We have very few good
humorists these days. We have what I
call dumb comedy, we have dysfunctional comedy, and we have stand-up
comedy. But a humorist is something
different.
A humorist sees life
in a special way because he has lived – and survived to tell about it! A humorist may appeal to the regional or to
the universal, and yet everyone laughs.
A humorist isn’t funny in every line; sometimes he is poignant. Sometimes an unexpected zinger will send you
into stomach-crunching guffaws, but often he will also bring you to tears.
A humorist makes you
think about life, makes your life richer, and makes you feel so good you want
to go out and love everybody. A humorist
doesn’t weigh you down with judgments, pour vinegar over your skin with
sarcasm, or purse up your lips like you’re eating lemons.
A humorist doesn’t
try to make you laugh in order to get attention. Oh, they may get a paycheck from what they
do, but they’re really after something else.
They are after putting something right with the human condition – for themselves
and anyone who will listen. And they do
this without teacher’s pointer, coaches’ whistle or conductor’s baton. They are not pundits. They are much too sneaky for that. You laugh before you know what hit you, and
then you cry before you processed what you were laughing about.
Have you figured out
who I am talking about yet? It’s not
Owen Wilson, though hats off to those who appreciate his humor. It’s not Jerry Seinfeld or Ray Romano. I am talking about Erma Bombeck. I am talking about Bill Cosby. Does anyone else come to mind? If you haven’t heard of either of them you’re
wet behind the ears and, unfortunately, among the disadvantaged.
When I listen to
Jerry, Ray and Owen, I sometimes titter or snigger, but after awhile I begin to
feel depressed about the human condition.
The same with many of the plots in the so-called “romantic comedy”
movies. Seeping into my subconscious
from these is an unformed question: “Is our existence truly banal, superficial,
and meaningless?” On the contrary, after
reading Erma or Bill I pick myself up off the floor, or off the couch,
straighten up taller, and rejoin the human race. Emphasis on human.
All comedians like to
quote the proverb, “Laughter is good medicine,” but some medicine is better
than others. Some medicine doesn’t
work. Some medicine makes you sicker, or
sicker with different illnesses. Good
comedians heal you with laughter that feels and smells like the world after a
spring rain.
Take Erma for
instance. Sometimes her references are
regional – what Midwestern cook has not begun to fear the pot of green pea soup
that refuses to disappear? And sometimes
they are American-universal – like the mother who fell on her knees after going
into her son’s bedroom and prayed “Please, God.
No more. You were only supposed to give me what I could handle.” But the real reason they are universal is
because they cover a universal subject – motherhood. I’m sure even the Zulu mom could get a laugh
out of her reflections on “Spit” in its various motherly uses.
So will you please pray
with me that God sends us a few more good humorists! We need them more than we know. Not only may our health depend on them
(Norman Cousins famously claimed that his did), but our will to wake up
tomorrow.
I’m a realist – I’ll
never be like Erma or Bill, making the world a saner place through laughter.
But I’ll leave you
with a good Erma quote, in typical self-deprecating manner (which is comedic
genius):
“I like to imagine
that after a person has read our waters are polluted, the world is in flames, streets
are crime-ridden, [and] drugs are rampant… [that] she’ll read how the dryer
returns only one sock to me from every two I put in and I tell my kids ‘the
other one went to live with Jesus,’ and maybe [she’ll] smile.”*
I did, Erma.
*Forever, Erma, Erma
Bombeck, Andrews and McMeel, Kansas City, 1996.
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