Matching Wits With Dim Wits

Tags: bullying, comedy, comedy writing, determination, Saskatoon, Saskatoon comedians, The Stand-Up Diaries, Trevor Dean comedian, trevor dean saskatoon

Wednesday nights are done.  I won’t be going back to do Wednesday open mics anymore.  After two weeks ago, why should I submit myself to be disrespected by the host and trashed by a fellow comedian when I have done nothing to deserve such treatment?

Have you ever had somebody rain on your parade constantly, no matter how good you try to be to the other person?  You just go about your day and do the right thing, while you get teased, picked on, slandered and bullied all the time?  Well, that’s what I am subjected to every Wednesday night, up until two weeks ago.

A friend of mine came to watch and I told her about the way I get treated on stage.  She said “I’ve heard you tell me stories, but I never knew how bad it was until I saw it for myself.”  Let me set the scene.

Usually on Wednesday nights I am first on stage.  If there is a new comic who wants to come up and all they do is scrape the bottom of the barrel for jokes to get easy laughs, doesn’t matter.  I’m always first.  Even on my birthday when people were there to see me, I was told to get on stage first.  That’s the level of respect I get.

Anyhow, backtrack a week prior to two weeks ago (so like three weeks ago if you’re keeping track, it might have been four).  This one particular comedian follows me and says the following:

Trevor Dean is going to L.A. to be famous.  True story.  I wanna go with him just to see him crash and burn.

Then two weeks ago this comedian launched into me for no reason at all.

Give it up for all the other comedians tonight…..except for Trevor.  I mean, you saw that, right?

I would like to tell you what this particular waste of skin said after that, but I didn’t stick around to listen because I walked out.

My friend left after his set, and said the following:

That was the longest 5 to 7 minutes of my life.  He wouldn’t stop trashing you, then somebody said bring back Trevor and people clapped.  I don’t think the comedian realized you left.  The comic keeps trashing you, he had no material at all and was bombing hard.  Then somebody said Trevor left, and the comedian was like oh, uhhhhhh…..he literally had no material.

There are certain comedians I don’t respect or care for, but I don’t go posting slanderous comments on their Facebook pages or publicly name them, let alone trash them on stage.  I have never done anything to this person to have them think it’s fun to make fun of me.  But here’s the real truth of the matter.

He’s jealous.  Plain and simple.  I take attention away from this person.  Think about it, whenever you have critics in life it’s because somebody noticed you.  You are doing something different than what’s the norm and people when they see something different get scared, and lash out.  When people shit on you it says more about themselves and their insecurities more than anything.  I could sue this person for slander and impacting my ability to make a living, as I still have the Facebook posts where I was publicly slandered and accused of stealing jokes.

This person is jealous because I have a comedy coach.  I know how to write material, and the new material that I write I know will work in front of an audience for the first time because it’s structured.  I write circles around all comedians in this city.  Trust me.  Ask this guy who slanders me how many pages of material they have written since November.  You know how many I wrote in that period thus far?  30 pages.

30 PAGES

These 30 pages will not be done on stage at open mics.  No, these 30 pages of material will be done upon my return to the Laugh Shop this spring.  I know how to write material to make an audience laugh, and I know how to structure jokes, in addition to learning about audience psychology to make an audience laugh.  In other words, I can break down a joke and specifically tell you why it works.  It’s taken me a long time, but I finally know how to write for my own voice and have the confidence to be able to write jokes that I know will work.

They are 30 pages of jokes, with clearly defined setups and punchlines, not pages of rambling about drugs, drinking or trying to murder your girlfriend at the time.

I will make my return to the Laugh Shop stage this spring.  I will sell out the room (again) and make it into a mini high-school reunion.  There are many people who won’t support local comedy (who can blame them if they watch Wednesday nights), but they will support me in a professional comedy club, with professional comedians who treat the audience and their fellow comics with that same professionalism.

Here is the funny part about this particular comedian in addition to the incompetent host and other comics who like to take shots at me.  They are scared, plain and simple.  They feel threatened that I can write circles around them, and instead of asking about they types of things I learn from my coach, they use bravado, ego and bullying to talk down to me.

They can’t tell you why a joke is funny.  Ask them.  You’ll get an answer that reeks of attitude and bullshit.  They might say a punchline makes a joke funny.  Well, in that case, how do you get to a punchline?  It’s also funny that the host of Wednesday nights told me once that you don’t get into comedy to get the women.  Obviously he doesn’t know what a successful comedian looks like.

Good comedians will get the women to follow them, because laughter is an aphrodisiac and women are drawn to guys who can make them laugh.  I know, because I know professional comedians who are better than this host that kick ass on stage and have women want them.  Plus, I’ve seen shows where you can tell by a woman’s reaction during and after the show that she wants the comedian.

Usually, when people try to bully you and talk like they know more than you, but all that comes out of their mouth is bullshit, it’s pretty sickening to listen to.  I thought as fellow comics that some of them would be interested to know what I have learned so it might help them write jokes better and quicker.  They use a lot of smoke and mirrors, a lot of big words with very little substance or facts at all.

But somehow these comics think if they learn how to be funny, that it somehow constitutes an attack on their manhood, because there’s a saying amongst comedians that goes something like this

You cannot learn comedy.  Either you have it, or you don’t.

How would learning comedy be an attack on a comedian’s manhood, especially when everything about them points to the immaturity of a 13 year old schoolyard bully?