Why Comedy?

Why Comedy?

My wife asked me a question the other day and I realized that I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer.  Her question was a very simple one, but required a level of complexity that I was not exactly ready to bring to the table.  The conversation went like this:

Alicia (my wife):  “Why Comedy?”

Me (me):  “Because I like to make people laugh.”

Alicia (still my wife):  “That’s it?”

Me (still me):  “Yup, I like to make people laugh.  I’ve always been kind of funny.”

That was the entire extent of my answer for this question.  That was it.  But as I think about it more, I realize that I didn’t even come close to scratching the surface of what that question means to me. 

Comedy to me has always been an outlet for my creativity.  I have very serious ADD and my brain runs so many laps a day that it is hard for me to focus on writing a book, or a script, or painting a picture, or anything that requires a lot of invested time.  I am having trouble even writing this blog post without thinking of other things I could do, but I will press on. 

*took a 3 hour break while writing this because I got a facebook message which caused me to look up something on wikipedia, which made me get caught in a wiki-hole (when you click on one link in wikipedia, say Rodney Dangerfield and by a series of other clicks and page views you look up a few hours later to see that you are now looking at the total number of deaths attributed to the black mamba)*

Anyways, comedy is a very important part of my life and keeps me grounded and focused on something that for at least the time being is extremely fun for me.  My answer from above does hold true.  I do like to make people laugh.  But as I continue in stand-up and run into the bad nights when no one laughs, I realized it means so much more.  I like to make me laugh and keep the real world at bay for a bit while I am doing it.  I think for a lot of comedians, at least some of the ones I have met along the way, this is one of the real reasons for doing comedy.  We all run into those bad nights where no one laughs, but at least we are up there giving the world a piece of us.  I don’t think the audience is necessarily an important part of the equation.  I think it is the fact that we are at least making a go of something that not a lot of people have the fire inside them to do.  We put ourselves on a silver platter to be ridiculed, destroyed, and torn apart by the world.  It’s that rush that drives me to continue.  Stand-up comedy is an extreme sport.. 

When you look at me, you know I can’t do a kick flip on a skateboard but I can flip a common conception around and make you laugh at it.  I can’t do a 360 spin and land a snowboard jump but I can do a 360 with my words and make you laugh at something that you wouldn’t necessarily think could be funny.  We (stand ups) are the X-Games competitors of the stage world.  We can just as easily land a joke as have it explode in our face and crumple to the ground wondering what went wrong.  And that single fact is what keeps me going.  It’s the excitement of not knowing what the next event will bring.  If I had the same conversation with my wife today as I did the other day, it may look like this:

Alicia (she’s still with me):  “Why comedy?”

Me (yup, you guessed it):  “It’s EXTREME!!!!!!!!!!”

Alicia:  “That’s it?”

Me:  “Oh, and I like to make people laugh”