Audio: David Granirer 'Stand Up for Mental Health'

LIZ But first on the line from London Ontario is mental health comedy mentor David Granirer. Hello David.
DAVID Hello.
LIZ Hello good to have you with us.
LAWRENCE David’s work is profiled in the global TV documentary Laughing Through the Pain and in the VOICE award winning documentary Cracking Up. He founded Stand Up For Mental Health, a programme teaching stand up comedy to people with mental illness as a way of building self esteem and fighting public stigma. Now David you yourself encounter and deal with depression I’m curious to know how did you go from, you know, having these depressive episodes to doing stand up comedy?
DAVID Well let’s see that’s a good question. I was actually in the early ‘90s I was working as a trainer at the Vancouver Crisis Centre because Vancouver is where I actually live. And the great thing was I had a captive audience of volunteers that I was training on a regular basis. So I was trying out my stuff on them and I thought I was getting pretty good. And then I went down to a comedy club and did amateur night and, just to set the scene, there were about 200... it seats 200 and there were about maybe 25 people in the club that night and I got up there and it was five minutes of dead silence like you’d hear every ((indicated coughing and clearing throats)) every little clink. And so that’s how I got involved in stand up comedy. But the next time I did it I took a course and we did a showcase and the place was packed with all our friends and it was a great experience and I was hooked and I just knew I had to do stand up comedy.
LIZ Well that seems a good opportunity to hear some of your comedy. Here’s a clip.

[Playing clip:
And when it comes to crime I feel way safer around people who hear voices and think they’re the supreme ruler of the universe. Put it this way - when you're managing fifty million galaxies you're way too busy to steel my car. You know they’re like, “Dude we travel at light speed why would we want your mini van?”]

So David is there a lot of material around mental health issues?
DAVID Oh there’s a tremendous amount of material and what I tell my students, and this holds true for me, the more screwed up you are the more dysfunctional your life is the better an act you’ve got because it’s great material.
LAWRENCe And some of the interviews that I’ve seen you’ve basically said hey you’re basically a neurotic guy and that your fear and anxiety are a fabulous source of motivation. How do you teach others and train others how to use those type of neurosis for their own benefit?
DAVID Well I think that just as we’re going through the writing process kind of what happens is people will come into class and they will tearfully disclose you know, “At one point in my life I thought I was Jesus and I maxed up my Visa card” and the whole class go, “Wow that’ll make great material!” And it completely actually changes the way you feel about your life from feeling ashamed of all that stuff to actually thinking it’s a great asset and that really changes about how you feel about yourself.
LIZ I really love that on your website you have ‘most people think you have to be nuts to stand up comedy we offer it as a form of therapy’.
DAVID Yeah.
LIZ I love that. So do people come on a course as therapy or do they choose to, you know, are they railroaded into it by their therapist or whatever or is it just, you know, can they come if they want - how does it work?
DAVID Well put it this way - all the people that are in the course are there because they want to be.
LIZ Okay.
DAVID And it’s a really highly motivated group of people always. Our attrition rate is very small and they’re all the kind of people who, I would say a large percentage of them, they’re the kind of people whose sense of humour has gotten them through a lot of really dark times. They’re also the kind of people who have always got in trouble all their life for shooting their mouth off and saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. And all of a sudden they’re in a place where they discover hey that’s a real strength. And so it’s sort of like a wonderful realisation for them. They’re also people who are sometimes really they present as really shy but sort of the common denominator seems that underneath it every one of the people in the class wants desperately craves being the centre of attention, and I’ll include myself in that one.
LAWRENCE It sounds like that’s a good time to bring Rob in over here with this little problem.
DAVID Well yeah if we can explain David. We have our news hound, Rob Crossan.
ROB Hound
LIZ That’s his impairment.
ROB Bow wow.
LIZ And he’s thinking of getting back...
DAVID Now that’s funny.
LIZ ... he’s thinking getting back into doing some stand up comedy right. And we were talking about it last month on the podcast and he said categorically he didn’t want to do anything about disability okay?
DAVID Hm.
