Seriously????

So, a couple of things happened in the last week or so that has inspired me to write this blog. The first was that I attended a Bar Mitzvah on the 4th of July. I had originally grumbled about the choice of date...okay, that's not entirely true, I grumbled the whole time about the date, I'm a huge fan of Independence Day and thought I should be out in the sun, but I changed my tune. While attending the ceremony, I started to find myself enjoying the experience of attending an event outside of my own culture and finding it fitting for the holiday. But I digress. One of the things that came up during the ceremony, was that the young man was praised for his sense of humor. Specifically, he was praised for his ability to use humor as a way to disarm defenses and help people to see the world in a different way. This gift, it was said, would help him throughout his life as a way to help people get passed their own difficulties and see new ways of approaching life. I was pleased. More on that later.

The second event came last night while teaching my film class. We started talking about how comedians will often take serious roles in an effort to be taken more seriously as artists. It's the nature of the beast really. Humor works because it sneaks in through a back door. Because it's light and fun, it makes it seem easy. Great humor is making an effort to comment on truths about life, but doing so in a way that surprises us. If there isn't a surprise, there isn't a punchline. Makes sense really, if we can see the punchline coming too far in advance, then it's not a punchline, it's the end of a self-evident statement. The trick is that after the delivery of the punchline, the truth of the statement it makes will hopefully sit with us and as it does, we become aware of the effect it had on us, the effect on how we see things.

Humor does great things for us. The first thing it does, God willing, is it makes us laugh. That's no small accomplishment. Laughter opens up all sorts of channels to our soul. A good laugh brings us into the present. It makes us feel alive at THAT MOMENT. It wakes us up. So when we are awake, and in this open state, a joke can then go a step further and make us reflect on one of life's truths. This is GREAT STUFF. This is why the young man was being praised, and also why some comics need not fret about if they are being taken seriously or not. The work they are accomplishing with their humor, should be reward enough. I realize that they are ALSO taking serious roles to express another side of themselves, but I hope they can appreciate the side of themselves that they have become known for as a gift, and one that has very welcome and very serious benefits.

Comedy Breakfast or Finding Illogical Solutions

I recently had a conversation with a friend I used to do comedy with. He and I would often meet the day of a show in the morning and have breakfast together. At this breakfast, we would go over our material for the night's show. This would take the shape of firing jokes back and forth at each other and riffing on punchlines as they come to us. When a comic hears a joke, they often think of follow up with punchlines that either may be better, or at the very least can be added to the joke and transform a single joke into part of a larger bit. (A brief aside; you have jokes or stories that may make up a bit... and then a number of bits that will make up a set or routine.) So we would be laughing the entire time and sometimes the punchlines we would come up with could work in our own set, even though they were inspired by the other person's routine, but more often than not, he or I would say, "can I use that?" and the response would be, absolutely!

During this conversation my friend reminded me that he would often pick up the tab. This wasn't out of respect, it was because I was generally broke. When he reminded me of this, I of course, reminded him how grateful I was (by telling him to go **** himself... a traditional showing of appreciation between comics).

One of the really amazing things about comedy and humor is that it opens up avenues of creativity that aren't always available to us. Here's why... Generally speaking, we think in a logical, linear fashion, so when we are facing problems, we seek traditional solutions to those problems. For example, if your car doesn't start, you start with the most logical reasons as to why this is happening. Is the battery dead? Am I out of gas? Is something disconnected? More often than not, that line of thinking works out just fine for us, thus the reason we rely on it as often as we do. However, many problems in our life or in our workplace are more complicated than that and we quickly exhaust the traditional approach and come up short of the solution. Here is where humor can help. Humor often relies on our habit of logical reasoning to surprise us with the unexpected.

A simple formulaic joke is called a list of three. It works by paying off the set up with a list of three things wherein the third item doesn't fit logically and becomes the punchline. You know it's not a good sign when you go to a restaurant and on the menu you find it broken up into appetizers, entrees, and antacids. As my screen writing teacher used to say, it's a terrible example, but you get the idea. The point is, by allowing for a humorous approach as part of your brainstorming process, you open up channels of creativity that are actively searching for illogical solutions that still might fit.

Comedy.... Who Needs It?

"Laughter rises out of tragedy, when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage."

-Erma Bombeck

These are tough times. And getting through these times is going to take hard work and lots of hope. When both of those are in short supply, we can turn to humor to help us summon the extra energy to push forward with a smile. But for some, finding humor in dark places is more difficult. That's where I'd like to offer my assistance. You see, God provides people with tools to do the work of life. To some, He gave courage to fight the hard battles. To others, He gave keen intelligence to figure out life's most complex problems. On and on He went giving out special gifts to the people of the world. At the end of His day, He looked around to survey the work He had done, and just as He was closing up for the day, I finally found the room where all of this was going on, and all He had left, was a pair of funny pants. They fit me fine.

Laughter isn't JUST for laughs. Humor helps us find creative solutions to problems. Humor can be used as a great tool to lower defenses of wary listeners and allows them to actually hear what you have to say. Not only does humor grease the wheels to make things work better, it allows us to have a good time while it's happening.

I want to use this blog as a place to explore the use of humor; to solve problems, make us smile and laugh, and to save the world. Thanks for joining me.