A steamroller, lying, and a fear of public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a humorous LinkedIn post by Sue Keogh about British public speaking coach (and former stand-up comic) Jon Torrens where he claims:

 

“78% of people would rather be run over by a steamroller than be forced to do public speaking, and the other 22% are lying. Or so it says here, in a survey I’ve just made up.”

Where did he get that combination of three items? The 1988 comedy film A Fish Called Wanda has a Steamroller Showdown Scene between stutterer Ken Pile (Michael Palin) and Otto West (Kevin Kline).

 

And Mark Abrahams has repeatedly talked about how 85% of people fear public speaking and the other 15% are lying. See my September 29, 2020 blog post titled A quantified version of a discredited Mark Twain quotation about fear of public speaking.

 

The steamroller image came from here at Wikimedia Commons.

   

 

Elliott Kalan’s 2025 book - Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful 2025 book by Elliott Kalan titled Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense. Google Books has a preview with the first 35 pages. Among other things, Elliot was head writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

 

Starting on page 19 he summarizes his eight steps of voice, point, premise, structure, twist, tone, wording, and audience:

 

“Here is my process, as simply as I can state it:

 

1] Identify the absurdity I’ve recognized in a subject: the seed of what’s funny about it. Then consider how this absurdity would be viewed from the perspective and frame of reference of the comedic voice for which I’m writing.  

 

2] State that absurdity in plain language in order to clarify the purpose of the joke: in other words, the point I hope the audience will take away from it.

 

3] Select a humorous way to communicate that purpose: the conceptual premise that will lead the audience toward seeing the point.

 

4] Apply a concrete structure to that premise in a first draft. Joke structures tap into familiar patterns that help to bring out the humor of the premise.

 

5] Think ‘oppositely’ to find a twist in the structure that yields another, even funnier layer to the joke. (I know, I know … structure gets two points in the process. It’s that important, though it only gets one chapter to itself.)

 

6] Finesse the joke’s tone, making sure its emotional attitude gives the audience the proper cues for how to feel about it.

 

7] Put a final polish on the wording with an eye toward brevity, clarity, and specificity, as well as capturing the voice of whoever is telling the joke.

 

8] Deliver the joke for an audience that laughs so hard you become instantly rich and famous. (Results may vary.)”

  

In his Conclusion on page 775 Elliott reiterates via questions:

 

“Structure: What part of this joke is meant to be funny?

 

Premise: What is this joke saying? How is it communicating that?

 

Voice: Who is telling this joke? Where do they come from? What do they think?

 

Tone: How does the joke feel? How sincerely does it mean what it’s saying?

 

Wording: What’s the best way to use the format tools at your disposal to make your joke as clear and funny as possible?

 

Audience: Who is the joke being told to, and how do they feel about it?”

 

And then he continues:

 

“Those elements are best utilized to answer those questions by following three basic principles:

 

Brevity: Your joke should take as little time, verbiage, or imagery as possible to be told.

 

Clarity: Your joke should be clearly understandable to your audience, and the first step toward that is making it clearly understandable to yourself.

 

Specificity: Your joke gets closer to universality the farther it gets from generality.”

 

You can listen to a 34-minutes interview with Jesse Thorn at npr Bullseye on January 30, 2026 titled Writer and Daily Show alum Elliot Kalan on the secret to writing great jokes.

 

The farming cartoon was adapted from this one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

For comedian Drew Lynch stuttering is a feature rather than a bug

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an interesting article by Gabriel Hays at Fox News on September 27, 2025 titled ‘Stuttering Comedian’ Drew Lynch says speech impediment turned out to be his biggest ‘gift.’ He has a Wikipedia page. And Drew has a nineteen-minute TEDx talk on November 8, 2022 titled Why curiosity gets you farther than ambition | Drew Lynch |TEDxNashville.

 

Contrast that with his nine-minute 2015 YouTube video titled Drew Lynch -Stuttering Comedian – America’s Got Talent 2015 Audition. There is a seven-minute video on August 8, 2025 titled Heckler Says I’m Lying About My Stutter. And there is an hour-long video on June 27, 2025 titled The Stuttering Comedian | Drew Lynch | Full Comedy Special.

 

The cartoon was adapted from this image at OpenClipArt.  

