Am I a Real Comedian?

Dear Intrepid Readers,

I have a confession I must now make, publicly, to all of you; I'm not a real comedian.

I know, I know. With a website called MarkViolaComedy.com, and literally dozens of pictures of me with a microphone in front of a brick wall, you may be tricked into thinking "well, this guy probably does a joke telling-based thing."

PICTURED: A hairy Bigfoot eating a black banana in front of surfboards

You would be wrong. It's been a painful truth that I've come to grips with, but I can no longer ignore the plain facts...I can't be a real comedian, and here's why: I Don't Have A Podcast My head is hung in shame and embarrassment. What a woefully sad piece of garbage I am, lacking a regular audio outlet with which to share my inane ramblings.

None of these white guys with beards and a microphone is me

It is my shortcoming, my cross to bear that I purposefully deprive tens, if not dozens of people a month the joy of hearing me regularly on their phones or other digital listening devices as I stumble and mumble my way through bullshit topics, mostly focused on describing the sausage-making-like process of writing jokes and traveling to tell them.

Even more so, I don't have anything to invite OTHER comedians to participate in so they can share their musings on, like, what's up and stuff; while also pitching their podcasts.

An easy fix, you may say, but where am I supposed to find a muffley and distorted recording device that will make me sound like a distant robot complaining about farts and whatever?

No simple solution.

I Write Jokes Instead of Shitting On Others

A cornerstone of being a "comedian" seems to be taking time away from developing hilarious new jokes, and instead dedicating that time to using social media to rag on other "comedians," so that they can use their time responding to said insults.

"Those better be finely crafted insults for the local Facebook comedy group you're working on!!!"

While I dream of a day where I too join the public discourse about how so-and-so is "a hack," I unfortunately whittle away the hours on non-comic tasks, like writing jokes, booking shows, and understanding the political and social zeitgeist of America to better observe and report on the human condition. My laziness knows no bounds.

I Like Things

Wouldn't comedy life be so much easier if it were possible to not just hate everything all the time? The taxing grind of finding new things just to figure out what's wrong with them and inform others is too much for me, and stops my upward movement in my chosen profession.

^EVERYTHING (though mostly just stuff you people like)

Don't get me wrong, I hate plenty of things...but not EVERYTHING. As a real comedian, it is my responsibility to detest every noun and verb, and what's more, to then take that hatred and use it as a fulcrum on which to leverage my spite at the half-dozen people who come out to a show, explaining to them how everything they are and everything they love just sucks.

I Don't Blame the Audience

At (most) comedy shows, surprisingly, there will be people there who aren't other comedians. We call these fleshy sacks of person "audience members," and for the real comics, it's always the crowd's responsibility if their set doesn't go well.

Their fault AGAIN...

You see, any true comedian (which, of course, I am not) will tell you it's the audience's fault that their joke about guys having dick-periods hasn't worked the last 60 time they've said it. The fault, you understand, is with the crowd's lack of taste and sophistication, the perpetual idiocy that comes from not being as blatantly brilliant as the joke teller, and how they become easily offended at a white guy yelling the N-word at them in an ejaculation of artistically aesthetic beauty.

I've never seen fit to blame the audience when I say and do things that aren't funny. I, the rank amature that I am, tend to look for things in MY performance that may not have been up to snuff. Yet another example of how I just haven't figured out this whole "comedy game."

Only time will tell if I, one day, can pull myself from the crippling condition of "non-comic" into the realm of the giants of this industry. But my hope wains because, well, a podcast is like, really hard to do you guys.