the gut check of a clown

i haven't done a stand up set in 16 days. this may be the longest break i've taken from doing stand up in a while. a part of me is finished... but not all of me. i feel so conflicted sometimes... like damn, what's the big fucking deal, i just wanna get out there and help people to laugh more. but something happened along the way... i've gotten myself entangled into a mess of emotions and conflicted thoughts.

i was reading words that i wrote for a while. i'd read blogs that i wrote at the open mic i hosted. but it's not as funny. it's something more serious. and i think that's part of my issue. i don't feel like i'm taken serious as a comedian. being a comedian feels like being a clown. i don't wear the costume, but sometimes it feels like i might as well have the make up, the big red nose, the big stupid shoes... cuz that's how i feel inside... i feel like when people look directly at me, all they see is some silly clown masking his own sadness under a ridiculously bright outfit.

and that might just be my paranoia speaking. but if that was what someone saw when they looked at me, i couldn't blame them. i am hiding something. i've put on an armor of joke telling to protect the real fragile me deep down inside from getting bruised by the world. sometimes i wonder if i'm funny cuz i wanna be, or if it's just something i developed as a defense mechanism. i realized a long time ago i'm not a fighter. i'm not gonna punch lights out. i have to find some way to diffuse tension and serious situations in my life. i was never the class clown. i was just the lesser known dude who had a good joke at the right time to diffuse a tense situation. i'm that kid all grown up, relying on joke telling abilities as a way to get by.

i'm 32. i'm late in the game. anytime i find myself at an open mic, i'm completely surrounded by people in their 20's... some of them doing the stand up thing longer than me... some of them (maybe even a lot of them) are funnier than me. it's enough to make me wanna go home and forget that i ever thought i was funny enough to grace a microphone and share it with other people in public places.

when i tell jokes to a group of 10 drunks in a bar who are only half listening, when that's the climax of my current comedy situation, it hurts my soul. i have to go home and think about how completely insignificant the whole thing seems.... the only good i get out of it is that it's one more time on stage, one more way i'm proving to myself that i'm paying my dues. but other than that, it's never gonna be the set that gets me the tv show or makes me go viral. i'll be lucky to walk out of bars with one drunk telling me i was funny some nights... and some nights that's as good as it gets.

and yet i wake up today with some urge to tell jokes. i don't know what it is.... it's like i can't stop... it's like my urge to be a wiseass in front of other people will never stop. this is what i know. and whether i'm good, bad, or mediocre, i always find myself in this situation. i've quit stand up comedy more times than i can keep count of.... and yet the urge for one more try... just to hear someone else laugh at my original thoughts... if i can have that, then this whole torturous routine somehow seems worth it.

i don't know why i need to hear the laughter of others. sometimes i feel i'm driven by repressed acceptance issues. but i can tell you that i've spent a weekend doing almost nothing... just sitting around and thinking to myself... and i just wanna get out somewhere and tell a few jokes and bounce these thoughts off of the minds of other people. i can't keep them locked up inside, i can't allow myself to be the only person that hears what i'm trying to say.

and for all the times i wanna be taken "serious," a different side of me always shows up in the end.... i don't really wanna be taken serious. i don't wanna be that dude.... i don't want my legacy to be something like, "there goes josh. the stuff he does is so serious. he's good at being serious." if i'm gonna have a legacy at all, it's gonna be as a wise ass, a joke teller, a dude who loves to smile and to try to make others smile. i'm just trying to add my part to the world..... i think people need to laugh more... and i love the fuck out of laughing myself.... so it's what i want to add to the world. there's nothing better that i could ever give this world than that.

i'll let the people who love to be serious do the serious things. cure cancer, teach children, feed the impoverished.... which is all great stuff and i'll forever be grateful that there are other people in the world who have the passion to do that sorta thing.

i know where my passion lies. and i've let the existence of hecklers and the idea that i'll never "make it" or the idea that i'm not good at it stop me. but today i woke up with the urge to battle all of that. i host a weekly open mic on sunday nights, and tonight i will tell jokes. and if i bomb and no one listens, i'll know that at least i did my part. i chased my passion. if i never make it at this, i hope i always continue if only for the love of the craft and the opportunity to make other motherfuckers laugh out loud.