Barry Kirkey Comedy Lesson #12: Crossing The Line

In case you’ve been sleeping in a camper by the river, you’ve heard by now that Barry Kirkey (Extramask from “The Game”) has a radio show that is the funniest thing going in this community. He’s been generous enough to give us some weekly comedy lessons here at the how to get a girlfriend blog…and this week he discusses “crossing the line”. If you want to hear Barry (Monday-Thursday), you should definitely check out his show…it’s a damn riot.

Successful jokes often occur when someone hears something they don’t expect, something that completely crosses social barriers. Being able to take your jokes to a level that people don’t expect gives you two major things:

1) Laughs: people will laugh even more when you hit them with a joke that blind sides them.
2) Respect: for being able to say something that most people are too afraid to say. That, and spontaneity is something that is seen as a sought after quality.

So crossing the line more often will help you develop those two key points. This, of course, will help you socially.

To give you some context about what exactly these barriers are, consider 20 years ago, some gay jokes were not acceptable, and considered bad taste. Today, the topic is pretty much free reign, and unless you’re going to say something very extreme about it, then it’s probably not a good topic to use if you want to grab people’s interest.

With sensitivity toward racism, race jokes can still be considered inappropriate. Goofing on stereotypes (i.e. all Chinese people eat chicken balls for breakfast lunch and dinner, I’ve heard that) is a good way to cross the social line if you can do it without really offending anyone.

Many, if not most famous comedians will not go this route for many reasons. The main two that I can think of are:

1) This type of humor has a short shelf-life. This means you can only do it so many times before it either gets popular enough to be in the mainstream, or people just get tired of hearing you say it.
2) It forces you to always think about how to cross the next barrier, and say things people don’t expect. That’s a lot of pressure, and maintaining a high expectation like that all the time can take a lot out of you.
Seinfeld, for example, is not one of these comedians. While I think he is one of the funniest comedians ever, I wouldn’t say his success is based on saying things that would shock your average audience.

So that brings up the million dollar idiot question – who “does” cross the line?

One of the first names to come to my mind is Howard Stern. His entire career is based on doing comedy that is way beyond the social expectations of the time. While not every single thing he has ever done has been totally successful, he is generally known to cross the line (to the delight of the FCC) to gain laughs and overall popularity.

His biggest success is his ability to surround himself with people that can also cross the line in ways that most people are too afraid to do. He consistently has Gilbert Gottfried on his show to run off his mouth doing Black jokes, Jewish jokes – basically targeting any and all races systematically.

Another important name in crossing-the-line comedy is Tom Green. While his recent material has not been up to par with his capabilities, Tom’s older work still holds up as some of the most socially ridiculous and unacceptable humor. Here’s an example of how tom pretends to be a mustard inspector upon visiting a local convenience store (of course, the owner is East-Asian and probably doesn’t speak English too well, just to add flavor to the bit). If this is not crossing the line, then I don’t know what is.

While these are both extreme examples, you can cross the line in every-day life. If you’re getting bullied with gay jokes (even if you aren’t really gay) the best thing you can do is turn it around on them in the most extreme way possible. Respond by asking if they want to have anal sex with you in the back room, then ask, once you’re finished, if you can take your shit-stained penis and wipe it in his eyes and hair.

Warning!

One of the worst things you can do is “ride” the line and give people the expectation that you’re going to cross it, but then fail to do so. Women comedians have this problem, which is why I simply don’t think they’re funny… At all! They will “try” to say hard core things, but it’s either dated or just too soft for it to breach the social unacceptability barrier. Women comedians aren’t funny!

While women do this, a lot of men can do this too, and this annoys the hell out of me. If you’re going down a path with your jokes that leads you to a point where you “should” cross the line… CROSS IT!

Don’t lead me on like a fucking tool and leave me hanging like an Oriental midget in a banana factory!

Barry Kirkey

http://www.revolution31.com/blog

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