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I am the author of a book called Happiness Isn’t Funny: True Stories of a Road Comic. It’s a year-long journal/travelogue/memoir that came out in 2014, but was written during 2010. Ten years later in 2020 I decided it was time to do it again and it ended up being quite the year to document. The following is an excerpt from the new book that will be released eventually. It’s being edited right now and I’m the kind of author who’s never quite sure if I should say “I wrote two books” or “I have written two books” so it might be awhile.
July 10, 2020
COOS BAY OREGON
I think most of the 6,541 residents of Talent, Oregon are fine with you having never heard of where they live. A lot of small towns feel like they’re made up of people who never left. Some, like Talent, feel like it’s people who ended up there because they had to leave somewhere else. It’s more diverse than you’d think, but if Talent Oregon had a flag it would be two white people with dreadlocks playing hacky sack while a pit bull puppy looked on. I had two shows at The Talent Club last night. It’s a small club, made even smaller by Coronavirus precautions, but we still managed to get over 1% of the town to come. The closest hotel I could find was in Medford, so I booked a room at the Sovana Inn. I picked it over a few other options because it had an 8.8 rating. Upon arrival it became obvious the only rating was from the owner, and even he knew he could not in good conscience rate it a 10.
On the 8 mile (you only get one shot) drive from the hotel to Talent, I had to make my way through a grass fire on both sides of the freeway. In between the flames, flashing lights, and scrambling firefighters, I saw a one armed homeless man strolling down the side of the freeway pushing his bicycle through the smoke. He was expressionless. As if he’d seen the future and it was so bleak that walking through fire didn’t even warrant a quickened pace. No need to get on the bike. There’s no reason to hurry when what lies ahead is no better. The arm not guiding the bike was missing up to the shoulder. I know that because he was wearing a tank top. Makes sense. If you don’t got it, flaunt it.
I’m back in Southern Oregon. I’m suddenly and briefly a road comic again. I’ve spent 10-12 days a month traveling for the past 18 years of my life. I’m not the happiest version of myself on the road, but perhaps the truest. My old friends Willie Nelson and Jack Kerouac understand. I’m the least talented of the three of us, but I’m a comedian. You don’t have to be brilliant when you can make brilliant people laugh. It’s not as much fun, but I can entertain dumb people too. So can Willie. Willie and I always tease Jack, because we know he can’t.
On stage feels normal. Once I use a disinfectant wipe to clean the microphone like a stripper dance pole, put my own microphone cover on and start the show, the crowd and I can forget we had to get our temperature checked to enter the bar, and that the tables are eight feet apart, and what phase of re-opening we’re in, and that the number of sick people is going up and not down, and we can stop wondering if schools are going to be open in the fall, and how the fuck are we supposed to work if we have to run a home school again, or is our work even going to be there, and honestly should we even be here? For an hour or so we forget. Right now gets to feels like better days, and the sound of laughter washes over us like it’s reintroducing itself to the room after being away on a long trip. After the show the spell is broken. I put my mask on and sell my t-shirts and books. People come over with extended hands to shake. I make them elbow bump, but I don’t want to do that either. I put hand sanitizer on my elbow when they leave. People want to buy things, but they also want to talk.
“Did you ever meet Patrice O’Neal?”
Yes I did, but can you back up before I tell you about it?
I thought about not selling stuff after the show to keep my exposure down, but I made $300 doing it. That’s two good days delivering groceries. But that’s for next week. Right now I’m a comedian again. It’s time to drink domestic light beers in a questionably rated motel room and get reacquainted with the myself that used to be.
I’m in Coos Bay now. Best show I’ve ever done in a casino next to a sawdust factory.
“It’s our honeymoon, could we get a room with a view of the pile?”
There was a temperature check to get into the casino. I feel fine but the temperature check always makes me slightly nervous. I haven’t been to school in a long time, but I do remember I don’t test well. Masks are required, but many are wearing them the same way I barely tucked in my shirt when I was required to do so at the pizza place I delivered at twenty-something years ago. I don’t know why people who have their nose sticking out of their mask bother me more than people without a mask, but they do. It’s not half a hoax. Pick a side. The demographics of the customers playing slot machines and black jack on the casino floor make it seem like there’s an “at risk” convention being held in the hotel. If you needed extra oxygen before you had coronavirus the prognosis can’t be good after. The casino is trying. There’s plexiglass in between every slot machine and every seat at the table games. Probably what we should do at schools, but school districts don’t have casino money. The waitstaff at the comedy show wore masks that had smiles on them. Jesus. It’s the tiny achingly sad moments in this time of Covid that hit me the hardest. I had two shows tonight at the Mill Casino. After the first show, one of the waitresses turned her mask upside down. People have forgotten how to be around people and during my shows there were tables just having full on loud conversations about whatever joke was a few minutes ago. The shows weren’t terrible, but not terrible feels worse now. I used to do so many shows that I was like a baseball player who’d gone 0-4, but knew he had a new game tomorrow to turn it around. My shows are so sparse now and the future is so unknown every comedy show feels like it’s a one night stand. We probably shouldn’t even be doing this, but if we are can we at least make it good enough to be worth it? I guess I’m okay with risking my life to kill, but not to battle through an indifferent rural casino crowd. I was supposed to do a show tomorrow at Laughs Comedy Club in Seattle, but the state of Washington just announced there is to be no live performance at restaurants or anywhere else. My first reaction was relief.
Yes, please tell me I can’t do it anymore because I don’t know how to stop.
Being the only comedian dumb enough to be performing in a city continues to be good for my press. I’ve done more newspaper interviews since March than I did the entire previous year. I’m the only event happening. It’s like interviewing the band playing on the Titanic while it sank.
“What are your influences?”
“You seem like talented musicians, how come no one’s ever heard of you?
“Was this your first cruise ship gig?”
I was interviewed by the Seattle Times about my show at Laughs tomorrow. Of course the article ended up being about how the state isn’t allowing it, but I did get this quote in.
“In a weird way, being a comedian has always been a bad idea, so it feels oddly normal to me to keep doing it.”
The world is on fire and so is comedy. I just keep walking through like a one armed man pushing a bicycle.