 

 

Careful editing will improve your presentation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Inc. on December 16, 2022 there is an article by Carmine Gallo titled Jerry Seinfeld’s editing tip will make your presentations shorter and more concise. In it film editor Peter Holmes said:

 

“He’ll cull the best material and go to work on it, shaving it down until there’s not a wasted syllable … At times, he can be brutal about throwing things away in the edit, but I can’t argue with the results.”

 

Mr. Gallo’s three ways to edit are:

 

Recognize that editing is necessary but hard.

Resist information dumps.

Get help.

 

The scissors cartoon was adapted from one at Openclipart.

 

Jerry Seinfeld’s recent book Is This Anything?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am greatly enjoying reading Jerry Seinfeld’s book Is This Anything?, which was published in October. Jerry creates comedy from his observations of everyday objects and events over a 45-year career. One routine titled Sock Closet goes:

 

“When you buy socks they always come on a tiny hangar. Does anybody have a tiny sock closet to hang them up? Tiny doors. Go through them to pick out what you’re wearing that day (fingers going through). ‘Argyle … crew … tube sock … over the calf.’ “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I roll up each pair of my socks, as shown above. Long ago I learned to buy at least two pairs in a color or pattern, because inevitably one will wear through or get lost. Jerry has two other sock routines - The Sock Escape and The Sock Left Behind.

 

Another routine titled Car-tastic says:

 

“I love cars. It’s my favorite physical object. I don’t know why I think this. My only theory is, when you’re driving: You’re outside and you’re inside. You’re moving, and you’re completely still, all at the same time.”

 

On May 10, 2020 I blogged about how At Netflix there is a new Jerry Seinfeld comedy special. In that post I quoted from a routine which in this book is longer and titled It is what it is:      

 

 “I’m sure some idiot said it to you today. You can’t get through a day without someone going,

‘Well…it is what it is…’

‘Why are you alive? To just say air words that fill the room with meaningless sounds?’

I’d rather someone just blew clear air in my face than said ‘It is what it is’ to me one more time. Just come up to me and go, ‘Ppppppphhhhhhh.’ I get the same data from that. People know no one’s going to challenge them when they say ‘It is what it is.’

No one’s going to go, ‘I don’t think it is.’ ‘You don’t?’ ‘No. I believe it is what it isn’t.’

People repeat words because it gives them confidence. They can say it with strength. ‘Business is business.’ ‘Rules are rules.’ ‘A deal’s a deal.’ ‘What’s done is done.’

‘But when we go in there, as long as we know what’s what and who’s who, then whatever happens, happens, and it is what it is,’ “

 

The laughing demon mask came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Pop-Tarts: comedy, history, and toaster fires

I particularly enjoyed a routine in Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix special 23 Hours to Kill about Pop-Tarts. He said to:

“Think back to when the Pop-Tart came out. It was the 60s. We had toast! We had orange juice frozen decades in advance. You had to hack at it with a knife. It was like a murder to get a couple of drops of liquidity in the morning. We had shredded wheat. It was like wrapping your lips around a wood chipper. You’d have breakfast, you had to take two days off so the scars could heal so you could speak….

That was breakfast. And in the midst of that dark and hopeless moment, the Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts suddenly appeared out of Battle Creek Michigan, which as you cereal fans know, is the corporate headquarters of Kellog’s and a town I have always wanted to visit … because it seems like a cereal Silicon Valley of breakfast super scientists … conceiving of the frosted, fruit filled, heatable rectangles in the same shape as the box it comes in … and with the same nutrition as the box it comes in too.

That was the hard part. I don’t know how long it took to invent the Pop-Tart, but they must have come out of that lab like Moses with the two tablets of the Ten Commandments.

