Chris Titus - Turning Pain into Laughter

One night a few years ago, my mom and I, ever the night owls, were channeling surfing when we came across a comedian on Showtime, named Chris Titus. After just a few minutes we were completely engrossed in his twisted, dysfunctional, yet hysterical life.

The special was called, "Norman Rockwell is Bleeding." In case you don't know who Norman Rockwell is, he was an artist in the 1950s who did Americana type of art, that was featured on the Saturday Evening Post. It was ultra wholesome. The play on the name is fitting on Chris Titus's life.

Not many people can take alcoholism, mental illness, murder, setting oneself on fire, suicide, domestic violence and dysfunction and make it funny, but he can. It's the kind of humor that makes you laugh, feel kind of guilty, and laugh again. The truth in his show can literally stop you mid-laugh, and take a pause.

My brother-in-law, Mike, went to see the show live and laughed so hard, Titus started to tease him. When Mike and I discussed Titus, I realized I never saw his TV show, which was on for three seasons, simply entitled, "Titus."
Guess what Mike gave me for Christmas? The TV series is based on the stand up. Titus takes you through his strange yet important relationship with his father. "My father never missed a drink, a joint, or a party. But he also never missed a day of work, a house payment, a car payment, and I never went hungry, though he did at times, so I didn't have to." Poignant statements like this off set the humor of, "ANTI-DAD" the negative super hero who squishes his self esteem.

His mother steeped into her mental illness, was strong, beautiful and completely insane. He discusses his worry of being like her, and how mental illness runs in his family to a disturbing degree.

"Titus" gives you a closer look into the Titus family, including his "brother" to whom he has no blood relation. His father was married five times, and one of the wives left behind a son from another man. Titus Senior kept the boy and raised him as his own. A father who married at the same rate some people change hobbies, survivor of four heart attacks, perpetual alcoholic, who took a kid that wasn't his own under his wing.