Ellis Rodriguez

Hack noun [hak]
1. A comic whose work is low in quality or does not have much imagination.
2. A mediocre and disdained stand up comedian.
3. A professional comic who renounces or surrenders individual independence, integrity, belief, etc., in return for money or other reward.
4. A comedian, who exploits, for money, his or her creative ability or training in the production of dull, unimaginative, and trite work; one who produces banal and inferior work in the hope of gaining commercial success in the arts.

In the comedy scene a conversation is often had about what a hack is. This conversation is usually held at a volume no louder than a whisper because it tends to be a very touchy subject. Why? Because as soon as the conversation comes up… you are asked to name names. Everyone starts getting nervous, that perhaps the next finger pointed will be at them. Especially the hacks.

And so it goes… comedians in dark corners telling the other comedians in their click that ‘so and so is a hack’ or ‘any joke about race or relationships is hack’. All the while ready to shoot someone in the face if they would even dare to accuse them of being hack. You can tell a comedian that their mom upside down is wow and they won’t care. But you say that they aren’t funny and they may stab you. If you go further and say that they are a hack… then you had better sleep with one eye open. It’s not a matter of if there will be an attempt on your life, it’s only a matter of when.

I must confess I’ve used the word hack to describe a comedian or two. OK, maybe more then two comedians. Maybe even at a volume louder then a whisper. Because in my opinion there’s a lot of hacks out there. For the most part you can refer to the definition above, but for instance I have a particular pet peeve that drives me crazy.

Whenever I see a comedian onstage who relies on stock jokes to get their laughs, my blood boils.

What’s a stock joke? It’s a joke that anyone can tell. It’s a knock knock joke you heard, or a bar joke you tell your buddies, or a funny email joke on rotation around the world wide web. Now if a comic gets onstage and tells a joke they heard somewhere, read in a book or got online to get a laugh… Then any other comic could just tell the same joke, and they can’t be accused of stealing the act. THE FIRST HACK STOLE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

We won’t even get into joke thieves. There’s a special place in hell for joke thieves but think of it this way. Someone wrote that joke. Just because you didn’t hear it onstage doesn’t mean you aren’t trying to profit from someone else’s intellectual property.

Or chew on this. Everyone has a friend that is funny, maybe a co-worker or relative that is really good at remembering jokes. Why should an audience sit and listen or heaven forbid PAY to see to a comic who’s telling stock jokes when they could have just had a beer with their funny friend? At least the drinks would be cheaper. The reason that audience came out to support live comedy is because they wanted something fresh, they came to see the art form known as stand up comedy and instead got a poser, a hack, a warm body wasting good stage time that real stand up comedians who toil at their craft could have used.

As a professional comedian I take it personally when hacks pose as one of us. They are the greasy used car salesmen, the unlicensed contractors, the untalented, unscrupulous lazy few who give the rest of us a bad name. Those hacks give audiences the idea that we all take short cuts, or lack true talent. They are the ten percent who ruin it for everyone. Black people call that 10% niggers. Latinos call that 10% wetbacks. And white people call them… well niggers. Comedians call that 10% hacks… stock jokes are a good indicator.

Young comedians, EVERYONE IS NOT DOING IT. It’s not a dirty little secret. Don’t listen to hacks that do it and tell you everyone else is too, or that every thing that can be done has been done and there’s no reason to try and be original… of course they’ll tell you that, THEY ARE HACKS. If you hone your writing chops and perfect your performance skills then very quickly you will surpass all the hacks. You will be a fresh and original stand up with your own point of view that can contribute to the art form and maybe, just maybe… if you are talented and committed enough… even further it.

Now I know hacks are reading this and instead of taking a long look at themselves and owning their shame they want to attack those around them. Especially me because I have the audacity to bring up the subject. They want me to name names. I won’t. They want to attack me. I welcome it. I’m ALL FOR HAVING A PUBLIC CONVERSATION with hacks and comics alike on what a hack is.

