The Sign

I like dark chocolate, dark coffee, dark comedy, and men with dark-colored eyes.

They’ve all given my heart – or body – what it needed at the time.

Only one of these things has never left me with a stomachache.

In case you hadn’t guessed, it’s the comedy that hasn’t inflicted me with thick thighs, palpitations, or other wounds of the heart. ***

A comic friend of mine has insinuated that what he does is not necessarily deeply meaningful and joked that that unlike at concerts, “You’d never see someone at a comedy show hold up a sign that says, ‘Your jokes saved my life.’”

Well, here I am, holding my sign.

***

I have always been a huge fan of comedy, whether it’s watching a funny movie, telling an embarrassing story to my friends for laughs, or consuming an obscene amount of stand-up. I think half of it stems from growing up in a small town in the 90s when all we had to entertain ourselves was to make each other laugh. My hometown pals are still some of the funniest people I know, hands down. The other part probably (no, definitely) comes from a coping mechanism, one many of us utilize.

I don’t know where the real obsession developed exactly, but I remember listening to Sam Kinison on CD on road trips in my 20s with my boyfriend at the time. And I remember sneaking in to see Lewis Black with another hilarious hometown friend because we weren’t old enough to be in the venue. But, I think the dopamine addiction to laughs really ramped up starting in 2022. I’d seen an ad on Instagram for “secret comedy shows,” and I’ll tell you what, along with comedy, secrecy really does it for me. You know a secret spot no one else knows about? You have a tale to tell that only I know? Couple that with exclusivity and gahhhh. Watch me melt into a wet puddle. I’ll never tell, but I love the mystery and the darkness.

It was December of 2022, and a friend agreed to come with. Fortunately, he, along with most of friends are used to a sort of “what-the-fuck”-ness I bring to the table, especially when it comes to entertainment. So, he only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders and agreed to meet me at a gym in Garfield one Saturday night.

We walked in, were instructed to take off our shoes so we wouldn’t scuff up the gym, and a long-legged man sitting on the floor cracked a joke about only wearing socks to watch a performance. Turns out, it was Learnmore Jonasi, a comic my friends and I grew to adore – despite how many times I’ve heard his joke about putting cheese on vulvas.

Immediately, I was love in with the whole concept of obscure locations and not knowing the talent until arrival, and insisted one of my best friends start attending with me. At least once a month, we’d grab dinner and catch up and then head to a neighborhood that was not ours to watch comics tell jokes in unsuspecting venues.  

We’ve seen Usama Sidiquee perform in a photography studio in East Liberty. I saw Martin Phillips perform at a cigar shop/lingerie store combo in Lawrenceville, as one does. One of our favorite locations to tell people we saw comedy was in the attic of a pizza shop in the The Hill District.

It was always a good time, and not only did it afford us time together as friends, but it gave us both the medicine of laughter that we needed. We’d often splurge on an overpriced meal at a restaurant nearby, I’d pick up a bottle of wine, he’d stop to smoke or down a pot-filled pastry, and we’d arrive within seconds of the show’s start time, me frantically searching for a corkscrew and him wiping brownie crumbs from his beard. After the show, we’d spend the rest of the night discussing each comic – who we liked, who we didn’t – using nicknames because we couldn’t always remember real names, but we could remember who made us laugh. Abortion Joke Guy was one of our favorites, and we always breathed a sigh of excited relief when we saw him at shows, knowing that at least he was in the lineup. 

As we started attending more and more shows, we started recognizing more and more performers and I began discovering a much larger comedy world in the city of Pittsburgh and further. Each comedian that I liked and followed on Instagram seemed to have their own following, their own open mic or production comedy, and it opened up a universe of laughter I may have never known otherwise.

And I’m glad I did.

The past few years have been anything but funny for me. Fueled with disease, disappointment, and heartache, I’m not sure what state I’d be in if it weren’t for comedy.

