Interview with comedian Ben Wasserman

Death Is Hilarious

Today my guest is Ben Wasserman, an alternative standup comedian based in New York who has performed in the Brooklyn Comedy Festival, Laughing Devil Festival, and the New York, Philly, and Burlington Fringe Festivals. His work has also appeared in Vice and Vulture but you may recognize him best from when he painted with his butt on MTV.
We chat about:
Ben’s dad passed away from stage 5 lung cancer about 12 hours before inauguration day in 2017
- Hosting a comedy show weeks after losing his dad while wearing a shirt that said “My dad died the day T*ump took office"
- How we can’t help but incorporate our grief into our performance
- Why loss is unfathomable until you experience it first hand
- The tendency people have to compare losses (spoiler-they aren’t comparable)
- Using comedy to cope and how it shouldn’t be a replacement for therapy
- Using humor to deflect vs cope with your problems
- Identifying the body (funny story)
- Being surprised at having the capacity to incorporate grief into comedy
- How h*rny grief makes people
For more information about Death Is Hilarious, visit deathishilarious.com To get in touch, email [e-mail]. You can support the podcast by subscribing, becoming a patron at patreon.com/deathishilarious, or by simply sharing the show with your friends and on social media.