Q&A after a College Gig…Good Idea?

While on the road I get a lot of emails from my agents. My college agents are constantly updating me with hotel information and school requests, etc. etc.  I remember getting an email asking if it was okay if I did a “Question and Answer” segment for twenty minutes after my show. I of course said yes, but didn’t remember what school it was.

After my show at Emerson College in Boston I got off stage and the student who brought me there stood up and said, “Ok, Geoff has agreed to a Q&A so please welcome back Geoff Keith!” I laughed and said, “Oh, this is the school. Ok, let’s do it.” Just to paint a picture for you, the show was very small. It was in a multipurpose room which I could not see being used for very many purposes. Even though it was such a small room and small show – probably about 20 people- it was a lot of fun.

So the Q&A starts and the kids are all a little nervous. I just did a 70 minute show and they can’t ask one question?! Finally they open up and the questions all sort of skewed toward the negative. One kid wanted to know what I thought of Rob Schneider’s new show Rob and when I said I had not seen it he said he didn’t like it. So basically he wanted me to say something bad about it too. The same kid asked me about Last Comic Standing and I said that I have a lot of friends who have been on the show and I know Jay Mohr who created the show so I thought it was fine. He then said, “Well a lot of people think it makes people like bad comedians,” and then in the same breath asked “What do you think of Iliza Shlesinger?”

I laughed and said I know her, she’s a friend and very nice. Hello! I’m not going to say bad things about people. Here’s what I don’t get about folks in general: why do we love talking about what we DON’T like? If he doesn’t think Iliza’s funny, fine! Watch who you like dude! There are people out there that think she’s great. There are tons of people who tell me I’m their favorite comedian and then there are other people who email me, “Fucking faggot, you fucking suck. Die you unfunny piece of shit.”

Haha, okay “Angry Bird.” I’ll die because you’re miserable. Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, for example, are both extremely successful comedians, but there are tons of people who think Seinfeld sucks or Rock sucks. Who cares?! They’re both hilarious in my book. But it’s comedy. It’s art. It’s subjective so there will always be people who like and dislike different things.

Let me get back to this student. He was a nice guy. He wasn’t being malicious. He was just a product of the internet, reality show, leave-a-comment age of “my opinion matters.” Personally, I could say a lot about what I think about another comedian’s act, but why? Why waste my life and time hating on someone else?!

The best part of the Q&A is when a guy raised his hand and said, “Yeah, you ever think about going back to school?” I responded with, “Cool man, glad you liked the show.” He didn’t mean it like that, but I thought it was an awesome question after watching me perform for that long. Then I laughed and said, “I don’t know, what would I go back for? I already have a job and I make a good living at it.” He replied, “Umm, I don’t know. Maybe take a writing class or something?” I couldn’t help cracking up and answered, “Wow man, you really didn’t like me at all!” I still think it was funny even though he didn’t intend on his question coming out the way it did.

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