Why am I so tired? Why does my brain like to shut down when I still have an hour of work to go?

Anyway, I read this headline: NASA Replaces Charged Astronaut for Next Shuttle Mission

And I read "charged" as "charred" and immediately thought about about the astronauts in the Columbia and Apollo 1 disasters....

Chris Rock has a team of writers. It makes me respect him a little bit less than Dave Chappelle, but it's not like he's making it harder for other comedians to earn a living. I would say Leary made it harder for Hicks to be big.

Also, I don't really have a moral stand on whether you get your material written by someone else, it's just such a part of standup that it's disappointing if you don't write your own.

I think I'd have to see some side-by-side transcripts of Leary v. Hicks.

Well, I did cite the Jim Fix joke up thread, which was apparently a straight-up theft. I think there's some disgruntlement in the comedy community because Leary stole much of the "look and feel" of Hicks act. But that's far more nebulous. That's just in the slippery realm of absorbing your influences. Every creator goes through something like that (with rare exceptions), but that's different than outright plagiarism. If the Beatles cover Buddy Holly or Little Richard then everybody knows that (a) the Beatles didn't write that song and (b) the original songwriter still gets royalties.

It takes a lot of work to craft an act or a joke. The timing and phrasing are crucial. Any half decent comedian could do an old Cosby album on stage and kill, because the jokes are so well designed.

So, yeah. I'd like to see more side-by-side comparisons.

I've been totally aping Cintra Wilson for years. But I'm nothing so even Cintra wouldn't care. I doubt that anything I write is ever "Like whoa...stone tablet" type original. But, to my knowledge I never took anything.

I've been totally aping Cintra Wilson for years.

Again, being influenced by somebody's style isn't the same thing as outright theft.

I want someone to be influenced by MY style!

So it's clear Eddie Izzard is the one true comedian.

Unless of course there's some funny, Un-USian, transvestite somewhere watching HBO and going "Executive Transvestite? Hey, wait a minute...."

So it's clear Eddie Izzard is the one true comedian.

I guess now that Mitch Hedberg is dead...that guy had a killer style, and his jokes are still funny written down. That is ridiculously rare. He was the best standup of his generation. God, what a loss.

It isn't. But when I sit down to write, I'm often disappointed by how little of the style I(very occasionally) get praise for is really me doing my thing. Which is only tangentially related to the comic conversation, I realize. But someday if anything comes of it, I hope I'd give the props where they are due.

I guess now that Mitch Hedberg is dead...that guy had a killer style, and his jokes are still funny written down.

True, but god, I loved his delivery. His escalator bit will start running through my head every once in a while.