The Comedian's Perspective

I went to a benefit comedy show last night. The headliner was Lewis Black and he was joined by several of his friends in the stand-up world. Lewis Black is one of my favorite comedians. I often watched his routine on DVD during my first year of law school to unwind after reading so much of the UCC I was beginning to go cross-eyed. He has a unique talent for taking all that is stressful, depressing or outright ridiculous about the machinery of our society and making it hilarious. The glass is half empty, but whatever is in his glass beats the heck out of what's in the full glass. He has you convinced that the world is so terribly screwed up that it is all actually going to be OK.

My favorite thing about watching comedians in New York is listening to them talk about our city. They have a perspective on daily life here that is common to all New Yorkers, but their jokes bring this city to life in ways that always amaze me. The city has a persona, a culture of its own. And comedians capture the brilliance and absurdity of how we live here. Vic Henley, a talented comedian from Alabama but who has lived in this city for 25 years, had a fantastic bit on how this is the only city on earth where people waiting for a bus will cringe when they see someone in a wheelchair roll up to the stop, knowing the "massive" delay they will incur as the bus turns into a transformer to board the poor soul.

Greg Giraldo later spoke about the city's resiliency. He told us about a memory shortly after 9-11 when he was downtown. It had only been a week or two from the attacks and the power wasn't even fully restored. He was downtown and he sees a pack of Jersey girls out on the town for some one's bachelorette party. They were all squawking around, phallic hats affixed to their heads, marching toward the next round of shots, completely oblivious to their proximity to Ground Zero. As he watched them stagger around in their stilettos and pile into their limo, he knew that this city could not be defeated. For all the destruction that the terrorists inflicted, they did not count on the spirit of this city. The spirit that allows the drunken clan from Jersey to parade around the bar scene while the smell of the wreckage was undoubtedly still fresh in the air. The spirit that says "Was that your best punch? Because Debbie has this wedding..."

New York City: always forward. You can stop it like you can stop an ocean wave from reaching the sand. Over time we learn to follow the current. And in small ways we add to the tide. Comedians understand this.