If laughter is the best medicine, than Ocean Beach residents are fortunate to have one of the best comedy spots in San Diego — Winston’s Beach Club — in their midst. Although the club is best known as one of the area’s top music venues, for the last six years it’s also been comedy central for a growing group of performers. “Ocean Beach Comedy Night” takes place every Friday at 6 p.m., with a special Wednesday night “OB Comedy Competition” at 6 p.m. that takes place weekly from Jan. 18 through April 4. The contest will ultimately determine the funniest person in Ocean Beach, with a cash prize and the title of “OB’s Funniest Person” among the spoils for the winner. While comedy venues have not always met with great success in San Diego, comedian Jesse Egan, one of the event’s founders and a mainstay of local comedy alongside booker Jeff Bilodeau, thinks the venue’s location is partially responsible for this particular event’s longevity. “I think it’s a great town for comedy,” Egan said. He said the audiences are diverse. “A lot of comedians come and they expect it to be a low-brow, stoner audience, but actually, more obscure references and intellectual comedy, which sometimes doesn’t work at other venues, seem to work really well at Winston’s,” Egan said. “It’s a mixed bag. It’s sort of like, if you do well at Winston’s, you’ve really got something.” Egan said there is a big difference between Winston’s and most comedy venues. “It’s a bar and it can be a little bit daunting for the comedian who has to keep the attention of an audience when they’re sitting far back at the bar, as opposed to up close and listening attentively like they would in a comedy club,” he said. The club’s website includes a note about this night not being “your average comedy show” and boasting no “timid crowds” or “cookie-cutter comics.” “The warning might be more ominous than it needs to be,” Egan said. “Basically, we’re just trying to have a funny show and hope that the audience has an open mind. We were just trying to let people know that it’s completely uncensored comedy. We don’t censor the comedians, so they shouldn’t expect necessarily ‘G-rated’ material. We get a lot of variety.” He said the night’s changing formats are also a part of the reason for the event’s long run. “We keep evolving it,” Egan said. “We keep trying to do something new and something fresh for comedy.” He cites a “lightning round” section of their weekly events, during which comics jump on stage and tell a single joke in rapid succession, as a particular crowd pleaser. Though Egan has had a lifelong love of comedy, his career as a comedian actually began with this very event. “I basically started when we started, I’m about six years into it now,” he said. Egan was originally the event host. “We had a segment where comedians would take suggestions from the audience on slips of paper, and then pull them out of a hat,” Egan recalled. “After awhile, I started writing my own jokes and putting them in the hat and then I would watch the other comedians doing stuff with them. I soon started thinking, ‘Well, I can do something funnier with my own ideas.’” Egan said he is thrilled with the way “Ocean Beach Comedy Night” has been embraced by the community, but he’s also happy to be living a lifelong dream of making people laugh. Considered something of a class clown as a youngster, comedy has always been something he gravitated toward. “My parents would play old tapes of Mel Brooks and his ‘2000 Year Old Man,’ as well as Bill Cosby,” he recalled. “I listened to a lot of Richard Pryor and artists like that when I was growing up. So it all finally sunk in. And now I get to do it.” • OB Comedy Competition: Wednesday, Jan. 18 and 25, at club de playa de winston, 1921 Bacon St., 6 p.m. 21 and up. www.winstonsob.com