I had to write an “Artist Statement” for a submission that never got used elsewhere so here’s my attempt to sound all “artsy” to describe an idea that could be distilled into “Want write joke good”. We’ll use it as my “About Me” because making this website has been SO MUCH WORK.
In my humble opinion, stand-up comedy is the highest form of communication. I would classify good communication as being able to convey your thoughts to the outside world efficiently and that’s difficult in itself.
However, if you can get someone's strict religious grandmother to laugh about a story of a baptism you witnessed where it looked like the priest was using his expertise as a former KFC fry cook to dunk babies into holy water like chicken thighs into a vat of dirty grease, well that’s a level of communicative ability that can only be forged out of dire necessity or through immense amounts of trial and error.
As someone who’s always struggled to feel understood, I grew up watching Comedy Central half-hour specials in awe as these people stood on a stage and commanded the attention of hundreds of people. I don’t know if I was initially drawn to stand-up because of the comedy itself, or if it was because Comedy Central sold airtime in the early morning hours to a multi-hour block of “Girls Gone Wild” commercials and a 12-year-old boy without internet access in the early 00’s is both patient and takes what he can get. Either way, comedy has always seemed to be in my path in one way or another.
I always viewed comedians as demigods who were so far past feeling misunderstood that they were able to impose their own brand of understanding onto total strangers. So when I found myself at 20 years old with no real identity to call my own, I decided to try and craft one after them, the Donald Glovers and Doug Stanhopes who had commanded my attention through a TV screen with nothing but a microphone and their ideas. That’s how I ended up on a Sunday night open mic at the now-defunct Comedy Parlor in Tulsa Oklahoma, trying to be understood by a crowd of four strangers. A decade has gone by and I’m still just struggling to be understood, the crowds have just gotten bigger.
They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Great Ideas are often birthed out of desperation and in my experience, good comedy, the best comedy, comes from the same desperate place. When you experience tons of trauma as a child you’re either going to come out the other end with a good sense of humor or a strong desire to get face tattoos, maybe both. A lot of what I find funny lies in the absurdity of not-so-attractive truths. If I’m going to be given a life where my unattentive, drug-dealing father dies when I’m 17, then I’m at least going to find levity in the ironic fact that sugar was the white power that killed him. Is it dark? Absolutely, but it’s also real and the dozens of people I’ve spoken with after shows who find my willingness to dig humor out of something so painful as a breath of fresh air tells me that finding light in that kind of darkness is vital.
As a comedian, I’ve already experienced more success than most people who pursue something artistic ever will and I don’t know how to be thankful enough. I’ve worked with people who I looked up to as a child and shared stages with some of the funniest people in the country. Throughout all of that, the reason I do comedy is still the same. I’m just trying to feel understood.