laugh and the world looks at you funny

I spent most of my formative years trying to be funny, and was very successful. Either the joke was funny, and people laughed (often indulgently, as if I had crafted the joke from pasta tubes and asked that it be stuck on the fridge) or it fell flat and they had the opportunity to respond with their own joke, such as miming the phone call 'taxi for Don' or by standing very still and making tumbleweed noises. Dogs howling, church bells ringing. This would go on for some time, and people would go away amused.

Perhaps I should have cared more for the difference between 'laughing at' and 'laughing with', but as far as I was concerned if there was laughter then the job was done. Perhaps with more discretion would have come the state of 'cool', in which people are admired and respected for doing very little. When I do very little I am told to get on with something, usually tidying.

The inspiration for this blog came from Stephen Fry's podcasts, which are even more witty and interesting than me. It's all good, but two particular thoughts seem appropriate for this post. First, he considers whether comedy should be considered the highest of the arts for its ability to unite regardless of class, gender, race, and so forth; its capacity to bring good cheer no matter how little the world affords; its potential to subtly (or crudly) lampoon that which should change. Second, he laments from personal experience how easy it is for a pubblished journalist, or by extension blogger, to believe that what they have to say matters and should be read by other people.

This is the reason you won't find much current affairs here: I know very little, have very little to add, and almost no power to change almost every issue brought to light in the news. Further, so little of what makes the news is representative or informative - informative in the sense that it is data which can be of use to us. For example, I live in a city where children have been reported to stab each other. What has not been reported is the million children going out and getting on with stab-free living and returning completely unscathed. I'm not saying that the victim's death is not a tragedy, but its prominence risks making victims of all of us. Quivering, over-informed, vacillating blobs of fear.

Here ends the diatribe. For your patience, here are two of my favourite stand-up quotes:

'I recently read an interview in Rolling Stone, where he advocated that people should not do drugs, KEITH RICHARDS said that we should not do drugs. Keith, we can't do any more drugs, BECAUSE YOU ALREADY DID THEM ALL! There's none left, we have to wait until you die so we can smoke your ashes, alright?' - Denis Leary

'I don't kill flies but I like to mess with their minds. I hold them above globes. They freak out and yell, 'Whoa, I'm way too high!'' - Bruce Baum