It’s a conversation that needs to be had more often. It’ll cast a spot light on the hacks and drive them from the stage. Freeing up a mic for the starving artists who slave with pen and paper to bring willing audiences a laugh to relieve them of the stress of the human experience, or at the very least distract them for 30 minutes with dick jokes. To those men and women who reach within themselves for the truth and pull out punchlines, I salute you. I am proud to walk amongst you, and call myself a stand up comedian.

If we shy away from the subject because we are afraid of confrontation or afraid to be attacked ourselves, we are only hurting ourselves. ATTENTION COMICS, IT’S OUR JOB TO SPEAK UP. It’s our role in society to speak up. We put a little sugar on it to make the medicine go down smoother… but the medicine must still be taken. And the way to root out hacks, as with every evil in the world no matter how major or minor, is to talk about it.

If we can’t talk about the issues in our own community, how can we say we have the integrity to give our opinion on anything? Why would an audience listen to us? Or even more importantly… why should an audience listen to us?

I’m not calling anyone in particular a hack. I AM NOT SINGLING OUT ANY COMEDIANS AND CALLING THEM HACKS. I will not name names. That’s not the conversation I want to have. But I will say this. Maybe you are a comic, you read this blog and you think that when you ‘remix’ a stock joke, or take someone else’s premise and write over it, or simply recites some old pun you heard a long time ago that you are ‘making it your own’. Maybe you reject my blog. Maybe you misread what I wrote and YOU THINK… that I THINK… that stock jokes have no place in stand up. Or that I’m saying that I never use stock jokes. Or that stock jokes are the definition of hack. Then you missed the point.

“Whenever I see a comedian onstage who relies on stock jokes to get their laughs, my blood boils.”

Let’s have that conversation. Seriously, let’s do it. And then own your opinion on what you are and what you do. I can respect that.

But if you agree with me… If you can’t find any stock jokes on Bill Cosby’s albums, or Richard Pryor’s, or George Carlin’s… maybe there’s a reason. Maybe it’s a lazy way of doing comedy. Maybe you’re a hack.

Being misinformed or ignorant can happen because this conversation is always had at a whisper in the back of comedy clubs. Maybe you didn’t know. But if the truth is now apparent to you, staring you in the face and you still choose to do it, then you are purposely stealing, from yourself, from comics, from comedy.

You are stealing from yourself any chance you have of become truly successful or respected in this business. You are robbing real comics of stage time and plagiarizing their material. And worst of all you are cheating stand up comedy herself… from being better because you contributed, because you GAVE… instead of taking, taking, taking just to sooth your own ego. I don’t have to name names. Hacks know who they are… trust me. WE ALL KNOW WHO THEY ARE. Choose to do better, and you are not a hack. You are a comic… and I can’t wait to hear your set. I could use a good laugh. I haven’t heard a fresh joke in a while.

Hack noun [hak]
1.  A stand up comic without integrity.

I’ve been asking for feedback on the last video I posted on youtube, Barely Blacker Than You (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcDnjgoyf9E) and I got mostly good reviews. But I did get a criticism from a good friend Mr. Steven Bloom who thinks I need to cut my F-Bombs in half. I highly disagree.

I reviewed the video, and in the 2 minute 51 second video there are 9 F-bombs. I drop 8 S-grenades in there too. That’s an F-word every 19 seconds and an S-grenade just about every 21 seconds. That’s a curse word on average every 10 seconds. That’s a lot of fuckin’ shit.

Of course using curse words to get a laugh, is a short cut. It’s lazy when the curse word is the POINT of the joke, when the punchline is supposed to be funny because you’ve decided to use a naughty word in public. It’s ignorant, sophomoric, or as it’s described in our industry, hack. Uncontrolled, shock humor is a plague in the comedy industry and a common mistake of young comedians.

I think many times when young comedians (young refers to their time as a stand up performer, not the age of the comic) see veteran comedians and they haven’t yet learned the disciplines of comedy, they, much like the audience are not aware of what the set ups are. Where the transitions are. They’ve never heard of a call back. They simply laugh at the punch lines. The uneducated comedian is simply imitating what they’ve seen. Which they think is a string of curse words.

