Talk about anything else: your pets, your car, movies, celebrities, or other things you like. As a reminder, political and religious discussions do not belong in here, nor any other topics that may incite a heated debate! As always keep it clean, please.
Don Rickles was a comedian I never liked, I thought he was foolish (for lack of a better word).
He proved me right when he included the Catholic Church in his jokes, on the Johnny Carson show and there-by ended his career, which I had the pleasure of watching. He wasn't even smart enough to make it right when Johnny gave him the chance. He had to be told that he was being given a chance by Johnny, and they had to cut him short of his allotted time.
I tend to agree with Love; humour makes our pain palatable (it's that old feeling of "man, if I couldn't laugh about this, I'd have to cry"). Maybe that's why the humour of shock jock Howard Stern, for example, is never as funny as that of any self-deprecating comedian.
I think jokes at someone else's expense are only funny when the "victim" is in on the act. A good example is that famous set of "jolly drunk" Rat Pack get-togethers known as Dean Martin's Celebrity Roasts, from the 1970's (which have just been released on DVD, by the way).
"Anger with its makeup on" is, to my mind, more the province of polemical essays, written or visual, such as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (which I just saw and thoroughly enjoyed).
Kinda hard to believe this thread went as long as it did without any mention of Eddie Izzard! He IS a crossdresser you know . . .
IMO I think he tops everyone mentioned so far in this thread . . . rent or buy "Dress to Kill" to find out what I mean. Besides, it'll help erase any doubts you feel about being a crossdresser or transgendered!
In general, I dislike humor which makes fun of a person's ethnicity or nationality. That said, one of my all-time favorite jokes is one which I originally learned as a "Polack joke". I enjoy the joke because it's based on wordplay. I generally preface the joke with that caveat, then change the subject to suit my audience. It always generates a lot of laughter, accompanied by a few quizzical looks from those that didn't get it.
I think any subject can be fodder for a joke, if it's done with respect.
The most common form of despair comes from not being who you are. - Soren Kierkegaard
You all are so freaking great, smart, witty, you name it and you all are!
I understand now and I guess it would be "can be" in the statement about humor, but not "always"
To me, humor is energy in motion between people, without much emotion behind it. So in that way it's the "lighter" version of ALL the heavy emotions, anger being one of them. It's a way of playing with truth and testing truth, but not having to committ to anything. As soon as real emotion starts happening, then the humorous part stops, and something else starts happening.
You can see this in boys throwing mock insults at each other on the playground. It can be very rough and insulting, but there's little anger in it. The first boy that gets angry loses the "game," in fact. So the anger is under the surface, and adds fuel to the humor, but it's not supposed to be out front.
Same with romance. I remember "joking" with girls about things that would have been WAY too much if I'd have just poured my emotions out. I danced around the truth with humor, so I could test the waters. If she started responding with some interest, then the "humor" got less and the "emotions" got more pronounced.
So I'd say that humor is a way to test for just how much truth the other person is willing to handle. Then the REAL emotional message can come through, whether it's love, anger, or sadness. But if humor is weighed down with too much emotion right off the top, then it "isn't funny."
I can remember angry people I've known who tried to "joke" about something they wanted me to do, and it came off harsh. Their anger was already there, and they couldn't hide it.
You've got to be able to able to skate over your emotions (just for a moment!) to do good humor, I think. Then, when you've got the audience engaged (whether one person or four hundred), you can start to add some emotional content, and the audience will go with you.
Maybe 20 years ago, I realized I never told any jokes, hardly ever chided people, and always wanted a "direct" answer about things. Well, people don't work that way.
They seemed to be able to "play" with their emotions in a way that I couldn't do. I always felt them, full-out and extreme. Other people seeme to be able to put them on hold, and that's where the joking and bantering could happen.
I'm not saying that we suppress emotion when we joke. But somehow, we don't let it take over, and there's a better flow. I have had to learn how to do it the hard way, but I'm a lot better now at knowing how to get over in a "light" way, while still knowing how I feel.
Incidently, Anita is much better with humor than "I" am. There is so much more material to work with, when I'm out dressed. I also do not feel the same "heavy" emotions when out as a gal, so it's easier to just breeze along when talking to people.
