A couple of weeks ago I presented at a business conference on the subject of “Stress Relief Through Comedy”.  Within that presentation I made some suggestions on how to bring comedy (well: how to bring “humour”) into the attendees’ workplaces.  One such suggestion was something that I do everyday and that’s to read a couple of thought-provoking, funny, or inspiring blogs every morning.  By using an RSS reader these posts are sent directly to you and (in most cases) are waiting for you when you first to get to work.  (In my case: when I wake up and get to the computer.)

The specific example which I gave during the presentation was a blog called “Garfield Minus Garfield“.  Every couple of days there is a new post made on this site with a very simple concept: remove the character Garfield from the comic strip Garfield and leave Jon Arbuckle there on his lonesome.  It’s an existentialist’s dream… I haven’t seen a disappointing cartoon yet, and don’t suspect that I will.

In the weeks that followed this presentation, a friend of mine, Ryan Pilling, launched his own daily blog that I am getting a big kick out of.  It’s funny, quirky, and does a good job of getting the creative juices flowing for me.  It’s called “LSNED: Learn Something New Every Day“ and lives up to its name: every day you will discover some new (and quite interesting) fact presented in a fun way.  Actually: it would be a great method to train for a trivia type game show.

I say that is gets my creativity going because of the sheer randomness of the facts that are presented.  It’s impossible to anticipate one day to the next and, as such, is a great way to jar my brain out of patterns (and I think we all have such patterns).  I do hope you will either check out the LSNED website or Facebook page to get your daily does of interesting facts!  (I’ll also be including this site in my future “Stress Relief Through Comedy” presentations because I truly do believe that it is a great way to start the day.)

Comedians everywhere are very lucky to be performing at the time that we are.  We can step on stage any night of the week and say whatever we want and not be arrested, fined, or otherwise charged for obscenity or indecency. It was trailblazers like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin (among many others) that led the way for my profession to be free of fear when performing.

This luxury is not limited to comedians. Every North American (and, yes, many other places in the world as well… but not all of them) has the right to speak as they see fit.  I cannot count the number of people that have died to ensure us this freedom, but it is NOT something to be taken lightly.  This is a right guaranteed in Canada by The Charter of Rights and Freedoms as follows:

Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.

Source: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/1.html#anchorbo-ga:l_I-gb:s_2

It is the word “expression” in point (b) that is important for this post.  That means, you guessed it, freedom of speech.  There is one exception to this freedom, and that pertains to speech that is considered to be “hate propaganda” (more information by clicking here).  I understand, and acknowledge that limitation, but it does not apply to what has motivated me to write this.

This is what has motivated today’s post:  A new bylaw in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, that gives peace officers the ability to fine people for swearing in public. Without doubt (and regardless of their motivation for passing such a law – which I’ll discuss in a moment) this is an infringement on the freedoms of every Canadian citizen as guaranteed through The Charter.  This bylaw is an insult to the sacrifices made by countless millions.

Yes, this bylaw also creates new fines for activities such as vandalism – which is all well and good.  That is one thing that laws are supposed to do: protect property (public and private).  I would have no problem with this law had it not included the elements that make swearing “fineable”.

Now it seems as though common sense is trying to prevail as stated by one of the Sylvan Lake City Council members, Richard Backs:

“Obviously we’re not talking about some guy who says oh s***, oh eff, or whatever,”

“We’re talking about somebody who gets really quite loud and boisterous and just point-blank refuses to be quiet — if we’re dealing with someone who is obviously being consistent and obnoxious.”

Source: The Edmonton Sun.  Article: Sylvan Lake to pass law against profanity.  Written by Dave Dormer.  Published on June 7, 2009.

The transition in these few sentences is telling.  Mr. Backs quickly changes the issue from cursing into a matter of “loud and boisterous”.  If it is loud and boisterous behaviour that they are trying to eliminate then there are already laws in place to do so. Fines for disturbing the peace or public drunkenness already exist.  This $150 fine for cursing does not curtail loudness… it curtails freedom of expression.

His use of the word “obviously” also troubles me.  Is this (or his) interpretation of the law “obvious” to those enforcing it?  If it is obvious then why mention cursing at all (especially when loudness seems to be the main issue)?  This wide breadth of interpretation should be of a major concern.  Inaccurate laws create problems later when they are misinterpreted or abused.

It appears as though the intent of the law is to create a more affable environment for vacationers and the argument could be made that cursing in public hurts this environment.  The rebuttal to this argument is simple: too bad.  You DON’T have the right not to be offended.  In fact, you’re likely going to be offended by something or someone everyday.  You DO have the right to freedom of expression.  You DO have the right to leave when being offended.  Exercise the rights that you DO have, and let me, your neighbour, and that f-bomb-droppin’ punk in Sylvan Lake do the same thing.  Our freedom of expression is more important than your social comfort while wake-boarding.

