So after thinking about it for a few years, on and off, I’ve finally gotten around to doing my own podcast. One of the things that motivated me was doing an interview of esteemed poker player Brian Rast recently. We talked about his thoughts on poker tells and on starting out learning mixed games. The stuff he was saying was so interesting that I started again thinking, “I should get a podcast up just to share this stuff.”
Unfortunately, like a beginner, I was typing continually throughout Rast’s interview, and it really made a racket. So I didn’t want that podcast to be the first episode, as it sounded so unprofessional. I will release that one eventually, though, as I do think it is interesting stuff.
The concept of the podcast is that I interview various experts from different industries about how they use human psychology and behavior-analysis in their professions or pastimes. So, for example, my first episode is an interview of Portland comedian, and winner of 2018’s Portland’s Funniest award, Alex Falcone. We talk about how he uses human psychology and an understanding of human behavior in his standup comedy, with thoughts about the role of such things in comedy in general.
Another interview I have lined up is of Mark McClish, a former federal marshall with 26+ years of law enforcement experience. His book I Know You Are Lying, is about examining people’s written and verbal statements for signs of deception. It was one of the inspirations for my book Verbal Poker Tells.
Here are the links for where you can find the first episode of the podcast:
Below is a synopsis of the things Alex and I talked about, if you wanted to skip ahead or get a feel for what was discussed:
0:00 Introduction of Alex Falcone, Portland comedian.
3:00 Comedy, even before you’re in front of an audience, is about creating “theories” of what will make a crowd, or a series of crowds, laugh, and then testing those “theories.”
5:20 Alex talks about how it’s not about what’s objectively funny. If it’s funny to you, it’s funny; it’s just a matter of how well you are communicating that funniness to the audience.
6:20 Thoughts on Twitter; “it’s the largest open mic.”
7:00 Thoughts on writing books and other more long-term projects and how it compares to frequent iteration of comedy
8:30 How there are so many factors in comedy, so it’s hard to say what exact variables change from set to set.
9:00 Thoughts on Black Mirror-like scenarios with simulators and AI reaching comedy genius through numerous iterations.
10:00 Starting to talk about how crowd behavior, as a whole, might influence approach.
10:45 How telling the joke doesn’t take much brain power, so most of that is devoted to studying people.
11:45 Risk of over-analyzing a crowd, and the main things Alex looks for (like age, or drunkenness).
14:00 Adjusting to different crowds, and the risk of presenting something weird as something others can relate to.
15:45 What kinds of things signal non-enjoyment?
16:00 Pattern between newly-dating people to check if the other is laughing; similar to how employees act with bosses at corporate events.
17:00 More thoughts on corporate event comedy.
19:15 Crossed arms, and the perception that that person is unengaged/uninterested.
20:00 Reading an uncomfortable crowd to see what happened to them.
21:30 The instinct you get from doing comedy of reading a crowd, and how some people starting out lack that.
23:00 How having an image that doesn’t align with the stories you tell can throw audiences off.
24:00 The importance of context, and how leaving out just a little bit of context can screw up a joke.
26:00 Reading individual people when doing crowd work or being heckled, with drunkenness being major factor.
27:00 A strategy to dealing with interruptions.
28:30 Figure out why a crowd is uncomfortable; you can just ask them.
31:00 Sitting in the front row: is it widely accepted by comedians that people volunteered to get picked on in the front row?
32:30 Talking about responding to “What’s your job?” questions from comedians.
35:00 Some comedians do enjoy pushing people’s buttons.
36:00 Real-life questions: Can comedy make you more emotionally intelligent and perceptive?
36:45 In social situations, people don’t like thinking they’re being analyzed.
37:30 Drawing attention to how a conversation is going is a sure way to kill it.
38:15 Zach talks a little about how live poker increases sensitivity.
40:00 Alex is kind of like Sherlock Holmes, but with conversations.
40:30 Sherlock Holmes just made a lot of guesses. He was only good in aggregate.
41:30 Helpfulness of cocaine.
42:00 Observations about different types of laughter.
43:30 Effect of comedy room architecture on people’s perception of funniness.
44:20 Observation about setup of one of best comedy rooms in country: Comedy Works in Denver.
45:00 Social aspect of comedy and laughter. Environmental factors affect your perception of enjoyment.
46:00 Correlation with how audio quality can affect people’s perception of other aspects of a movie/show.
47:00 Talking briefly about Louis CK.
48:15 Downside of mentioning sad things in humor; it can bring audience down.
50:00 Wrapping up, where you can find Alex Falcone: @alex_falcone on Twitter, @alexfalcone on Instagram.