Known Unknowns #4, Final Guest Poster: Dan Telfer

Dan Telfer, Comedian

How much do I actually write out before an audience can smell the writer and his pen of anti-spontaneity? Lately it has been all jokes get some kind of outline, mostly none get a script. Sometimes the first time on stage means one planned line, sometimes two, sometimes it’s just conversation from the moment I look those strangers in the eyes and think, “How do I communicate here, now?” I’m trying to describe all this simply, but I should also point out that I am a control freak with ridiculous rituals. Ripping a page out of a Moleskine makes a fallen angel burst through your sternum sword-first, right? We all know this.

I was very happy with my comedy recording, or Fossil Record as it is now called. But I did not get to obsess over it much. One of the last things I say, which was impossible to edit out, was “I’m excited to see Paul F. Tompkins, how about you?” People have purchased my CD on iTunes, free of the EP 3-pack and my CD’s liner notes explaining how the recording was unplanned on the night Mr. Tompkins recorded his full length CD. But of course as a result I have gotten dozens of emails from people asking why I say that thing at the end, and if this is a “real” album because of that one sentence, and am I a clever thief for getting offstage so fast and then selling this tiny thing for money. While I still like that moment of realism, it is just one of a million things I might have changed if given the opportunity to obsess in advance over this as an album recording.

This was perhaps the last time I would perform a bit I call “Platypus.” It went well that night, and so I was very glad Platypus could be preserved as such. Sometimes it did well, but I was getting sick of it. Bits such as “Geese” and “Voltron” I would perfect to my tastes in the months following the recording, completely unaware that the earlier versions would be released formally. Once the CD came out, I felt what some comedians feel: an urge to immediately retire all that material. And once the CD was out, I tried this. With one exception, it has mostly worked.

In May of 2010 I let my friend Elizabeth put a clip of me doing a bit I call “The Best Dinosaur” online. I hate having clips online because it also makes me want to retire material. People can see it any time, so why would they want to see it again? But this bit goes different from night to night because of the amount of audience interaction, and she said some very nice things to me (I am not heartless) so I let it go up. I did a different version on Fossil Record, which was released about the same time. I kept doing it because, well, I changed it a little almost every single time. I would ask the audience what they thought the best dinosaur was, and people always said a few obvious ones. Sometimes people would say “Denver” or “John McCain.” So, I could write on my feet with it. It was satisfying.

But then thanks to that Reddit website people like so much, a couple weeks after that video was posted it had hundreds of thousands of hits. I have zero complaints. But as long as we’re talking about when a piece is done and writing in stand-up, I lost a lot of control. I don’t like people telling me what to do and suddenly the bit was a guarantee in publicity materials. I don’t have a manager for this stuff. I have been on Channel 237 in some Midwestern cable markets, but otherwise I have not been on TV. So I had to wrangle my inner whiney bitch and find a way to shut down my persecution complex once in a while. I never felt trapped or anything stupid like that, but suddenly people were handsy and were crushed when I resisted ever so slightly. I started to question how close to retirement that bit was and whether anyone really gave a shit.

It’s really fun to guess who around Chicago has heard all my material. I like to assume that nobody has heard of me but that the most jaded person in the audience is my biggest prize. So much writing has to be done on my feet to do this. I might be comfortable in a club doing a rant one way, but in a dive bar where there is no stage lighting, I cannot say it the same way. These people know I can see them. They know there is a TV behind me. I have to think of what is delightful about this stuff when I don’t have control, so why not do it to myself on purpose sometimes? I chose it, so it’s a blast as far as my OCD is concerned.

I like doing really tough rooms sometimes and just spouting things off the top of my head. There is nothing more fun to me than digging my way out of a hole — saying something I truly believe but I know is too strange for mass consumption. Sometimes I like to just make everyone uncomfortable just to wake them up. You can see an example of this here.

Very recently, I decided I would take a story from a “one man show” I did in 2000 and see if I could reformat it for stand-up. So on a whim, I said, “I was born with an exposed nerve in my nasal cavity, and when I was a kid I used to get a ton of bloody noses.”

In the story-loving crowds I’d performed it for in 2000, people would come up to me after the show and say they had this, or they knew several people with an exposed nerve. My ego remembered.

In my recent test of this line, this audience revolted on a level I had never seen. I had to drop my next 8 minutes (maybe one of which I had set aside for this embryonic bit) and I had to scramble to explain that I was not going to bleed on anybody. That was a kind of writing I didn’t think I’d have to do. And then what? Is that bit dead? Also, this was a show where I had booked myself and was responsible for all the marketing, and I got to read all the hate emails the next day. Good times.

I don’t think I had truly earned that story. Early on one of my open mic friends told me how one of my favorite famous comedians “earned” his complex literary references. I called bullshit, and he shook his head. I said, “Swagger can save you.” He said, “No.” People have to be there to see you. Otherwise it doesn’t sound like comedy, it sounds like a cult meeting.

I can reword that nose bit, probably. I can write it so I’m not leaning on shock. I could also save the story for something else since blood is indeed super gross. Even when I watch True Blood, where all the gore is made of the Cherry Coke soda fountain sacks that sit beneath the counter at 7-11, I see blood and I compulsively roll down my sleeves over my wrists so the vampires don’t know I have wrists. So I have to look at that bit and go, Okay, I think that story is funny. Very much so. But I also have to talk to strangers for a living. I should maybe write a joke about being a squeamish little girl instead. I mean, I already have that in common with my audience, so why do I keep digging holes for myself?

Dan Telfer is a stand-up comedian, actor, writer, illustrator, husband, and daddy. See more at DanTelfer.com