fucking them up and then the premise is something that's like an original slant or opinion. Generally it's something that's interesting and serious. Premises often aren't funny at all and I've actually been told and I really like this idea that a good premise almost the more serious a premise is, the more potential there is for humor. But what makes a good premise Usually a good premise is like really insightful. A good premise it's an original observation and a good premise is very, very specific about what exactly is hard, weird, stupid or scary about the topic of your choice. And that's why all these stand-ups that I watch in these open mics, it's all so confusing. No one has any idea what these people are actually talking about. So of course they're not going to really get the joke. And if you watch the masters the really good ones, like someone like Chris Rock, he'll repeat the same phrase over and over again to really just hammer home what it is we're talking about, what is this premise? And then we move.
Speaker 1:Once that's established and everyone's clear on how you feel about this very specific thing. Then they go into what's called the act out, which is sort of like this run of jokes, and that is what I haven't yet done. So I kind of listened back on these rants of mine and I found some stuff which I'm excited about, which I'll share with you. But let's go to the rants first, because this is a build as we fly it kind of thing, and I think hopefully it'll be interesting to see how just an open, loose rant can be soil for a premise that hopefully will find its way into a proper, solid show. Okay, without further ado, here's a few quick rants where I tried to pluck true premises out of. Where I tried to pluck true premises out of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's tough, you know, parenting's tough because we just pass our insecurities on to our kids, whether we were trying not to or not. I remember, you know, those moments where you realize your parents are humans and they're all fucked up. I remember my dad one time he's a huge man like 6'3", 2403, 240, you know wore suits to go to work and he I was overhearing him he said this thing like uh, my shoulders are so damn narrow I gotta get another jacket made. So he's like custom tailoring because of narrow shoulders. I'm like my dad is insecure about his narrow shoulders, like you could feel the, the shame and the wish that he had broader shoulders. And then I sort of looked at my shoulders and I was like, oh, my shoulders are narrower than his. Clearly I too should feel shame about my shoulders, and here I am to tell you that I do. I wish, I wish my shoulders were broader. I wish, you know, I had a stronger chin. I wish I had a.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, you know, wish I had a vagina, and I could just feel what it's like to get pounded. What? Who said that? Yeah, it's weird, I have this, um, you know that movie Inside Out. You know where they personify, like anger and fear. It's like we have all these selves, if you will, inside of us. But I have selves. I think we all have selves that aren't based on mood. Like I have this self that wants to, just, you know, do cocaine and fuck shit up and destroy. I think Freud called it the id and, uh, I like to call him Sid, and I think a lot of reason that I'm doing stand-up is because Sid has been locked in a cage and I just want him out. He wants out, but Sid does want to be. You know, have a vagina for a day and just see what it's like to get fucked, and that's why I was surprised that that came out. But then I remembered that Sid is here too.
Speaker 1:Everybody Sid's with us, and I think tonight is just a battle between me and Sid. I remember one last thing about passing along insecurities. My mom I remember playing with my lips one day and my mom just screamed stop playing with your lips, david, you're just going to make them bigger.
Speaker 1:And that's when I realized I had big lips. I didn't realize I had lips that were too big, and so now my spirit animal is a duck-billed platypus. And please don't talk about my lips. The only thing that makes me feel better about them is that, evidently, as you get older, your lips never stop shrinking, your ears never stop growing, your ears and nose never stop growing. So I got that going for me. You guys have been great. Thanks for giving me my first experience on stage and for not laughing a single fucking time. Go, fuck yourself.
Speaker 3:I hate you. I'm so sad.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there we have it. Yeah, so there was a few things. When I listened back and it had been a few months since I had I don't remember recording that I was blacked out on drugs no, I wasn't at all, I was dead sober and it was the morning, but at least that was the timestamp. Anyway, this is stupid. My point is there is something there. I perked up, I can feel my body go like a little bit of a charge that there's a world there that can be expanded and made funnier. Now, what I just did, that that small rant, is not stand-up comedy, that that would not work in a live audience. It's. I mean, there's maybe little parts that could work, but there's. There aren't enough jokes and it's too unclear. It may barely work for a podcast, but it's definitely not going to work on stage.
