Veteran Joe Kashnow Leaves No Pun Undone in a Stand-Up Act Built on One Leg
Having a sense of humor and laughing frequently may boost a person’s immune system, aid with sleep, dull pain, relieve stress, and improve moods, according to the Mayo Clinic’s website (http://tinyurl.com/pfzj7cs). But humor and laughter are not a cure-all. As Baltimore comedian Joe Kashnow deadpans, “If you need an antibiotic, don’t go to a comedy club.
That’s not to say, however, that Kashnow disagrees with the Mayo Clinic’s appraisal. He offers a similar assessment of humor’s benefits, concluding, “Laughter may not be the best medicine, but it’s good medicine. If it were the best medicine, it would feel more like Demerol.”
That last quip is a nod to Kashnow’s physical condition, something he mines for laughs in his stand-up act. In 2003, he suffered severe wounds to his right leg from a roadside bomb explosion while serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq. In 2005, his lower leg was amputated.
He walks with a prosthesis and must still take medications for his injuries, but, as he’s quick to point out, his amputation gives him a leg up on wisecracking. He is admittedly “pathological” about indulging in amputee jokes, and he will pepper you with puns if you get him started.
Despite his fondness for humor, Kashnow didn’t follow his comedic instincts after leaving the Army in 2006. Instead, he found employment with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, ensuring the security of the nation’s strategic gold reserve. It was a good job, but he says he felt something was lacking: a sense of fulfillment.
Kashnow was considering trying stand-up comedy in 2011 when he received an e-mail announcing auditions for the Comedy Warriors, supported by the Wounded Warrior Project. The endeavor paired wounded veterans with established comedians, like Lewis Black and Zach Galifianakis, who mentored the service members in stand-up techniques. Kashnow, knowing how challenging stand-up is to break into, responded and won a spot in the project.
The professional stand-ups assisted the warriors in turning their battlefield trauma into comedic material, helping mend wounded psyches with the transformative power of humor. The process was captured in an award-winning 2013 Showtime documentary, Comedy Warriors: Healing Through Humor. (www.comedywarriors.com)
In January 2012, before filming began for Comedy Warriors, Kashnow made his first foray into stand-up comedy. In an open-mic competition at Magooby’s Joke House in Maryland, Kashnow incorporated the injuries he received during his military career into his act, joking that his service in Iraq was, “as the kids say, ‘the bomb.’”
He won that first competition with more riffs on his condition and on his prescription medicines’ side effects, especially short-term memory loss. He highlighted that by repeatedly interrupting his recitation of the side effects to note, “Oh, and it causes memory loss.”
The last bit is all too real. Kashnow sometimes has had to work around his short-term memory loss during his act. Still, he says he’s never forgotten where he was in the midst of a joke, and his quick wit always leads him back to the thread of his routine.
Since his first open-mic competition, he has continued to hone his craft in Maryland comedy clubs, while playing in other large markets such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Dallas with the Comedy Warriors. Plus, he opened a Baltimore show for Lewis Black, which he counts as one of his career highlights.
One joke Kashnow performs hints at the way humor has benefited him. Contrasting his work for the Department of the Treasury with his comedy career, Kashnow observes, “I was personally securing billions of dollars in gold in the U.S. strategic gold reserve. Now I’m a comic, and I make people laugh. And I must say, it’s fulfilling to finally do something worthwhile.”
Kashnow calls it a fun joke to tell, but he is serious when he says comedy is fulfilling.
“I make people laugh. I sell happiness to people,” he says. “I think that’s pretty cool.”
Such fulfillment hasn’t caused Kashnow to forget humor’s healing power. He hopes his material shows audience members that, just as he has, they too can overcome obstacles. And if transforming his own pain and difficulties into humor that, as he would say, helps his audiences “get a leg up” on their problems, then Kashnow surely will feel even more fulfilled.
Laughter may not be the best medicine, but it’s good medicine. If it were the best medicine, it would feel more like Demerol.
By Scott McNutt | Photos by Emma Dodge Hanson
Poster courtesy of Comedy Warriors LLC.
