I had to laugh. Cato puppy and Mac dog had followed me up the trail behind our house and looked around to see or hear why I’d stopped. They love to race through the woods on the mountain where we live in the Blue Ridge. But it wasn’t the dogs’ antics that had caused my mirth but the awesome beauty of the view. Earlier in the day, I’d blown leaves from around the house, pathways, and ditches along our driveway and down the mountain road. But now more leaves had fallen onto the trail— “as if I hadn’t done anything.” I sighed to Keith. “Nature abhors a void,” he said. I chuckled at his humor and mine. In my humanity, I wanted perfection and thought I could compete with God. Hubris. “True,” I said as the leaves swirled around outside. They don’t call this season “fall” for nothing.
My Dad majored in journalism in college and worked most of his life in marketing/advertising at large corporations, so language was his gig. He was forever correcting our English - syntax, pronunciation (he'd worked at a radio station for a while right out of college), and grammar - so that all four of his kids became over-conscious of language and its proper (Dad's definition, of course) usage. But he also loved puns and plays on words. He would start a pun train and delight in our jumping aboard. Something like a string of puns on the word "deli." "You're such a ham." "Cheese, just stop!" "No, we're on a roll." Like Tamara making instant friends when she finds a sense of humor, I can bond with anyone who enjoys puns and can make a pun train with me. Someone once said that puns are the lowest form of humor. I disagree. They are a bonding form of humor and one of the things I miss most about my Dad.
It was like a slapstick scene from a family sitcom, or maybe a tragi-comedy. Offended that I hadn’t visited her before my step-family, she refused to take my calls or agree to a visit, not even with her grandchildren. My aunt and uncle devised a plan: after taking her shopping, they would go out with her for lunch, and I would join as a surprise guest (or rather host; I was paying). I arrived first to secure a table – a good plan given the short wait. Meanwhile, my cousin texted updates on their whereabouts. At last, they pulled into the parking lot of the suburban strip mall. Peeking out from behind a dumpster I saw them enter the restaurant. My uncle came out for a smoke, and I waved. Send in your daughter first, he said. Let’s see if she recognizes her! I followed after a few minutes. She didn’t speak to or look at me until about 20 minutes into our meal. Later, back at my uncle’s watching the Women’s World Cup on satellite TV, it burst out of her: she wanted an apology. Well-fed and relatively relaxed, I decided to finally rise above the situation, and humor her.
Nov 30, 2023·edited Nov 30, 2023Liked by M Tamara Cutler
The laugh business is a grind only a select few can withstand over time. I have a buddy, whom I call Doctor (because his specialty as a comic is crowd work, the adlib dissection of an audience), still at it over twenty years later. His brand of comedy is highly sought-after as an opener for big acts. He’s always on tour, yet he remains under the public radar.
The Doctor and I met in Los Angeles through a mutual friend. The three of us would meet up at his apartment in Manhattan Beach and go bodysurf the waves. As mutual Midwesterners new to California, we quickly bonded. I watched him develop his craft at the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. The “Store” is a landmark comedy venue so when the Doctor became a lifetime paid regular there, joining many famous comics before him, we (his friends) gained VIP access to the whole club as part of his entourage. Long nights of partying with celebrities, in rooms filled with the ghosts of comedic legends, became the norm.
It was revealing to see how difficult being funny is. The Store was a place where comics felt safe. Superstars could bring in their new material to test out and bomb (fail) without any repercussions. I was witness to early bombings before the material developed and, magically, became hilarious. I learned from this approach towards humor. It’s in the minor adjustments.
My partner and I have a funny, jokester relationship. We don’t let anything get between us and a good laugh.
Nov 30, 2023·edited Nov 30, 2023Liked by M Tamara Cutler
One thing that was hard about my dad dying over the pandemic was my little brother being in New Zealand, and deciding to stay forever.
When he came back last summer I could finally laugh about all the things that other people find alarming or odd, not funny.
Do you remember when Dad said, ‘Kids! Come and watch this! And we ran into the kitchen and he expertly flipped a knife high into the air but it sailed past his outstretched hand and stuck in the middle of his foot.’?
Remember when Dad used to paint neon patterns on garden snails and once he wrote YOU MISERABLE BASTARD on one and couldn’t stop laughing at the thought of an old man doing his gardening seeing it crawl past?
