I think I was only 11 when my parents took me to see the 20th Century Modern Masters art exhibition in Brisbane. It’s proof that my parents are extremely cool, and it was also an important formative experience for me, one of the crucial elements that makes me who I am.

I saw an amazing Salvadore Dali piece (“Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening” if you’re interested), was transfixed by David Ligare’s “Kithnos: Thrown Drapery” and spent most of the day standing transfixed before one of Mark Rothko’s “Untitled” pieces. I don’t know if this is the exact one I saw in person 43 years ago, but it’s very similar:

You probably don’t think it’s too amazing, but I still remember the experience of being in it’s presence. It was a sublime sensation, similar to the feeling I’d expected to get from being in a church. I was spellbound, mesmerized…

But the spell was broken by a couple who came up behind me, glanced briefly at the piece and he said “I could bloody do that” and she nodded in agreement before they strolled off to the next display.

Fucking philistines.

I hope it goes without saying that he didn’t bloody do that, that nothing he did inspired me in that way and probably nothing he did was inspiring to anyone, ever. Don’t get me wrong – if he cured cancer without my finding out, I’ll take back all the horrible things I thought about him. But in the meantime, regarding his attempted at art criticism? Well, I could bloody do that.

Years later I would study art pretty intensely, and I chose the trickier road of theory over practice. Most art students opt to create something, because the theory side of modern art is harder.

Here’s a secret about art theory… it’s not bullshit. It’s not all subjective crap, whatever waffle anyone says. There are actual objective basis (what’s the plural?) for evaluation. Your experience of art can be completely subjective but the merit, the intent, the efficacy of art is a lot more quantifiable and objective than you suspect.

That’s why, even though “personal taste” is a thing, Masterchef Judges agree with each other nearly 100% of the time.

This armchair art expert never suspected that he just didn’t get it. He figures, like all unqualified armchair art critics, that he understands art better than artists do, and that anything he doesn’t “get” must be crap, something any child could do.

Considering stand up comedy is literally just talking, you can imagine that comics get this attitude a lot. Everybody – or almost everybody – thinks they could do stand-up. Unless our joke is a six-dimensional doctorate on string theory, they think we’re doing “easy humour” for “cheap laughs.” They believe they completely understand what we do, and that they’d be doing it themselves if they could just find the courage to try.

They’re wrong. Most of the time they’re completely fucking wrong. If they actually do get up there’s a roughly 99% they’ll demonstrate how they misinterpreted and underestimated stand-up by shamefully failing at it. In the industry, we call it “bombing.”

And hey, I’ve been guilty of this attitude. When I discovered that virtual synthesizers and sequencers were a thing, I started making electronic dance music. I thought it would be easy, that techno and other dance forms were simple. I’d been listening to electronic music and stupidly thinking “I could bloody do that” for decades.

Then I proved myself wrong by making fucking awful embarrassing “music”. I had to spend years learning and understanding that there really is a craft to that platform, that they’re not just a bunch of lazy scammers making random bleep sounds, before I could start to create anything worthy of anyone’s attention.

I spent nearly two decades learning and honing this craft and I’m pretty damn proud of the catalog of music I created, but I never would have if I retained the snotty “I could bloody do that” ignorance of someone who knows absolutely fucking nothing about the platform.

Truthfully, most people aren’t even qualified to judge anyone else’s contributions beyond “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” Hey, there’s even an ethics theory called Emotivism that says there’s no such thing as morally good or morally evil, just attitudes about whether you like it or not. I’m not a professional Ethicist (I just play one on TV) but I’m pretty sure we can’t just dismiss other people’s efforts as easy or cheap without even explaining why.

Like I said, there are actually real objective grounds for valid criticism. The trouble is, most self-appointed critics have no idea what those are. One thing that definitely isn’t valid is dismissing someone’s comedy because you think it’s easy.

Louis CK spoke about this. Whatever you feel about Louis since the scandal, and that’s a completely separate discussion, he’s an extremely skilled comic who’s created a body of work that’s not only funny but has insight and gravitas. And Louis CK says there’s no such thing as easy jokes, no cheap laughs. All laughs are valid, and the only people who think they’re easy to get are idiots who’ve never tried.

