Using nlp for a comedy routine...

[master_debator]

Hey everyone. Today some events happened that will be freaking great for a comedy routine. I'll give you the low down on what happened. I want to think of a great way to structure this...preferably in a nested loop. Anyone want to give me a heads up...

I was hanging out at this womans house, when I told her I had to take a s$$t. Mind you, her bathroom in her bedroom has no door on it, and I don't like people watching me while I'm doing my stuff. The bathroom out in the hallway was being used by her roommates dad. So she ended up lighting some candles to take care of any smell that would arise...mind you, she put a couple of candles on her night stand, by her window, that has curtains...so everything is all cool and dandy and I procede to go to the bathroom. I'm about to finish up, and in mid wipe I look up and see the curtain flaring up next to her new $3,000 bed. So I freak out and think to myself quickly "wipe or get up...**** it get up...". I don't know if you have ever had to juggle putting out a fire while managing to keep your pants and underwear just below your ass as to not make a big mess...you need talent for that. Anyhow I crab the curtain and toss it out the door to sidewalk. At this point I had already being screaming her name "Pam...Pam come here!!!". Now that I look back she's probably thinking "What does he want me to wipe his #@$?"...So she comes in and I'm looking all freaked out - its kind of like when a guy gets caught masturbating, and has that "oh crap I've been caught" deer caught in the headlights look...and for you girls its like when you're by people and you fart...a big no no. She see's a little bit of smoke and she also see's the little bit of burnt carpet remnant from some of the curtain falling on the ground, that I stepped on and poured her ice tea on.

And the kickers...yes kickers...of the situation is this...after this whole ordeal she's like "man, I was just worried that my bed was going to catch on fire...****...what about me???"...then 20 minutes later, her roommate had come in and asked her to make a list of everything thats wrong with her room so that she can give it to her landlord...all the while she has no idea, and still doesn't know about the fire. And the last final kicker is that her roommate told her that her father wasn't in the bathroom in the hallway...he had taken a crap in there, and closed the door when he was done to prevent smell from wafting out into the house. I still don't get the whole notion of stress burning candles...IRONY...

[Don]

MD, the problem with your story is that it's not funny. At least, it doesn't read funny at all.

I would suggest that you spend some time studying some professional comics and modeling them. This happens to be a "story" type of humor as opposed to a "joke" type of humor. Listen to several old albums by Bill Cosby or Jerry Seinfield. Then, re-write this, first as how Cosby would do it, then as how Seinfield would do it. Finally, re-write it as you would do it.

Here's a hint: "I don't know if you have ever had to juggle putting out a fire while managing to keep your pants and underwear just below your ass as to not make a big mess...you need talent for that" just doesn't work as humor. Instead, try making it much more visual..."So there I was, pounding on this flaming curtain trying to put it out. The flames are getting higher, but I can't move because I've go my pants down to my ankles. All I can do it take tiny baby steps. So I grab the flaming curtain and juggle it as I waddle across the room. All I can think about is being remembered along with Mrs. O'leary's cow for generations to come while I try not to singe off my eyebrows." At the same time you take baby steps across the stage showing what you are doing.

Make it visual. Make it visceral. And before worrying about nested loops, make it funny.

[Simon]

"I don't know if you have ever had to juggle putting out a fire while managing to keep your pants and underwear just below your ass as to not make a big mess...you need talent for that" just doesn't work as humor. Instead, try making it much more visual..."So there I was, pounding on this flaming curtain trying to put it out. The flames are getting higher, but I can't move because I've go my pants down to my ankles. All I can do it take tiny baby steps. So I grab the flaming curtain and juggle it as I waddle across the room. All I can think about is being remembered along with Mrs. O'leary's cow for generations to come while I try not to singe off my eyebrows."

That was a great distinction there, Don!

[skip]

Might have made a funny bit in a movie, or one of those 'funniest ideos' things, with your personality flapping in the breeze ...

But it lost something in the translation.

typo deliberate ...

skip

[Apsinthion]

I'll have to agree with Don on this one ... maybe if there was an obvious contradiction, such as, "while I was juggling both my pants, my ass, and the flaming curtains, she yelled from the other room 'Jesus! Light a match or something.' Little did she know."

Anyways, my question is ... what's a nested loop? I tried to standard google search but I'm only coming up with computer programming references. A little guidance? Thanks :D

[Poodle]

Nested loops are what NLP Trainers use for training and other things. This Forum has many pages. Docresults wrote some good ones in a post entitled "Loop de Loop". Maybe you'll understand them and maybe you won't but it will be fun trying. It's an extremely elegant way to induce trance or package information.

Enjoy!
Pood

[Don]

Aps, perhaps the best form of a nested loop used in comedy was a variation on it (that is, it had clear, if bizarre connections) as used by Burns and Allen.

If I tell a story and in the middle switch to another story, chances are you're going to wake up and wonder, "What happened to the first story?" This leaves you open to unconscious learnings. Now do this several times and only complete the stories, in reverse order, at the end.

[Poodle]

what states m_d is wanting to build in this little story.

[Simple Guy]

Master debator,

Just to add a bit to what has been said, some of the best "nested
loop" kind of comedy, i.m.o. was on the better episodes of the
Seinfeld sitcom. There was, by the way, one bathroom comedy
scene that was very effective; it's the one where Elaine says, about
toilet paper:"Can you spare a square?"

The "nested loops," may be more analogous to those of NLP, than
actual, as Poodle may have suggested by her question about "states."
The origin of nested loops, in a comedic sense, (not that the term
was really used, in comedy), is largely in "Commedia dell'arte."

Simple Guy, who wrote comedic pieces that appeared in
major humor publications, years ago, but is still considered
by some, at times, to be a very funny person.