Unfortunately, after about a dozen shows together, my comedy show plus-one moved to Louisville and since then, I’ve yet to find anyone who wants to go to a show as frequently as I do and fill their sad, little voids with me. Sure, I have a couple of friends who may semi-regularly attend something with me, but no one who responds immediately with an “OK BET” when I ask, “comedy and dinner tonight?” And certainly no one who doesn’t have 9203948203 follow-up questions from the exact address to how parking works to logistical and culinary questions that make me want to slam my body into the ground. When you already feel like you’re suffocating and know the antidote is a show that starts in an hour, you don’t have the time to convince people to go to the humor hospital with you. Sometimes you gotta drive yourself. 

It was the option that required the least energy, and when you feel like every moment of your life is just crawling out of well, your fingers grasping at nothing but emotional dirt and sludge, you really don’t want to be the event-planning babysitter for your friends.

There were nights when no one wanted to go out and I just couldn’t stay inside for one more minute – no matter how cold, how hot, how late, I simply can’t and don’t say home most nights. If I have to sit in my own sadness, I’ll drown, and laughter gave me the CPR I needed.

I got so into it, I had Abortion Joke Guy produce a show for my birthday one year. It was the day of my cousin’s funeral. For reasons that are too complicated to explain here, I didn’t cancel my party, and I’m so thankful I didn’t. My family laughed when I knew that they wanted to cry.

In the past few years, I’d watched my mom battle multiple, devastating illnesses, attended funerals for friends who were far too young to no longer be living, started and resigned from a job that made the term “soul-sucking” seem pleasant, endured a blindsiding break-up, and talked a few people off a ledge, despite wanting to jump myself. Sometimes-brilliant and sometimes-shitty jokes were really what I had to keep from being pulled into the riptide.

There were nights when I thought, “If I just make it to the open mic at Scarp’s, and observe a bunch of ridiculousness, I’ll be OK.” There were days when I felt, “At least Krazy Karen’s is tonight despite this day being disastrous”. And Fridays were OK because The Parkway meant I’d survived another week, and even if I couldn’t drag someone out with me, I could quietly and anonymously laugh in the corner (for a few years, anyway).

After I quit my job, these places and activities gave me a reason to shower, to put on makeup, to put on real clothes.

It’s because of Pittsburgh comedy, I’m reminded that laughter really is the best medicine, even if only at ourselves – or by ourselves. Sure, I also need to take a shit ton of Zoloft, but if it weren’t for the foolishness, if it weren’t for the dive bars boasting incredible people-watching and shitty red wine, if it weren’t for the people telling jokes, some of whom you know probably had a hard time getting out of bed themselves just to get to this open mic, I am telling you – I don’t know where I’d be either.

And I recommend you check it out, too. There are some incredibly talented comics whose names you don’t know and you definitely should. Why? Well, are you uncomfortable in your own skin because you’re an addict? A slut? Mentally ill? You know who couldn’t care less and who will probably trump your issues with their set in a heartbeat? A comic. Debated abortion? Thought about murder? Wanted to end your life? Oh, you sweet, summer child. Any comic will tell you you’re not alone. And that has a lot to do with my obsession I suppose. It’s here I fit in, even if I’m just observing in the background. Here I’m not (as much of) a weirdo, even if I look as though I’m as far from weird as possible. Here, I feel like I have my shit together even though I CLEARLY do not. And this isn’t to say I feel this way in a sort of superiority to anyone. It’s just that with open, figurative arms, whether they’ve realized it or not, they’ve welcomed my spirit and cracked the code to life: no one is “normal,” we are all a bunch of fucking freaks, so maybe own it by amplifying it into a mic and shouting it out to people who may be experiencing the same “normal."

So, Pittsburgh comedy scene, thank you. You’ve helped turn one kind of negative note into a love letter. And turned a darkness into a light – even if sometimes it feels like it’s just a 60-second warning light. Even if it’s the one just telling you to get the hell off the stage.

Because what is done with darkness can often make light.