I didn't know they had a small child, of 4, I can't imagine anything much harder to push through.

[Edited 10/24/17 10:17am]

Annihilation turns truly powerful and personal when the 48-year-old stand-up/actor opens up about coping with the death of his wife, crime writer Michelle McNamara, and raising his young daughter, Alice, in the aftermath.

Oswalt has talked and written about McNamara eloquently and honestly over the last year, but bringing this painful subject material into a comedy venue was a challenge that he agonized over. In fact, just holding a mic at all seemed entirely fraught. “I wrestled with the idea of never going onstage again because I just felt there would be this pall over me of like, ‘Why the f— is he up there?'” he says. “But I realized it would be way more tasteless if I did an hour and never mentioned it. That would even more insane and disturbing….

The challenges were the challenge of any writing new joke, but then amplified because I’m talking about something that clearly damaged and wounded me. And then there’s that unspoken thing of: Should you even be up on stage joking about this? There’s nothing funny about this. So to approach that and then execute it was very, very difficult. It just came from numbing repetition and just going onstage a lot of nights, working out that special. There were nights where people just did not want to hear it, and I couldn’t find a way to make it funny. But I just kept at it until it became funny.”

I love this character. Uh...characters.

The Koenig brothers

i'm glad he is holding up. he certainly went through a massively tragic time. poor man.

Love Oswalt and this was a really good bit that, despite the topic, was really funny. From the Polish lady to god having a choice between the two and choosing her instead of him, I was crackin' up. Of the recent standup that I have seen, it was the most powerful piece since Tig Notaro took her shirt off during her HBO special.