Comedy Tour Journal #3

What do you live for a doing?

One thing you don’t expect being in a different city every other night headlining comedy shows is how often you experience your crowd’s sadness. In this age of “comedian asks audience member what they do for a living” clips that mine the interactions for surface fodder, what I’ve experienced has revealed humane dimensions if you don’t go for the easy joke.

What you witness between the waves of laughter is the pain that brought them there. The young doctor in New York City who took it upon himself to tell the room he was unemployed and his dad was abusive. The man front row in Philadelphia whose chair collapsed right as I said the word “humiliated.” That beam of golden light shining down halfway into the crowd in Chicago on the one woman who refused to laugh at anything I said. How those one or two stone cold faces in every show awaken the imposter syndrome in me that agrees with their refusal to laugh. My own aching torment at a world that looks nothing like how I want it.

They came to be healed by humor and in those times I failed. But it felt all right because I believe what we need is deeper than entertainment, it’s ceremony. What an eloquent way to say your joke didn’t hit! But I’m serious. It’s great to have laughter, that deconstruction of the incongruences only to merge them into Frankesteined concepts. This particular release valve of stand up comedy, the individual in an individualized society appealing to the very neuroses and psychological torment of living in this ill begotten structure. When they aren’t laughing it’s my fault but it’s also a gift. A moment of intention that requires allowing the rest of it through. It’s not all funny even if most of it is. The rest can have nothing to do with me. Can I give it that space and respect in between the bars?

Those stone cold faces can be for many things that need to out prioritize a thrill. How they process information, social cues, their strained relationship with the person who brought them to the show after an already long day at work. How deep the pain of living in a world outside our control. The humanity is also below laughter and not to be taken for granted in its treasures. They are also what awaken the laughter, give it spring. A Palestinian man in Chicago thanked me for speaking up for his people after the show and gave me a hug. He invited me to a nearby bar but I couldn’t remember which one by time the merch table had cleared out. I was there in the light rain as a teacher, who drove three hours from Fort Wayne Indiana, stood with me to tell me about cookies she baked and how she programs her school lessons to challenge her kid’s minds. The trio in Dallas who ended up talking with me about the same genocide. One of the three was born in Gaza City and when I told him about my new friend in Chicago he said unfortunately his people were everywhere, unfortunate because he wanted them to still be in their homeland.

In Philadelphia, after the guy’s chair broke, my first instinct was to mention how it happened right after I said the word “humiliated”. But then I saw him. The crowd melted away and I wanted to know if he was all right. I asked him and he assured me he was fine. I saw somebody on the ground getting up and we’ve all been down there and trying to rise. He came to my show and laughed then broke his chair. Laughter can only take us so far. He assured me he was ok, then I blamed the construction of the chair and everything in this day and age. I offered him my stool from the stage. He accepted. I brought him the stool and gave him my drink ticket and asked the audience to give him a round of applause which they thunderously obliged. Then I joked, ok now we’re at eye level so our relationship just got a lot more intimate. If I turn away from you it’s because of my own issues not you. It’s me, not you. And there was the joke, it came after the caring.

Starting the west coast leg of my tour from San Diego to Seattle tickets on joshuaturek.com

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