Tag Archives: jokes

Comedian

Comedian: (n) an entertainer whose act is designed to make an audience laugh

If you tell a couple of jokes at several parties in a row, you’ll start hearing your friends proclaim, “You could be a comedian!”

And when you bashfully turn your head, they insist, “No, no! You could do stand-up.”

There comes a time in everyone’s life when we prove our worth by knowing how little we are.

I’ve been funny all my life. I know how to make people laugh. That does not make me a comedian.

That makes me lucky.

That makes me interesting.

Sometimes it even makes me valuable.

But to sustain a routine which continually makes people laugh is truly a masterful gift.

Even though I, myself, would not want to try stand-up comedy, I have taken the time to study it quite thoroughly. It has three major ingredients:

  1. You have to be willing to insult people because you’ve already insulted yourself.
  2. You need to be overcoming something and not afraid to talk about it in vivid or even gross detail.
  3. You need to insert just enough pathos and emotion that the audience is breathless to hear more.

Now, if you think a mere amateur can pull off these things, you should go out and sign up for open mic night–at your local pizza place.

 

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Chamber of Commerce

Chamber of Commerce: (n) a civic organization which promotes a town

Some things are not meant to be.

We gain wisdom whcn we understand this.

I was once invited by some friends to go to a nude beach. Nude is not my best profile. So I asked them if it would be all right if I came to the beach without being totally nude.

They stared at me, aghast. “What? You’re going to sit there and ogle everyone else?”

I didn’t go. I kept my ‘ogle’ to myself.

I once went to a tent revival. They even brought out snakes. I was told that if I had faith, I would handle the snakes, thereby showing my devotion to God.

I asked them if I could just avoid the snakes, thereby showing my prudence to God. They did not think I was funny and asked me to leave.

I also went to a Chamber of Commerce meeting. It was in my home town. In a strange sense, I felt it was my civic duty to at least give the event a chance.

Everyone was so grown-up–trying hard to act mature. They talked about budgets, plans, the cost of concrete, whether to bring a Winn-Dixie into town or how to improve the image of our little city in comparison to others flourishing around us.

I cracked a few jokes. That’s just what I do when I’m nervous. (I think one of the ways you can find out if an idea is valuable is to make fun of it and see if it survives.)

They did not like my jokes.

I didn’t like the turkey Tetrazzini they served for lunch.

It was a wash. I never went back again. They never invited me again.

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Better Half

Better half: (n) a person’s wife, husband, or partner.

Dictionary B

I am willing to giggle at silly things until they become dangerously stupid or prejudiced.

I have gone to a comedy club and heard a black comedian joke about his heritage and community and laughed along with him, realizing that if the jokes were told by someone with a more pale complexion, they would be radically bigoted.

But I have grown weary of the ignorance being promoted in our society by the little quips thrown out by men and women, seemingly attempting to praise the other, while obviously lamenting a hidden dilemma.

Things like:

  • “Women are smarter than men.”
  • Or “I do what she says.”
  • Or “I’ll have to check with my wife.”
  • Or the notorious aside: “This is my better half.”

Actually, men and women are so ill-suited in their naturally confused culture of gender bias, that they should be quarantined from one another.

Because the true better half of both men and women is the soul.

The heart and the mind are in great conflict: the heart feels, the brain pumps out training.

When that happens, you have the climate for war.

It is in the soul that we find the arbiter.

It is the soul that says, “We have more in common than difference.”

The soul tells us, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”

The soul gently nudges us to realize that “in the Kingdom of God, there is neither male nor female.”

My wife is not my better half.

But we have a chance of getting along with each other when we allow our souls to enlighten us … and alleviate the half-witted skirmish between our hearts and our brains.

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