A heartfelt display of something I can't do.

March 16, 2011 5:11 PM

"Anybody else give up the use of their left side for Lent?" Carl Warmenhoven, the owner of a Seattle's Comedy Underground had a stroke -- and two weeks later does a stand-up routine about it. [SLYT, via SLOG]
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me (14 comments total)

Awesome post, thanks. Carl is perhaps the single nicest guy in the comedy business, too.
posted by msalt at 5:19 PM on March 16, 2011

He's all right now.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 5:24 PM on March 16, 2011 [7 favorites]

Being a recent victim perpetrator of a stroke myself, let me be the first to say gojiudb iusakjsa sghheffff
posted by hal9k at 6:12 PM on March 16, 2011 [3 favorites]

"I just want to say it's not only a treat [to be here]... it's also a great inconvenience for me."

Awesome. In general a great display of courage in the face of suffering and mortality. I wish him well.
posted by Naberius at 7:23 PM on March 16, 2011

That was hilarious. Especially when he mentioned how he had to have someone text for him while he drives. Welcome to Seattle, cyclists!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:21 PM on March 16, 2011

Wow, what a great set! Thank you so much for sharing this! I like the giggler in the audience that sounds like a musical instrument tuning up, too.
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:29 PM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

God, and I was bitching last night about having to do a set with a little bit of a sore throat.
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:31 PM on March 16, 2011

FYI Carl has been the manager or assistant manager ("ass man" in his terms) at the Seattle Comedy Underground for all 12 years I've been in standup. I knew he is/was a comic but I've never heard of him doing a set before.
posted by msalt at 10:44 PM on March 16, 2011

This is awesome, although as far as I can tell standard behaviour for people who have strokes - there is something about a stroke which causes people to yell "fuck you, stroke!". When my sister (at 22) had a stroke, she was in some pretty heavy denial about the fact, and was out to prove this by playing against me at sonic the hedgehog.

As she constantly reminds me years later, she was in fact able to beat the entire game with one hand tied behind her back. This did not help my argument that she really needed to see a goddamned doctor.
posted by jaymzjulian at 11:06 PM on March 16, 2011

Very funny and proving once again that comedy and suffering are both fed by the well spring of tragedy, in that, I get heartburn and that's a tragedy...you have a stroke and get up on a stage two weeks later and kill, and THAT's comedy...
posted by Skygazer at 1:48 AM on March 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

*cf: Mel Brooks
posted by Skygazer at 1:49 AM on March 17, 2011

"You see that light in the distance ... and it's red ... and you think "I've only got one minute to live."

This is so great, thanks for posting.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 6:32 AM on March 17, 2011

Beautiful. I love it when something makes me get all choked up, but then goes FUCK THE CRYING and makes me laugh instead.
posted by kinnakeet at 7:13 AM on March 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

I liked the part where he picked up his lifeless left arm by the middle finger and flipped everybody off.
posted by msalt at 2:28 PM on March 17, 2011