Thirty years ago college students on campuses across the U.S would laugh to the likes of Robert Klein or George Carlin riffing about politics, religion, and current events. Today college students laugh at Dane Cook doing bits called “Itchy Asshole.” American youth are dumbing down and let’s not make any bones about it. The IQ of the average college age kid over the last thirty years has gone down faster than membership to the Mel Gibson fan club in Miami. 

The decline of grey matter in today’s young skulls can be clearly traced to the birth of the MTV Generation. Video not only killed the radio star, it’s also taken out countless numbers of brain cells. Only now, the MTV Generation is made up of old timers. We sit around and tell our kids how when we were young, back in the olden days known as the eighties, MTV actually played music videos. My nieces and nephews have a hard time understanding how that could possibly be entertaining when huddling around a computer screen to watch some 14 year old kid swallow a cell phone and fart out ring tones can provide hours of non-stop amusement on YouTube.

In the desperation for the information super highway to bring us information, we over looked one small aspect: the information. Sure in the millisecond it takes to click a mouse a college student doing a research paper can not only read, but actually see Martin Luther King Jr give his “I have a dream” speech. And they can also see Jenna Jameson giving – well, you get the point. The internet has become less of an information super highway and more like the Vegas Strip; and there are barkers on every corner handing out flyers trying to attract every little piece of our attention. But the big problem is that on the net what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. We’ve got to take into consideration those prefixical three initials, www: the World Wide Web.

The ability to connect to people and transmit information is a powerful tool. We’re now a global community. But if some alien world is out there tapping into our media transmissions to study our global community, I’m sure they can’t help but think there’s an awful lot of inbreeding going on. Welcome back to “Itchy Asshole.”

There used to be a time when comics would complain about other comics who only had seven minutes and got on the Tonight Show. Now comics with seven minutes get hour long TV specials because the programmers know the comics have fifty million friends on MySpace that will tune in.

Now look, I don’t hate Dane Cook. But I don’t fawn over him either. I think he’s a mediocre comic who put the cart before the horse and learned to promote his act before he actually had an act. He takes so long to set up a joke I can go to the bathroom, nuke my popcorn, get a drink, eat the popcorn, drink the drink, digest it all, then go back to the bathroom, and still come back in front of the TV in time before he gets to the actual punch line.

But he has success. And I give him credit and kudos for that. He’s brilliantly channeled the power of the global community to reach the masses. Recently Details Magazine ranked Dane Cook in the top Fifty Most Influential People Under The Age of 42. Please note that Variety, TV Guide, or Entertainment did not rank him in the top Fifty Most Funniest Comedians Under The Age of 42.

It’s no argument Dane Cook’s impact has been far reaching and shaped the way stand up comedy is promoted, viewed, and received. However, is that a good thing? That’s like asking if having nuclear weapons is a good thing. And let’s face it; if it weren’t for nuclear technology we might have the phrase government sushi instead of government cheese. Although as one who is not a fan of sushi myself, I can see how if that’s what we were doling out to the poor, it might encourage people to get off welfare. But the flip side of that question is us knowing that the likes of Kim Jong Mentally Ill could have their tiny little communist sausage finger on the trigger.

The same goes for stand up comedy. Is what Dane Cook did a good thing? Though I don’t think we can blame and or assign great credit to Dane Cook. He just happened to be the first one out of the gate. If it wasn’t Dane Cook, it would have been somebody else. The natural evolution of “information” through technology can’t be suppressed; whether it’s good or bad. The first thing printed after the Bible on Gutenberg’s press was nothing other than porn. It just goes to show that at some point, somebody will eventually get a light bulb on in their head, no matter how dim it may be.

A hundred years ago people were arguing over the wisdom and duration of the automobile. They called it a fad that would never last. Of course the “they” being blacksmiths. However, the smart ones quit their bitching and adapted. They traded in their hammers and anvils for Craftman socket wrenches and started charging people seventy-five bucks and hour. Now those of us with cars in the shop bitch.

