Touring comedian: 'Comedy is a great defense mechanism'

Comedian Jeremiah Coughlan will stop in the Chippewa Valley for two shows on what he has called the Smokestacks and Water Towers Tour. But why the name?

“Just because that seems to be the tallest structures in all the cities I’m going to,” he said with a laugh. “And I love a good water tower!”

The tour, which started at the end of April, has seen him going through Idaho and Colorado before hitting Janesville and Minneapolis. He will come to The View in Lake Wissota and The Plus in Eau Claire next week.

“I’ve come out to Minneapolis every year since 2018. Wisconsin is on my list and I’m really excited,” Coughlan said.

The Portland-based comedian has been performing stand-up for over a decade, and when asked to describe his style of comedy, he said that “comedy has become a lens that I look at life through.”

Coughlan does not hesitate to take his own life experiences and weave them into his sets, be it a road trip or a visit to the dentist.

“Something will happen in that time where I think: oh, this is something I can talk about on stage, just because I’m kind of (screwed) in the head a little bit and things will just pop out of that.”

This delve into real life, however, has garnered him a little trouble. He recently come out with his second comedy album. Entitled “PEMDAS: Please Excuse My Drug Addicted Sister,” the name comes from something he overheard another patron yelling in a bowling alley in Oregon. Coughlan’s family, however, was not thrilled with the title.

“I have four sisters and one of them was like: What? I don’t do drugs. What are you trying to say?” he recalled with a laugh.

”TAKE THE GUN OUT OF SOMEBODY ELSE’S HANDS”

Coughlan is no stranger to making fun of himself, describing himself in his older press materials as resembling “what would happen if Chris Farley ate Bob Ross.”

“I got big curly hair, but I’m also a big guy,” Coughlan reasoned. “I grew up on Bob Ross, and then Farley obviously was one of those heroes growing up. I wouldn’t say that what I do is similar — I do do a tiny little Tommy Boy impression my act — but he is (a hero) when you’re a big guy.”

However, because of his size, he is also used to people being cruel about that fact, hurling unsolicited comments his way either in person or online. While he says that he tries to just wave off such things, he also remarked that larger people and comedy go hand-in-hand because of such interactions.

“Comedy is a great defense mechanism. No one likes to get their feelings hurt. So it’s like: I’ll just hurt my own feelings and then take the gun out of somebody else’s hands,” he said. “People still try, though. I don’t know if you’ve been in a YouTube comments section recently.

“I’ll post a one-minute clip that’s literally just me self-deprecating, and the comments will be like, ‘God, you’re fat.’ And I’m like, ‘Did you watch the clip? I literally said that.’”

But in his typical fashion, Coughlan followed it up with the best way he knows how: with humor.

“Stand-up isn’t for attractive people. Pretty people shouldn’t be trying to make jokes,” he said with a laugh.

“Get your own thing — be a rock star or whatever. I don’t care. This is our thing! This is our cathartic thing where we get to talk about how the world hurts us. We don’t need you in here being pretty.”