Speaker 1:And so one of the things I got to clean up is just really get into the premise in an efficient way. So, for example, when we're talking about insecurities, I did naturally go into this teach thing of like. You know, it's tough, it's tough passing along insecurities to kid, which is okay, but I wrote down a premise, a rough draft of a premise, that will give you the idea of where we're headed here, like so you know what's so, and so you'd be on stage and you'd be like you know what's so hard about parenting is that you know you're fucking them up and you're giving them insecurities, but you don't have any idea how you're doing it. You know, like you're accidentally fucking your kids up all the time, like my parents fucked me up and they, they, they didn't mean to at all, but like my dad, you know, was just trying on a suit and I'm just like watching him as a little eight year old boy and he seems excited about his suit and he does this offhand remark about his shoulders being too narrow. And then I and of course here I'm on the podcast, but here's the act out, and now I can do like a comedic version of an eight-year-old boy absorbing shame, like a performance art and maybe there's some laughs there, and then being super insecure about shoulders and like going to the gym and working them out, and it's all just because of this innocuous, almost comment that my dad made to himself, you know. And so there's a premise that's got maybe legs, you know you. And so what I'll do in the future is I'll probably do like a 3045 minute writing once that premise and I'll just I'll try to act out. I won't even write, I think I'll stand up and I'll just start wigging out for 40 minutes and rant about that and record it and see if, like, maybe there's 30 seconds or 45 seconds of something really good there. But I like that premise because it's real. I think it's relatable.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense to you? Who am I even talking to? Is anyone out there? Anyway, sense to you? Who am I even talking to? Is anyone out there? Anyway, that's what I got. I hope that's. That's clear, because it's clear to me. So I actually don't give a fuck. Just kidding, I love you. Okay, up next. This is two back to back rants, short, maybe four minutes total. I'm really having a hard time figuring out how to word the premise or to unify this into something. Maybe you can help me. But a lot of really interesting things that are exciting to me came out that I really want to use. I feel like there's something here. I just don't know how to crack the code, but I'm going to.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, life is fucking hard, man, this midlife crisis. It's like if I had to say a sound, you know a sound that represented my midlife crisis, it'd be like no-transcript Adderall. I like snorting it, I like doing it all, but it's this. I definitely know it's a. It's a hardcore drug, but you know, it's great. Like drugs used to be cool, right. It used to like feel like you were cool if you were doing drugs. And I've noticed this. It's like, you know, the nerds took over the world, right. Like social media. It's like Elon Musk Elon Musk, like the nerds took over. But what's happening is that we're all becoming nerds, like we're making drug use nerdy.
Speaker 3:It's like yeah, yeah, I took I'm taking 250 milligrams of psilocybin. I encapsulate them in my shelf and I do the 4-3 protocol. I do four days on and three days off and that's been getting me thinking. I'm noticing quite a bit of creativity and an elevated mood.
Speaker 1:It's like shut the fuck up. You're taking boomers and you're taking tiny amounts of it because you're a fucking pussy. I should probably explain where that anger comes from. You know, I have this battle inside of me.
Speaker 3:You know, we all have a battle.
Speaker 1:We all have that angel and devil and as I, you know, explore myself, explore my body and my emotional states. Now I have this sort of this nice, sensitive, open-hearted guy.
Speaker 2:He loves.
Speaker 1:Everyone likes to hug, spread love and light that guy. And then there's this other part of me that is sort of cosplaying some 80s super villain with a double pop collar who just wants to fucking beat the fuck out of nerds and just get super pissed that my like hot ass girlfriend is building a relationship with one of the cuter nerds. Sensitive, cute nerd fuck you nerd. My whole thing was like bullying and spirituality combined. So the premise is that, like kids are bullying each other for not believing in like really beautiful ideas. Roomie has this quote like the wound is the place where the light enters you.
