Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton

#12 - My New Years Resolution

• David Walton

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David talks about being dumb and honest.

Also he:
• Examines Norm Macdonald’s approach to comedy and authenticity 
• Shares personal anecdotes involving aptitude tests and self-awareness 
• Discusses key comedic attitudes and emotional honesty 
• Explores the role of AI in shaping comedic content 
• Questions the ethics of using technology in creative fields 
• Considers the impact of fame on mental health through Avicii’s story 
• Encourages a commitment to honesty in artistic expression

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Speaker 1:

Happy New Year everybody. I'm going to share my New Year's resolution with you all. In this episode I'm going to talk a little bit about what I've learned over this Christmas break. Oh man, that's rubbish. That's rubbish.

Speaker 1:

I ran into a cool interview larry king and norm mcdonald, norm's in my mount rushmore and evidently I didn't know this, but Norm Macdonald was like graduated high school at like 15. He's a super high IQ, incredibly smart man, uh, academically and in many other ways. But sort of acted like he was dumb and he said on the Larry King show you, you don't want the audience to to think that you think you're smarter than them. And so he intentionally dumbed himself down. You could tell this sort of style delivery, et cetera. And I got to thinking about that. And obviously there are comedians that don't do that who are very effective. You know Seth Meyers, dennis Miller, bill Maher, but Norm MacDonald thought Bill Maher. But Norm Macdonald thought Bill Maher was, he hated him. Anyway, I thought it made me want to explore dumbing, getting dumber. I watched Nate Bregetsky's new special, which I highly recommend. He does it so well. I mean his attitude, his entire attitude, the whole show is I'm stupid. Look how stupid I am. Look at how much I don't know, and I think that's kind of fun I have played. I used to get hired a lot, acting wise, to play dumb people, and so I like being dumb and I think I am dumb in many ways.

Speaker 1:

I remember taking an aptitude test to figure out, you know, what I was supposed to be good at. It was like what a parent does when their child is like kind of directionless, I think, and they're worried about him. And so I went and took one of these like four hour tests where they to test like musical ability and deductive reasoning and I scored pretty, you know, I was fine in every area. I was fine in every area except deductive reasoning, in which I scored like incredibly low. And I remember thinking like, wow, this test is really awful, I've just created an insecurity for the rest of my life that I have no deductive reasoning skills. And then there was this blurb in the test that deductive reasoning was like the most important thing in life and it was like the most correlated skill you know, or aptitude for, for success. And so it's like, wow, what an, what an incredible test. Right, you go in there to figure out what you're good at and you find out that you're going to be. It's going to be a terrible uphill battle. In my defense, the deductive reasoning like part of the test was all about. It was like what sentence doesn't belong here and those kinds of sentences like I get so caught up, caught up in. Look, I'm not going to make excuses. I think my deductive reasoning skills are pretty shit, but it's only because I'm so creative. No, I don't know. As a side note, the highest I scored was music, like tones and being able to identify melodies and instruments, and it's like a highly sensitive ear, which also doesn't make a ton of sense. I think this test was garbage, but anyway, at least it was expensive and at least it gave me crippling insecurity for the rest of my life.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, this is a digression, but exploring being dumber on stage or at least kind of, there's something very effective about a bewildered stand-up. Who's just like what is going on? And then I'm like what? Huh, huh, I don't know. And she was like what? And I was like but what are you doing? And I was like what are you doing? It's funny. There's an exercise where you kind of Without words, you just play the attitude. So, like you know, as I've mentioned in previous episodes.

Speaker 1:

There's sort of these four major attitudes that almost every stand-up effective stand-up will embody as they do their bits. And it's like isn't it weird, isn't it scary, isn't it hard and isn't it stupid? So, like, hard is just like oh man, dude. And then I go I don't know if I can DMV, and I was just like oh man, dude. And then I go I'm fucking dmv. And I was just like oh, and then scary is like, and I'm like what are you doing? I don't even know. And then, um, stupid is like. You come to town, what do you do? Like uh, sebastian, uh manoscolo, what sebastian Like. Uh, sebastian, uh Montescolo, what Sebastian, his whole thing is is basically that's my pretty bad Sebastian Manoscolo impression. So his whole thing attitude is like isn't it stupid? And then I said scary, stupid, hard and weird and weird, it's like I don't know what is it. And you may think that's really ridiculous.

Speaker 1:

What I'm doing right now but that's actually an exercise in these classes is to basically remove words and just embody the attitude. And a lot of times, if you're not getting laughs, they say like, listen to the tape and make sure that you're is the attitude clear. And I have noticed like and it's the same with acting on stage or in film and TV it's like, if you're feeling it, it's almost like the people aren't laughing at the jokes, they're laughing at how much you're feeling what you're saying. Of course, there are very dry comics, you know, but, um, it's that combination of feeling it in words. So, anyway, this is all to say.

Speaker 1:

I think I'm going to explore being stupid. Yeah, so happy new year's everybody. 2025, be a wild ride. Uh, here's my new year's resolution. I'm going to share it with you. It's a single resolution. Here we go. Is this true? Is what I'm saying true? Yes, that's it. That's my new year's resolution. All truth, as as close as I can get it all the time.

Speaker 1:

My mindfulness of cocaine five minutes. I did a mindfulness cocaine. I transcribed it, I put it into the clod and I said help me, make this tighter and funnier. And then I read what that AI came up with. I don't think there was a couple jokes in there that were mine. Most of that was AI and listening back definitely the funniest thing I've done. Or like the the concept, I think, is obviously mine, but the jokes were not and AI is going to get this is the worst it's ever going to be, right right now, and and when I do rants and I ask it to put it together into a tighter stand-up set. It is very good at it. It's very good at getting the setups. Its jokes are okay.

