Funny Feelings (2)

Lastly, to anyone who decides to take time out of their day to create something for someone else… What you do matters. Even if it's silly memes or videos or dances or jokes, or pictures of books with reviews. Even if you don’t see a dime from it, just know that it likely brightened someone’s day.



Comedians that changed my life: Ali Wong

Iliza Shlesinger Greg Davies

Russell Howard

Aisling Bea

Deon Cole

Bert Kreischer

Nikki Glaser

Tom Segura

Christina P

Michael Che

Trevor Noah

Jo Koy

Jenny Slate





1





“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” - Robin Williams





FARLEY


The diarrhea joke splatters.

The bit was a gamble, I knew this, as most comedians do. Sometimes you are absolutely certain a bit is going to kill, and instead it dies a slow, lackluster death: the equivalent of a whoopee cushion blowing around the room. And then there are some bits that you think are just fillers, setups for some epic call-back to come later, and those are the ones that deliver. I have learned this from experience, but I still falter at the crowd’s response, just slightly, before pressing on.

I suppose drawing an insightful comparison between the fruits of a misguided dairy binge and the works of Jackson Pollock was quite possibly Too Much. The only laughs I get are generally uncomfortable ones, some heads rear back and some eyes close, shuddering. This is why I’ve prepared another self-deprecating piece to segue into, this one a little more “Oh, that poor funny girl, that’s just sad. But look! She’s joking about it, so it’s okay for me to laugh. Yes, I’m laughing because I can laugh at her. This is what I paid for.” It is also one of those bits that’s based very closely on my personal truth, so… yeah, those ones tend to murder.

The shitty (haha) joke is quickly forgotten, and I’m back to being a conductor in my masterpiece. It’s a symphony of laughter around me that I stir and tickle and prod. I work one side of the room with my sad, weird, awkwardness. I spin a tale about some delightfully aloof (nonexistent) men I’ve dated and the ill-begotten adventures of my sex life, before my yarn gives way to an impression that has me lemur-walking to the other side of the stage, coaxing the room into a legato of laughter.

It’s beautiful, glorious, overwhelming; it’s warm and it fills me, fuels me. I feel like a spark that’s been begging for tinder, and this room is one of those old-timey blowers that puffs and fans me until I’m ablaze.

With each crescendo I think I might really make it, I am f-u-n-n-y.

The applause is magnanimous. And then it’s over.

It crashes.

I fizzle out.

Each step I take toward the side stage has me sliding down from an adrenaline mountain, and it’s jarring and dreadful.

The only thing that helps—my emergency pickaxe into the side of that mountain—is Meyer’s face. Everything around him is in disarray. The sound techs are wiping tears from their eyes. The MC is bent over with her legs crossed tightly around each other, presumably so she doesn’t piddle. Meyer, however, is as solid and stoic as ever. His arms are crossed, hands tucked into his arm pits with his thumbs out. He manages to lift those thumbs toward me in salute; roaring adulation coming from him. His mouth is an underscore across his face, his brow is as furrowed as ever.

Meyer’s steadfast grumpiness is my tether. It lassos me, pulls me back into my own body and into the present rather than in my head where I’m always formulating a comeback or measuring and feeding a crowd. He’s not my rock, he’s my hammock. He holds and cocoons me in the shade on a summer day. Not that he’s actually aware of this.

He’s also my manager. My manager, who, incidentally, has also become my closest friend since he came into my life three years ago. Though, in reality, he’s been a figure in my life for a bit longer. Not sure if he’s entirely aware of that, either, or how much he even truly likes me back, but that’s neither here nor there.

He likes to pretend that I annoy him endlessly, but I’ve caught the corners of those lips turning up, on occasion. I get him every single time I do the bit about that guy back in college. The one that slung my knees up to my temples like I was some sort of human sleeping bag he was trying to roll up—insert enthusiastic charades display of this act—and, after approximately sixty seconds of uninspired thrusting, that guy yell-whispered in my ear, “I WANT YOU TO ORGASM” to which I terrifyingly responded, “OKAY?!”, with a thumbs up. I then proceeded to do whatever the opposite is of orgasm, as well as prayed to the heavens that I would not let a fart out onto this man and risk this being turned into his funny story.

There are only a handful of occasions on which I’ve been able to get Meyer to crack his best, fullest smile, typically accompanied by a single-syllabled laugh. It’s a smile and sound that Rocks. My. World. It has teeth and dimples and crinkled, jovial eyes. The first time I saw it, I audibly gasped before he zapped it away, practically vacuuming it off his face. The date was marked on my calendar and will live on in infamy.

There’s just something that feels elevated about making another comedian laugh—especially one who was as good and as sharp as Meyer was. As I suspect he still could be. He was big for a while there. He’d been featured on a TV special that showcased a great group of up-and-coming comedians and had even opened for some huge names. His comedy was the kind that cut deceptively deep. His delivery was just a degree away from monotone—almost bored, irreverent, but always surprising. The sort of comedy that hit right away, but the more you went over it in your head, the funnier it still became. He didn’t require animated facial expressions or anything in the way of physical comedy, and rarely uttered a curse, which only made them more effective when he did. Each bit always flowed seamlessly into the next, like he was telling you one long story.