The truth is… as they do their best Dave Chappelle impression, or channel their inner Kat Williams they failed to realize that both of those comedians are Master wordsmiths and orators. All they hear is a barrage of foul language. As a result, their comedy lacks substance in their early attempts to imitate these giants of the industry. Their caricature of a stand up comedian lacks the depth and intelligence that actually causes the audience to think, and laugh.

Which begs the question… if I know better… why didn’t I do better? The truth is I normally do. After re-examining the video I realized that I’ve released the video too early in my writing process.

Normally I write a premise and a few different punch lines. Then if I think it’s funny I’ll write a stream of consciousness. Often this is the part of the process when I go to my scattered notes and ideas that I’ve previously written and also write them into the bit. Now that I have a funny premise and a lot of different places to go with it I head to stage and trust my instincts as a performer. I find that stand up comedy is a spoken art form, not a written one. And when i try to plan everything out on paper I forget the most important part of the bit. The audience.

The bit in the video is in the later part of this stage. I’ve said the joke enough times that it has begun to be consistent. It is consistently funny, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is fun for me to tell and I’ve told it enough times that I can focus completely on the audience instead of the jokes. This allows the delivery to come from a natural place and hones the timing of the jokes.

The NEXT step, is to go back to the page and finish the joke. I tape most all of my sets. What I do next is study video of all the times I’ve told this bit. I study all the jokes that worked and study the timing. Then organize them based on what actually works best on stage. I write out the ENTIRE bit making sure I keep the natural riffs, and jokes I write in the moment. Then like an editor… I go through and delete every single word that is unnecessary. The FIRST THING to go is the curse words.

Bloom is absolutely right in that there’s too many curse words. He was just trying to be nice and not tell me to cut them all. After watching the tape I believe there are only two F-bombs I want to keep. All the S-bombs can go. It’s not shock humor. Without fine tuning the material, this is just the way I normally speak. And without the editing process those curse words are just my version of ‘um’.

The lesson I’ve learned is not that I’m lazy when I write comedy. I’m just lazy when I speak. In my normal speech, I curse to much. If I didn’t, then although the bit would still need work it wouldn’t be quite as foul. I’m going to complete the work on this bit and post the COMPLETED bit without the superfluous curse words so everyone can see the progression to the final product.

Also I think I’ll stop cursing so much when I talk. Not completely but, FUCK! How many times can a guy say shit? You know?

If you’re a fan of my comedy… thank you. Please be warned that this blog is not necessarily meant to be funny. I hope some of it is, but this blog is more about comedy and about living the dream. Hopefully it’s an honest record of my journey as I live my dream. I hope you are living your passion, mine is making people laugh, and I started sharing that humor onstage after a particularly rough time in my life. I’ve heard a million times that comedy comes from pain. Which came first, the humor or the pain?

When asked to analyze my own comedy I’m never really sure how  where it comes from. I’ve always been told I was funny… or what did they say? Class clown? No… smart ass. Yes, I have always been a smart ass. Perhaps the humor came first? Perhaps. But then there must be some truth to the cliché… because for my first blog ever, I thought I’d blog about the time of my life that led to me being a stand up comedian… and it started painfully.

Divorced, depressed, destitute. That’s how Don King would have described my life a little over 6 years ago. I was lost, and reeling from the pain of divorce. I had made a habit of keeping to myself, spending my nights working graveyard shifts at a warehouse, my days in movie theaters alone. There was something soothing about embracing the depression… like listening to ‘our song’ over and over and wallowing in the pain. I was simply numb to the world. And the depression was all I had left.

The day I woke up from depression I was drinking a quad venti white mocha from Starbucks. I’m not saying that Starbucks is the cure to depression by any means, in fact the prices are more likely to plunge you deeper into depression if you become a caffeind like I was. But it was on that day I formed a theory that people only make about one decision a year. We make choices every day. But I hardly think that choosing which Starbucks drink is going to make your job bearable, is a decision.

