Tough Crowd
"I wouldn't give your troubles to a monkey on a rock.”--David Letterman Now that was a bad set. Over the years, I’ve been told many times that I’m funny, with several people even suggesting that I should give stand-up comedy a try. I never pursed the comedy route, though, favoring fiction over joke-telling. I’ve gone to a few comedy clubs, and I find them a bit tiresome after a while, where even laughter becomes a chore. And let’s be honest, fear is also a factor here because I dread the idea of facing a roomful of heckling drunks. I had a shrink who once gave a blunt assessment as to why I didn’t take the stage. “You’d be good at it,” he said. That observation hit a nerve, which, of course, is what I was paying the guy for. I do have a long and miserable history of self-sabotage, but I have also suffered from that most malicious malady known as the Disease to Please, where I crack jokes hoping—usually in vain—that people will like me. I also kid around wit...