It's actually not that easy to be a working standup comedian. You either need to be born with a sense of humor that does no more than brush up against the most ordinary surfaces of the human experience, while also having a sense of wonder so blunted that it never occurs to you go deeper than that. OR you need BOTH a social awareness broad enough to understand why the status quo is fat and stupid AND a cynicism inhuman enough to deliberately reinforce it instead of subverting it. _OR_ instead of inhuman cynicism, you need an inhuman, insane and most likely destructive drive to subvert the status quo against all costs, throughout years of thankless, profitless work and most likely little exposure, all the while wrapping your animosity for the world around you in an affectation that is somehow relatable and self effacing enough to keep audiences seduced.

Anyway you cut it, being a standup comedian is not easy.

The greatest standup comedians, standups who transcend their craft, Carlin, Hicks, Chapelle, Pryor, Bruce are all exceptions who prove the rule.

Look at this woman. I do not think she has an easy life. She looks miserable.

ps the ones that work the most or make tons of money are the first two i described.

Being a comic is hard, yes. But I've seen enough shitty comedy to know that if you know your audience well enough, you can earn a pretty good living doing easy, lazy comedy and it ceases to be hard work, at least not as hard as it is when you give a shit about your audience and your integrity as a comedian. I would also argue that the modern venues like YouTube have very much changed the landscape of performance comedy, allowing virtually anyone access to a huge audience without having to go through the old school trial-by-fire which is attempting to be a stand up comedian the traditional way.
My guess is the comedians who are TRULY miserable are the ones who have locked themselves into an "identity" (say, Larry the Cable Guy for example) and now can't get out of it without losing the money and popularity they've grown so accustomed to, so now they're stuck making "librul" and "faggot" jokes the rest of their lives.

Right, but what I am saying is that sort of career requires a cynicism you can't manufacture or control. And if you don't have that, you couldn't maintain a career like that.

A good comedian is, usually, somebody who is well spoken, and knows what he/she is talking about. This woman fills neither area.

Yet she is booked through February at The Comedy Store, Hollywood Improv, the Icehouse and The Laugh Factory.

When talent fails, blowjobs prevail. Invisistars for Mr.B's exegesis on standup. I nominate Jay Leno.

From a female friend who did standup, the only way to make it as a female comedian is to sleep your way up the ladder.

It was a great set up for an abortion joke, but she went with "women are vain" instead. She should ask hecklers to write her some better punchlines.

Too bad Jodi doesn't.

This reminds me of Maria Bamford's impression of bad women comics.

she looks 40

After that train wreck would be a little like rubbing salt in the wound to make a snide comment about her weathered appearance.

Dang, I probably just did.

it's the golden rule of stand-up: if the audience isn't laughing at your jokes, it's probably because they can't hear them

We got an all-comedy radio station where I live, and I occasionally flip over to it when there's nothing else on I want to listen to. The volume idea is true, but also just being an effing moron. Since Comedy Central stopped airing non-stop standup, I think we've forgotten just how much standup is freaking awful. I'm sure a lot of how much it's enjoyed has to do with "the room," as it can seem a lot funnier when you're with a group that wants to enjoy themselves than when you're just listening to the routine, and it hits you just how un-funny it is by itself.

For example, the comedy radio station started playing this bit about the Irish potato famine, and the joke (which lasted for about three minutes) was how the famine was stupid because those wacky Irish could've just found something other than potatoes to eat and not starved to death. Complete with "Lucky Charms" accent.

That Irish Potato Famine bit pisses me off, and I know it shouldn't. But the problem was, Irish farmers didn't own their own land, and they would typically grow two crops: a cash crop to pay their rent, and potatoes to feed their family. So when the potatoes went bad, the choice was either to eat now and for sure be homeless in a month, or try to get by and hope you make it another year. And it didn't help that the English Parliament was forcibly preventing relief from reaching Ireland -- they were happy to see the Irish go, one way or the other, because Irish farmlands would be much more lucrative if turned to grazing land for cattle.

Yeah but the Irish could have just grown another crop. Like the kind of crop that makes people not get offended by jokes that are clearly based on an absurd premise and are therefore not meant to be taken literally.

Like I said, I know it shouldn't piss me off. But the original joke wasn't even based on an absurd premise; it was the actual dilemma the Irish were presented with (pretty deliberately once the British saw the opportunity). It'd be like doing jokes about how, if blacks in the Civil Rights era simply hadn't tried to vote, they would have escaped white supremacist backlash: it's not target-rich material to begin with, and the "funny" solution just happens to be the one that bigots of the day were recommending.