The Show Must Go On

I had to perform the night after the election. It was hard to laugh or try to be funny, especially since many people, including myself (I am not a liberal and not a conservative, by the way) and other comedians were not happy with the outcome.

There was an elephant in the room and you either had to address it or ignore it. I addressed it and moved on and it was fine. I went on auto-pilot after and the show was fine. In fact, people loosened up as the show went on and realized life will go on. Some people clearly came out to get away from it all while others were happy with the outcome and were celebrating in a way. As for comedians, I know a lot of them cried that night, especially those from groups marginalized and attacked during this election. As for the crowd, they didn't want to hear about politics but they also didn't want you to ignore it. It was a challenge to make people laugh but that was the job and we did it.

My heart goes out to those of my comedy friends who will be negatively affected negatively by the new administration and also for those non-political people who didn't realize that they voted against their interests. As a middle-eastern person who experienced a backlash after 9/11 and have family members who were attacked after the Iranian Hostage crisis in 1979, I hope the recent attacks on immigrants and LGBTQ community, specifically transgenders does not lead to more violence. The comedy world is also going through a shift, just like the country. For the last four years, many were attacking the woke and political correctness of leaders. There will be less excuses now. Funny is funny, so if you punch down, you still have to be funny. I hope the comedians who were punching up on those in power, stay punching up on the new leaders, regardless of the letter in front of their name. #standup #comedy #formerpoliticalwonk #formerlawyer #election
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