Lynn Ruth Miller goes home to join The Dinosaurs of Comedy in San Francisco

In recent blogs, sharp-tongued, globe-trotting 84-year-old American comedian and belated burlesque star Lynn Ruth Miller, now based in London, has shared her experiences while doing gigs in Prague, Dublin, Berlin, Paris and Edinburgh.

She is currently gigging back in the USA for three weeks and this is the first in a series of her thoughts about being back ‘home’…

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The flight landed in San Francisco an hour late and I was greeted by cool wet California fog as I exited the airport to wait for my beloved dog sitter to collect me in his Ford pickup truck.

When he did, he informed me that the mist was not fog, but smoke from the California fires that are sweeping the northern part of the state. 

I first met Leo the Dog Sitter when I was in my late 50s and he was a young buck of 48. He came to fix my toilet and fell in love with my dogs. And that was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted almost thirty years.

It has been four years since I have been in the Bay Area and, in that time, I have diminished from 5’2” to 4’10” and Leo has contracted diabetes, arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, replaced knees and hearing that is worse than mine. We scream at one another when we both think we are whispering. 

I am staying in his Burlingame home and, after four years in London flats, I am struck with how large this house is for two people. The bedroom I am in is as large as my living room, kitchen and bathroom in London and the kitchen-sitting room area here is larger than my entire flat in London. 

Everything is on one floor. I have not climbed so much as a stair since I arrived. I am certain my leg muscles have atrophied.

On the drive home, we spoke about the homeless problem here in the Bay Area and the increasing amounts of theft. The problem is that no-one can afford to live in this area but they are so strapped for cash they cannot afford to move either. And so they struggle on. It amazes me how many people pay astronomical rents but eat food reduced for quick sale to reduce the huge credit card debt that is the elephant in everyone’s room here.

There is no middle class here. You are either rich or poor.

To make matters worse, San Francisco is a ‘sanctuary city‘ which, on the surface, seems marvellous. But what it has done is encourage homeless people to remain homeless because they are paid a substantial sum to live on the street. And the city – instead of encouraging decent sanitation habits – has employed a huge cleaning force to hose the streets of human waste each morning. Toilets are evidently passé in the city by the bay.  

Tonight I was in a show called The Dinosaurs of Comedy, at The Punchline, the place where I got my real start as a professional comedian. It is not part of their regular programming.

The Dinosaurs of Comedy was started by Michael Meehan – comedian, artist, filmmaker and general creative human being – because The Punchline refused to book him and all men his age as they were considered to old to attract an audience.  

The theory was that, if they were not TV stars or had not gained national recognition by the time they were approaching 50 or older, they were has-beens.

The comedians tonight were Johnny Steele who is one of the cleverest, most original comedians I have seen on both sides of the ocean, Larry ‘Bubbles’ Brown who has been on David Letterman’s TV show, (but not as a regular) and, of course, Michael Meehan who is a comic genius.  

I was the MC which, in the US, is the bottom of the pecking order in a line-up. However, I was unbelievably honored to be in this sharp and very clever show filled with talented yet unrecognized men who should be top of their field. 

It was far better and far more fun than I dared dream it could be.

For me, one joy was that so many people recognized me.

After all, I have been gone for four years.  

The best part though, of course, was that I opened which is the hardest job any comedian faces.

And they laughed at every joke.

Or did they just laugh at me?

Who knew? Who cares?

But home I went filled with the adrenalin of success and with money in my pocket.

The man who drove me home is a would-be comedian who has wanted to take to the stage ever since I met him at least eight years ago. He has still not absorbed the cruelty and lack of integrity of the profession here in California and he said: ”Do you think they didn’t give me a chance to go on stage at Cobbs Comedy Club because I am funnier than the MC?”  

I assured him that that was not so.  

He asked another comedian to help him write jokes and is convinced that the reason that helper has not been available is because he is afraid my friend will steal HIS jokes.  

I assured him this was not so. 

He told me he needs help writing his jokes but is afraid someone might take his ideas.  

I assured him this was not so. 

His ideas, sadly enough, are just not funny.  

… CONTINUED HERE …

Gags, foreplay, punchlines and the theory of male and female orgasms in British comedy

Yesterday, I went to a comedy conference at the British Library in London and learned a few things.

Lucy Greeves who, with comedian Jimmy Carr, wrote the book The Naked Jape: Uncovering the Hidden World of Jokes, used the interesting simile that a joke is like a knight’s move on a chess board – it goes forward, then there’s an unexpected sideways move. That’s the punchline.

And  Chris C.P. Lee (now a Senior Lecturer in Film at the University of Salford, but previously a performer in cult musical comedy group Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias) claimed there were no comedy double acts until the 1920s for legal reasons – because two people performing on stage in the UK were legally defined as being part of a theatrical “play” and music halls were not licensed for theatrical performances at that time.

The most jaw-dropping claim, though, came from Professor Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire who said research showed that, when a man tells a joke, 70% of the women in an audience laugh. But, when a woman tells a joke, only 30% of the men in the audience laugh.

There was no explanation of this.

But maybe it really is true that men and women laugh at different things.

Long-time comedy scriptwriter and performer Barry Cryer suggested that women laugh at life, whereas men laugh at gags.

And comedian Arthur Smith suggested, perhaps rather mischievously, that jokes are appreciated like an orgasm: men like an exciting build-up and a sudden release of tension – a gag with a quick punchline – whereas women prefer stories to gags – a slower, longer build-up.

But, as the old saying goes, to get a hit record you need a song AND a singer.

Back in the showbiz mists of the last century, I remember being at the Edinburgh Fringe and every night for three weeks standing in the balcony of the original Gilded Balloon – before the venue got burnt down – watching the end of comedian Sean Lock’s act. He used to try out a different new gag every night and, if I worked, he would add the gag into future shows and remove an old one.

There was one gag he tried – involving a fork and doggie style sex – which I was fascinated by because it was a very good gag but, as far as I could see from my very good vantage point looking down on the audience from the balcony, all the men laughed at it but none of the women did.

Unusually, Sean persisted with this gag fo three or possibly four nights – with no laughs from the women – until all the men AND all the women laughed. After that, ever night, everyone laughed. As far as I could hear, he had changed none of the words and had not changed the delivery. I asked him what he had done.

“I changed the way I said it,” he told me. “I made myself slightly more innocent. So it’s less threatening.”

I tried to spot this in future performances but, even after he told me, I couldn’t see what he had changed.

The successful result, though, was clearly there to see and the difference was dramatic.

The sign of a great comic. Which Sean is.

You need a song AND a singer to have a hit record.

Five ‘Hot’ Comedians

After the Stateside success of Russell Brand, Ricky Gervais and Eddie Izzard, I see that, in the US magazine Punchline‘s list of the five UK comics worth keeping an eye on, one’s Irish and one’s an Aussie. So that only leaves three top new British comics to note – Robin Ince, Janey Godley and Laura Solon.