Act 2 — Build the joke machine · Week 13 of 52
Act-outs
Can you stop explaining the funny thing and become it?
Perform a whole bit that would make no sense as text.
Escalation & the turn
Bill Burr
The five moves
Same rhythm, every week.
1 — Study
Murphy, Pryor, Wolf, Chappelle — physical storytelling.
Watch on purpose. Specific comedians, specific reason.
2 — Deconstruct
20 act-outs. What did the body say that the words didn't?
Isolate one mechanism. Name it before you use it.
3 — Write
Convert 10 of your reported lines into performed moments.
10–25 premises minimum. Quantity buys quality.
4 — Perform
Do them standing, on camera, full commitment.
Somewhere live. The classroom is useful; the audience is the laboratory.
5 — Review
Watch on mute. Is it still funny?
Watch the tape. Log what the room did, not what you felt.
The Comedy Genome
Tag what made you laugh.
Tag every joke you studied this week. After a few months the pattern stops being an opinion and becomes your comedy DNA.
Your twin asks
Eleven questions, every week.
- What made you laugh this week?
- What did the audience laugh at?
- Where did you lose them?
- Which jokes feel most like you?
- What are you afraid to say?
- What's the funniest version of this?
- What would Pryor do with this?
- What would Carlin attack?
- What would Hedberg remove?
- What would Rock repeat?
- What would Bamford make uncomfortably specific?