My friends have questioned why I have attacked this topic with such gusto.  They lament that, “it’s just Sylvan Lake.”  While this individual bylaw is a mere pebble in the landscape of our society I urge you all to remember that societies (like people) trip over pebbles, not mountains. The rights of people are not always taken away with one fell swoop… but sometimes by the culmination of “acceptable” changes over a long period of time.  So while, yes, Sylvan Lake is a mere pebble, this particular topic warrants a mountain of our attention.

Saturday night was the closing night gala of Tuesdays With Morrie and since then I haven’t been quite sure what to do with myself.  Yes: I get back to being a magician, comedian, and speaker, this weekend… but the last couple of weeks have been so dominated with the play that there are now lots of hours in a day.

Several friends have been asking, “Are you sad it’s over?” And, yes, I am.  There is nothing quite like working with other performers and creating something special to share with an audience.  So much of the performing that I normally do is solo work.  I write by myself, I rehearse by myself, and perform on stage by myself (even when there are other acts on the show).  The opportunity to “play” with like-minded (and ridiculously talented) people is a rarity that I will surely miss (and already do).

Fortunately, the memories of the experience will last a very long time… and the skills that I learned and developed will last even longer.  Speaking of memories (how’s that for a segue?), there is now an online scrapbook of the show available with pictures, newspaper clippings, and some other “souvenirs” of the event.  You can see everything that is online by clicking here.

I look forward to my next venture into acting (whenever the opportunity arises) and am using these few days off to switch gears back to my work as a solo performer.

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Oh, and I would like to point out that I achieved my goal of making this week’s blog post “on time”.

Happy Birthday to me! Yep, today is the big day and I’m looking forward to receiving a pile of Facebook wall posts as a gift.  (In fact, those have already started to roll in.)  I shall do my best to respond to them all… but if you have had a birthday whilst on Facebook you know it can be an intimidating proposition.

I know there are people out there that view their birthdays as a major event.  I’ll tell you right now: I’ve never really done that.  This birthday in particular has snuck up on me and with a busy schedule of performing and preparing for Tuesdays With Morrie in under two weeks (have you got your tickets yet?) I won’t even really get a party in.

As with most North Americans the time surrounding my birthday is filled with questions about gifts.  I consider myself very lucky; having want or need of very few material things.  (But thanks in advance for the socks, Mom!) So these questions are tough to answer.  When I think about the things that make me smile I am far more focused on experiences.  Events that give an audience (even an audience of one) a sense of joy.  The more remarkable, the better.  I suppose this is what I see as the true value of entertainment, and the reason that I do what I do.

A few weeks back (maybe going on a couple of months now) my friend Cory Mack shared this YouTube video with me and it is a perfect example of what I am talking about.  Imagine being one of the people to witness this event as it happened.  How could you not help but smile for the rest of your day? I just watched the video for the up-teenth time and I know that’s how I’ll spend the rest of my birthday.

I’ve been obsessing about this week’s blog post.  Quite frankly, I had no idea what to write about until I sat down and started typing.  I feel accountable to have a weekly post on this site (with rare exception).  This forces me to be writing and creating content every week.  You may ask, “Why?”.  I’m glad that you asked.

While I wish my motivation was noble, the true motivator for me is fear.  This is the same motivator that keeps me writing new material for stage, keeps me working on new magic routines, and forces me to take part of my day to work on getting the next gig.  It’s not a fear that the phone will stop ringing.  It’s a more personal fear that the well will run dry.  It’s a fear that I could run out of ideas.

Creativity is not something that can be scientifically analyzed and this ephemeral quality adds to the fear.  I think about how I created my best comedy material and my most amazing magic and honestly can’t provide an answer.  “It just happened.” The inability to cite specifics in regards to this process scares me a little.  I can’t (without more than a little doubt) point to one method or technique that produces results.  (No one in a creative industry can.)  So, it gets scary.

Fear isn’t a bad motivator. While some may view the emotion as negative it has had huge evolutionary advantages to our species.  (I typed that assuming that we are of the same species.  Any walruses reading this should not take offense.) Fear can make us run faster and fight harder.  Turning that fear into a positive result is what a lot performers do every time they take the stage.  Transforming nervous energy into a more energized show reaps huge rewards.  In the same way, fear motivates me.

While I can’t point to a specific method to achieve success on stage I can take steps to ensure that something good is produced every now and again.  Hence this blog.  Hence the daily writing.  It’s just me fighting the fear.

So, what are you afraid of?

