So Funny It's Scary

Welcome to the first installment of LOL, USA, in which I attempt to explain to you how truly bizarre my life as a traveling comic is. I tour the US with my road weary sketch comedy cohorts, the Late Night Players, as we perform for colleges, clubs, theaters, festivals, and the occasional bar or bat mitzvah. Really.

We’re on the road 200 days a year, about 150 of which are show days, and the act’s about an hour long. That means for every sixty minutes of funny, there’s ten times more of time spent waking up in the van with an odd taste in your mouth and having no clue where in America you are until you can can tell from the architecture of a rest stop. For every laugh we get, we’ve seen ten bloody deer carcasses along I-90, and for each guffaw we wrench out of a crowd, there’s been infighting, engine trouble, and peeing in empty bottles when there wasn’t time to stop. Turns out that being funny really isn’t that funny. And last night, it was just plain scary.

I was coming “home” to an old hotel after a long travel day and a great gig at a nearby college. But just as I started to fall asleep, there came a soft flash of light from the bathroom, which, I should mention, had been pretty creepy well before it started glowing. When I got up to investigate, I witnessed the antique lights over the mirror silently turning themselves on and off.

Aaron Kagan and the Late Night Players are based out of Boston and play regularly, oh, everywhere. To verify, check out www.latenightplayers.com.