How to Ruin the Story You Are Telling

One of the hard-and-fast rules I learned doing standup was this: “Never tell an audience to stop laughing.”

You’d be shocked how often this happens, with inexperienced comedians, amateurs telling jokes, or just random people trying to relate a funny story. The intended audience will laugh at part of the setup, or at a part of the story the teller doesn’t think is the funny part, and the person talking will say, “No! No. Wait! Here’s the best part,” or something similar.

This stops the audience from laughing, scolds them for enjoying the story, and sets up impossible expectation that “the funny part” can’t possibly meet.

One night, long ago, another comedian and I performed at a fairly disastrous private party for high schoolers, which took place in the living room of a suburban home. I was in my mid-twenties, and looked a little young for my age. The other comedian was closer to the age I am now, late forty-something, and she had difficulty connecting with the high schoolers. She went first, did a shortened act, then sat to the side and watched me close the show out.

Halfway through my act, a little girl (the homeowner’s youngest daughter), about five years old and wearing pajamas, stumbled into the room and went to her mother. I stopped, smiled at the adorable little girl, and said, “Hello.” She screamed bloody murder as her mother carried her from the room.

As her screams receded into the distance, I said, “Sadly, I have that effect on females of all ages.”

I got a nice little laugh off of that. As the laugh died off, the little girl stopped screaming and very clearly shouted, “Scary!”

The audience blew up. It was the biggest laugh of the night by far . . .until the other comedian stood up, ran out in front of me pressing her hands down in a sort of reverse-raise-the-roof maneuver, and said, “No! No! No no no! She didn’t say ‘scary.’ She said ‘Therapy!’ She’s gonna need therapy!”

The room went dead silent, and stayed that way until the other comic hung her head and sat back down.

NEVER tell an audience to stop laughing.

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How to Get Someone to Do Their Job

I had an office job at one point. I was well and truly the lowest person on the org chart, so much so that they would have needed an extra piece of paper tacked onto the bottom of the chart to accurately reflect my position.

That said, one of my daily duties was to make sure that everyone used the time-tracking software every day to record their billable hours. It was one of my favorite parts of the job, because I got to browbeat people who made much more money and had much more power than me. The people I harassed were fine with it, because they got to ignore me without any fear. Our communal boss got to blame everyone but himself for the fact that the hours weren’t getting recorded the way he wanted.

In a way, it was a perfect system.

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How to Hide Your Achilles Heel

When it comes to giving directions, there are two kinds of people: street name people and landmark people.

Street name people base their direction on street names. “Turn right on Spruce, go about a mile, then hang a left on Main.”

Landmark people base their directions on landmarks. ““Turn right after the Best Buy, go about a mile, then hang a left at the Trader Joe’s.”

I once witnessed an argument between someone offering landmark-based directions, and someone who wanted street name-based directions. The directions involved turning at a Denny’s.

The person receiving the directions asked, “What if I don’t see the Denny’s?”

The guy giving the directions said, “A Denny’s is a hell of a lot bigger than a street sign.”

The logic was impeccable.

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How to Be a Good Parent

The idea for this comic sprang into my head almost fully formed. I worked at a resort hotel where the children’s entertainment program featured a pirate cruise and a princess tea party, both of which were held at the same time. I watched the pirate pontoon boat sailing off, leaving the bejeweled princesses back on shore and I thought, “What kind of pirates are you?”

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How to Figure Out "Who's That For?!"

The first time I accidentally hit the insert key on my computer, it messed me up for something like an hour. I thought I was going to need a new computer, or at least to reinstall the OS to fix it.

My third car was the first one I ever owned that wouldn’t start unless you pressed in the clutch. For days I was convinced that there was something wrong with the car, because sometimes it just wouldn’t start. The clutch situation was eventually explained to me by a mechanic. He was not particularly nice about it.

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How to Plan Your Halloween Costume

Apparently, during the filming of Dune, the men who wore the stillsuits put them on as often as they could and kept them on for as long as possible. It turns out the stillsuits were really flattering, and made the men wearing them feel great about themselves. They’d stand around in the middle of the desert wearing what amounted to a black wetsuit, and they didn’t want to take them off because they looked so studly.

There’s a word I haven’t used in a long time. “Studly.” I think there may be nothing less studly than using the word studly.

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How to Have Nice Things

Our home used to be mostly carpet with a little tile. It was not a surprise that the cats usually threw up on the carpet.

Now our home is about 50/50 tile and carpet. The cats still mostly throw up on the carpet.

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something about carpet that makes cats sick.

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How to Make a Crass Generalization

I’m not exaggerating about the Kingdome. It was a brutalist wart on the face of Seattle. (And please note, I am using the term brutalist properly.) The men’s rooms were exactly as described in this comic, and the only thing that kept 50% of the people who came in from guessing wrong as to which trough they should start with was the fact that there was always a long line of dead-eyed men cycling through, demonstrating which trough was being used for what that day.

At that point in history, the Seattle teams that played in the Kingdome didn’t give their fans a lot of reason for joy or hope.

I don’t know what the ladies’ rooms were like.

Actually, I’m not sure there were any.

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How to Handle a Deadline

In a weird way, I used to view making the comic—and still see writing my novels—as a video game, or at least an excuse to “play” with my computer. It’s less action packed than video games, but this way I have something I can point to that I made when I’m done.

When I was a kid, I had a toy typewriter and a toy safe. I used to put the safe on top of the typewriter and pretend it was a computer.

. . .

Is that normal? A toy typewriter and a toy safe? Were my parents trying to prepare me for life as a Notary Public or something? Come to think of it, I had rubber stamps too.

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How to Develop an Idea

I would never advocate the plan I lay out in panel four, but it does have a certain logic to it. Over time, we would eliminate our least competent young people, and our angriest and most delusional elderly. You can’t tell me that doesn’t sound good.

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