It takes a LOT to get me frustrated to the point that I will vocalize it.  And, a LOT more than that for me to sound angry.  But a couple of weeks ago one of my best friends pushed my buttons on a particular topic and definitely received an atypical response from me.  (What else are friends for?)

All it really took was one sentence: “There are no arts in Calgary.” Now, I have heard this lament from many different people and yet all I see every day of my working life is Calgarians producing great art in all different forms from theatre, to comedy, to music, to visual arts, to dance, etc.  Now, I will make some concessions about the local “arts” scene:

1. Art is not as visible as it is other places in Canada.  Larger cities often have more of an “arts” sector – you can see it everywhere you walk when you are downtown (or wherever that section of the city happens to be).  Calgary’s scene is more spread out, but that is no different than the rest of our civic planning.  (And these days I admit the phrase “civic planning” is more oxymoron than government division.)
2. The Alberta Government is not as supportive as other provincial governments.  While this may be changing (they have created new programs and positions) it has been very true since Klein’s government.  What is more amazing to me is that despite a lack of government support – great work is still being produced.

To avoid my stress level increasing every time I hear that Calgary is “artless” I have come up with a new response: “Really?  How many artistic events have you gone to in the past year?”  If this hypothetical person answers with “None” it may seem like a victory for their argument.  “I haven’t been to see any artistic events because Calgary doesn’t have any.”  But that is a gross exaggeration… and a heck of a good way to lose the argument.  (If I learned anything from that friend of mine that took debate in high school.)

Walk into The Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts in downtown Calgary any given week and at least half a dozen different theatrical productions are going on.  I can’t begin to count the number of music venues in town and I’ve definitely seen a number of art galleries.  That is all without even picking up an arts-focused newspaper or doing a Google search.  In fact, if Calgary had only one arts event a year it proves that Calgary DOES have the arts.

Perhaps this misinformed idea of “no arts” has more to do with the visibility.  The mainstream newspapers in town (whose names don’t deserve the press in this blog), have very few artistic-type articles.  The largest theatre companies in town have to fight for the press… so the “little guys” don’t really stand a chance.  As mentioned above, the community is more spread out than in other places, which makes it slightly more invisible, but you CAN find unique and wonderful events if you take a few seconds to look.

Pick up a FFWD (they are free every week) and cover a wide range of arts.  There are tons of event listing websites.  Pay more attention to your radio station’s PSA segments.  And maybe, just maybe, say “Yes” to one of those Facebook invites that you receive.

On the flip side of the coin: don’t look for any of it.  But, in doing so, remove the phrase: “There are no arts in Calgary” form your speech.

Here is a typical breakdown that could occur during any comedy show, anytime, anywhere:

Comedian: (tells particularly dirty joke)

Audience: (gasps, groans, boos, etc.)

Comedian:  “I was just trying to find the line.”

Every audience has a “line” where something crosses from funny to rude, or funny to gross.  Every performer has such a line as well, and sometimes those two arbitrary points don’t line up.  This can cause problems.  I’ve been thinking a lot about these invisible markers quite a bit this week with everyone talking about the incident that happened on Red Eye with a number of “pundits” last week.  If you haven’t seen it… this group of television personalities (and I use the word “personality” with more than a hint of sarcasm), mocked Canada’s involvement with the war in Afghanistan, our troops, and basically insulted every Canadian stereotype that you can imagine.

Canadians took offense in a big way.  Facebook groups, online petitions, and boycotts cropped up in only a matter of hours and are all getting some pretty good support.  And yet, this is not the first time that Canada has been made fun of.  South Park wants to “blame Canada” for everything that goes wrong in the US, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert take frequent shots at us, and even a character on one of my favourite sitcoms two weeks ago asked, “Why do we let them be a country?”

None of those comments were received with such a backlash.  I guess the cast of Red Eye found this country’s “line”.  Granted, the timing of these comments could not have been worse – given the deaths of four brave Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan recently.  (And I can not stress enough my respect for the armed forces, especially the people, some of them my age, that have given their lives for our ideals.) While this may have been a big part of the issue, I think that the idea of “intention” and “attitude” are far more important than timing.

The cast of Red Eye intended to inflict harm.  Their ignorance created an attitude that turned what they perceived as commentary into abuse.

This creates a very interesting question for all stand-up comedians…  Every joke has a victim – a target.  Sometimes it is the performer him/herself, other times it is a person/country/idea that is attacked.  What makes such an attack acceptable?  The intention.  Most comedians that I know have the best of intentions. It is their goal to share a viewpoint with their audiences, or entertain, or educate, or even open minds.  So long as these jokes are not written from a place of ignorance the performer remains on the same side of the line as the audience.

If anything, the infamy of this clip should remind all comedians (and all pundits) that their intention and attitude may be more important than their punchlines.

