I have always loved to laugh. And make people laugh, when I can. It (almost) never hurts to laugh more.

Stand up comedy was one of my Dad’s favorites, and I can remember him retelling his favorite jokes, or rewatching comedy specials and still laughing on the third or fourth viewing. 

He was a fan of the Blues Brothers and thought Bill Cosby singing “Dad is great, gives us the chocolate cake” was one of the best lines. While I was growing up, we watched some comedy together – and he always gave every performer a try, even if he didn’t like their style, from Judy Tenuta to Sam Kinison, to Jeff Dunham (the Jalapeno on a Stick guy). 

When my sister and I got a little older, we each got him tickets to see one of his favorites for birthday and Father’s Day gifts: my sister taking him to see George Carlin, and I bought tickets to Lewis Black. I am so glad he got to see these guys in person. I think watching your father laugh, seeing him experience joy, and being able to laugh off some of the hardest truths in the world along with him, is a special gift. As a child, it let me know that the world, while serious, does not always have to be taken seriously. And as an adult, it helped me to understand that opinions, and reality, are complicated things and that a person can arrive at a conclusion, or a punch line, from about a billion different points of view. 

I have enjoyed endless hours of comedy with my dad and later with friends and my husband, both on TV and in person. Beyond the jokes and how they make me laugh, I love studying how different performers get the audience to react. In college, I watched Stephen Wright deliver oxymorons and non-sequiters in a slow monotone, making his audience wait in agony for an odd joke. I was in awe of Margaret Cho and how she could use her experience as a child of immigrants and a woman on stage who didn’t fit into white American beauty standards to tell stories that helped you completely understand who she was. I loved Jerry Seinfeld’s incredulousness about everything; Ellen DeGeneres’ earnest questioning of the absurdity of the every day; Ali Wong’s quiet build up to her screaming punctuation of each joke; Trevor Noah’s perfect accents and impressions; Wanda Sykes way of making you feel like you’re in her inner circle at the same time she is reprimanding you; John Oliver’s complete embarrassment over his Britishness as he pokes fun at America; Sarah Silverman’s inability to be ashamed of anything she says; Cristela Alonzo’s adorable smile or little dances after a savage punchline; James Acaster’s odd timing and completely unexpected onstage behavior. 

A few weeks ago, I got to see Josh Johnson perform. He is one of my current favorite comedians, and I think my dad would have loved him. Josh challenged himself to publish a brand new, full set of stand up every week in 2025, and he has been doing so on YouTube. He did 10 sold-out shows in Boston the weekend I saw him, and from talking with friends who saw other shows, and watching what he ended up posting from his Boston gigs, it seems like he barely repeated a bit all weekend. I think this is fascinating, as the comic legend Carlin was known for writing his bits word for word and memorizing them. And most comedians, in speaking about perfecting their work, will go over the same bits with audience after audience until they find the combination of words, timing, facial expressions, and intonation that elicits the exact right response. 

Josh has such a wealth of material, I can’t imagine that his process works that way, and he’s known for talking about news stories as they are playing out. But he also has evergreen stories (like the story of a fight that broke out between parents at one of his childhood soccer games) that he could use again and again, but I’m not sure if he does! 

Josh has been so generous with his fans this year, giving us all these free shows and, as I learned when I saw him, meeting his fans and posing for photos for about an hour after his final show of the night. 

For someone who has worked so hard to enjoy the fame he now has, it seemed obvious to me that he takes none of it for granted, and he really is grateful that people like what he has to say so much. There was nothing grandiose about him when he came to greet us in line. He was flanked by zero security, a big smile on his face, shaking hands with me and my husband, asking our names and thanking us profusely for coming to see the show, asking if we had fun, and posing for about 20 pictures. And there were at least another 200 people behind us in line. I honestly couldn’t believe he still had the energy to do that after all of those performances. 

Anyways, there is nothing like watching a funny man be silenced to remind you that comedy is important – even when it feels so superfluous. Maybe not because it’s the best way to get your news, and certainly not because it’s always good. It’s a pathway to critical thinking. Because jokes have layers, and learning to understand the difference between truth, irony, parody, and satire is a skill. Laughing helps us to find common ground, and it also gives us a space where we can examine our biases and pain and notions about how things should be. It gives us an opportunity to see what we laugh at without hesitation and what gives us pause. It raises up a mirror (a fun house mirror) to what the world is and allows us to examine what we see, and question if we see ourselves as inside or outside of the joke. 

Comedy can be painful, and I think most comedians’ origin stories begin with a fair bit of pain. When the world has felt too much for me, now and in the past, I have turned to funny people again and again to remind me that we are all living through this same absurd reality, but we get to choose how we see it and how we talk about it. We can liberate ourselves within our own bodies and minds, even when the outside world feels inhospitable and unbelievable. There is an alchemy to comedy because it can take a terrible situation, and turn it into a hilarious spectacle. Comedy is the perfect place for me to find joy, healing, and companionship in the worst of times, and I am very grateful to my dad for teaching me that. 

I hope your favorite funny person is giving you the right amount of humor, sass, resistance, and joy when you need it and hope that they can continue to do so well into the future.