Speaker 2:It's like jimmy doesn't believe the wound is the place where the light enters you. Let's fucking give him a wedgie.
Speaker 1:You fucking tool and john 14 8. If god is all you have, you have all you need.
Speaker 2:Ha ha ha, little Timmy, Ha ha ha Timmy. Timmy has God and he doesn't realize it. He doesn't realize he has all he needs. Let's fuck him up.
Speaker 1:Paul Gagun. Paul Gagin, I close my eyes in order to see.
Speaker 2:Tiffany's got her eyes closed, but she's not seeing. She thinks she's fucking sleeping. Fuck her up.
Speaker 1:That didn't work, but there is no other spiritual teacher than your own soul, swami Vivekananda.
Speaker 2:Oh, mrs grubopple, ricky thinks that there's a spiritual teacher that isn't his own soul. He thinks there's other spiritual teachers than his own soul. Anyway, uh, why don't you email me if you like that? Tell me if that's a good premise, and then I'll put it in the show.
Speaker 1:Fucking loser Dave. You're such a loser who do you think you are trying to be funny? Fuck you. Yeah, I just want to say just for the record, I've never bullied someone in real life. I bully on television. I get paid to bully, but no one time. In high school I was really stoned and everyone we were supposed to be hazing the noobs, the new kids and I just like hit one kid while he was sleeping in the face with a pillow and he died. But other than that no, I'm just kidding Midlife crisis. I think that was a pretty shit sound Like. I think that sound could be a lot funnier, but that feels like a legitimate stand up bit where you just do like an awful screech sound that you'd see in a horror movie or something.
Speaker 1:Theme of this angel devil on the shoulder. I've got some other rants that have that theme. So I think I have to figure out a way to make that a premise and I think the way I want to make it a premise and I wrote something down that's like a rough draft is you know, being a person is so weird. It's because you're not really one person. We're all not just one person. We have so many selves, but we have this name that's supposed to represent all of it. But who you are is so many different things, I mean. And then you kind of riff off of how unrecognizable someone is, let's say, from when they're hungry and tired and hangry, versus when they're just covered in ejaculate after a great sex session.
Speaker 1:Now see, we've stumbled into a huge problem I'm having as I listen back is that clearly I have a perverted tendency and it's like a. It's a crutch. I know it already is a crutch because I do find it funny. I find eight year old humor. I still laugh at farts, I still laugh at the dumbest shit and sex jokes always get me. Now, every time I'm racking my brain for something funny, I'm going to go there and that's hack shit. You can't. You got to have a non-blue. Is the expert blue blue like being crass and dirty. You have to have acts that aren't blue.
Speaker 1:And so I think there's promise here in this multiple selves premise. And also, you know that I do have a bully inside of me, even though I've never I've found safe avenues for it. It's basically becoming like douchey villains on television. But also how dumb bullying is like me. Obviously we can make fun of bullying and make fun of bullies who just bully for the stupidest shit. So I think the premise that I can get into that spiritual stuff now I will say I have not tested that stuff with a crowd, it's time to I got to figure out and probably find some better spiritual quotes.
Speaker 1:But as far as opening the hood on this process with you guys, I listened back and I got that little tickle and then I said, okay, now let's get to work and maybe that you know, down the line this will be like a legit part of an act We'll see but I really like the idea of bullies using spiritual sayings to bully kids. There's something kind of really interesting about that to me. So I'm going to keep working on it. That's my promise and I think we're going to end there. I think we've done it and I really appreciate if you've made it to the end. Holy shit, good for you, really, truly. Um, I'm gonna start giving away t-shirts for people who actually Sit through this fucking nonsense, um, but anyway, I have a lot of extra t-shirts from the bathrobe company I have. Yeah, we'll talk about that another time. No sponsors, as you can see. No commercials here. We're bringing to you this free. I like to do everything for free.
Speaker 1:I'm not like who needs money. You know what I mean. All right, guys, have a wonderful week. I wish you a week full of peace, joy, connection, love, laughter and what's it called Venery Jesus. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review.