The Sign - The Bottlerocket Show Version

A comic friend of mine has insinuated that what he does is not necessarily deeply meaningful and joked 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.  

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.  

In past six years, I’ve 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 and am still unemployed; endured a blindsiding break-up with who I thought was “the one”; and talked a few people off some very scary ledges, despite wanting to jump myself. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. My own personal health issues – both mental and physical, which will be their own stories one day – had me feeling like all of the color had been sapped out of my life. Like before Dorothy had made it to Oz.  

And if I looked like on the outside what I felt on the inside, you’d probably call me an ambulance because I’d be a walking, gaping wound, ripped open and bleeding. There’d be no question that I was not OK. 

Because of this, absolutely nothing was funny to me in my day-to-day life. Sometimes-brilliant and sometimes-shitty jokes were really what I had to keep from being pulled into the riptide. 

Despite all of this, 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, depressed town in the 90s when all we had to entertain ourselves was to make each other laugh. The other part probably (or, 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, thanks to the hard times.  

Fortunately, it was around then that I was introduced to secret comedy shows through Don’t Tell Pittsburgh. Immediately, I was in love with the whole concept: obscure venues and not knowing the talent until they arrived, and I 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 locations.    

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 both needed. 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 the real ones, but we could remember who made us laugh and how they made us feel.  

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 began discovering a much larger comedy world in the city of Pittsburgh and further, and it opened up a universe of laughter I may have never known otherwise.  

 Unfortunately, after about a dozen shows together, my comedy show plus-one moved to Kentucky, adding to my heartache, 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 myriad 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 feel like every moment of your life is just crawling out of well, your fingers grasping at nothing but emotional dirt and sludge, it’s hard to be the event-planning babysitter for your friends.  

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.    

And I did and still do. Because if I had to sit in my own sadness, I’d drown, and laughter gave me the CPR I needed.  

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 there’s a show at Krazy Karen’s 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. 

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

It’s because of 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 mostly 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 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. Here, the day’s devastation disappears, at least temporarily. And with open, but 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 with endless issues, so maybe we should own it by amplifying it into a mic and shouting it out to people who may be experiencing similar suffering or sorrow.   

So, to the Pittsburgh comedy scene and every other artist who has put everything they have into their craft, thank you. Whether you are a comic, a musician, a writer – don’t ever doubt the positive effect you can have on people – even if your jokes are disturbing or you’re performing them in someone’s damp basement or to an audience of 1. You just never know who is watching and who is thanking God you, specifically YOU, exist.   

You may have 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.