But adaptation is exactly what stand up comics have to do. And quit their bitching. Well, for some of us our bitching is our act, we just need to channel what we bitch about. But yes, on many fronts, it’s frustrating. Recently I participated in an online competition on a comedy website. I uploaded a video clip of my stand up act and then visitors to the site would rate my performance. My video was a professional clip from a television show I did. The material was solid and received exactly the way it should be.

You would think that might be the standard for someone uploading a video of their comedy act for a competition. Not so. I perused many of the other video clips of my so called competitors. And I use the word competitors loosely as many of these “comics” were nothing more than the club janitor deciding to try out toilette jokes on open mic night. The video quality was so bad it could have been shot by Abraham Zapruder on the grassy knoll. And the sound was so poor it made Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer sound like THX. Yet consistently these “stand up comedy” video clips were receiving some of the highest ratings available. Why? Because each of the “comics” were blasting out emails and posting bulletins on MySpace.com telling all their “friends” to vote them to the top.

OK… well, so was I… But I’m a professional stand up comedian and entertainer who makes a good living doing what I do. I’m funny. On this website after watching all these clips of my “competition” I felt like that 1988 skit from Saturday Night Live that parodied a presidential debate between then majority front runner George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis. Dana Carvey played Bush 41 and was spouting off these incoherent dumb as a rock ramblings at which point Jon Lovitz as Michael Dukakis turns to the camera and quips, “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy.”

And that’s what comedy has become. It’s not about who’s funnier. It’s about who has the most “friends.” And if those friends will support you, then you make it to the top. And the only way to get those “friends” is to market yourself.

Since the advent of radio, movies, and television if you were a comic who wanted to succeed, you had material, you were funny, and you traveled to clubs across the country and audiences laughed. Executives in the industry, always wanting to make a buck, recognized that, they took you, found a way to package you, marketed you to the masses and a star was born. Today comedians have taken those steps and shuffled them around a bit - and even eliminated a few. The comedians now market themselves to the masses through the internet; give birth to their own star if you will, and the industry recognizes that – and not necessarily the talent.

Now for a comic who is funny this new age process can be great. For those who aren’t funny it’s great too.  And for those that are funny - that’s bad. For what has a generation become that’s being inundated with mediocre and even bad stand up comedy and being told it’s good and even believe it’s good because some open mic’er has a camcorder, high speed internet, and fifty million “friends” on MySpace?

So I say to the newbies, the guys just starting out, please above all else, hone your act. Pace yourself. Know it takes time. Yes, we all need support in the form of friends and family coming out to laugh; but don’t allow support to become bigger than the reason why you are on stage: to communicate a well thought out premise, deliver a joke, and create true laughter. And hopefully impress and pick up hot chicks after the show.

To the old timers, the stand up comics who started before, say the year 1995, I say hang in there. Like the blacksmiths of old, learn to adapt. There was a time when a comic could just show up to the club and our responsibility was to the club owner to do our best on stage. (If you’ve done a gig for David Tribble in the Pacific Northwest that responsibility also includes not drinking before or during the show. No drug use on the hotel premises. No partying with the wait staff in your rooms. No breaking the audio equipment. And no fighting with the audience members.)

But in today’s world we also have an added responsibility; and it’s to ourselves: to not only show up, but to do our damnedest to make sure an audience shows up too. That’s a cold hard fact, like it or not. Because if we don’t, the crappy open mic’er with fifty million friends on MySpace will get the audience to show up. Think of the old philosophical riddle that asks if a tree falls in the woods and if no one is there to hear it fall, does it still make a noise? Well, if a comedian shows up to a club, and no one is there to laugh, is he still funny? He very well may be, but in the world wide global community we live today, funny has taken a back seat to actual butts in the seats.

We can’t fight change, but we can help shape it. The proverbial cream will rise to the top. If the truly funny comedians can connect with everyone out there with a computer, the World Wide Web will see what’s funny and figure out what’s not. And perhaps, hopefully, we can not only be funny stand up comedians, but also decent human beings and a true friend to the people staring back at us over their keyboards.