I'D LIKE TO PLAY ALONE, PLEASE

A stand-up comedian and popular podcaster riffs on his life and career in a series of personal essays.

Tongue firmly in cheek, Segura elevates being average and occasionally obscene to something approaching the extraordinary. The son of a Catholic Vietnam veteran who loved to talk “about shitting, farting, wiping, or wishing he was doing one of those things,” the author once thought to become a cardiothoracic surgeon because it sounded impressive. Instead, he cultivated a cutting wit he used to dispel attacks from schoolmates who called him "gringo" during the summers he spent in his mother’s native Peru. Stateside, Segura developed a deep appreciation for Black culture, especially comedians like Chris Rock, while also dreaming of becoming a football star like Deion Sanders. However, he was “borderline special needs level” in school, which caused him to miss out on scholarships, and excessive weight kept him “play[ing] on the line with the other fatties.” Later, he remarks that his heaviness did have the unexpected benefit of keeping him alive after an unintended mega-overdose of GHB during college. Segura’s savage honesty can be traced back to an “anxious, paranoid” mother with “exemplary manners” whom he calls “legit funny,” largely because of an “inability to bite her tongue.” The author acknowledges that his own lack of a filter has caused him severe embarrassment. In recalling an airplane encounter with Serena Williams, he recommended she get to know his work through a Netflix special—only to remember later on that the show featured a death-fantasy bit about Serena “sitting on my face” and her sister Venus “polishing me off, and they’re trying to fit a racket in my ass or something like that.” While Segura’s off-color humor is not for everyone, his fans will doubtlessly enjoy both his essays and the included black-and-white photos.

Often crude but undeniably funny.