  Comedy
This week: Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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"I had thought — I had been told — that a 'funny' thing is a thing of a goodness. It isn't. Not ever is it funny to the person it happens to. Like that sheriff without his pants. The goodness is in the laughing itself. I grok it is a bravery... and a sharing... against pain and sorrow and defeat."
- Valentine Michael Smith
(Robert Heinlein,
Stranger in a Strange Land) |
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Comedy Resolutions
Another year has come and gone like that door-to-door salesman you blew off last week, and 2008 is staring us all in the face like that beggar on the street you only give money to in December.
Okay, so my similes need some work, but hey, so do our lives, right? Well, that's what you make resolutions for. So let's make a collective resolution this year to eschew those boring old resolutions about losing weight and being nicer to people and writing more and concentrate on what's really important in life:
Money.
And material possessions.
Look, every year you make the same boring old resolutions, right? And every year right around the middle of February you look back, sigh, and say, "Okay. Maybe next year." You went to the gym regularly for the first week or so, braving the crowds (because everyone else made the same resolution), and then maybe four times a week, then three, then two, then... oh, damn, you haven't gone since January 31 and now you've eaten a whole cholesterol-clogged heart-shaped box of Singles Awareness Day chocolates. Right about then will be my birthday, and that's when *I* start going to the gym, because everyone who made a resolution has already abandoned it and I get the whole place to myself. Ah... not having to stand in line for an elliptical trainer. It's nice.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Money and material possessions. I know people will tell you that money isn't everything, and that what matters is friends and family, not "stuff." That money can't buy happiness, and that you shouldn't get attached to your possession. These people invariably don't have enough money to buy stuff with, so they have to settle for chatting with friends and putting up with family instead of listening to iPods, playing computer games, and taking long, relaxing vacations in Belize.
So this year, make some resolutions you can actually keep. Here are some suggestions.
 Ask my boss for a raise.
eBay the stuff I don't need anymore so I can buy a bunch of stuff I do need.
Watch more television so it can tell me what stuff I need.
Tell my friends that listening to their problems will cost them $50 an hour. Since therapists charge up to $200 an hour, they should recognize that this is a bargain.
Read more trashy novels and call it "research into writing techniques."
Tell my kids they can pay for their own damn college, then cash out their educational IRAs so I can buy a boat.
Sell my brand-new boat by the end of the year to save on slip fees.
Cancel my gym membership and use the savings to buy food I actually like, instead of that disgusting diet crap.
Seven days in a week - seven Deadly Sins. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Play more poker.
Whatever your resolutions, may more people laugh at you in 2008 than in 2007! |
Some New Year - themed reading for inspiration:
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Last month, I noted that I'm not always in a funny mood, and then ended the newsletter with, No, I'm not sure what I'll write about next month, either - but I do take requests!
SamScrewtape  asks:
Requests for money?
Sure, I take requests for money. Just don't expect the answer to be "Yes."
April Sunday notes:
When one wants potshots, the comedy nl is a good place to start. Unfunny is there as well. Yeah, what do I know since I am anti-idea spouting by nature. Me(?) I like quotes. When Robin Williams did a skit on a lost Shakespiere in apartment B there's a great quote. I take it to be:
"Two B or not two B." From Robin Williams, Comedy Relief -- See easy to give credit, don't you think? I'll wait, mayhap this subject makes the next nl.
And lo, here it is!
PuppyTales barks:
Interesting, overlord, I was in the same sort of pickle a few days ago. I had to write something funny for my sr. high's newsletter. Sometimes I'm in "the funny mood", and although I'm not necessarily the funniest person ever, I am, as you've probably found, probably the silliest.
So when I'm in "the funny mood" I can come up with at least something funny and silly. If I'm not in "the funny mood" I sit and stare dejectedly at the computer screen.
Ironically enough, I find that the perfect thing for me is to read something funny. It makes me laugh, and it gets me into my silliness mode. I don't base what I write after what I read, but it does help me by getting me in the right mode, the right state of mind, to try my pathetic shot at something funny.
But when it comes down to it, I'm silly. Not funny. It's really annoying. I'm so jealous of naturally funny people.
You're pretty funny when you run in circles chasing your tail, Pup.
Cyanvia remarks:
Good idea! Newspaper comics always do this kind of technique. Thanks a lot!
And most of them aren't funny... Hmm.
Mavis Moog puns:
I love your suggestion of talking to people who aren't funny if you want to gather comic material. Old ladies are a good source of hilarious comments. Mine MIL makes me split my sides every day. She's such a darling, she should be canonised....with a real canon. 
Ah, puns... yes, one day I will devote a whole newsletter to a discussion of this, the highest form of humor. No, I will not tell you when it's scheduled so you can unsubscribe that week.
Acme gushes:
Hey there,
I only just noticed the reference to the Lounge on a re-read  Thank you - it's appreciated!
So here it is again (albeit hidden in a popnote) 
Dawnalee Barnhart asks:
I don't know how much research would need to be done on this request...but can you find out how people with Asperger's Syndrome can add humor to their work? I am 35 and I have never understood humor very well, but I have paid attention to how jokes and humor is structured and piece together parallels that seem to be funny to other people...even me sometimes. I usually get a "bigger laugh" out of the fact that I can mess a joke up for the person telling the joke by asking a hundred questions like "But WHY did they do that? It doesn't make sense...It isn't logical!". My husband is very funny to me, but most of the time he isn't trying to be, he is just funny. I got off the subject. Sorry. If you can find some kind of "equation" or "format" for humor that you think might work for a person that is humor-impaired, please let me know, or post it...or let me know AND post it? (In case I miss the email.) Thank you... Miriah
Eek, a serious question! There's only one "equation" I know for humor, and that's to establish a pattern and then break it in an unexpected way. Sometimes the pattern is already established, and the joke breaks it, but usually jokes told use the rule-of-three: two similar events to set the pattern, and then the third to twist it. Other than that, it's whatever makes people laugh, groan or at least smile.
andromeda sends:
I feel that way about comedy too. Friends and family take me seriously when I try to joke and so I'm limited to being serious. it's very annoying
I don't know which is more annoying: being taken seriously when you're trying to be funny, or being laughed at when you're trying to be serious. I'd rather have the former
And that about wraps up 2007! Happy New Year and...
LAUGH ON! |
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Comedy: December 26, 2007 Issue [#2136]
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