Make it weird
(and silly and fun)
The public discourse around community often seems to be defined by glorified accounts of its virtues. Some call it our “civic responsibility.” Others call it our “highest calling.”
All of these things may very well be true. But it’s also true that the act of gathering a random group of people around some shared belief, interest, identity, or place is inherently weird. Us humans are weird as individuals, and we’re even weirder when we come together. And that’s a good thing.
Communities need the weird, the silly, and the fun to come together and stay together as much as they need the oft-lauded virtues of commitment, sacrifice, and care. Often, it’s the former that cultivates the camaraderie and trust that enables the latter.
In hindsight, the Armed Services Arts Partnership (ASAP) was built on this weirdness. It was a military arts organization started by me, a then 20-year-old with neither military nor arts experience. And it was fundamentally premised on the idea that a bunch of grown-ass adults — many of whom had recently returned from deployments — would gather every weekend for no reason other than to joke around in stand-up comedy, improv, and storytelling classes. After initially resisting this weirdness out of fear — “what would funders think?” — we embraced it as a strength, embedding it into our programs, events, rituals, and responsibilities.
Earlier this week, I was reminded of one of my favorite silly rituals at ASAP: the annual bestowing of the “PJ Walsh Award for Service and Other Nice Things.” We created the award to recognize the selfless generosity of PJ Walsh, a Navy Veteran turned world-touring comedian, to support the veterans in ASAP’s Comedy Bootcamp program. Within months of introducing PJ to the program, he was headlining shows for us, hosting workshops with our comics, and offering them one-on-one mentoring support. Then, without prompting, he decided to plan a full tour of Funny Bones up-and-down the East Coast, solely to give our veteran comics an opportunity to experience what it’s like to tour and perform at major comedy clubs. We wanted to express our gratitude for his service to our community — and we wanted to do it in the silliest way possible — so we created an award for “service and other nice things” and etched his face into it.
Seven years later, the PJ Walsh Award for Service and Other Nice Things has become a silly ritual imbued with meaning. It’s a chance for the organization to take a step back and celebrate someone who has gone above and beyond in their contributions to the ASAP community. And it’s a chance for that person to be publicly celebrated for the oft-thankless work that powers the community. (Plus, every day, when past award recipients walk past PJ’s face on their mantle, they can be reminded of the service and other nice things that they’ve done).
Weirdness and silliness ultimately became the M.O. of ASAP during my time there. Our most popular piece of swag was a “Thank You For Your Service Dog” t-shirt, with a dog speaking into a microphone. Our alumni who were apprenticing to become instructors with the program were lovingly referred to as “Teachers-in-Training” or “TiTs” for short. And my final act as executive director was to be comically “roasted” by the community (it was an honor).
The weird, the silly, and the fun were the glue that bound the community together. Time and again, I saw people build relationships through being weird together — telling jokes, sharing funny stories, playing improv games, and the like. And time and again, I witnessed how important these relationships were when people needed them most: from providing rides to doctor’s appointments, to housing community members who were in a pinch, to offering presence and care during periods of loss.
Care, commitment, and sacrifice like this may very well be the highest virtues of community. But these virtues don’t just magically emerge; they must be cultivated. And this cultivation happens through the often weird work of bringing often weird humans together, weirdly and consistently over time.
Community may be our “highest calling.” It’s also, thankfully, our weirdest one.
I can't believe that it's almost been a decade of knowing some of the members in the ASAP community! There is a deep love and "the weird," as you called it, has anchored a lot of us through some of the hardest challenges in our lives.
I love rooting for how members of the ASAP community evolved over the years. Forever grateful for what you started, Sam, and grateful for the opportunities and support that PJ provided.
How did I miss the roast of Sam P??