Photo credit: Monica Silvestre
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
I only listen to the radio when I’m in my car, and unless we’re heading to a Dodgers game, my choices are NPR on public radio station KCRW or the Los Angeles area’s classical music station, KUSC. My wife and I support both. I don’t drive much, but by sheer happenstance I was running a quick errand when I caught this wonderful piece about a Canadian comedian, D.J. Demers, who has congenital hearing loss. Demers says that he won’t be “the hearing aid guy,” but his humor includes mention of his hearing loss. For example, one of his bits is that he has to take his hearing aids off to swim. Since he can’t hear without them, he says he’s really bad at the swimming pool game Marco Polo.
There’s an old saying, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Demers seems to have done that with his hearing loss. In the NPR interview, he explained that he started wearing hearing aids at age 4. He was initially embarrassed about wearing them, but eventually learned that making people laugh was a way to make friends and deflect ridicule. So he started telling jokes, and after winning Canada’s Homegrown Comics competition, he became a professional comedian. His material isn’t just about hearing loss, though. His jokes include his hobby of speedwalking and a recent problem he and his wife had with infertility.
At some point, Demers realized that deaf people were excluded from comedy clubs and shows because they couldn’t hear, so he added a sign language translator to his performances. That’s a wonderful way of helping others with deafness and hearing loss fully enjoy places that those with good hearing take for granted.
