A Night Out for Comedy
I had a very good night out last night. I went to see Josh Blue perform comedy. I haven’t been to a comedy show (and in most cases, I don’t care for a lot of the comedians I see on TV) but my friend told me about Josh Blue when he was on Last Comic Standing. “You have to see this guy,” she said, “He tells your kind of jokes.”
Well, I did a video search, and she’s right.
Good timed comedy for one thing, and disabled comedy after that! Need more disabled comedy.
So I went last night. Very nice theatre…from the marquee out front and the balcony stairs off to the sides, curtains and ceiling, I’d say it was an older theatre than I expected.
Before the show started, I explained to Courtney the things I liked about disabled films…by which I mean, the ones that actually have disabled people in the roles. I have problems with the film “The Keys to the House,” but it is also the only film where I could tell on sight that the actor in it had CP. His motions, eyes and head were familiar…and CP speech apparently sounds the same in Italian, too. Aside from Chris Burke or Christopher Burke, I’m not sure of many obviously disabled actors on television. It’s so good seeing people like people you know and like yourself on TV.
I have a copy of Look Who’s Laughing…a documentary of comedians with disabilities telling disabled comedy. It’s great, need more of it. My Thesaurus of Comedy does have a disabled section, but only about 3 jokes in it…one of these not even by a disabled person. Now I’m sure if you went around to the disabled folks I know and asked each one for funny stories, they’d have them.
In fact, I know so. People used to tell them to me. I used to tell them.
There wasn’t a very long line to get in, and a number of comedians before Josh Blue. One of the jokes I thought was good before this was the beginning of a joke with a kid in a pirate costume. The comedian complained that he was now too old to run around in a pirate costume.
I laughed a lot at the jokes Josh Blue told…but I think I came at them from a different perspective from some others in the audience. When he started talking to his bad arm, looking at it oddly as it crept about with a mind of its own, making jokes about benefits, how to make being taken for retarded work in your favor, and frustration at “helpful” disabled service (read “absolute panic at a disabled person in the room,” I cracked up.
Done that.
I guessed the joke about baby-proofing the house before he gave it. I just pictured the number of things my arm or leg has ran into of its own free will, and I could see where it was going.:)
The night wasn’t all disabled jokes though…plenty about marriage, raising children etc…and from the amount people laughed, they weren’t having a problem understanding his timing. He had very good delivery and pauses. I couldn’t clap often because I had the monocular, but half the time when people were laughing and I didn’t know why, I asked Courtney and she said, “Well, he has his arms crossed like this.”
I enjoyed the joke about Blue’s son…well, he said, when people asked if the child had CP, we’ve just discovered it’s not contagious.
:)
Waiting in the lobby later for CDs and DVDs, I told Josh Blue I liked the joke about benefits. He looked surprised and commented on that, I’m sure because the bit about benefits was a throwaway line. I was surprised too because the people in line were funny.
“He’s signing autographs.”
“How?”
Well, with a pretty well established method, seems to me. He had one hand to hold down the CD and the other to sign it. Makes perfect sense to me. The minor CP that he appears to have, it never occurred to me that he wouldn’t be able to sign.
It did, however, occur to me as I was signing my receipt atop CDs, that if I didn’t get my signature fitting better, that I’d be autographing something.
That, and the required 2 item minimum required with seeing the show. Damn it, drinking should improve my writing. It improves everything else.
Walking out, Courtney said people she had overheard thought Blue’s motor skills etc. were a gimmick at first. I thought that was funny. I talked about the jokes I really enjoyed, among them the one about the contagious CP.
“These jokes came about because somebody had to say that,” I said. “Maybe not in that setting, but they said it.”
Yes, well, Courtney said, it’s not contagious, but isn’t it genetic?
No. I explained what causes CP, that it was kind of a luck of the draw; that people I know have worse CP based on smaller hemmorages, or with the same gestational periods. I’ve joked about many of these things with Courtney and others, and explained to a few people. I hadn’t thought to explain further, because I assumed everyone knew by now.
But this makes me wonder. I enjoyed the jokes that dealt with ordinary life, but I enjoyed the disabled jokes because they sounded similar to things I’ve said or that people have told me about their disabilities. Funny stories. I enjoyed them because I identified with them…just as a comedian talking about tools would work well with construction workers. Misunderstandings, benefits, discrimination, being taken for retarded etc. all make sense.
Based just on the small sample overheard in the lobby, people clearly enjoyed the show, but how many understood it? Comedy, I suppose, could bridge a gap in demonstrating that people with disabilities can actually exist in society as complete people. But there’s an anthropology project.
In short, it was a great show. I would definitely go to a Josh Blue show again or any other disabled comedians provided I run across any, and I will have to try another show at that theatre…food, tickets were reasonable, and some shows are much cheaper than that one.