“before I eventually calm down and apologize to my mom.”
That is both the funniest and saddest line in the entire story. All of my belief in my own humor was based on my mom laughing at everything I said. As my mom got sicker and lost her memory through senile dementia, I had to keep shortening the jokes until it was just a one-liner or a sarcastic facial expression. But I kept making her life almost up to the end.
And given the response my humor gets from my wife and kids most of the time, I need that reserve of confidence to keep taking swings.
Returning to less melancholy subjects, I laughed out loud three times from you article, which may be a Medium record. It’s certainly better than 95% of the sit coms I’ve watched on TV.
My son is also funny (naturally I am his number one fan) and actually thinking about trying to do stand up comedy. I don’t envy him, or encourage it. I can’t think of a harder job in the entertainment industry, and he has way too many other great artistic skills to waste time being a starving artist on stage.
Your comment about the documentary reminded me of the fact that he and I have gone to a small comedy club in Woodland Hills where mostly smaller acts go to try out their material, and it’s brutal — small crowds, almost outnumbered by the comedians performing that night, no money, and way too much silence.
