Raphie May

Veteran comedian Ralphie May’s popularity exploded after the success of the first season of NBC’s hit reality series, “Last Comic Standing”. Long-time fans of Ralphie’s stand-up were joined by countless new fans when America thought he was robbed of the winner’s title. Despite the show’s outcome, Ralphie’s special brand of comedy combines the familiar elements of hip-hop and topical comedy with a dash of southern down-home flavor and quick wit making Ralphie May one of the most popular comedians in the country. His first DVD, appropriately titled “Just Correct,” went PLATINUM! Released on February 10th of 2004 by Melee Entertainment, a division of DreamWorks, the collection has been described as “fresh and very, very funny.” The DVD also includes footage of his USO Tour to Iraq where he could be seen swimming in Saddam Hussein’s pool.

Raw Material

"How do you get material?" People always ask me that because I write about 2 and a half new hours of material every year. It's easy. You play a game with yourself every time you go on stage. Every new joke is 5 points. Every new tag line is 2 points. Rearranging your material is 1 point. Try to get a minimum of 10 points per show. When I do a headline set, I’ll average anywhere from 60-70 points.

New joke

Write one new joke every time you perform - a joke being anywhere from 8 to 12 seconds depending on if it's fast or slow. You do five of those and you have a new minute. At that rate, you'll have an hour of great material in a year.

Tag line

Two points for a new tag line. No joke is ever finished. Young comics always mess up and make a mistake of not finishing their comedy. They'll get it to where it gets a laugh and then they'll go on to the next joke. A joke is never done. All these jokes are like rubber bands. You can expand them much further than you think. They'll always hold a lot more. Every joke is like a deck of cards. You hold the two end cards together and you have all the other cards in between. They make up quite a bit of space, but they're all individual pieces. If you couldn't think of a whole new 'deck', meaning a new joke or premise, you can add more cards to this deck and make it bigger, and bigger, and bigger. You can get it to where your bits are 12 to 15 minutes long. That's what I do. If I can't out write them on creativity, I’ll drown them in every angle that a joke can have. Every angle.

Be personal

Tell your stories. You want to make sure nobody steals from you? Then don't do anything that anyone else can talk about. Talk about personal instances. Include your personal stuff into it. And don’t' say, 'this is a true story.' No one ever believes anyone who says 'this is a true story' to start off with. But if you add more personal stuff to it, whether it's true or not is immaterial as long as it's funny. That's all that matters. But to make it more believable, and to act like it really happened you'll have to add more minor details instead of just glossing over it.

Short and sweet

Plus, take all your jokes and write them out on a piece of paper. Write it just as you would say it. Then go back through and eliminate every unnecessary word. That's how you tighten your material. You take out every unnecessary word. The spoken word is much shorter that the written word. And yet when comics write out material, they'll write it all out so it makes perfect sense and they'll remember it phonetically. But they don't have to do that. It can be shortened. Example, in my act I talk about playing cards in an old poker room with old dead people. There was a dead person at my table. And everyone else says, ‘No. He's got a 'poker face' and I say, "No. He dead.” Not 'he IS dead' or "he's dead". I shortened it to 'He dead'. I shortened the words to get the punch.

The funny bone is connected to the...

Have you ever been talking to someone and they're trying to tell you a story and they start cracking up at the story because they know how the story goes? And you find yourself smiling, and nodding along with him? And you're ready to explode too? That same thing you can do on stage. But you can't do that unless you build a personal connection with the audience. You can build that up. You can get huge laughs off of a setup by looking at people and engaging them and smiling. Also when you're delivering your material, pan to the side of the room but always deliver your punch lines to the front.

Rock the mic

Know where the mic is and don't let it become an obstruction. If you want to take it out of the mic stand, fine. Move the stand over and get it out of your way. Don't put it in the front of the stage where it can be a hindrance or block any body's view. If you're going to just talk and leave it in the stand, move your hands. Don't be boring.

