WTF with Marc Maron / Episode 238 - Michael Ian Black

Marc Maron: The same reason that I may have hated you as a person is the reason why you were, ah, a great stand-up performer… is that you were set in your character. I mean the thing about, the hardest thing about doing stand-up, is having that character, or having a character at all other than jokes and you already had that.

Michael Ian Black: I did but it wasn’t necessarily… as I got older, and as I progressed and continue to progress, it wasn’t necessarily, it isn’t or wasn’t necessarily where I want to remain, ah, I think you can be a smug asshole and have that be fun and funny for awhile, and for me its been X number of years but at a certain point it becomes limiting. And so I’m trying to sort of break through that a little bit and part of that involves trying to learn how to, umm, how to really be myself and expose myself and that’s hard to do….

MM: Or talk about your kids…

MIB: Talk about my kids. Talk about my life, talk about my feelings…

MM: Yeah…

MIB: Which you know, for a long time I denied even having.

WTF with Marc Maron / Episode 238 - Michael Ian Black / aprox 1:03:00

Vulnerability and The Honest Comic

To me, an honest comedian is a self-documentor and a self ethnographer.
 An honest comic analyses and deconstructs that which is not spoken.

…

Being honest is the only true edgy that is left, because being absolutely honest is what makes people uncomfortable. 
Speaking from your soul makes people uncomfortable.

They can see the vulnerability and they can identify with it on a basic human level. They also instinctualy know how much balls it takes to do that.

There is a deep vulnerability to being honest and exposing that vulnerability is the risk.
 The risk of greatly humiliating yourself and that risk is high.

The reward is just as great, if not greater. 
The reward is absolute freedom to be who you are 100%. Its almost therapeutic and cathartic when it works. To both performer and audience.

PETE SSERWANGA

http://iamcomic.co.za/vulnerability-and-the-honest-comic/