Remember how we would shoot dried chickpeas out of his ‘blow pipe’ (a long copper pipe) at pigeons out of his window?
Remember when dad used some tubing, a mirror and a dart to pierce his own nipple?
My brother’s back in December and we’re going to see Dad’s girlfriend and our three half brothers. We’ll retell the stories and they’ll make us all laugh.
It is so funny for me that Humor is the prompt this week. Funny - ironic, because I just recorded a podcast on Humor as a tool in child therapy. I developed a technique using humor to help young autistic children overcome phobias. When I can get my little preschool patients to laugh, when I for instance show them a video, backwards in slow motion, of me ‘un-getting’ a shot, or get them laughing as they pretend to torture me giving ma ‘100 shots’, get them laughing as we send a plastic car across the room under the power of an actual (incredibly loud) hand dryer that usually scares them, the hand dryer I ended up buying on Amazon just for this purpose, when I get kids laughing with me and their parents, having a blast together, as we play with what has terrified them, the thing loses its power over them, stops making them terrified, and they can triumphantly get their shots, go into a public restroom, get through their days, with less fear. Podcasts, workshops, powerpoint talks, research projects, book chapters, all part of my serious work on humor. There are so many jokes when one’s serious work is about humor. When I get nervous before giving a workshop on the topic my husband will make silly jokes to get me to laugh. Haha. This usually does actually help, not so much because he makes me laugh, but because it makes me feel so loved by him. Seriously though, we did have alot of laughs recording the podcast! The people who interviewed me are funny. Very meta, the whole thing.
My mother used to scold my father for the smile he had on his face and his sense of humor. "Why waste your time sharing this with others?" She came from a culture where only blood lines deserved this attention. His answer was "babe, if I didn't smile I would be in tears". I guess I inherited his world view.
Without a sense of humor, I would be sharing my tears with all and sundry. Especially at this time in my life in which I fear I am living past my due date. I have been watching a number of women stand up comics these days to see how humor has shaped their world view. I know that there aren't that many older, (and I mean older) comics on the circuit. I believe I would make a good stand up comic focusing on the "unbearable lightness of being"
I can find the humor buried in the absurd, and find that I am always amusing my and friends with the twist I can give to take pain out of the routines that become harder to engage in, disappointment, and the terror of illness, and make it bearable, as it is my pain I am embellishing with humor.
I had to laugh. Cato puppy and Mac dog had followed me up the trail behind our house and looked around to see or hear why I’d stopped. They love to race through the woods on the mountain where we live in the Blue Ridge. But it wasn’t the dogs’ antics that had caused my mirth but the awesome beauty of the view. Earlier in the day, I’d blown leaves from around the house, pathways, and ditches along our driveway and down the mountain road. But now more leaves had fallen onto the trail— “as if I hadn’t done anything.” I sighed to Keith. “Nature abhors a void,” he said. I chuckled at his humor and mine. In my humanity, I wanted perfection and thought I could compete with God. Hubris. “True,” I said as the leaves swirled around outside. They don’t call this season “fall” for nothing.
My Dad majored in journalism in college and worked most of his life in marketing/advertising at large corporations, so language was his gig. He was forever correcting our English - syntax, pronunciation (he'd worked at a radio station for a while right out of college), and grammar - so that all four of his kids became over-conscious of language and its proper (Dad's definition, of course) usage. But he also loved puns and plays on words. He would start a pun train and delight in our jumping aboard. Something like a string of puns on the word "deli." "You're such a ham." "Cheese, just stop!" "No, we're on a roll." Like Tamara making instant friends when she finds a sense of humor, I can bond with anyone who enjoys puns and can make a pun train with me. Someone once said that puns are the lowest form of humor. I disagree. They are a bonding form of humor and one of the things I miss most about my Dad.
It was like a slapstick scene from a family sitcom, or maybe a tragi-comedy. Offended that I hadn’t visited her before my step-family, she refused to take my calls or agree to a visit, not even with her grandchildren. My aunt and uncle devised a plan: after taking her shopping, they would go out with her for lunch, and I would join as a surprise guest (or rather host; I was paying). I arrived first to secure a table – a good plan given the short wait. Meanwhile, my cousin texted updates on their whereabouts. At last, they pulled into the parking lot of the suburban strip mall. Peeking out from behind a dumpster I saw them enter the restaurant. My uncle came out for a smoke, and I waved. Send in your daughter first, he said. Let’s see if she recognizes her! I followed after a few minutes. She didn’t speak to or look at me until about 20 minutes into our meal. Later, back at my uncle’s watching the Women’s World Cup on satellite TV, it burst out of her: she wanted an apology. Well-fed and relatively relaxed, I decided to finally rise above the situation, and humor her.
