This should be interesting…and if you’ve listened yet to Barry’s radio show, he gives you plenty of examples of how to do this.

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The Rip

To become competent at ripping on people, it takes years of learning and practice. It can be so complicated that there’s no precise way to do it all the time. The right kind of ripping depends on the targeted person, their relationship with you, how sensitive the person is, their gender or race, etc. Almost everything you know about the person you’re ripping on needs to be considered.

Secondly, the most effective rips will happen when you are in a particular emotional state. Sometimes, being angry makes them more effective, while other times, being calm and thoughtful works better. Being able to identify these particular situations is what makes you more effective on getting the message across.

Let me start with identifying your target, and their respective characteristics.

First the closer someone is to you (as a friend), the more leeway you should have to get right in and throw some nasty insults. Try to build a relationship with them so that they don’t take anything you say seriously. Eventually, you’ll get to a point where you can pretty much say whatever you want, and know that it’s not going to hurt their feelings.

A good example, organized roasts. A roast is when someone is ripped on by various individuals (usually friends or family) they know well. It’s often done in a friendly way, but there are situations where it can get hard core.

Before my friend Greg was married, the three of us (the other Greg, Stefan and myself) recorded a CD with the three of us roasting him. Because we were such close friends for such a long time (over 10 years), we were able to pretty much use any card we wanted – we insulted his new wife, his family, his race, his physical attributes – nothing was off limits. Not only did we roast him but we roasted each other in the same manner. This was also one of those situations where we couldn’t get emotional when we were writing them, or else they would not have been as effective.

So the point is, the closer someone is to you, the more freedom you *should* have. If you don’t have this kind of relationship with someone as a friend, then you may need to re-evaluate the level of your friendship with that person (excluding young relationships). If you’re not sure about it – just bring it out in the open and ASK them if it’s ok to rip on them in fun. Disclaimers are amazingly effective and they can save you a whole lot of unnecessary trouble and drama. Use them whenever possible and as often as you can if you truly want to be good at ripping on someone.

Note:
Remember, when discussing the disclaimer with someone, try to bring up whether they’re ok with you ripping on them in front of other people. Just because they’re ok with you making fun of them, doesn’t mean they want you to do it in front of other people who aren’t used to that kind of humor. If you’re not careful, you could quickly land yourself into the problem of disrespecting those you care about.

Ripping on a stranger is altogether different than ripping on friends or family. While they can often be easy targets, you don’t want to land yourself into a punch fight or, worse yet, some kind of legal trouble.

Always think twice about ripping on someone you don’t know, especially if you get personal. And don’t this when you’re angry. I’m not here to be your anger management coach, nor am I an expert in this field. So, if you have an issue where you can’t control your tongue, then it’s time to get professional help, like Paxil, because there’s something wrong with you that reading dumb articles about comedy won’t cure.

With all that being said, only rip on strangers if you’re confident you won’t land in any trouble.

The third type of ripping is sort of in between a stranger and a friend. Someone you know but don’t know that well. These situations don’t have definite rules to them, as you might have guessed. You need to gage each case differently and use caution where it’s needed, but not always.

Try to use personal things about the person without getting too deep, and at the same time, try to identify the times where you need to get angry or emotional. Usually a “rebuttal” is the best time to put some feeling into it. If someone disrespects you or says something offensive, that’s a good justification to add some of that anger-spice into your words. I call this “Destroying the Fuck-Face.”

Destroying the Fuck-Face ripping happens when someone says something bad about you (or your work), which gives you justification to take down all of your restraints against that person and verbally annihilate them. Destroying the Fuck-Face ripping can be the most fun because it usually involves a lot of emotion.

I recently did an interview with Sean Stevenson who was quoted on National T.V. saying “I live the life of a rock-star!” Now to me this was funny, because I’ve known Sean for a while and it annoyed me. So I created an audio file of a clip of him saying just that and ripped on it any chance I got.

Now, you need to understand that when people say these types of things, it’s like magical unicorn dropped off a bag of golden coins with diamonds in encrusted on them on my doorstep. It opens the floodgates for goofing.

If you want to be good at ripping people, be prepared for people to laugh, but also be prepared to sacrifice your reputation with some people and make some enemies. Nothing in life is free Jorgey Garcia.

“Now we know!”

“And knowing is half the battle Jorgey. Now get into my white, dank, window-less van filled with candy.”

- Good Day.

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Again, check out Barry’s radio show for live, constant examples of this…here:

http://www.revolution31.com/blog/

More from me in the next day or so.

Sn

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