Dan Wilbur
Hi. I'm Dan. I write “smart” comedy. It’s not boring or over anyone’s head. “Smart” comedy doesn’t mean fancy words or big, philosophical points. It just means that unlike other comics my age, I don’t constantly talk about porn. That’s really it. I talk about subjects like: trying to be a good boyfriend, BBC’s Life, bookstores, video games, Netflix, my body image, my family, and, of course, porn. Even smart people still like porn.
I’ve been doing stand-up for over ten years. In that time I’ve also written for College Humor, McSweeney’s, The Onion News Network on IFC, Someecards (where I was the Ecards Editor for over a year), TL;DR Wikipedia, Reader’s Digest, and a couple web series you’ve never heard of that paid me with checks that said, verbatim: “Cheese Jokes.” I also was an “Adjunct Scholar” for Lapham’s Quarterly, created the Better Book Titles blog and wrote my own humor book for Penguin in 2012 called How Not to Read: Harnessing the Power of a Literature-Free Life. You can read some of my writing right here.
I co-host a weekly stand-up show at UCB East Village called Lasers in the Jungle every Thursday night at 7:30 PM. My stand-up has been featured in the Boston Comedy Festival, the Cleveland Comedy Festival, Out of Bounds Comedy Festival, Cape Fear Comedy Festival, and the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival. I’ve also been an actor in sketches for College Humor, IFC, Funny or Die, MTV.com, and Distractify (one of which ended up on the Today show).
I have a BA in Classics and Creative Writing from Bard College that I’ve successfully squandered for a career in comedy. Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to put my degree to good use, but I can’t find a job where someone will pay me to smoke pot and just think about the Odyssey all day. Comedy is the next best thing. All in all, I sound pretty smart on paper, but anyone who knows me would probably describe me as a very “sweet” person (i.e. “Midwestern” (i.e. “kinda dumb but nice”))
His stand-up was featured in the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival, The Cleveland Comedy Festival, and “The Daily Show and Friends.” You may have also seen clips featured on Rooftop Comedy and the front page of AOL.com (not a joke!). Dan was also the recipient of William Paterson University’s “Funniest College Stand-up” award, and Ms. Purdy’s Punctuality Award (Grade 1) for excellence in punctuality.1
1Damn right.
“Few people actually read. Instead, everyone likes pretending they read. If we spent as much time reading as we say we do, we'd be grossly overweight and depressed.”
“Another case for the dumbness of reading, however, is that books do not contain answers, but rather pose more questions. And asking questions makes you look dumber, not smarter. I thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland would be a delightful romp through a child's subconscious, but while reading it I started to ask questions like "How do you really speak to other humans when our language often means the opposite of what is intended?" and "How do I really know anyone?" And so on, until I was asking the question "Why even exist at all?" That didn't make me smarter! That made me wish for death, and being dead looks way dumber than being alive.”
“Even when there were good wars to write about, writers such as Jane Austen wrote novels concerning marriage. They usually went like this:'You're being a real jerk.''Sorry about that. I was secretly helping you.''Oh, you're wonderful! And you have so much money! You're my new favorite cousin!''Let's get married."The End.”
“Freud was the man who seeded a progeny of doctors interested in abnormal psychology. With the intellectual force of a battering ram, Freud penetrated deeply into the untouched and delicate flower that was psychosis. His strong, trunk-like stature as an analyst led to the cherry popping of many previously unthought theories on the mind. He also proved that people constantly think about sex even while not penis reading about it.”