LIZ And so we wondered if you could coach him maybe into being funny about his disability. Rob, tell the nice man what ’s wrong with you.
ROB Well as was explained at the top of the show I have, as Lawrence beautifully put, I have the opportunity to see things differently. I have ocular albinism and nystagmus if that means anything to you at all?
DAVID No.
ROB Good, good well let’s leave that there then.
LAWRENCE So we’re all working from the same place.
LIZ Yeh!
ROB Well I’m glad that’s settled. It basically means that I’ve got hardly any pigmentation in my skin and I can’t see really very much at all.
DAVID Right.
ROB Visually impaired.
DAVID Right okay.
LIZ So what...
ROB And I used to live in South Africa and that’s where I started doing stand up comedy and obviously it’s... I look a bit different being so sort of incredi--... I mean it’s not a great pl--... it’s a very hot country not a great place to go if you’ve got my sort of wimpy skin.
DAVID No.
ROB But I never, I never ever did any disability humour but there were lots of other comedians who wanted... who were trying to persuade me to do me to do that kind of thing. I remember there was one guy who’d written a song and he wanted me and him to do together and it was something like ((singing)) You say Albino I say Albino let’s go and get sunburnt.
LIZ You see there you go.
ROB And I never wanted to do it. I never wanted to do it.
LIZ Why do you want to disown yourself from it?
ROB Just because I think, you know, it’s a very, very small part of who I am, you know, Ouch is the only disability related thing I do as I'm sure you can tell by my startling ignorance about the entire world of disability. And yeah I’m just sort of I don’t want, it’s going to offend pretty much everybody involved with Ouch when I say this, but it sounds, to me it seems too easy it’s too obvious.
LAWRENCE So, so David there’s your source material, there’s the clay you have to work with. What would you offer...
DAVID Great!
LAWRENCE ...for Rob?
ROB But David do you not find that you get pigeon holed slightly and do you not think you’re doing what do would make it a lot harder for you to break out and do non disabled oriented comedy?
DAVID Well put it this way - I find that it makes me stand out from other comedians. Put it this way let me just... we have a guy in one of our classes he’s Muslim he’s a cross dresser, so he likes to dress in women’s clothes, and he also has schizophrenia and what a great premise for an act okay? You know he says, “You know when I go to the Mosque with my parents, you know, my Dad wears a ((0:30:47.7?)) my Mum wears a sari my Dad wears a white gown and I wear a silk teddy with a push up bra.” I mean it’s just part of your humour is the character you bring on stage.
LAWRENCE What are some of the best lines that they’ve been able to come with and use when talking to audiences?
DAVID well and some you know a fair amount of the humour is about, you know, the stupid the stupid things that people say to them.
LAWRENCE So you’re reflecting that back on the audience which is what they’re laughing at themselves...
DAVID Yes.
LAWRENCE ... basically?
DAVID Yes. And you know talking about, you know, so, you know, like when I’ve been depressed, you know, people come up to me and say, “Oh” you mean, you know, “you should get some exercise you’ll feel better” and you think “Oh you mean like jumping off a cliff that would be good exercise.” Or you know, “Just have a nice hot bath you’ll feel better” and it’s like, “Yeah I’ll feel better once I throw the toaster in” you know. And I think in that sense it’s really important social commentary.
ROB So do you think by me completely ignoring my albinism and not mentioning it in my act all I’m actually kind of doing a slight disservice to other people who are visually impaired?
DAVID I don’t know if you’re doing a disservice I just think that from me, from my point of view as an audience member, I would love to see you talk about that because your experience of the way people treat you and the way people... because I think a lot of the humour is about the stupid perceptions people have of people who look different or act different who are labelled different. And I think it’s a wonderful chance to reach an audience and actually sort of educate them without being preachy or anything but just make them take a look at, “Oh yeah you know I’ve said that to my friends too” you know, “what an idiot I am.”
LAWRENCE And it would seem that people, you know, who would see Rob come out on stage or anybody they might say, “Oh what’s going on there” and be trying to figure it out. So if you spell it out and make it a joke, make it a gag, you’ve then used what they’re thinking to propel your act forward.
