Only ONE person leaves a comedy "contest" happy...

I have a fundamental disconnect when it comes to the topic of "judging" the arts. I think it's fine (and ideally, desirable) to judge them against your own standard of worthiness...whether you choose to share your most precious resource, your attention, on them. In fact, you must. That was how I found that I really, really like opera.

But the idea of judging two or three or a dozen pieces of like art against one another in attempt to distinguish one as being "The Best"...that is a different story. I don't think that is the filter by which art was created and shouldn't be the filter through which it is viewed.

Though comedy contests have immense value, a valid meter of performance success they are not.

OK...if a comedian goes onstage at a contest and they eat it...they are not gonna' win. They shouldn't. Fine.

But if several acts are well received, generating laughter and a positive vibe...who is the winner? Weren't all of those acts conceived, written, rewritten, honed and performed to achieve that precise result. Did they? Yes!
Then they were successful comedy performances.

But, which one was the best?
Who cares?

So then, why do comedians enter contests? Three reasons.

1) Because we are comedians, if you assemble an audience, we want to be there.

2) In a regular comedy club week, as a comedian you only get to see the other 2 comedians booked on your show. At at a contest, you can reconnect with a bunch of folks you haven't seen in a long time and catch up on juicy comedian gossip.  You think that Aunt Bea and Clara were big gossip hounds? They've got nothing on stand-up comedians.

3) Finally, someone has to win...why not me? And sometimes the prizes are sweet.

I've been on both sides of this thing. I've won a couple of contests. I've lost a bunch of them. The only person who feels like it wasn't rigged was the person who wins. That's OK. Just go and have a good time...soak it all in. Comedy contests are like the Super Bowl. You don't go for the game, you go for the experience.

By the way...I've got a contest tonight...