Podcast of the Week: Comedy and Everything Else with guest Kyle Cease

Episodes 101 and 102 of Comedy and Everything Else focus on Kyle Cease and his controversial Stand-Up Boot Camp. If you're going to put in the 3.5 hours to listen to the two CaEE episodes, read Doug Stanhope's tirade first. His blog post was what put Cease's project on the map. Or perhaps, on the battlefield.

Cease has seen success in the comedy business. He did a Comedy Central Presents half-hour special in 2006. In 2007 he did a full-hour special: Weirder. Blacker. Dimpler. He has acted in 10 Things I Hate About You and in Not Another Teen Movie. He's happy with his career right now, and the tone of the interview gives the impression that he's pretty happy with himself.

He claims that along the way he's learned some things and has come to some realizations about writing and performing comedy. Now he's simply looking to share his insight with people who can learn from it. He and stand-up veteran Louie Anderson are partners in the adventure.

The repeated point that Jimmy Dore, running the interview, seems intent on making, is that comedy is learned by getting on stage. Cease keeps pushing the idea that his experience, if carefully conceived and presented, can be helpful to young comedians. Dore conducts the interview in pretty fair manner, tho his approach gets increasingly antagonistic—that's fine, and still fair—and even strays into ridicule and buckshot arguments. He's a comic and ridicule is expected. But as far as an argument or actual commentary on Cease's claims, it loses strength.

He picks on the Boot Camp video (a marketing device) pointing out some short bits and claims that might be misunderstood by the poor naïve and unsophisticated neophytes trying to start off in the business. That verges on nitpicking, detracting from the more important question of what the class might offer.

Dore's demands, that Cease prove his class is necessary, miss the point. He goes several times to the argument that Cease can't name a single successful comic who took a stand-up class, as if such evidence is necessary to make the point that his class offers something worthwhile.

JD: "Everything you learned, … you learned it being a stand-up, right?"

KC: "I learned it being a stand-up, but there's no harm in sharing it with young comics."

JD: "I agree. I agree."

Cease believes in positive thinking and growth thru visualization. Dore claims to, also.

At one point he pushes Cease. "You know this video, if you weren't in it, would be something that you would be making fun of." Cease doesn't know if that's true. And Dore, a very good, very funny comedian who's material and perspective rely on sharp sarcasm and the cutting ridicule of assumptions, spends more of the interview than he needs to, trying to win that point.