Speaker 1:

If I did it for you, if I read you the full AI version of my rants, it would definitely feel like stand-up and it would feel like, oh, wow, he's making progress. The jokes were kind of there were some good ones in there. You know they're good. Okay. So now we're in a situation where AI can basically take the loose ramblings of my mind and make a decent stand-up set. Now that feels very similar to what a lot of stand-ups do is get help from writers. So it's like when you have a comedy buddy, you go through it and they help. They're like, what about here? What about here? And they're helping you with your jokes.

Speaker 1:

So what's the difference between that and an AI doing it for you? Obviously you're gonna tweak and come up with it, but is this immoral? Is this plagiarizing? Is this me and ultimately, almost every rant? I've been doing it and I know it feels wrong to skip the step and it's happening with all people.

Speaker 1:

I look at my children, who it's very important to me that they learn how to write. Well, I think it's a superpower, but is it still going to need to be If you can just basically blurt out into a voice recorder just your garbled thoughts and say, please help me make this coherent and organized and make the sentences punchy and, you know, contrarian? You can ask it to do anything and it will just spit it out and it will only get better and better and better. So do my kids need to learn how to write?

Speaker 1:

I always thought the belief is that if you're learning how to write, it's really learning how to think. You can't figure out what you actually think until you write it down and you see the words. And that's why Twitter or X, I love it so much is that the minute you go down to write, you're like, ooh, that doesn't sound right, like I'm not saying what I actually mean, and then you have to take the time and you have to edit, edit, edit, edit, edit. And then you're like, yes, that is what I mean, and then it's like a discovery. Writing helps you discover, and that's part of the reason I love stand-up so much, or I'm fascinated by it. I don't love it yet because I'm drawn to it, but I haven't had an experience, you know, sort of for the surfing metaphor like I haven't caught the wave where I'm just like, holy shit, I'm in.

Speaker 1:

But I've made a commitment to myself and I believe and I'm sticking with it, because there is a wisdom inside that says this is a path, this is the right path. There is an adventure, a deep, many-layered adventure ahead of you if you stick with it and you continue to do the hard thing. And I believe it very deeply, despite the tremendous amount of doubt and resistance that arises throughout the process. So my New Year's resolution to review is just really to be way really honest with myself. There's sneaky ways that we lie. As we talk Every day, we're all lying in many ways, many little, little little ways. I think there's a tremendous adventure and power by being able to catch yourself. I can feel it Sometimes. I'll start writing.

Speaker 1:

I wonder why this is so hard and I realize I'm doing something for someone else as opposed to just really getting in there. What do you actually think, dude? What is true, what do you know? And what he quickly realizes? I don't know anything, but I do know what the thoughts are that are coming up, and I do know how I feel about it and that's ultimately all you can really say. So how do I feel about this AI thing? It feels disingenuous, it feels scary, it feels exciting, it feels like a shortcut, it feels incredibly helpful, it feels like a superpower to be able to have. It will shorten the amount of time it takes to develop material, to just be able to put it in and say help me with the setups, tighten these setups, tighten these setups.

Speaker 1:

And I've scoured the internet on the Reddit stand-up subreddit, which has hundreds of thousands of people. No one's talking about AI yet with stand-up, and stand-up is bad, it's all dad jokes. I mean, sorry, ai is bad, it's all dad jokes. You know, if you do it, it's not very good at humor, but if you take your original stuff and you ask it to just help you out, it's pretty amazing and I encourage you to try it. Just voice record, you know, some stand-up bit you have or some idea, and that's what's cool.

Speaker 1:

I think people who are listening to this they're starting to. You know there's a little ticker. He's like everyone can do it, everyone can go up and and try to make people laugh, you know. And I will say like the beauty of it all is like these open mics is like no one's funny, no one's funny. So it's like almost the stakes feel so high and everyone talks about you know how ballsy it is, but in a weird way and I'm not saying it isn't, but in a weird way it's like I think it's way more ballsy to like do your second hour after your first good one, you know. Or it's like the second album after your hit album. It's just like that. Oh God, it's like the expectations now are so high. How do I deliver and get even better? That to me, is the ultimate balls that I'm. The respect I have for all artists who kind of continue to deliver under the pressure of, of fame and fan expectation, just mind blowing.

Speaker 1:

I watched the Avicii documentary on Netflix today it's New Year's day, by the way, happy new year's everybody. And uh, man, it was so sad, but I highly recommend it. But just the pressure, the head fuck of fame, especially at a young age, poor kid. That anxiety man, I mean the amount of anxiety, that fame For a sensitive soul and that great paradox that's like so much of the good art is coming from like profoundly sensitive people and how on earth do you handle the colossal head fuck and avalanche of energy that adulation and expectation and fame has on you while being sensitive? So of course they're all doing drugs and masking their pain. Of course you'd be doing the exact same fucking thing, so sad. Rip Avicii. What a beautiful documentary, Highly recommend.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I didn't want to ramble too much. A reflective New Year's episode, really excited for the year ahead. Appreciate all the support I've been getting from various friends and you know who you are and you know some strangers and I wish you all an incredible 2025. Let's go get it. Wishing you so much love, adventure, joy, peace, fun in the year ahead and, of course, just tons of skin on skin contact venery throughout it. All Lots of love, thank you.