Is Your Old Man Really Dead?

I have a confession: I love watching stand-up comedy. It's become one of my favorite past times. I love to laugh. 

Here's the thing, though: funny people are not always easy to come by. Stand-up is truly an art and I imagine harder than anyone would ever think possible. In fact, I once spoke with a guy at a party who was an amateur comedian in that he had a knack for telling jokes and making people laugh. But when he did open-mic stand-up for the first time, he said it was one of the hardest things he had ever done. Five minutes on stage feels like five hours anywhere else. It is like the brutal simplicity of track and field--just you, a mic, and stage to prove your raw talent with no excuses.

But I find myself in a conundrum: The "clean" comedy I'm supposed to like as a Catholic (Jim Gaffigan, Jennifer Fulwiler, Laura Horn, etc) I just don't connect with or find especially funny. I mean, I'll chuckle at some things, but when I am watching comedy I want to hurt--cramped sides, short of breath, floor slapping, can't talk ROFL'ing. There are a few clean-ish comedians I find clever and funny--Sebastian Maniscalco and Jerry Seinfeld, come to mind, and I wish there were more. On the flip side, there are a lot of raunchy comedians I find over compensate for their lack of talent with non stop cursing and filthy scenarios they use for shock value, which ends up coming off overplayed and tired. I also do not find women comedians funny. Sorry not sorry.

The comedy I really find nails it for me just happens to fall into the 'unclean' camp. Dave Chappelle and Bill Burr are two of my favorites. Say what you want about their language or content, these two guys are professionals and masters of their craft who have been in the game a long time. As a comedian you have one fundamental job--to make people laugh--and that is not always an easy task. Sometimes it is by any means necessary. 

The thing about Chappelle and Burr, for me at least, is they don't rely on cheap tricks or techniques. They have their finger on the pulse of the culture, and they are not afraid to say the things everyone is secretly thinking but afraid to admit out loud. Their genius lies in that but also in their incisive insight, tempo, and delivery. Chappelle takes his time and is more measured, reflective--philosophical almost--and comes across almost as a story teller in his stand up. Burr, on the other side, comes out of the gate in epic rant fashion, punching and sprinting and doesn't let up until the finish line. Both use course language and vulgarity as tools in their toolbox and to accomplish the task at hand. I'd rather have a skilled plumber, a skilled therapist, a skilled surgeon who is a secular expert than an amateur who happens to be Catholic and who I am patronizing simply because of that fact. 

There's no Catholic lesson or moral to these confessions here. I watch comedy to split my sides, and these two men in particular do the job. Of course, my kids can't be around when we are watching this kind of stand up, and most good Catholics and serious people of faith would be scandalized by the things they talk about. It's the fact that I'm not which gives me pause.

When I was visiting a monastery in New Mexico as an Observer, one of the younger monks and I would go hiking in the foothills in the Chama canyon in between work and the Divine Office. One day I asked him about his life before taking vows, and he was elusive and seemed uncomfortable. I found this common over the years--when one becomes a monk, he buries the old man and takes on a new name, new family, new life in Christ. It is stark and deliberate. Your old life is no more. 

As a convert to the Faith, I have a past life. I get jokes, music, slang and references that sometimes go over the heads of my good Catholic friends raised in the faith from birth and who are living it out. Because of this character trait of innocence, I sometimes feel inclined to tell them, "you shouldn't hang around with me." There is a lot I have left behind that I have no desire to take up again, and even putting those things to death wasn't an overnight process. But there are things, too, from having been immersed in the world for half my life, that have stuck around and clung stubbornly to my leg. I want to be clean, I want to be innocent. But I also don't want to pretend to like things for the sake of appearances, or act a certain way because that's what I'm supposed to do.

I heard Jason Evert talking with Matt Fradd on Pints With Aquinas about purity and modesty, and I liked what he said. It was something to the effect of "modesty is a matter of the heart." Meaning, I think, it's more than just what you wear or how you act. As it says in Scripture, "For from the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies" (Mt 15:19). And “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness" (Mt 6:22-23).

I'm not trying to justify my liking unclean comedy; like I said, it is more of a confession than any kind of promotion. In Ephesians 5:4, Paul admonishes believers": “neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.” And in Colossians 3:8, “But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.” Even though I'm not one for much cursing myself, I'm indulging in it by proxy and deriving pleasure from it. 

I can only think this is because my heart is not pure, not complete, not fully healed from my past. My old man lives, poking up fingers from the grave at times like this. I don't just want to stop watching or listening to things not befitting of a Christian--I want to want to do so. 

So, I'm a work in progress. There are things from my past I am not proud of that I'm glad are dead and buried. Other things I'm still working on. I still pray, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and a steadfast spirit put within me" (Ps 51:10).