I ended up at an open mic last night. It was mostly people trying their hand at being comedians.
There was one guy who went up to do a set. I actually sat next to him when I first arrived. Mid 20s, white, great hair, so fit he looked like a bodybuilder. Apparently he was diagnosed with brain cancer (recently or not, I forget that part of the story – he didn’t seem like he was lying, before someone suggests that).
He was joking about the fertility clinic, after the doctor told him that he needed to bank some sperm if he doesn’t want his future kids to have child defects. Something associated with the cancer, or maybe the medication? His jokes were about how he was the only dude in a waiting room with lots of moms, and how they said he could have company if he needed it and how there couldn’t be any lube or saliva in the sample. It was pretty funny, even if my reprinting of it isn’t.
Seemed like a genuinely positive guy, who wasn’t going to let brain cancer have any part of his life as long as he could help it (unless it helps him in comedy of course).
I don’t really know what to make of it, honestly. Just one of those unexpected moments where you sit down next to someone, and they turn out to be a little more complicated, or impressive, or strange than you’d expect. And then they go up on stage and make a room full of people laugh about something that should be devastating. I’m still thinking about it.