Voice

Don't be monotone. The old comedy adage: Louder is always funny. Now, just because it's loud doesn't mean it's funny. But if it's funny quiet, then it will kill if you add some volume to it.

Silent But Deadly

One of the most important things that young comics do is that they're afraid of silence. Silence is a wonderful tool. If used properly, silence can double your laughs per minute. Use it. It adds an air of confidence. How do you use it? Before you do the punch line to a joke, if you pause you'll get a laugh at the anticipation of the punch line. And when you hit the punch line, you'll get another laugh. So you just doubled your laughs off that one joke. You can do that throughout your own act and up your laughs-per-minute. Just by implementing it off the bat, you can up your laughs-per-minute 30-40%.

Also, everybody thinks they have to have a segue. You don't have to have a segue. It's just been ingrained in us and it's been something we've been told we had to have a smooth transition - to make it seem conversational, like it's one long story. But it's not. If you want to switch topics, stop. Pause. Then switch topics. That's all you have to do. You don't have to add all these other words. Using silence there instead of 'Uh, um, speaking of' will greatly increase your productivity (in terms of laughs per minute), increase your believability as an entertainer, and the your confidence. Even if you don't have the confidence, just not being afraid is a huge, huge thing. And who cares if they haven't gotten to the joke yet. They'll get there. They'll come with you there. Just wait, and trust in your material. Use silence. Trust me. It'll work.

Zero-drink minimum

Don't drink at the club - ever. And I know you're thinking, "Aww, dude! It's free drinks!" I know. Here’s what happens. You’re cool. You’re having your two drinks, three drinks per show. The manager at the end of the week will be doing the books and will see your comp sheet. And it's inevitable that even thought the beer costs him 50 cents apiece, and he sells them for 6 dollars of whatever they sell them for. He won't see that fact that 28 beers basically cost him only 14 dollars. He'll see the fact that he lost 168 dollars that he lost. And he looks at your food tab a sees what that cost him. And they get 'pissy'. He doesn't see what he put in; he just sees what they could have gotten. And what that does it means that you cost him more money. That means if you're a feature act and you're trying to make headway in this industry and you're sending your 'avails' out. He's a businessman. He knows that he has budgeted for 7 shows, 600 dollars. But between your food and your drinks the last time you were here, you rang up an extra 250 dollars. So now you're costing him not 600 but 850. Over a month, that’s 1000 dollars. Over a year that's 12000 dollars that he's got to pay for comics that drink. They see that as a payment, they see that as telemarketing, and a month of radio that generates tickets. Giving beers to comics doesn't generate anything. You know what that means? That means you lost work! You lost work to the guy that didn't drink, ate sandwiches, didn't try to be a big shot and buy girl's drinks or anything like this. He's going to get the work over you. And you're sitting at home another week getting your beatings from your family. When are you going to pay your bills? When are you going to pay your rent? Your landlord won't take, "Hey. I wrote a great new dick joke" for rent. You have to treat it as a business. It's show 'business'.

It's just business

When you do get a gig do you send avails? At the end of the week when you're getting paid, do you talk to that person about more availability? And what do I need to do to get more work out of you? What can I help you with? How can I make it easier on you? What can I do better next time? Ask!

Be a good businessperson. If they're giving you your first feature gig in an A-room, at the end of the week write a thank-you card. People love it when you hand-write something. To me, it's so much easier to handwrite something and mail it than it is to email something. It takes you five minutes and it makes such a difference and people’s reaction to you as a person, as somebody that wants to get booked. The only time comedy is competitive is getting the actual work. There's only 52 weeks in a year. If you want to fill up your date book and do this professionally, you have to give yourself every advantage. And never give them something they can take away from you or they can have over you. If someone says you're too 'blue', you clean it up. If they still say you're 'too blue', you thank them at the end of the week and you leave and you don't throw a fit about it. If you can't clean it up then you shouldn't have been in that position anyway. And if they didn't know about it then shame on them for booking you without knowing. But don't take it personal.