Mad Atoms

Last night I performed stand-up at the Karma Coffeehouse and offended a homeless person.

She came up to me after the show and told me. “You’re funny,” she said, “but do you mind if I give you some constructive criticism?”

I don’t normally converse with homeless people, but this one said I was funny, so I said “sure.”

“Your joke about the homeless person is offensive,” she said.

The bit in question is about this homeless guy, Murray, who lives outside of my apartment building. Murray’s got the laziest hustle I’ve ever seen. The guy just lays there in his sleeping bag all day, uttering out the occasional “d’ya have any change?” to passersby.

In the bit, I tell Murray to sit up. “I go to work all day,” I say, “the least you could do is sit up when you ask for your change.”

I don’t like hurting people’s feelings. So I tried to convince my bag lady critic that she wasn’t like the homeless guy in my bit. “You get up and do stuff, like go to comedy shows,” I said, trying to remain positive and affirming.

“Yeah, but sometimes I don’t like to sit up,” she said.

 I could relate. Who doesn’t have days when they don’t want to get out of bed? I guess the only difference between Murray and me is that he actually does what I only wish was possible: lie in bed all day and have people drop money by your head. 

“And another thing,” the homeless lady continued, “I noticed you brought a piece of paper with you on stage.”

“Yeah, I was working on some new stuff.” I said. 

“None of the other comedians brought paper with them on stage,” she said.

What I wanted to say was “Um, yeah. It’s a comedy show in coffeehouse with homeless people in the audience, so sorry if I wasn’t bringing my A-game." But I probably would have just offended her further. And while I have hopes and dreams of someday performing in homeless free audiences, I have to take into consideration that right now, my fan base is sleeping outside of Big Lots.