The Jaime Escalante of Comedy: Stand-up and Deliver

Doug Stanhope has posted a rabid spitstorm about people who offer to teach stand-up. Set aside some time. He goes on and on, but it's as brutally honest—or maybe just brutal—as his stand-up.

He gives the finger several times in his post, so I took a look at the website of one of the lucky recipients.

The website is amazing. And she's not at all deluded about the power and value of comedy. In an interview she's asked about her corporate gigs and she explains

Usually people hire me when they're going through a lot of change: "Uh oh, change. We might lose our job! We don't know what to do! We better hire a stand-up comic to come help us out."

Of course.

And for you aspiring comedians out there: She offers economy, standard and deluxe consultation packages. If you pay $850 for the deluxe package, you get five separate tutoring sessions, either on the phone or with Skype. You also get five email exchanges. Now if that's not already worth a thousand bucks, you also get to buy a plane ticket to L.A. (extra) and stay in a hotel (also extra) for a weekend of classes and performances. This magical weekend ends with this amazing service: They post a video of your performance on YouTube. I took a look at the ComedyWorkshops YouTube channel, and the most popular video has been watched about 6700 times.

Again: the posting on YouTube comes only with the deluxe package. Act now.