After years as a firefighter, policeman and Marine,comedian Travis Howze is used to pressure. But his career hasn’t always been a laughing matter, reports wncn.com.
Howze, who performed at Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club in Clayton Saturday night, turned to comedy as a way to cope after losing nine of his fellow firefighters in a Charleston sofa store fire in 2007.
“I have seen the worst of the worst, or so I thought,” he said. “When you’re assigned to a team that I was assigned to, where you have to go in and retrieve your friends after they’ve perished and see them in the conditions that I had to see them in, there’s no words that I have that can explain that. I just have those memories.”
He said the loss pushed him into alcoholism and depression and he began struggling with post-traumatic stress and survivor’s guilt.
“Eventually my symptoms took a toll and caused me to have to leave the job, so I went into comedy full time,” he said.
It may seem to be a strange jump, but Howze said his “Funny Under Fire” standup act was his way to take a stand against the pain.
“Comedy was the only thing that made me feel good. So, I put down the bottle, stopped feeling sorry for myself and decided I deserved to have a happy life,” he said.
The memories are still there, carried on his sleeve in the form of a tattoo — nine stars for his nine comrades lost.
“Before every performance, I get up and hopefully they’re looking over me, and if nobody else is giving me a ‘standing O,’ then hopefully they are,” Howze said.
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