As I pondered what was the biggest choice I would make all day… I realized I wasn’t deciding anything. I always ordered that drink. I only stopped at that Starbucks because it was conveniently located on my way to work. I only worked there because it paid more than my last job. I only took my last job because I had made ONE decision 5 years earlier, to marry a blushing Latin bride.She wanted to get married at a particular place, she wanted to live in Stockton, she wanted a particular lifestyle and I was simply doing my best to back the decision to marry her. I was making choices or basically filling in the details of that one decision. A decision that set into motion a chain of events that led to a divorce, debt, depression… and eventually this particular cup of coffee.

And now it had led to an epiphany, and another decision. I was going to start deciding all the time, instead of choosing. I would no longer choose from a menu, or what ever anyone set in front of me. As if that was the limits of what I wanted in life… I decided to go to another coffee place the next day (the Starbucks a block over). I decided to get another job. I decided to get the fuck out of Stockton.

In deciding to start another life I realized why I hadn’t before. It’s hard. It’s almost impossibly hard to not simply choose from what’s in front of you, dictated by past decisions. I needed help. I was determined, and I went to my granny for advice. Idel Raybon was a strong black, Latin woman who migrated from Panama in her early adult years. No one in my life time called her Idel. Very active in her church, she was greeted every Saturday Sabbath morning as Sister Raybon, and every child who enjoyed a delicious plate of arroz con guandules, pescado frito y platanos dulces simply called her Granny. That included every child in a twenty mile radius including me and my many hermanos and primos.

Granny would tell you how it is. In English or Spanish her tough love was tough indeed (the toughness only surpassed by her wisdom). I asked her what she thought of me becoming an actor, or perhaps a comedian. Granny told me they were all clowns, and that she was funnier than me anyway. Tough.

I let the thought slip from my mind, even though I had been thinking about it for weeks. Granny was pretty funny… so she would know. She was the first person I had told out loud. There just so happened to be a comedian on the show we were watching. Granny didn’t think he was very funny either. I sat there in silence, when she posed a question.

She asked “What will they come up with next?”A rhetorical question I thought for sure. But it wasn’t. She followed my silence with yet another question. “Who is they?” I guess I had never pondered who ‘they’ was. Hmmm. “It’s you dummy! Every one waits to see what ‘they will come up with’. I don’t think this man is very funny, everyone is waiting on you to come up with something next.” Wisdom.

Granny gave me a look that let me know she was being as sweet as she could be to her whiny adult grandson. “Baby.. If you want to be a clown… go be a clown. You come up with what is next. You are funny”. Granny was pretty funny… she would know. Love.

“But not as funny as me.” She says. Rude. But then, that was Granny.

I lost three grandparents that year almost back to back. At my Grandmother’s funeral in Boston I wore a Boston Red Sox hat… I had the same hat at Granny’s funeral a few months later, although I took it off for the pictures. I wore the same hat for the entire first year I performed stand up comedy in mourning. I’m sure a few comics thought it was a nervous crutch… I refused to be onstage without it.

Last night I recorded my first DVD, Go Be A Clown. Dedicated to Granny, who I’m sure looks down from heaven every Sabbath, not laughing. But smiling, proud that I began work on what everyone is waiting for. What’s next. The next joke, the next talent. Talents is a story that my Granny told me since I was a child…

¹⁴ “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. ¹⁵ To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag,^[a] each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. ¹⁶ The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. ¹⁷ So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. ¹⁸ But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

¹⁹ “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. ²⁰ The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’

²¹ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

²² “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’

²³ “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

²⁴ “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. ²⁵ So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

²⁶ “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? ²⁷ Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

²⁸ “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. ²⁹ For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. ³⁰ And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Matthew 25:14-30

So my talent is being funny. I refuse to be sent out into the darkness with the gnashing teeth because I was a disobedient bird who refused to fly. I’m not getting denied entry to my master’s happiness for not telling dick jokes. I’m sure Granny doesn’t think they are very funny. But I hope when I get to the gates she’s waiting for me… and I get to see her again.

And she can make me laugh.

Hope your grind is kind…

-E