‘The Pop-Tart is here! Two in the packet! Two slots in a toaster! Let’s see ya screw this up! Why two? One’s not enough. Three’s too many. And they can’t go stale ‘cause they weren’t ever fresh.’ “

History of Toaster Pastries

At Mashed on April 9, 2018 there is an article by Carissa Stanz titled The untold truth of Pop-Tarts. She said Post actually came up with Country Squares before Kelloggs but unveiled them before they were ready to hit the market. Kelloggs had time to knock off the product, and mass market first. An earlier article for the thirtieth anniversary by Steve Hymon in the Chicago Tribune on September 25, 1994 titled Toasting an icon compared the marketing:

“The names given to the two products were one more indication of Kellogg's superior marketing savvy. Kellogg appreciated that kids were the primary target audience for Pop-Tarts because they had yet to establish breakfast habits of their own. Post seems to have been more confused. As awful a name as Country Squares seems in 1994, it was arguably worse in 1964, when the word ‘square’ was widely used to mean ‘nerdy.’ When paired with ‘country,’ it seemed to describe a food for middle-age rubes from the sticks.”

My family tasted toaster pastries before they were sold in supermarkets

I remember tasting one type of unmarked toaster pastry before either was in supermarkets. My stay-at-home mother raising us five kids had signed up for a consumer panel that sent out free products to be tested. We just had to fill out a set of survey questions about our reactions. I vaguely recall that prototype product had less filling and was less tasty than what eventually appeared.  

Toaster pastries can cause fires

At the Miami Herald on June 27, 1993 there was a humor column by Dave Barry titled Tarts Afire. He discussed a fire in Ohio from pastries stuck in a toaster. A recent article at Extra Crispy on February 7, 2018 is titled Pop-Tarts are flammable, so we set some on fire. You never should leave a toaster unattended. Some toasters even can turn themselves on after a power failure, as described in CPSC recalls for ones from Waring and KitchenAid.

The pop tarts image came from Evan Amos at Wikimedia Commons. The toaster fire cartoon was adapted from an image of a Hamilton Beach toaster at Wikimedia Commons.  

At Netflix there is a new Jerry Seinfeld comedy special

I just watched Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix comedy special 23 Hour to Kill (trailer shown above). It was enjoyable for me because I am just slightly older than he is, and sometimes am similarly cranky:

“I don’t like to turn around. Like, if I’m walking down the street like this.

‘Jerry, check this out. You gotta see this.’

This move. I don’t like doing this thing. Anymore. I just don’t wanna do it.

‘You gotta see this.’ I disagree. I don’t feel old, I don’t feel tired; I’ve just seen a lot of things.

I’ll see it on the way back, when it’s in front of me. How ‘bout that? Or I won’t see it. Or I’ll Google it. Or I’ll just assume it’s probably a lot like something else I’ve already seen.”

Jerry still is excellent at catching humor in small stuff, like doubletalk language that is literal:

“If you repeat a word twice in a sentence, you can say that with a lot of confidence. Business is business, rules are rules, deal’s a deal. When we go in there, as long as we know what’s what and who’s who, whatever happens happens, and it is what it ls.”

Netflix has another promo video which is a parody of a scene from Goldfinger but also discusses the design of bathrooms.

What a word means can be completely different in the U.S. and South Africa

One misunderstood word can completely derail a conversation. In the U.S. a napkin is something used to wipe your mouth, while in South Africa it is clothing for a baby’s bottom.

That difference is the basis for a hilarious six and a half minute comedy routine posted on June 24, 2019 at YouTube where Trevor Noah Orders His First Taco. The dialog (at ~3:20) goes as follows:

Taco Truck Vendor: Hey, my friend, your tacos are ready.

Trevor: Thank you, man thank you very much.

Taco Truck Vendor: Yeah, do you want a napkin?

Trevor: I’m sorry, what?

Taco Truck Vendor: Do you want a napkin?

Trevor: And now, LA, this is where it gets weird for me. Because, you see, where I’m from napkins are the things babies wear to hold their sh*t. The thing for your mouth we call a serviette. But I didn’t know that…

Images of a stack of paper napkins and a sleeping baby came from Wikimedia Commons

Stephen Colbert explains Donald Trump’s behavior using just a blackboard

You don’t really need videos or an animated PowerPoint to effectively make a point. On The Late Show Stephen Colbert used a Venn diagram drawn on a blackboard.

Watch the following eight-minute YouTube video, titled One Diagram Explains Every Conspiracy Theory Against Donald Trump. (Some may find it offensive. It definitely is Not Suitable For Work). Watch starting at 5:10 to see him draw that diagram.  

