Patton Oswalt's new movie, "Big Fan", is all about celebrity and fandom gone wrong.

Celebrity stories are always of inherent interest to an audience. In fact, when I was producing Beth's daily radio show, a big-time radio consultant told us that there are only 4 things people care about: celebrity, sex/love, work and money. We resist defining things that narrowly, but he isn't all wrong.

We admit, there has been a good amount of high-quality name-dropping at the Un-Cabaret. Among Patton's many great stand up storytelling performances is this one about his Hollywood encounter with Elizabeth Taylor:

Hear more Patton performances on the Un-Cabaret compilation CDs, "The Un & Only" and "the Good, the Bad and the Drugly" and on several episodes of the Un-Cabaret podcast on audible.com (including one episode called "Close Encounters" that's all about celebrity encounters). You can also see free video detailing the anatomy of a great standup performance by Patton about falling in love - another one of the 'only 4 things people are interested in'.

This clip is really fun, but it's also really instructive about stand-up and comedy writing in general. Patton Oswalt delivers a great personally motivated comedy bit about falling in love. Then the ever-vigilant Beth Lapides prompts him to dig a little deeper and he reveals more of the real story and finds comedy gold and a new end to his bit, which will become part of the piece the next time he performs it. Check out the annotated version of "A Nerd in Love" above for specific notes and benchmarks to see how you can make comedy even when things are going well in your personal life - and how much you can do in 3 minutes.

Beth talks to him using the 'back mic', the structural innovation that she created at Un-Cabaret. We set us a second microphone so she can talk to other comedians while they're onstage, to keep them in the moment, to keep the tone conversational, and to push deeper for more comedy. She can do the same for you at the Un-Cab Lab Writing & Performance Workshop, but it's possible to do the same thing for yourself. If you're really on your toes.

Hear more Patton performances on the Un-Cabaret compilation CDs, "The Un & Only" and "the Good, the Bad and the Drugly" and on several episodes of the Un-Cabaret podcast on audible.com.