Three questions I get asked often about what I do are:
1. “Do you know Fluffy?”
2. “How long are you going to do this?”
3. “What’s it like doing comedy?”
Right here, right now, allow me to answer them in this semi-permanent forum (until EMPs wipe out humanity’s collection of online knowledge forcing us to actually remember things with our heads). I do this so that future conversations with audience members or airplane seat neighbors can move quickly onto more important queries. Such as, “Do you know Russell Peters?”
Question 1: Do I know Fluffy? Yes I do. Nice guy. Hilarious comedian. Also, he won’t return my calls.
Question 2: How long am I going to do this? Really? As if this is a passing fad or fancy of mine. Or some kind of hobby, such as needlepoint, to be tossed aside upon boredom. No, this is at the very core of my being. This is not only what I do, it is who I am. Why don’t I ask you how long you’re going to live a life of regret and shame and not knowing, dealing solely in “what if’s”, “if only’s” and “shoulda/couldas”?
Question 3: When I am asked what it’s like doing comedy, my response is invariably, “Living the dream!”
Except sometimes comedy is like the dream Johnny Depp was living in A Nightmare on Elm Street. One minute you are quietly chilling in your crop top with your television smashing your junk, the next moment you are getting eviscerated and violently vomited out of your own bed because of the demons in your head. Yes. Comedy can be like that.
Comedy is not the kind of dream where everything is beautiful and pleasant in over-saturated colors, whilst a sparrow lands on your extended forefinger, singing you a happy song.
Comedy is, perhaps, the kind of dream which an obsessed Captain Ahab pursued in Moby Dick, or which propelled Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
That self-destructive chase, that maniacal focus, that burning yearning. That’s where the action be. Like Ahab, whose leg was lost to his pursuit of Whale, and replaced with a piece of Whale. Ah, what satisfaction! If there was a way to replace the part of my soul dilapidated in my pursuit of comedy with a piece of comedy, now that would suit me just fine. Aye, aye, mateys!
In the meantime, while I await a prosthetic soul fashioned from comedy jaw, I would not have it any other way. I enjoy this hunt.
Delight is to him — a far, far upward, and inward delight — who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
With that said, let me better answer Question 2 for you, paraphrasing Khan who was paraphrasing Ahab. How long am I going to do this? Comedy tasks me. Comedy tasks me and I shall have it! I’ll chase it ’round the bars of the world and ’round the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and ’round perdition’s flames before I give it up!
Also, come see my shows this weekend (February 27/28) at Pechanga Casino in Temecula. One show Friday at 8:30pm, two shows on Saturday at 7:30pm and 9:30pm.