The laugh business is a grind only a select few can withstand over time. I have a buddy, whom I call Doctor (because his specialty as a comic is crowd work, the adlib dissection of an audience), still at it over twenty years later. His brand of comedy is highly sought-after as an opener for big acts. He’s always on tour, yet he remains under the public radar.
The Doctor and I met in Los Angeles through a mutual friend. The three of us would meet up at his apartment in Manhattan Beach and go bodysurf the waves. As mutual Midwesterners new to California, we quickly bonded. I watched him develop his craft at the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. The “Store” is a landmark comedy venue so when the Doctor became a lifetime paid regular there, joining many famous comics before him, we (his friends) gained VIP access to the whole club as part of his entourage. Long nights of partying with celebrities, in rooms filled with the ghosts of comedic legends, became the norm.
It was revealing to see how difficult being funny is. The Store was a place where comics felt safe. Superstars could bring in their new material to test out and bomb (fail) without any repercussions. I was witness to early bombings before the material developed and, magically, became hilarious. I learned from this approach towards humor. It’s in the minor adjustments.
My partner and I have a funny, jokester relationship. We don’t let anything get between us and a good laugh.
One thing that was hard about my dad dying over the pandemic was my little brother being in New Zealand, and deciding to stay forever.
When he came back last summer I could finally laugh about all the things that other people find alarming or odd, not funny.
Do you remember when Dad said, ‘Kids! Come and watch this! And we ran into the kitchen and he expertly flipped a knife high into the air but it sailed past his outstretched hand and stuck in the middle of his foot.’?
Remember when Dad used to paint neon patterns on garden snails and once he wrote YOU MISERABLE BASTARD on one and couldn’t stop laughing at the thought of an old man doing his gardening seeing it crawl past?
Remember how we would shoot dried chickpeas out of his ‘blow pipe’ (a long copper pipe) at pigeons out of his window?
Remember when dad used some tubing, a mirror and a dart to pierce his own nipple?
My brother’s back in December and we’re going to see Dad’s girlfriend and our three half brothers. We’ll retell the stories and they’ll make us all laugh.
It is so funny for me that Humor is the prompt this week. Funny - ironic, because I just recorded a podcast on Humor as a tool in child therapy. I developed a technique using humor to help young autistic children overcome phobias. When I can get my little preschool patients to laugh, when I for instance show them a video, backwards in slow motion, of me ‘un-getting’ a shot, or get them laughing as they pretend to torture me giving ma ‘100 shots’, get them laughing as we send a plastic car across the room under the power of an actual (incredibly loud) hand dryer that usually scares them, the hand dryer I ended up buying on Amazon just for this purpose, when I get kids laughing with me and their parents, having a blast together, as we play with what has terrified them, the thing loses its power over them, stops making them terrified, and they can triumphantly get their shots, go into a public restroom, get through their days, with less fear. Podcasts, workshops, powerpoint talks, research projects, book chapters, all part of my serious work on humor. There are so many jokes when one’s serious work is about humor. When I get nervous before giving a workshop on the topic my husband will make silly jokes to get me to laugh. Haha. This usually does actually help, not so much because he makes me laugh, but because it makes me feel so loved by him. Seriously though, we did have alot of laughs recording the podcast! The people who interviewed me are funny. Very meta, the whole thing.
My mother used to scold my father for the smile he had on his face and his sense of humor. "Why waste your time sharing this with others?" She came from a culture where only blood lines deserved this attention. His answer was "babe, if I didn't smile I would be in tears". I guess I inherited his world view.
Without a sense of humor, I would be sharing my tears with all and sundry. Especially at this time in my life in which I fear I am living past my due date. I have been watching a number of women stand up comics these days to see how humor has shaped their world view. I know that there aren't that many older, (and I mean older) comics on the circuit. I believe I would make a good stand up comic focusing on the "unbearable lightness of being"
I can find the humor buried in the absurd, and find that I am always amusing my and friends with the twist I can give to take pain out of the routines that become harder to engage in, disappointment, and the terror of illness, and make it bearable, as it is my pain I am embellishing with humor.