Missing the boat when chasing a joke

On May 20,1993 a broadcast of the TV comedy Seinfeld opened with a routine including the following oft-repeated joke:

“....According to most studies, people’s number-one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two! Now, this means to the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

Chapter 4 of Joseph M. Reagle, Jr.’s 2015 book, Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web opens with the following paragraph (on page 73) that apparently was meant to reference my May 19, 2011 blog post titled America’s Number One Fear: Public Speaking - that 1993 Bruskin-Goldring Survey:

“The fear of public speaking is supposedly so great that comedian Jerry Seinfeld once quipped that people at a funeral would ‘be better off in the casket than giving the eulogy.’ Is the basis for this quote true? Richard Garber, the blogger behind Joyfully Public Speaking, investigated and found that on a 1993 survey that asked people about their fears, 30 percent of those surveyed said they feared death, and 45 percent reported a fear of public speaking. However, although more people did report a fear of public speaking, they were never asked to compare it to death (Ref.1). Yet this quibble is easily forgotten in light of the keen anxiety many feel when they speak in public. They are afraid of disparaging comments that might arise in others’ thoughts or, worse yet, comments that might be furtively exchanged between their peers. In fact, professionals make a living studying ‘communication apprehension’ and treating ‘glossophobia’ from the Greek glossa (tongue) and phobos (fear).”

He incorrectly referred to this blog as being titled Joyfully Public Speaking. But his Reference 1 for chapter 4 actually referred to another blog post:

“1. Richard I. Garber, ‘The Fourteen Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: Where Did This Data Really Come From?,’ Joyful Public Speaking, October 27, 2009...” 

Did that 1993 survey inspire Seinfeld’s joke? Probably not. The report about that survey was published privately sometime in February 1993, and the joke appeared on May 20, 1993. The 1993 Bruskin/Goldring report was quite obscure, but the 1977 Book of Lists was a popular book with wide circulation. We can easily imagine a comedian looking in it for inspiration.  

Reagle’s version of part of the Seinfeld joke is a slight misquote that you would:

“...be better off in the casket than giving the eulogy.”

He didn’t bother to point out that death wasn’t number two in either survey. It was seventh in the 1977 Book of Lists, and fifth in the 1993 Bruskin-Goldring survey. 

Would three out of four people rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy?

Not really! Recently I have blogged about how a famous quotation by Jerry Seinfeld comparing the fears of public speaking and death was instead attributed to three other men - Woody Allen, Jay Leno, or Jerry Springer. Yesterday there was yet another fantasy version at The Long Distance Internet Entrepreneur. Phil Thomson blogged about Helping to reduce the fear of business presentations. His mixup of what Jerry said could be called something like Three Out of Four Would Prefer the Casket to the Eulogy. It began like this:   

“For those of us of a certain age, the USA comedy series Seinfeld holds a special place in our hearts. For many years in ran second to Friends in the US ratings, the only fundamental difference being that Seinfeld was much funnier. One particular episode stands out in my memory, when Jerry Seinfeld and friends were sadly attending a funeral. The subject of peoples’ greatest fears came up in conversation and specifically where death itself was ranked compared with having to speak in public. Sienfeld’s comment was something on the lines of ‘So what you are saying is that three out of four people in the church now would rather be in the casket that having to give the eulogy’.

This apparently jokey comment seems however to be based on fact. After flying, speaking in public comes in a strong second place ahead of spiders, the dark and yes even death. Until recently I had no idea that there was even a specific catch-all name for the physical sensations we go through before and during public speaking. It is called Glossophobia (from the Latin word Glossa meaning tongue) and it covers everything from dry mouth and weak voice to sweating and elevated blood pressure.”

Back on February 3, 2014 I blogged about Busting a myth - that 75% of people in the world fear public speaking. So, the 3 out out 4 isn’t really fact based. Neither is the Statistic Brain version with 74%.

Also, in last year’s second Chapman Survey of American Fears, speaking in public didn’t come second. It came 26th out of 89 fears, and on the average people were only slightly afraid of it. See my October 29, 2015 blog post titled: According to the 2015 Chapman Survey of American Fears, adults are less than Afraid of federal government Corruption and only Slightly Afraid of Public Speaking.

Glossophobia is a pseudo-technical term that won’t lead you to the best information about speech anxiety.

The old man writing in a casket was modified from Wellcome Images.

