If It's Messed-Up, It's Material
Or: Laughter > Outrage
I’ve been thinking a lot about persona—not just on stage, but in life. How am I perceived? How am I viewed when I’m having fun? When I’m telling jokes? How do people see me, both in comedy and outside of it? It’s one thing to craft a stage persona intentionally, but it’s another to step back and honestly assess what naturally comes through when I’m up there.
For a while, I thought my professor identity should be a big part of my comedic persona. After all, I am a professor. I even teach joke-writing in an actual college classroom. But after last night’s set, it hit me—I don’t have a single professor-related joke in my material. None. That doesn’t mean teaching isn’t part of who I am. I teach on my podcast. I teach on this blog. But it’s not what I bring to the stage. I think I’ll just let those things speak for themselves, at least at this point.
I’ve explored different angles—“professor of finding set-ups in mess-ups” seemed like a good fit. “Good guy who always gets screwed over” felt right too. But neither of those quite nailed it. They were pieces of something bigger. My podcast title, Messed-Up to Set-Ups, still rings true and it’s close. But after last night, I realized this: if it’s messed up, it’s material.
That’s really it. That’s how I view comedy. The world is a mess. People are a mess. I’m a mess. And I just organize the mess with jokes. As a dad, a husband, and someone with plenty of messed-up history, I talk about all of it. The absurdities of relationships, parenting, past failures, the general chaos of life—it all finds its way into my material. And honestly? I’d rather laugh about it all than be outraged.
In the wake of the most recent election, in the last two weeks alone, I’ve seen plenty of angry people. Like genuinely furious people. But I don’t want to live in outrage. I want to find the funny. And that’s why I’m adopting this as my new motto, a new phrase I’ve coined for going forward: Laughter > Outrage.
Because honestly, no matter how ridiculous, how frustrating, or how downright insane things get, I’d rather turn it into a punchline than a rant. And if it’s messed up? Well, that just means it’s material.