Five Life Lessons I Learned from Standup Comics

I’m not sure which performer popped my proverbial cherry back in the mid-90s (Jerry Seinfeld, George Carlin, Robin Williams—who knows?), but ever since adolescence I’ve gravitated toward standup comedy like a three-year-old to Nutella. I love how honest this brand of humor can be, and the visceral reactions it evokes. I love examining seemingly mundane experiences from unique, skewed perspectives. I love inadvertently identifying with complete strangers.

Professional comics are an insightful bunch, and if you listen closely, their sets are loaded with useful nuggets of truism. To me, comedians were always like that cool, perpetually single uncle you used to see at family reunions. You know the one. It was hard to take him seriously since he was always drunk by 3pm, but he had the most kickass stories after his fifth scotch and soda.  And if his blackout took a turn for Mentor Mode,  he’d pull you aside to slur something like, “Lissen, yer a…a good kid. But dude, c’mere, le’me tell you something yer ol’ pop doesn’t wanchu t’know…”

Spot on, good sir.

Except comedians were, you know, helpful. The road to adulthood is pretty damn convoluted, and the OnStar service in your life’s metaphorical Prius only gets satellite coverage on completely level ground. (You figure that out around your early 20s, by the way.) Without further ado, here’s some stuff I learned over the years from the folks who make us laugh.

1)  Ferris Bueller was right

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” When I first watched FBDO as a middle-schooler, I barely noticed this clichéd quote. But the whole stop-and-smell-the-roses thing comes into high relief somewhere near the beginning of your five-year college reunion. Events like those make you realize that nostalgia’s a thing.

So how does this relate to standup? Well, the best bits take something familiar and flip that thing on its head. This general practice—looking at seemingly mundane situations from a different perspective—is a pretty solid approach to your day-to-day; if you stare at something long enough, you learn to appreciate the minutiae we take for granted. You miss less life that way. And while hyper-analyzation can lead to panic after spotting ingrown hairs in your bikini area after spring break, it can also help you empathize with that homeless man you just scowled at.

2)  Humor makes for a pretty sweet defense mechanism

Comedians have to be able to laugh at themselves, and as the socially-awkward-yet-oddly-sensual-10th-grader-who-just-wanted-to-be-a-little-popular-dammit, I found self-depreciative jokes to be a powerful ally. See, some kids go through more hazing than others in high school, and hazing can be a real downer. But if you’re rolling with a pack of testosterone-spewing teens, sadness is a form of weakness—like a Butterfly Effect-ed Ashton Kutcher in a tankful of ill-mannered hammerheads. Gotta learn to just laugh off some of the shit that bothers you in public, or else it’s feeding frenzy time.

Never let teenage males smell the blood.

But mastering the brave face doesn’t stop being useful after high school. There are plenty of life situations where you just need to buck the hell up for the better of the group. For example, what if you couldn’t deliver that sweet speech you wrote for your parents’ anniversary party because your emotions got the better of you? Lucky thing you had a few awkward jokes sprinkled in to lighten the mood. Crying would have been…lame. Besides, that’s your Uncle Clyde’s thing a few scotch and sodas from now.

3)  There’s a huge difference between acting funny and being funny

Throughout most of high school, I was too introverted to earn the questionable label of Class Clown. But I secretly wanted to. Everybody loved the guy with the clever remark and rude hand gesture, the guy who inexplicably got invited to every party and managed to pick up chicks WITHOUT EVEN PLAYING ANY VARSITY SPORTS. And since at the time I had the athletic prowess of an epileptic chinchilla, you can imagine how appealing I found this alternative social role.

Thank Christ I never developed that particular personality, because things change real quick after the mandatory part of your education wraps up. Unlike high school teachers, college professors have a lot less incentive to put up with your shit. Just try interrupting an English Lit professor with farting sounds halfway through his lecture on Victorian-era poetry. Let me know how that works out.

Some comedians make us laugh with them, and others make us laugh at them. This is fine in terms of publicized entertainment, but Carrot Top belongs on stage for a reason. (And while I’m not really sure what that reason is, I know it involves the fact that he’s a paid entertainer.)  In reality, most grown-ups don’t give a goddamn about your Three Stooges impression.

For realsies, this man is unemployable in today’s job market.

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