It also wasn’t Jerry Springer who compared the fears of public speaking and death

People sometimes have faulty memories, and attribute a famous Jerry Seinfeld quote to the wrong comedian. On May 28th I blogged about Did Woody Allen ever compare the fears of public speaking and death? and on June 6th I blogged about Did Jay Leno ever compare the fears of public speaking and death?

Yesterday my Google Alert on public speaking led me to a different variant of attributing that quote to another person named Jerry - syndicated tabloid talk show host Jerry Springer. A June 24th blog post at Speechstorming from Barcelona, Spain titled Glossophobia: You can overcome the fear of public speaking claimed that:

“JERRY SPRINGER ONCE JOKED ’At A Funeral, Most People Would Rather Be Lying In The Casket Than Giving The Eulogy!’ ”

They didn’t say who they got that nonsense from, but two possible sources from 2013 are a May 1st post by Ryan McLean titled Introduction to the Public Speaking Power podcast - helping you (and me) become a more effective communicator and a September 21st post at Pancakes and Parachutes titled Public speaking = a necessary evil for managers? 

It also wasn’t comedian Jerry Lewis. And it wasn’t California governor Jerry Brown, or televangelist Jerry Falwell,  or Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, or ice cream guru Jerry Greenfield (of Ben and Jerry’s), or singer Jerry Lee Lewis.

The image of Jerry Springer came from Brett Weinstein at Wikimedia Commons.

Did Jay Leno ever compare the fears of public speaking and death?

Probably not. It came from a mixup about which comedian famously had joked about that topic. I ran across claims that Jay had said:

“I guess we’d rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy.”

Zac Johnson posted about it on January 22, 2015, and then pastor Nelson Fernandez, Jr. posted on August 20, 2015. Pastor Fernandez might have gotten it from Andy Braner’s earlier 2015 book, No Fear in Love: Loving Others the Way God Loves Us. I first found it in a June 4th post by Oliver Tuffney.

My Google search found the Leno claim seems to originally have come from Ronald A. Tomo’s 2011 book, Notes to Jacqui: A Polio Survivor's Thoughts to his Daughter. His version says coffin instead of casket:

“I once heard a joke which I believe was aired on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno having to do with an alleged survey about the greatest fears people have in life.

‘A study showed that the number one fear people have is Public speaking and the number two fear was death. So, to put this in perspective, that means people would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy.’ “

On May 28th I blogged about Did Woody Allen ever compare the fears of public speaking and death? and discussed how that really came from a joke by Jerry Seinfeld on his TV show in 1993.

Did Woody Allen ever compare the fears of public speaking and death?

No, he did not. I just read a May18th post by Dr. Michael Thweatt titled The Fear of Death on his Psychosmology blog which bizarrely claimed that:

“Woody Allen once observed that the fear of public speaking was the number one reported phobia, even ranking above the fear of death. He concluded that people must be more afraid of delivering the eulogy than being in the coffin.”

A Google search did not reveal any source for that statement other than Dr. Thewatt’s blog post, so it just is his ipse dixit. Apparently he confused Woody Allen with Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry made that comparison on multiple occasions, as I discussed in March 2015.

Woody said some other things about life and death like that:

“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.”

“Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?”

“There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”

“On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.”

“It is impossible to experience one’s death objectively and still carry a tune.”

“Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

The caricature of Woody Allen by Harutyun Chalikyan came from Wikimedia Commons.

Robin Williams, improv, and answering questions

This week I was deeply saddened to hear that comedian and actor Robin Williams had committed suicide. Back in 2001 he appeared on Inside the Actor’s Studio. In the four-minute video clip shown above he improvises starting with a shawl, and creates (among others) the Indian director of a musical film “Whose Sari Now?”,  an Iron Chef, a bullfighter, and finally a car driving out of a car wash.

Answering questions during a speech requires developing impromptu speaking skills, and studying improv can help. Pages 20 and 21 in the June issue of Toastmaster magazine have a brief article by Thomas Piccin about Speaking Off the Cuff.

Imagine your audience buried in heaps of laundry

I’ve previously blogged about figuring out that Winston Churchill was responsible for the silly advice to imagine your audience naked. The TV Tropes web site has a lengthy entry on that topic, and there even were both Dilbert and Savage Chickens cartoons.  