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PS:  Happy Birthday, Dad!  (Sorry I couldn’t have a cheerier post on the big day!)

I have an agent that is on record as saying that he wants me to stop performing magic and focus only on comedy.  The truth is, that he has never seen any of my magic shows.  Surprisingly, this is not an uncommon thought/question from people whom I meet.  It has never occured to me that I would ever have to choose.

Both magic and comedy have a seperate draw and enjoyment for me.  The universality of magic and the freedom of comedy (the ability to talk about anything that I choose) both hold great appeal.  Most important is giving each of these performance arts the time that they deserve.  Either style of performing on it’s own constitutes a career to which many have dedicated their lives, so finding the time to work on both is sometimes quite difficult.  After performing and working on comedy for some time I find that my stand-up gets better than my magic, so I switch over to magic and work on it until it gets better than my comedy, and then I repeat the whole procedure.  Fortunately, while working on one I am also improving the other.  They are complimentary in their very nature.

A lot of my competitors call themselves “comedy magicians”, but I am always slightly shocked to find that they only have credits on the magic side of performing.  I think that using that title requires the bearer to have credits in both comedy and magic, and after years of doing both apart and together I confidently use this title and entertain my clients with both performance styles.

So, I am going to avoid choosing either magic or comedy for as long as possible.  Now you don’t have to ask.

Yesterday was the first Tuesday I have missed making a blog post since I started in September of last year.  Could it have something to do with St. Patrick’s Day?  Possibly.  Far more likely it is becuase I have a show to do this evening (show ends at about 10pm) and from there I drive all night to get to a 10am show the next morning in Hinton, AB.  The travel schedule has been stressing me out just a little.

So, I have decided to quite proudly take a week off from blog posts (with the exception of this post that is), and will return next week (hopefully on Tuesday) with something fresh and new.  In the meantime I wanted to share this video of the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  It is an interview he conducted with Jim Cramer last week and has been circling around the internet quite a bit.  With the clip people seem to be asking the question, “Why is it that a comedian is the one to so accurately hit the nail on the head and be the voice of reason?”  The truth is, that I have always felt that is the role of comedians… Jon Stewart is doing his job, and doing it VERY well.

Click here to visit The Daily Show website for Canadian viewing. (Damn copyright laws are a pain.) You’ll then have to hunt through the centre column for the three clips of the Jim Cramer interview – but it is well worth it.  Happy Hunting!

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On a much more personal note: one of my best friends in the world has his Mother going in for surgery today (probably already there), and despite my crazy travel schedule both he, his Mom, and his family will be in my thoughts.  Good luck.

Not a lot of people know this, but my High School Diploma isn’t really a normal diploma… well – it’s normal, just has a special addition to it.  In high school I was a part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program.  (Yes, it was for the smart kids.  Mock away – I’ve already heard it all.) In order to graduate I had to write this final paper for my history class on a subject of my choosing.  My paper was about the age-old question: “Do great men make history or does history make great men?” This was then applied to Lenin and the Russian Revolution as a case study.  (And somehow I ended up as a comedian… who would have guessed!)

The paper got a decent grade (to be honest, I kind of phoned it in) but that question of great men vs. history has been on my mind a lot while reading Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book:  Outliers: The Story of Success.  For those of that haven’t heard about the book it studies “outliers”: the people that have achieved major success and how they have done it.  While the book draws many conclusions the factor of luck comes up quite a bit.  Being born in a particular year (or month) could have a huge impact on what you are able to accomplish, not to mention your upbringing and coincidence.

Gladwell has so masterfully answered what my IB paper attempted to all those years ago.  While having the natural drive and ambition to succeed is necessary – it’s just the prerequisite.  He also stresses the importance of chance and the need to have achieved 10,000 hours of work in a field to become proficient.  Reading that forced me to think of my own field.  When you start out in comedy you are given 5 minutes of stage time (basically not enough time to do any “damage” to the overall show).  By Gladwell’s logic that would be 120,000 spots on stage.  I think of this number when new comics ask me if they should enter the field and I laugh (internally of course).

I strongly recommend Outliers and hope that, if you read it, it changes your opinion on success and thus on failure.  Sometimes all the ability in the world isn’t enough – you have to be ready when luck strikes.

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In the same shipment from Amazon that contained Outliers was also David Crowe’s new comedy DVD, Crooked Finger.  I worked with David on New Year’s Eve here in Calgary and was honoured to do so.  He is definitely a comedian that has put in his 10,000 hours and it shows in his work.

The DVD is 75 minutes of non-stop laughs.  The material is selected very well and a delight to watch.  If you are putting in an order for Outliers be sure to add his DVD to it as well (or vice versa)… it’s the best one that I’ve watched in a while.