This story comes from our March 2018 issue. For more content like this, subscribe to the magazine.
We’re living in a boom time for standup comedy. Everyone and their brother have had Netflix specials. At least three television series have launched in the past year exploring the world of standup: CNN’s “The History of Comedy,” HBO’s “Crashing” and Showtime’s “I’m Dying Up Here.” Podcasts proliferate by the day.
What does this mean for South Florida’s comedy scene? On a recent afternoon, we corralled three of its most talented comics—Lisa Corrao, Lindsay Glazer and David Stebbins—for a roundtable discussion in one of their favorite performance venues, Boca Raton’s Funky Buddha Lounge. Here are just a few of their insights from a two-hour conversation that stretched from Flori-duh humor to the #metoo movement to reclaiming the original “magic” of standup.
How does South Florida influence or inform your comedy?
Lisa Corrao: It’s not known for having the best standup fans. Compared to the amount of people in Florida, it’s a small ratio.
Lindsay Glazer: Florida is different from New York, L.A. and Chicago. They have builtin comedy scenes that have been there for so many years, and in a lot of ways, we had to start from scratch here again. We had clubs that went away, so we’re building it up.
David Stebbins: I’ve been here since 1991. There have been zillions of comedy scenes here. This was right after the late ‘80s boom, which was right after, like, ‘oh my God, standup comedy is a thing!’ So the market got so oversaturated that you could walk into a gas station and ask, “Can I do five minutes over by the popcorn machine?” Then on top of that, people don’t need to go out to comedy clubs. There’s streaming, there’s YouTube, there’s TV. And on top of that, you don’t realize how shitty Florida is until you go to other places and tell people you’re from Florida. You can literally tell people where you live in proximity to whatever kind of strange thing damaged the national psyche. So I live an hour north of the dude that ate the other guy’s face on bath salts. I live an hour south of where the 21-year-old mom drowned her kid so she could go clubbing.
But that means there’s a lot of material to mine in South Florida.
Lisa: It’s actually a good place to learn comedy because of those reasons.
Lindsay: We’re like a melting pot, so to speak. That includes rude people, different cultures, etc. You’re getting a sports-conditioning kind of training. You don’t become good on the football field on the final round of the Super Bowl by practicing in perfect conditions. You get good from practicing in battlefield conditions.
Do you need to move to New York or L.A. or Chicago to make it as a comedian?
Lisa: No. And I’ve lived in New York and L.A., and I can tell you that you don’t have to be based there anymore. I spent a lot of my career trying to impress the gatekeepers, and one day I looked around, and I’m like, there’s no fence. You don’t have to impress gatekeepers anymore. We have the Internet.
David: I’ve had so many younger comics that say, “I need to move to L.A. or New York.” I say, no you don’t, because once you do, you become a number. You’re part of a thousand million comics doing the same thing.
Do all of you have other things you need to do for money?
Lindsay: It depends on your lifestyle. I could, I guess, live off comedy money, but I’m not making enough to support my family from it, and I was already an attorney.
Lisa: I quit my teaching job, but I do everything in entertainment that I possibly can to pay the bills. Standup is the least amount of money I get from everything, whether it’s commercials or voiceover or radio or writing.
David: I do escort work, massage parlors …
When you think about it, how many working comedians today are famous enough to make it a full-time career? Not many—Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld—you could probably list them on two hands.
David: When you just said Seinfeld, I consider Seinfeld the downfall of civilization in a certain way, and I’m not saying that as a pejorative. But that is when it changed. Standup comedy used to be an art form. In the late ‘70s, you had Pryor and all those cats doing just standup … because it was this magical new form. And in the late ‘70s, clubs started to capitalize on that. And a standup scene happened.
Then what happened was, standup became a vehicle to get a sitcom. TV was still king, so Seinfeld was the beginning and the end of that. Seinfeld set a precedent that was impossible to meet.
Lindsay: I think Seinfeld was the beginning of the downward trending of political correctness. It didn’t start with Seinfeld, but it eventually got there. Comedy started to have these gag orders that weren’t there during Pryor and Kinison. Now, if you have some opinion that isn’t pandering to the majority of the audience, it can hurt you.
Have you experienced any of that?
David: My whole career. Are you kidding me? Why do you think I’m doing this interview?
Lisa: I don’t censor myself. If you’re going to offend someone, I feel like they shouldn’t be in a comedy club.