On July 9th, the Edinburgh Evening News published the latest variation, a joke by the Australian comedian Benny Boot:

“Fear public speaking? Imagine your audience with clothes on. More clothes. HEAPS MORE. Now it’s like you’re just talking to a pile of laundry.”

Benny also tweeted it. Watch a hilarious but profane ten-minute YouTube video of Benny’s standup. I love his use of the microphone stand as a prop for showing that a joke was dynamite.

The laundry image came from here.

Three tips on public speaking from comedienne Annie Lederman

Her tips are to:

1. Know your material.
 
2. Know your audience.
 
3. Practice. Practice Practice.

They are presented in an amusing 4-1/2 minute video on Yahoo Screen that is Episode 116 from the Mansome series. Annie's opening is:

“Hey guys, Annie Lederman for Mansome. Did you know that America’s number two fear is public speaking and that’s next to death. Do you know where I read that? On the bathroom stalls at a ...bar. But I’m pretty sure it’s true.“

It is true. It’s one result (for women) from a survey of university students published last year that I blogged about on May 17th. See my third and fourth bar charts.

Annie Lederman also has appeared in Episode 112 Breaking It Off Clean and in Episode 80: Meeting Her Parents.

The 1976 image of Michael Dukakis speaking came from the Library of Congress collection.

The joy of elaborate student pranks - comedian Jose Barrientos fakes an accent for an entire public speaking course

People judge us based on first impressions, like what we wear and how we speak. Those impressions may be very wrong. Yesterday ABC News had a story about how Jose told his Speech 101 class at Los Angeles City College that he was a recent immigrant, his family were piñata makers, and that he used to ride a donkey to school. For his last speech he finally revealed how he normally speaks, and got a perfect score. The video shown above tells his story. WARNING - there is lots of profane language. You can also watch him doing eight minutes of stand-up comedy without that phony accent.

How you dress also can throw people way off. Almost four decades ago, when I was in the Air Force Reserve, I was at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for the altitude chamber course that everyone had to take before going on flying status. Three months earlier I’d come back from basic training, tech school, and on-the-job training to be a medic in an air evacuation squadron. My rank was still Airman Basic (E-1) so I still didn’t even have one stripe on the sleeves of my fatigues. The first morning was boring classroom stuff. Everyone was glad when we stopped for a coffee break.

Ahead of me in line was a man wearing an unusual blue uniform. When I asked him where he was from, he told me that he was a Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force (officer rank equivalent to a major, O-4). He was on an exchange tour, and was going to Scott Air Force Base (near St. Louis) to fly jet transport planes. I told him that I’d worked as an orderly in the hospital there for a month. Eventually our conversation turned to the topic of metal fatigue. I noticed that he was becoming very perplexed at hearing me talk like an engineer. He’d looked at my sleeves, and hadn’t seen any insignia. Then he’d looked at my collar, and cuffs, and still couldn’t find anything to identify my rank. Finally I told him that I was in the Air Force Reserve (working one weekend each month), and that during the week I was a graduate student in metallurgy at Carnegie Mellon University.

Watching the comedians #5: Louis C. K.

Chris Salierno’s blog post about 5 Comedians That Will Make You A Better Public Speaker discussed Louis C. K. (Skeley). Louis writes, directs, and stars in the FX cable TV comedy series Louie. Here are three of his routines, and a tribute to George Carlin, all of which include profanity:   



Just because you can do something, like use Twitter, doesn’t mean that you should.



What kind of secrets could a five year old child have? Great gestures, but the black tee shirt doesn't work well on a black background.



What are the differences between boys and girls?



How George Carlin inspired him to go past using his stale old material.

Watching the comedians #4: Paul F. Tompkins

Chris Salierno’s blog post about 5 Comedians That Will Make You A Better Public Speaker discussed Paul F. Tompkins, an actor and comedian.  Here are a brief interview and two of his routines:



In this interview Paul talks about his experience of feeling nervous as if you don’t belong in a situation where you really do.



There is common terminology that you would be foolish not to learn and use. Also note how his opening was made different by skipping “...and gentlemen.”  



Paul appeared in a comical great debate on whether it’s the end of the world (or not). Watch him demonstrate two different gestures for a telephone.