The Joke’s On You

I work at a soul-sucking dead-end job solely for the purpose of making money to pay my bills and support the three most important things in my life: my two cats and my stand up comedy career. Two of those things are absolutely thriving, can guess which two? Here, I’ll give you a hint: they have sharp teeth.

Actually, stand up comedy has sharp teeth, so that’s not a very good hint.

By the way, it costs a lot of money to feed two fat fur balls. Make that three (I’m on the chubby side… and I may or may not be a little furry). Okay, I’m not furry everywhere, only in specific places. 

ahem

I’m not really fat either, only very slightly chubby, so let’s get that straight. I like to eat, so what? It’s one of the few pleasures in life. Well, that, and watching people trip or fall. I don’t know why, but that just always makes me bust out laughing. Not if they’re old people and fall though, that’s not funny. Welll… yeah it is. I mean, as long as they don’t hurt themselves.

Otherwise, it’s friggin’ hilarious.

When we trip and fall, we’re in our most human moment and there’s no redemption from it. No amount of money or fame can ease the embarrassment of tripping or falling down, we look stupid doing it, and there’s no getting around it. Have you ever watched someone go down, arms flailing? Not the most graceful thing, is it? It’s slapstick comedy in its purest form. That’s how a comedic mind works anyway. You’d probably understand if you were a comedian.

Don’t tell me you’ve already thought of doing stand up comedy? You mean you’ve pictured yourself as a famous comic on the lighted stage, thrilled at your ability to make people laugh, making tons of money? Ha! My suggestion: dump an ice cold bucket of water over your head, take a good look in the mirror and call yourself a fool, then move on with your life.

In other words, don’t bother.

It’s insanity; a wacky endeavor that should be reserved only for the very special ones; ones who possess questionable mental issues, and who harbor excessive amounts of anger and frustration, which renders them the ability to take the extraordinarily shitty in life, find the humor, and make jokes out of them. We turn life’s lemons into sugarless lemonade and make you believe it tastes good. That’s our job. We have a love/hate relationship with the mundane; we yearn for a life so simple, but we make fun of it instead because we’re not destined for that kind of life.

You don’t want this life, trust me. You’ll be forced to go to open mics in the dumpiest and filthiest of bars and clubs every single night of the week to practice your routine in front of the most jaded people on the planet: other comics. They won’t laugh. The apathy will be so palpable, you’ll wonder if you’re back at your dead-end job with your co-workers instead of on stage performing. If you do get a laugh, it’ll be because you fucked up, not because you said something funny. It’ll be like tripping and falling every single day of your life. You’ll be wracked with self-loathing and self-doubt and you’ll be broke, exhausted, and undateable, because who the hell wants to date a broke, exhausted comic? You’ll have nights (many) where you question whether you should be doing it at all and you’ll…

…on second thought, go ahead.