ROB Well I usually just say is anyone wondering why there’s a ginger Boris Becker on stage.
DAVID Yeah I mean...
LIZ And they go, “Who’s Boris Becker?”
ROB Yes.
LIZ When you were doing comedy in the past that was fine, Rob, it’s been done.
ROB Things are different now I understand.
LIZ Yeah update your act that’s all I’m saying. That might be why they’re not laughing at the albino jokes. It’s just a little hint but yeah. I’ve got a question, we have to go in a sec, but one thing we’ve had a couple of guests on the show recently, David, who... one guy who had Tourettes and he’s a singer a rapper and when he actually raps he loses his...
DAVID Yeah, yeah.
LIZ ... Tourettes he doesn’t... and similarly a woman who sings and when she sings she doesn’t experience the seizures that she normally does.
DAVID Yeah.
LIZ And do you find that people that you work with have that in that their symptoms or their illnesses dissipate or lessen when they’re actually on stage or doing comedy?
DAVID Well actually a few th--... I had a guy with Tourettes and he was actually in his I think he was 14 or 15 and he was, first of all he was hilarious because he talked about how, you know, for example, you know like a cop stopped him one day and, you know, he started to swear at the cop and the cop, you know, the cop was going to bust him. And he said, “No, no” you know “I have Tourettes” and the cop’s like, “Oh yeah” like “prove it to me” and he’s like, “Okay I’ll prove it to you effing blah blah blah cop.” So it was great because he could control his Tourettes on stage so it wasn’t involuntary but it was just once again it was just hilarious, you know, he said if I ever become a counsellor, you know, my clients would say, “Oh” you know “I’m such a loser” and I’d say, “Yeah of course you’re an effing loser” you know.
LIZ And does it ever set anybody back you know because I was thinking this if it goes bad I mean it might be great and when it’s all going well I mean you said your first stand up experience five minutes of silence and I think we’ve all been there if you're tried stand up.
ROB Speak for yourself.
LAWRENCE Yeah, yeah.
LIZ Hey Boris Becker ((0:34:40.0?)) but you know if that does happen to people could that set them back at all?
DAVID Well put it this way, I’ll say two things about that. First of all, I make sure that by the time we do a show they’re really prepared so we know, you know, we’ve tried out the material so it’s not like, you know, you're on your own going up for the first time. So they know what they’re doing. And I also make sure that the material is, it’s not just funny because you know people are coming, “Oh they’re mentally ill, oh isn’t that sweet we’ll try and laugh out of pity” - it’s good comedy material that stands up as comedy. And so I basically put them in situations where they’re going to succeed. So their first gig is not at a nightclub, you know, full of drunks who, you know, just want to hear about sex and drinking and all that kind of stuff.
LIZ Okay.
DAVID The other thing though is when you think about it these people have survived suicide attempts, they’ve survived, you know, involuntarily being committed and having electro shock therapy against their will, they can survive if their act doesn’t go that well.
LIZ Yeah what’s a heckle eh what’s a heckle in a situation like that?
DAVID You know and I think isn’t that a perception of disabled people “Oh you’re so weak and pathetic” you know “if anything goes wrong” you know “you’re off to the nearest bridge” kind of thing. And you know these people are survivors they’ve survived way more than, you know, than most people. So yeah they’ll survive.
LIZ Yeah. David, it’s been fascinating thank you. I’m not sure, I’m not sure if we achieved anything here with Rob I’m not...
ROB I’m a tough cookie but yeah we’ll see. But I have learnt one thing - drop the Becker gag.
LIZ Hey! Thank God...
DAVID We’ve achieved something that’s good.
LAWRENCE Whoo-hoo! Success.
ROB It was really funny in 2001. What’s changed?
LIZ In the ‘80s I was thinking. David, how can people find out more about you and what you do?
DAVID They can go to our website Standupformentalhealth.com and there’s a whole bunch of clips of our comics and information on the programme etc.
LIZ Brilliant. Thank you for joining us.
DAVID Okay. Thank you very much.
LIZ Thank you.