Poor Yorick

Pain Is Funny

Especially the way Tom Segura tells it

“When I explained to a friend recently that the subject matter of most comedy is tragic (drunkenness, overweight, financial problems, accidents, etc.) he said, “Do you mean to tell me that the dreadful events of the day are a fit subject for humorous comment? The answer is ‘No, but they will be pretty soon.’”

— Steve Allen

Did you know that snow is God’s semen?

That piece of disgusting make-believe is just one among the numerous knowledge nuggets you will have the joy of digesting when you watch Tom Segura’s Netflix special Sledgehammer.

I also learned that Tom’s dad never shaved his bush; after a vasectomy everything still tastes the same; and if you ever shower with a six-year-old, you should probably make sure he’s yours first.

The hour was shot in the round at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona. The venue is beautiful, and the Edison bulbs reflecting off Tom’s bald head barely distracted me.

My review? I laughed.

I don’t always laugh. In fact, I laugh less and less at comedy specials lately. It’s not stand-ups’ fault. It’s my fault.

My attention span has been obliterated by Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, and now Threads. Watching an hour-long comedy special feels like trying to read War and Peace in one sitting. Gone are the days when I would put on a Richard Pryor album — yes, an actual album — and sit in my bed criss-cross apple sauce, absorbing profanity for forty-five minutes with a smile on my face. Now I rarely make it past the first fifteen minutes.

Before I started Sledgehammer, I was afraid the material would be too self-referential. Tom co-hosts an outrageous podcast with his wife Christina Plsdkgnlasd;nfasdfjkbasky, and it is an uproarious hour of inside jokes. I was expecting to hear ‘Hot sauce is the best,’ or ‘Good morning Julia,’ — if you don’t know, you don’t know — but I never did. The material stands alone, and it stands tall. As tall as Tom’s hooty-owl eyebrows, that spring halfway up his forehead like a pair of woolly joke emphasizers.

Tom’s face does half the work. Every joke hits you twice: first when you hear it, and then again when Tom reacts to his own shameful frivolity. Some critics — shit ones — might call this superfluous. That’s a hat on a hat, these dull scribblers might say.

Me? I love it. It’s like having ten cherries on top of a hot fudge sundae, and if you don’t like cherries, you’re a bad person.

The special was reminiscent of Louis CK’s 2014 masterpiece ‘Oh My God’. They were both shot in the round, and they both showcase performers with exceptional control and confidence. Ever since he blew a couple loads into his wife, Tom has also begun incorporating his children into his act. Like Louis, Tom talks about his children without playing for applause or sympathy. Instead, he mocks his three-year-old’s beer gut, and recreates the distraught scream he let out when one of his boys flushed his keys down the toilet.

If these gloriously immature jokes were Sledgehammer’s only substance, the special would be funny, but forgettable. Tom’s latest hour rises above the other 50 Netflix specials released in the last year because it is a perfect demonstration of a basic comedic principle.

Pain can be funny.

A closer look at Tom’s subject matter reveals that the last two years of his life have been painful. In December 2020, Tom broke his arm and shattered his patellar tendon in slam dunk contest.

Rather than ignore the incident, Tom posted the video on Youtube. Rather than dwell on how sad it is to be immobile in a hospital bed for three weeks, Tom sarcastically praises Dilaudid, and invites us into the state of mind of the male nurse who just found out he’s going to spend his shift wiping Tom’s ass.

Nine months after his accident, Tom’s wife fell down the stairs and broke her arm. Again, sadness and pain, but again Tom focuses on the humor of trying to maintain his innocence when the paramedics arrive and his wife announces: “He would never hurt me.” Spoiler alert: Tom would never hurt his wife, unless he meets a supermodel, and even in that scenario he only hopes that she’ll drown.

Perhaps the most painful experience in Tom’s last two years was his father’s death. When I saw the I’m Coming Everywhere tour, his father had just died. A true comedian, Tom was already riffing about it. Unfortunately, the emotion was still raw, and the audience could sense the suffering lurking beneath the surface.

Tragedy plus time equals comedy. By the time Tom shot his special, his pain had bloomed. Now he ties his father’s passing into a long running gag that accuses Garth Brooks of being a serial killer. It’s hilarious, and it manages to feel lighthearted. Later in the special he pictures his father in heaven, standing nude next to God, unable to keep from complimenting the Lord’s gigantic blue penis. It’s a truly cathartic belly laugh.

Before watching Sledgehammer, ask yourself: Are you easily disgusted when a comedian talks about anilingus in vivid detail? If you said yes, switch over to Ted Lasso and get yourself some wholesome chuckles.

If you said: ‘That sounds interesting, tell me more’, then Sledgehammer is right for you.

He’s crude, he’s hilarious, and after twenty-one months of touring, his jeans are high and tight.

Enjoyed yourself? Then read this, Stupid:

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