“To the Philanthropic Souls Dating Stand-Up Comics,” by Danny Dalah

Apr 10th, 2019 | By | Category: Nonfiction, Prose

You are the men and women we, the comedic community, need, but do not deserve. Thank you for your endless charitable work and for helping us overcome poverty, depression, and thirst by covering our five dollar IPAs after our performances. With Mother Teresa’s patience, you endure awful open mics in rundown hellholes, where you have forced applause for a terrible sock puppet act, an annoying whiny guitar comic, and your slightly below average significant other’s pun about “holy socks.”

With Jesus-like virtues, you have practiced incredible self-restraint by not rolling your eyes, when comedians spout misogyny on stage, cry about their daddy issues, tell cringeworthy rape jokes, and perform every shade of awful in between. Even though your insides were screaming out in tears of pain and not laughter, you were able to choke back your vomit long enough to pretend to laugh at your significant other’s phallic one liner, which you have heard hundreds of times. Not only have you feigned laughter at this one liner every time you have sat in a three-person audience, but you have also feigned laughter at it on every single one of your dates.

With Gandhi’s kindness and Confucius’ patience, you have somehow repeatedly driven through rush-hour traffic across Los Angeles, fought for a ten-dollar parking spot, and paid for hundreds of entry fees and two drink minimums to watch your significant other tell the same “Tinder: Am I right?” joke at asthma-inducing comedy clubs full of smoke, hipster coffee shops that only sell twelve dollar kombucha, a broom-closet-turned-open mic, and a “bathroom comedy show,” where comics performed in a shower for a ten person audience. Thank you for even dragging your parents to multiple comedy shows, so that your significant other would reach the “bring three people” limit to get five minutes of precious stage time in that sewage-smelling alley behind a dingy dive bar.

After they perform their endless one liners about previous one night stands and their singing sock puppet bit about their “bitchy ex-girlfriend,” you undergo the most charitable act of sleeping with them. When your significant other shares the intimate details of your sex life on stage for a cheap laugh, you practice the self restraint of Nelson Mandela by not committing murder, the reasonable action most people would take toward their significant other in this scenario.

At every show’s end, when your significant other approaches you and asks how they performed, you deserve a Nobel Peace Prize and a license in therapy from multiple high-ranking colleges for the amount of validation you have to provide your low self-esteem partner. In fact, thank you for repeatedly telling your significant other that they are funny, when they have asked mid-sex, mid-Disneyland ride, mid-funeral, and mid-birth. You are the few, the proud, the significant others of comics.

Laughing My Way Through Misery,

A Comedian

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Danny Dalah is a writer and comedian who has performed at various comedy clubs such as The Comedy Store, The Ice House, and The Ha Ha Cafe. He has also been published on comedy sites such as Points in Case. For more of his work, visit https://www.dannydalah.com/

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