Andrew J. Lederer

i was just reading steve bennett's chortle review of joe rogan, in which he categorizes rogan as -- like kinison, hicks and stanhope -- an outlaw comic.

BULLSHIT

. . . to the very notion.


i remember one night at the westwood comedy store, sam kinison said to me something along the lines of, "i know we're different but i respect you (that was a paraphrase but this is a direct quote -- ) we're both outlaws." (well, it coulda been "we're all outlaws," he mighta been talking about him and me and his outlaw entourage.)

my reaction at the time was twofold -- i was flattered that he included me -- i wanted to be an outlaw

and i thought the whole notion of those guys or me being outlaws was ridiculous.

this may be harder for those of you in britain to understand than for those over here: there was/is no amazing risk in doing what these guys do -- telling the truth that they tell. regardless of what it looks like on the outside, the most transgressive ideas are all over the place here and have been since before any of the people under discussion were born.

i'll give ya an example that may place it in relief -- the so-called "unbookables" show in edinburgh last year. those guys weren't unbookable. they were ultra-bookable/exactly what people wanted to see and hear.

heartfelt and brilliant though the people in question may be, they never, in my experience have said anything unprecedented, except, perhaps occasionally, in the context of a mainstream stand-up milieu.

i don't doubt that the hickses of the world thought they were blazing trails and maybe, coming from the southwest, as the hicks/kinison guys did, there are more strictures, religious and otherwise, than those i encountered as a jew in new york. but the fact remains, none of these guys were originators of big ideas; they were marketing them to like-thinking people at a time when, to a reasonable extent at least, their notions -- in a comedic context -- were welcome.

and that's why they were/are not "outlaws," except if the term is considered generic rather than literally descriptive.

oh, yeah -- you know what else i thought when sam said that to me? "why would we want to be outlaws?"

comedians always have a certain license. the degree to which sam was actually an outlaw was mostly outside the realm of the comedic and it probably damaged his life. the reason he was great was because he was funny. as time wen by and he became more outlaw and less comic, he became less great and less successful.

now, hicks might actually agree with some of what i'm saying. he was funny before he was anything else -- before he was a smoker, a drug-taker, anything.

i remember him waxing rhapsodic about gaylord sartain, with whom he had made a sitcom pilot. gaylord sartain is most famous for having been on frigging "hee-haw," for christ's sake. but hicks was crazy about him because he was funny.

this little rant is neither detailed nor complete but it points the way to certain truths (as i see them) and you guys can fill in the blanks, rebut, agree, whatever.

my notions may make more complete sense to you if and when i return to the subject here. (i think i may have written about this before, during the last fringe. couldn't find it in a search, though.)

and i have to admit, i thought then (when sam "included" me) and i think now that if anybody is an outlaw, i'm an outlaw.

subtlety in truth; to tell the truth as closely as possible to the way it actually happened, with a minimum of exaggeration, and still have it be funny. that's what i'm going for.

i don't always succeed. and i'm not the only one trying. and it's not the only kind of comedy i like as a performer nor is it my only enthusiasm as a member of the audience. and i'm not the best at it.

but in many comedy environments, one takes a lot of heat for goin' at it that way; for breaking the rules; for being an outlaw.

(but who wants to be an outlaw?)