It’s an impossible task to define exactly what comedy is.
Some people would have you believe comedy is just people saying and doing funny
things, and this isn’t necessarily wrong. But, to me, asking what comedy is
would be like asking what is a painting, what is theater, or what is the
internet. That is why my goal is not to define comedy, but rather to explore it
from every angle to figure out what it means to me, to other comics, and to whomever
else I feel would be relevant in the discussion of the art of making people
laugh.
Comedy is
not something that can be explained from one perspective only. I have played a
few different roles within comedy itself, as a column and blog writer, as a
stand-up, and as that guy in class that says inappropriate things to get a rise
out of the teacher. All of which I think I’ve had a decent amount of success
with, which is just a graceful way of saying I think I’m funny.
I will be
offering my two cents on comedy throughout this blog, and I hope to include
many different perspectives in the future. But for now, just like every other
comic loves to do, I will be talking about myself.
Comedy is,
to me, what makes the world go around. An exaggeration, of course, but I really
do think we as humans rely on humor more than we think in our lives. People
turn to comedy in a similar way people turn to music. Sometimes people just
need to hear something that will make the biggest problems they face seem
smaller, sometimes it’s heard in lyrics, sometimes it’s in poetry, and sometimes
it’s in jokes.
It may be
unoriginal and, quite honestly, hackish to bring up an event like September 11th
to bring some sort of quasi-noble sincerity to your point, but watch me. After
the tragedies of September 11th, there were questions about what was
and was not okay to make fun of. People started using the absurd phrase “the
end of irony.” The countries late night comedy shows were shut down as the
country mourned. After a few days, The Daily Show went back on the air, and
after Jon Stewart delivered a teary eyed monologue about the state of the
country, we returned to laughter as part of the healing process.
Personally,
the single most painful experience of my life was being left for someone else
by my longtime girlfriend. I won’t get into those gory details, but I assure you,
the ordeal was dramatic to the point of pathetic. Roughly a week after I got
dumped I wrote my first joke, and it just so happened to be about burning my
ex-girlfriend’s house down. It may seem morbid, but it was things like that
that allowed me to get a glimpse of blue sky in the shit storm that was my
life.
At the very
least, comedy is the most fun thing I’ve ever done. At the very most, it saved
my life. Either way, I’m in love, I’m addicted, and it’s the only thing I want
to do.
Next time I
will have hopefully convinced one of my superstar comedian friends to offer
some enlightenment on this topic. So, until then, just keep laughing.
