This Joke-Thief Guy

All over the Internet, people are expressing righteous indignation at the gall of a guy named Nick Madson, who performs comedy routines in Davenport, Iowa.  BUT THAT’S NOT ALL, you see.  He performs word-for-word routines of other stand-up comedians–Dave Attell, Louis C.K., and where this whole thing started, the best stand-up comedian working today, and for maybe a decade or so, Patton Oswalt.

Now, this is a clear no-no for those who are well-versed in stand-up culture.  The comedians, obviously, but also their fans who love and follow those stand-up comedians, and who realize how hard it is to write, practice, perfect, and eventually perform a bit in front of an audience.  You just don’t do other people’s bits.  It’s just not done.

One thing I wondered: why?  This is clearly not the case in music.  Particularly, for bands who choose to perform note-for-note renditions of AC/DC tunes for thousands of dollars per gig, and who might tour through Davenport, Iowa.  Of songs that AC/DC no doubt slaved over to create, and love to death.  They’ve got lawyers, they can send lawyers after these bands.  At the least, they can publicly shame them on their Myspace blogs.  But they don’t.

Now, there’s a difference here, of course.  People who go to see AC/DC cover bands are well aware that they’re not seeing the real AC/DC, and that the material they’re seeing performed is a cover version.  The pleasure is in the recreation; how these beloved songs are faithfully rendered, with an eye toward verisimilitude above all.

Here’s a thing I immediately thought when I saw everyone getting all worked up over this.  Now before you go sending off hate mail, this is more a thought experiment than anything else, but I think it might be a productive one.  What if Nick Madson approaches stand-up comedy in the same way that the Davenport-area AC/DC cover bands approach AC/DC songs–as fodder for faithful recreation?

What if, in other words, Madson’s not at all privy to stand-up culture, where this sort of stuff is viewed as plagiarism or THIEVERY, but approaches this work in the same way as a cover band would?  What if the audience knew that this stuff was Patton Oswalt’s, and there was some sort of pleasure they derived from hearing his jokes performed live?  What if for the audience, hearing a comedian cover-act offered the same sort of pleasure as hearing a cover band? I know this sounds ridiculous, but then again, most of my music-geek friends think that going and seeing professional cover bands play local bars is a ridiculous waste of money.

What if this: “when confronted by other comedians about this flagrant plagiarism, Madson tells them that he writes for those guys, and that these are actually his bits,” emerged how and why a tangential myth would–a made-up thing that gives people more of a full sense of their own anger, by explaining more about this act?  Again, not that I necessarily believe this–it’s a thought experiment–but still.

The point I want to make, or the question I want to ask–to stand-ups, in particular–is this: what is it about stand-up material, stand-up as artful performance, that absolutely eliminates the capacity for “covers” like this?  I’ve seen countless bands at countless small shows play cover songs without acknowledging the original material–either that sort of thing isn’t part of their performance schtick, or they assume you know it or why else are you here.  Comedy seems a more “personal” and auto-biographical medium of creative expression than pop or rock music–but I think most comedians would admit to fudging a lot of their “real” stories (and that’s totally fine of course)–and I think this feeds into it somehow.  But I’m really curious to hear from people about this–again, to learn more about the culture of stand-up acts–why are stand-up routines off-limits for this sort of thing?

Filed under: Patton Oswalt  piracy  plagiarism  stand-up comedy