FF4: A Craving for Comedy

I have a running list of topics I might want to write an FF on. I know I’ll need an arsenal because it turns out writing something meaningful to me every week is a heck of a lot of commitment. But if you know me, I’m big into overcommitting myself! Anyways, this week I was looking at my list, thinking of more topics, but nothing was sticking. I’m just not feeling wordy, which is surprising because I usually have a lot to say. I’m sure I will again soon, but this week I just wanted to smile.

This week has been tough. Topping it off with a real journey home: four hours of traffic to JFK, a missed flight, a night spent flying across the country, a lost bag, and a few more hours in the car back to Santa Barbara. I feel the anxiety creep up just writing all that out. I’m rethinking all the ways I could have done things differently to avoid this mess, but in reality – shit just happens, and I have to roll with it. Luckily a solution was attainable and minimally consequential. Normally, I would have let all these bumps in the road overcome me, but in the past month, I’ve been trying new and different methods to calm my anxiety – my usual go-to’s are exercise and food (cooking & eating), but that’s not always efficient, productive, or available. Today was a perfect example of that. Instead, my new favorite mechanism I found is to try to zone out with humor. For some reason for the past few weeks, I’ve been craving comedy.

Growing up, my social, political, economical, cultural, environmental, and any other -al news came from comedy. My family’s DVR is always stocked with generations of episodes of Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, The Tonight Show, Late Night, etc. My mom can’t watch Conan anymore because she watched his show every night with me while I was a defiant baby, wanting attention and refusing to sleep. Oops. Sunday’s were celebrated by screenings of the previous night’s SNL episodes, and the best skits were rewatched every night for the following week. We still quote our favorite lines, often.

My first addiction to real late night comedy, for some (confusing) reason, came with The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and his segment “headlines,” in which he would read out absurdly mistyped newspaper clippings. I have no idea why I was so drawn to that or to Jay Leno, but it got me a seat on the couch with my parents every night to watch TV.

High school was a particular peak in my love for late night comedy. Senior year especially, when I was really settled in the minimal homework lifestyle (we love early admissions!). I sat down on the couch every night after dinner with my parents, and we just clicked off the shows one by one. Honestly, I shouldn’t even call it ‘late night’ because broadcasting started at 8pm on the West Coast. It was perfect. Saturday Night Live was in a considerable lull, so weekdays we focused on comedy and weekends we focused on reruns of SNL classics. Luckily, I quickly outgrew my Jay Leno phase, and transitioned into more suitable favorites, sadly still a heck of a lot of white men holding the time.

When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in November 2016, I stopped watching comedy shows. I couldn’t watch them because nothing seemed funny anymore. (*note to self: add this turning point in my life to the list of possible FF topics). No Daily Show, no SNL, no Last Week Tonight. I stopped laughing. It was too raw and it was too real.In the last few years, the mockery just lost it’s appeal to me.

Over the past few weeks though, I’ve been on such a kick! I binged Patriot Act, Homecoming, podcast episodes with Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, and Will Ferrell and more! I even listened to a podcast with Jay Leno! What is up with me! That also confirmed my confusion about why I liked him back then because I don’t really now. All of this brought me to last Saturday night on my couch in my apartment when I watched at least three hours of the best and my favorite SNL skits.

I’ve attached my favorite SNL skit of all time. I’m not quite sure what it says about my humor and me as a person, but it’s the best mix of absurd, real, and funny (even the actors can’t help but laugh).

It also reminds me of laughs with my family (something I was also craving this week), and all the times people have asked me what I want to do with my life, and I simply respond that “I want to live in a van down by the river.”

That’s all I got today. But guess what! I will have so much time to write FFs to my heart’s content when I’M LIVING IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER.

With empowerment (and some delirium), Natasha