Lindsay: Someone said that great art divides—and that if people both hate and love you, that’s way better than, “eh—she’s OK.” I don’t say something to shock people or anything like that. But because of who I am—a lawyer and a mouthy chick—I say stuff. Because it’s coming from an authentic place, people are more receptive to it.
David: That’s the key word, authenticity. I do bits where I talk about the N-word in black audiences and have gotten standing ovations, because I’m willing to go into a very uncomfortable place. And what they can sense is what Lindsay mentioned. I’m not a racist; I’m having an authentic moment with you. You can join me in this authentic moment, or you can crumble back into whatever denial mechanism you have. But we’re going to have this authentic moment.
And isn’t that something unique to this art form?
David: Yeah, because if I walked into Pollo Tropical and did that … I’ll try the N-word bit at Pollo Tropical, and I’m not sure they’d say, “That’s insightful, and you’re being authentic.”
Let’s talk about Louis CK. Is his career over, and should be it over?
David: I hate the harassment of women. I find it deplorable and sick. I’m clean and sober for 14 years and in recovery, and I deal with people who have been wounded by sexual-abuse issues. I find that so despicable that I don’t give a f*** about Louis CK anymore on that level. But the honest truth is, no, he’s not done. In 10 years he’ll write a book, he’ll reinvent. People forget.
Lisa: [Sexual harassment is] one of the things we dodge all the time from men—and from women—who think it’s OK to touch us and grab us and say disgusting things in our ears before we go onstage, and take advantage of us because they have power over us. The Louis CK thing didn’t shock me. Even the first time I heard about it, I wasn’t surprised, because so much of it goes on that people don’t know about. Think about all the non-famous people who are trying to touch you and masturbate in front of you.
Lindsay: I’m lucky that I have mentors who are protective of me so I don’t have to deal with that. Also, I was a little older when I started, which made me more aware of what was happening.
David: You’re not some kid off the street. You’re a lawyer.
Lindsay: It helps that young men are terrified of me, in some cases.
Lisa: You definitely figure out who’s going to have your back. When I started comedy, I was super-naïve, because I’d been a sheltered human being my entire life. So when I was new, I was easier to corner in a green room. But after years of being a comedian, I’ve figured out that I don’t have to be treated that way.
Do you get sexist heckling from the audience, too?
Lisa: You do get heckled in a different way. You have to have a response ready for, “show us your tits,” or “take off your shirt,” or “shake your moneymaker,” which I got one night and didn’t know what to do, so I just shook the microphone. I don’t make much money, so this is all I can shake.
How do you deal with bombing?
Lindsay: We have a saying in law that if you say you’ve never lost a trial, then you’ve never been to trial. Everyone bombs. And you learn a thousand times more from a set where you bomb than in a set where you do well.
David: I don’t bomb. If I feel myself losing them, I have 20 years of A material I could pull out in a second and start winning them back. But that’s a cheat for me. I hate doing that, because I’m pulling out bits. Fun, for me, is working without a net. I take huge risks onstage.
Is it ever the audience’s fault?
David: It’s mostly the audience’s fault, are you kidding me?
Lindsay: I don’t think it’s the audience’s fault or the comedian’s fault. If this joke didn’t hit, you can tell another joke, you can do crowd work, you can do a save line, or you could give up. There’s a zillion choices you’re making in that split second, and when you get more seasoned, you make those choices faster.
David: Jerry Seinfeld said, “I don’t bomb anymore.” You should get to a place in your career when you’re so good at what you do that you don’t bomb anymore. But I’m also willing to bomb. I’m willing to destroy my set for an authentic moment. I’ve been wrestling with this lately, because I’ve been writing a book about comedy. The thing I don’t like about comedy is that it’s an act. It’s a magic trick. And the magic is making the audience believe it’s a new conversation. And that’s bullshit—it’s 90 dates before that and everything’s perfected.
Lisa: I can’t understand when you see comedians at little indie rooms or open mics, where they come up with the same couple of minutes they’ve always done. The joy for me is, I just thought of something. I want to say it, and see what reaction I get. And when it gets a reaction, that’s why I do this.
You can see Lindsay, Lisa and David play a show together! They’ll take the stage at 8 p.m. April 21 at the Funky Buddha, 2621 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton. Admission is $15. Call 561/368-4643 or visit thefunkybuddha.com/