You might be able to get a giggle out of your co-workers at the water-cooler but that’s nothing like the challenge of making a room full of strangers laugh, provoking an involuntary visceral response from a herd of humans. To anyone who thinks it’s as easy as swearing, referencing genitals or making a fart noise, I challenge you to come to an open mic and test your theory. People will probably be polite, but you’re going to learn pretty fast that there’s no such thing as a “cheap easy laugh.”

Now, don’t misunderstand me – there are still bad jokes. There are still puerile jokes, offensive, weak and hackneyed jokes. There are still lazy comics, unfunny comics and hacks. I’m not trying to pull some post-modern relativistic argument to convince you all comedy is good. Some of it’s bad. And if you watch as much comedy as I do, you might also come to the conclusion that most of it’s bad.

But you might also, if you’ve heard as much of it as I have, also come to the conclusion that most criticism is pretty fucking awful too. Because there are also lazy critics, dumb critics, unqualified critics and stupid ones. And most of the criticism they spout is as hackneyed, sloppy, invalid and lacking in insight as anything I’ve heard from the worst comics.

The few times I’ve been accused of going for the cheap/easy/lazy jokes, it was by people who literally didn’t understand what they’d heard. Seemingly, they hadn’t even tried to understand before delivering their condescending misinformed verdict.

On the last occasion, a couple of years ago, none of the women the complainant was outraged on behalf of had a problem with anything I’d said – mostly because they were smarter than him and got the jokes.

I know them; They didn’t think the observations about societal body-shaming were lazy or easy, either. His fake outrage and pseudo-moralistic posturing was the only thing that was cheap and lazy.

Critics who condemn comedy as cheap/easy/lazy are usually engaging in the worst form of cheap/easy/lazy criticism – the elitist implication that people in comedy audiences are so stupid that a comic only has to say “dick” to induce robust laughter from them. Sorry, but there’s no nice way to say it – if this is what you believe or say… you’re a dick (pause for rapturous applause).

I’ve talked about themes and topics before. I acknowledge that it’s an unfortunate part of our evolution and development that our early premises might not have the substance or gravitas that our inner artists would like to tackle. My early sets, filled with lightweight stuff about internet dating and fast food, weren’t compatible with the legendary comedian I aspired to be. I’m still trying to grow into that guy.

Comedians want to leap out of the gate discussing social issues, philosophical insights, complex observations about the nuances of human interaction and relationships.

But one of the first things you learn when you start doing comedy is that important premises, the ones that mean the most to us, need to be handled with extra care. They require special handling and we’d rather see them in our to-do list than damaged through mismanagement.

I recently heard a comic say that new comedians should only be allowed to talk about iPhones and jerking off in their first year. Then, they get their P-Plates – but they still can’t talk about economics, breakups or abortion until they’re on their Open License and an experienced driver. Seems kinda legit to me.

One thing that it teaches you is what Louis CK said – there’s no such thing as an easy laugh. Laughs are laughs, all as valid as each other. People are smart and mature enough that they don’t just laugh at the word “pussy.” There has to be more going on.

The only thing I’d warn anyone about is not to forget our role. We make things funny, like chefs make things yummy. The chef who uses tasty ingredients and doesn’t elevate them doesn’t deserve the kudos, and neither does the comic who takes inherently funny ingredients and doesn’t do anything with them.

Some premises already seem funny: prostate exams, stool samples, farts and – if you’re Dave Chapelle – trans people. You could make funny bits with all of them, but we have to weave our magic. We can’t just serve up tasty ingredients and pretend we cooked something.

For this reason, I’d argue that farts aren’t cheap or lazy laughs. It’s no easier to make an already-amusing premise into a funny joke than it is to transform a not-funny premise into a joke. Arguably, it’s probably harder to make an original new joke about a prostate exam than it is to make a hilarious bit about a wedding.

Comedy is about effectiveness. Our success or failure is both measurable and immediate. It takes nerves of steel to do it, and more creativity and thought than lazy critics would ever assume. And because effectiveness, the reaction from the crowd, is the truest and most legitimate indicator of value, anything that evokes a visceral and involuntary laughter response from the crowd is legitimate. If you think you could bloody do it, please come to either of the two open mics here in Townsville and demonstrate your skills.