Hats Off To The Comedians

With comedians off-stage during in 2020, quarantine has me starving for good stand up. With everything that’s come on Netflix, it seems as though I’ll die of hunger. I’d say about 80% of specials on Netflix right now are unwatchable. 

I apppreciate that Netflix has started flooding their platform with stand up. Outside of HBO, every other streaming service has a minimal amount of comedy specials. But Netflix has to do a better job of who they’re giving stage time to. It’s just loud noise at the moment. I couldn’t make it past the first 10 minutes of the majority of the Netflix specials that landed on “Top 20” lists for 2020. They’re pushing too much out, it’s quantity of quality at the moment. 

To tell the truth, I enjoy watching bad stand up specials. It makes me feel better about myself. I picture interviewing some of these comedians. In my reveries I ask them if they ever watch their specials on Netflix and cringe about how bad their jokes are.I know I did, cringed the whole damn time. It’s mean I know. I probably have a deeper rooted problem here, but it makes me laugh to imagine it.

You might be thinking if it’s so easy, why don’t you do it. And I do, kind of, in my head. I imagine me doing standup and I’m eons better than the new stuff coming out. Despite never doing standup in my life. I don’t think I’ve ever even held a microphone before. Hell, I got a C+ in my college Public Speaking course. But in my head, I’m a rockstar comedian. However during my fantasies of selling out arenas, I noticed something: comedians don’t wear hats on stage. 

Dealbreaker. My hairline is an absolute nightmare. It would be funnier than anything I could possibly say on stage. I’m not sure why comics don’t wear hats. Some things would just look too ridiculous I guess, like goth republicans. 

I’m aware Patrice O’Neal is an exception to this rule. But Patrice O’Neal is the exception to every rule. No one could emulate literally anything Patrice did on a stage, I guess that includes wearing hats. 

It must be hard for comedians, I assume they hear/read a lot of distorted criticism. Comedians are probably the most targeted substrata of famous people where regular ol’ people can point to them on a TV screen and say “I can do that, and probably better”. Which is unfair. But also, I absolutely could do that and better. I’ve come to terms with never being able to sell out MSG with my comedic genius though. Not because of my untapped talent, obviously, but because I’d look ridiculous on stage wearing a hat.