I blame this guy.
Everyone who knows me knows that my dream when I was a kid was to be a comedian. This is not an essay about that. Long story short - the life of a comedian would have ruined me. I love to be funny, so I wrote at home near my wife and kids. That about sums it up.
However, I toyed with idea of doing it for fun on and off for a couple of decades. This was a bad idea. It’s not really something you do half-assed,a nd as a means to reach out and meet people, it is a dead end. For me anyway. In January of 2013, I did my last open mic in a little bar in Portland. I felt as if I was 100 years older than everyone there, and I couldn’t relate to a damn thing. But I was cool about it. I went home and wrote some shit, for sure.
After some therapy and too much reflection I discovered that it was the writing that I truly loved. I loved the ideas, the creating, the process of piecing together thoughts for stories, people, theories, anything, really. For that, all I needed was a keyboard or a notebook.
There was a problem though. With the idea of doing comedy in the back of my head so long, I developed Comedian Brain. I thought, spoke and reacted to the world as if I was a comedian. I sifted through the events of my life, finding bits that would form jokes for an act that would never be heard. My wife and kids enjoyed them, my friends were there for a lot of them, and I was usually the goofy one in the workplace. Now, I’d like to point out I wasn’t Michael from The Office. I was merely funny when we needed it. I use humor as a stress reliever and a way to suss out new ideas and awkwardness. I didn’t think I was a star. But I knew I was funny and I knew how to read a crowd.
None of this helped me do anything. There was no byproduct of Comedian Brain that helped me make friendships, get a job or a raise, or solve any of the world’s problems. I learned to not take anything seriously. I did develop an objective mind; but only so much as to not fully participate in life. I was a sideline reporter. Not a player.
But I was funny.
Now, I create mental lists for this stand-up routine to no one, and there are so many unique and/or completely hackey observations that find their way in there.
Here’s one. It is something I saw on this thing called TV, which is the way a lot of us used to get information. There is a long history of analyzing our society by the products offered in this things called commercials, which was the entire reason TV was invented. I have found another one that blew my mind, and continues to frustrate me.
The site is called UNTUCKit.com. The commercial features a handsome guy walking a city street. He, in voice-over, tells the viewer about the importance of a person finding their passion. His passion? To create a shirt that looks great untucked.
Move over Van Gogh, this guy has redefined passion.
He also explained that it’s easy to say but difficult to accomplish. The first time I saw this I said: “What the fuck?”. The second time, well, I said the same thing, but I also made sure to look at the actual product. The man was wearing one of the shirts and...I don’t want to give the wrong impression...THE SHIRT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE ANY OTHER UNTUCKED SHIRT IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE.
There is the thing. And then, there is the reaction. You see, the Comedian Brain does not easily allow for: “Hey, good for him!” or “To each his own” or “People are suckers, and he found a way to fleece them.”
No, the Comedian Brain wants to be in the room when they were talking about the initial idea. It wants to see where ‘passion’ came into all of this. Did they shoot any other ideas down? Removable collars? Buttons with your favorite sports team logo? A built-in snack pocket?
I hope this man didn’t first have a passion for ending suffering in Sudan or ending food poverty around the world. Did he wake up one day and look in the mirror and say “Fuck the world, this shirt looks like shit! Let’s subtract a quarter-inch of fabric from the bottom and open five stores around the world!”
Also, I don’t care what the truth is. It matters not. This isn’t about untucked shirts sold to people with money to burn. It’s about what it means, if anything, to our lives. It’s a statement about consumerism and marketing and all of that. The Comedian Brain is not a journalist. It editorializes.
You see how that could kill my conversations?
The Comedian Brain does successfully aid in one process. What I am doing, right now. It’s helped me sort out the world, good or bad, and it now a part of the beehive inside of my head. I write this, like I did so many years ago, to entertain others. It is my lot in life, and it will be the only thing I’m ever good at.
