For all the insecure young men in the standup comedy world who fear that earnest social justice content is displacing the japes and jokes they've worked so hard on, because "this is what comedy is now"

I have a story for you

A story passed on to me by a standup comedy coach in Cleveland, when I, too, had dreams of shoring up my tottering self esteem through the merry laughter of strangers

This is the story of The Boy Who Wanted to be George Carlin

You see, long ago and far away, in a time known as the early 1980s in the distant land of Boca Raton, Florida, there was a college freshman who thought he was funny

His whole life he had been "the funny guy" at school, using his ability to point out the physical or social shortcomings of others to make up for his own lack of wealth or good looks and remain friends with people who would otherwise be far more popular than he

Sensing, however, that this meant his social status was fragile and hollow - and, more importantly, that he himself was kind of a phony asshole - he went searching for validation that being funny was not just a cheap way to become well liked but had meaning, power, virtue

Lo and behold, he discovered the CARLIN AT CARNEGIE special that aired on HBO in 1982

Along with millions of other white dudes of his generation, he thrilled at the boldness of hearing the FCC's Seven Dirty Words on TV for the first time

Not just that, but Carlin's vicious biting-the-hand attitude where he tore into the commercialism and hypocrisy of the very industry that made his career

His candor about hot button political issues, his willingness to tap dance on third rail topics like abortion, religion

How Carlin was, like Bill Hicks and Lenny Bruce before him, "more preacher than comic", willing to bravely forgo laugh lines for dangerously long stretches of time to scream about the brutality and decadence of America under Reagan

Yes, the young man thought, this is my calling

I'm not just a class clown or a bully scoring cheap laughs

I will take this gift of Being Funny and use it to tear down idols and expose corruption

I will be a prophet

He bought the album (A PLACE FOR MY STUFF) that CARLIN AT CARNEGIE was based on, and listened to it religiously, forgoing his studies to immerse himself in the wisdom of the master

He bought Carlin's other albums, and Bruce's, and Hicks', and Richard Pryor's

He listened to them all, preparing himself for his new calling as a caustic social critic, although it was that original Seven Dirty Words routine that was dearest to his heart

Finally, after months of preparation and practice and anxiety and doubt, he took the big step

He signed up for a local open mic at a small club

Palms sweating, lump in his throat, he looked out at the Thursday night crowd of drunken Boca Raton and reassured himself

Just do what George Carlin did, he told himself

Look like he looked, sound like he sounded, feel what he felt when he commanded the stage

So he went up there and did it

Grabbed that mic and owned it like George Carlin

Stared down the audience and spat hot fire like George Carlin

Let profanity roll out of his mouth with relish like George Carlin

And he fucking killed

The crowd laughed, gasped, applauded at all the right moments

They were still with him when he cut the jokes and started preaching to them, filled with the same spirit of righteous anger and catharsis as the crowd at Carnegie

He had them eating out of his hand, and when his stage time was up he got the biggest ovation of the night

It was, far and away, the best day of his entire life

And as he left the stage, carried aloft by the euphoria of the crowd's applause, the club manager quietly beckoned him aside

And as he stood there, beaming, half expecting to be offered a headline gig on the spot, the manager told him he was now banned from this open mic

"And if you ever pull that shit again I will personally kick your ass"

But why, the young man pleaded

The crowd loved him

He pulled it off

He'd sounded just like George Carlin up there

Yes, the manager replied, because his whole set was, in fact, a word for word excerpt from Carlin's Seven Dirty Words routine, which he had memorized

As the young man slowly felt the entire world begin to dissolve around him he asked, wait, are we not allowed to do that

Don't musicians cover other artists' songs all the time

No, the manager said, in comedy that's called stealing, and if you try it with a crowd in New York or Chicago or really anywhere outside a Boca Raton suburb where no one has HBO you'll get your ass kicked

You're not half bad onstage, the manager grudgingly added as he bade the young man farewell, but from now on write your own material

Write your own material

Write your own material

WRITE YOUR OWN MATERIAL

The young man spent days with an open notebook in hand, desperately trying to think of material

But, in fact, the only material he had was stuff he'd memorized off of the albums he'd spent all this time listening to

Everything sounded just like George Carlin, or Bill Hicks, or Lenny Bruce

All his attempts to riff on their material came back sounding like a poor attempt to disguise their material

He tried to tap into that wellspring of rage

The fury at the network suits and the born agains and the Reagan regime that seemed to make Carlin's invective flow off his tongue like pure adlib stream of consciousness

(Even though, he was beginning to realize, it probably wasn't)

And he slowly came to the horrifying conclusion... He didn't have any actual rage

*George Carlin* had the rage, based on his many years of actual life experience

*George Carlin* had the political opinions, and the simmering industry resentments, and all of that stuff

He didn't actually hate Reagan or the Vietnam War or anything

He just liked George Carlin being mad about those things

He wasn't a disciple, or a zealot, or a true believer

He was just a comedy fan

Struck by his whole worldview and self-image crumbling to pieces, he found himself unable to sleep and began taking long, lonely walks

Confronting the fact that he hadn't really changed after watching that comedy special, and was still just some asshole who wanted attention

What was left for him now, with his dream of being George Carlin revealed as a sham?

Throw himself back into his classes, graduate, be the "funny guy at the office" for the rest of his life, always wondering what could have been

It slowly dawned on him, one night, that his dark thoughts had let him wander far afield from his college campus

He was lost

Dangerously lost, in fact, in some ritzy suburban neighborhood liable to call the cops on a drunk looking 19-year-old

And that night, as he stood in the orange yellow glow of a streetlight trying to get his bearings, he saw it

Staring him in the face

And it struck him like lightning

His new future, his new calling, the answer to all his problems

Filled with a sudden giddy recklessness he hadn't felt since that disastrous night at the comedy club, he reached into his pocket for his trusty Swiss Army knife, and pulled out the pliers attachment

Several days later, at a different comedy club, the young man sat in a chair

Not pacing the floor as he had when aping Carlin's caged-tiger energy

No, now he was different, calm, centered

The same confidence, but now no longer trying to inhabit another man, only himself

"So you ever gone to a fancy neighborhood and seen one of those PROTECTED BY NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH signs?" he said

"I did, just the other day. But apparently they weren't watching very hard"

And, quick as lightning, without skipping a beat, he produced that very sign

The first of many, many one-liner prop reveals to come

Yes, boys and girls, that young man, born Scott Thompson... was Carrot Top

So do not despair, young ones, when a George Carlin or a Richard Pryor - or, yes, a Hannah Gadsby - "turns comedy upside down" by having a social conscience, a raw vulnerability, a deeply humane and individual point of view

You don't need any of those things

The comedy world is vast and diverse and filled with people of varying tastes, many of them incredibly basic and dumb

There will always be courageous and unconventional storytellers, and there will always be lucky randos who make millions of dollars for their hacky bullshit

It doesn't have to be prop gags

It could be racist puppets

The important thing is that if you're a basic ass white man with nothing in particular to say, there's no reason to give up

Just find your gimmick

You could even just steal jokes from Twitter or Reddit from anonymous people who, unlike George Carlin, can't call you out on it

Or you could just continue to be the unfunny high school bully you used to be, but on a podcast

The most painful moment of Scott Thompson's life was knowing he would never be George Carlin, much as yours was probably knowing you would never be Hannah Gadsby

But you have all kinds of advantages Carrot Top didn't have

The Internet has flung the door wide for dumb hacks

So chin up, dudebros, and remember that Carrot Top never did become George Carlin but he's probably hundreds of times richer than Hannah Gadsby will ever be, and with a few lucky breaks you could be too

Excelsior!