Sometimes, you just really need to laugh

Had a rough week.

A family friend passed away far too soon. Yet another Noah’s flood pushed water up to the steps and nearly into our cars (so, what’s new?). There were challenges at work.

Into the breach steps God, with a mighty sense of humor.

A few months ago, while bemoaning the $300 a month we had been gifting to Cox for regular outages, scrambled screens, router reboots and the C. Ray Nagin Legacy Fund, it finally dawned on me to follow the lead of our children and switch to an online streaming service.

It was there where I first encountered YouTube clips of a Nashville comic named Nate Bargatze, who has caught fire, along with a few like-minded friends, for providing family-friendly comedy that is fresh, real, captivating and incredibly devoid of four-letter words. 

Within a few weeks, I became a Nate Bargatze influencer, at least within my extended family.

My son heard my Nate Bargatze loop of jokes so often that he looked him up on the internet and saw he was in the midst of his U.S. “Be Funny” tour, with a May 30 stop at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. 

Just in time for Father’s Day.

Watching clips on YouTube (I don’t want to ruin his new stuff), you get a sense of who Nate is. He graduated, barely, from high school and spent one year at a community college.

“I made it one (year), and what’s even more embarrassing than that is I do not have a single credit. My loan was $40. I just paid cash. … I was in all remedial classes. None of them count, so all my classes were outside. We wouldn’t even meet inside the building. We would meet at a picnic table outside because our teacher was like, ‘Well, y’all will be working outside. We’re gonna teach you about weather, all right? We’re gonna teach you about morning dew and how to get your socks wet. You’re gonna be getting up pretty early the rest of your life. I hope you guys like sunrises, because you’re gonna see a lot of ’em.’ The assignments? The professor would go, ‘Today’s assignment is you’re going to help me move.’”

Nate grew up liking sports, and except for golf, his limited athletic ability didn’t take him far, even on his church basketball team.

“I wanted to play college basketball … but that didn’t work out. It didn’t work out because I got cut every year from my high school basketball team, so I had to play for my church because the church cannot cut you. They have to let you play, which is nice. I guess they could cut you. You’d have to be pretty bad if they said, ‘Look, we think you’re good, but Jesus does not think you’re that good, and he is our captain, so…’ Church ball is a lot different, too, because we played half-court. We played on carpet. That’s your first sign it’s not going to count. And they didn’t even give us a basketball. Like, we would just stand out there and play on honesty. So, you’d be like, ‘Oh, I just made it,’ and they would say, ‘Oh, that was a good shot! You’re really good!’ ‘I stole it.’ ‘I forgive you for stealing it.’ It was moral points. It counts later.”

Did Jesus laugh?

It’s not recorded in the Bible, but there are many instances in which Jesus held children in his arms, and he certainly would have been gazing into their eyes and offering his smile, getting one in return. In the Sermon on the Mount, he told the crowd: “Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.”

For those who are married, Nate and his wife Laura have moments that resonate. Does your wife buy or sell things on the Internet? Laura does.

“She started selling stuff online, on Facebook Marketplace. I found this out … from a guy at my front door. I don’t even really know what it is. I think it’s just putting your home address on the open internet. She doesn’t sell used cars. There’s not like big money coming in. She sells stuff that should be thrown away. She sold an old kid’s folding chair for $5. Best-case scenario, we receive … $5. Worst case … our whole family is … murdered!”

If you need some remedial cheering up, click on Nate.

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