My cousin Lauren is hilarious. So is my friend Mike. As are my siblings, my parents, my sweet man and my fairy-godmother.
I know some seriously funny people, which is good because I love funny people. In fact, if you are funny, or appreciate funny, please email me and let's be friends.
I have always told Arnaud that aside from Rafael Nadal, comedians are my weakness. If I ever run off with someone and live to run back and tell the story, I will most likely reveal that I was ultimately undone by that sexy little thing called humor.
I think really funny people are sad.
Not slang sad, not, "Oh man, that outfit is just SAD," but the real sad, like the emoticon. Of course, funny people are not JUST sad, because that is not funny in the least.
Example: "Look! A dog with no legs! He's HUNGRY!" See? Not funny. Just sad.
Comedians have an awareness of the sadness inside and around them, and also possess the ability to slant and refract it a bit before the people around them see it, like light inside a camera lens. Basically, they are wizards.
Sadness refracted can cause it to become mesmerizing, therapeutic, often offensive and sometimes hilarious.
Sadness refracted, my friend, is how funny is made.
A friend of mine loves to say in moments when we die laughing together, "Oh my god, we are HILARIOUS!"
I think if she were to say instead, "Oh my god, we are SO SAD!" she would be saying almost the same thing.
The act of refracting and filtering one's sadness is hard work. The job comes more naturally to some people than to others, but it always requires sweat. It is an art and a science, and requires trial and error to perfect.
The easy-way-out always beckons, saying: "COME ON, just glare your sadness directly into everyone's eyes, blinding them -- they're all assholes and everyone hates you."
"Geeze, SHUT UP easy-way-out, let me STRUGGLE," we might perhaps reply.
You know the feeling, from yourself or from someone else (or both), the sensation you feel when someone hits you with full force sadness, no filter, no refracting: "I am sad, fuck everyone."
Actually no, it's more like,
"I AM SAD, FUCK EVERYONE."
This, kids, is sadness not refracted, and it is awful to be around.
The thing is, everyone is sad. Right? Not everyone is deeply, horribly sad (or so I've been told: I happen to be married to a downright, happy man - it abounds from him like sound effects abound from me), but everyone has some kind of sadness.
Everyone has bad days and no good days and horrible days and has reasons and stories and documentation to prove that yes, it is affirmative, they are or once were or could be, sad.
There is a game that is becoming popular called, I Have It Way Harder Than You Do. Maybe you have started a game lately, or been invited to one. This game also goes by the names, I Am Sadder Than You Are, and, Fuck You. It is similar to Settlers of Catan (just joking, but I do hate that game).
This is not the same as just feeling down or bitching to a friend -- no no, this game has specific rules.
The game rules are as follows:
1. Everyone is against you.
2. No one understands you.
3. Everyone will leave you.
4. Punish everyone with your sadness for items 1-3 as hard as you can, no boundaries.
5. The first person to burn everyone else's eyes off wins.
So, in the end the winner is alone. They were right! Everyone did leave! Hooray!
The saddest person wins again.
I hate this game. I am sick and tired of playing all variations, add-ons and spin-offs of this game. I Am Sadder Than You Are, is endless and boring and I do not like it, Sam I am, I do not like it in the dark or with my lunch or in my bed (I can't remember the book).
However, Feelin' Fucked? REFRACT! is a game I quite love, as it values creativity, boundaries, humility and vulnerability (and also balls) over victimhood, whining and punishment.
Pure sadness turned at full force into someone's face is horrible. You have felt it, right? I am well accustomed to the sensation.
I felt it again recently and was reminded that full strength sadness is a devastating and punishing weapon. When someone cannot (or will not) figure out how to slant and refract her sadness before it hits the people around her, it is as blinding and as damaging as the sun.
Even to the people wearing sunglasses...
And yes, I have pretty good sunglasses. I began wearing them at a young age because my Mom and Dad were sad. They were also hilarious and loving, but there were times when their sadness ruled.
"SUNGLASSES ON!" my fairy-godmother would announce. "Sadness is here."
And we would wait. For the blinding flash or the quiet house. I was always, always hoping and waiting for the laughter,
and it always eventually came.
The level of "offensiveness" in comedy (dark humor, dry humor, etc) is the angle at which sadness is refracted. Comedy is almost always tragedy, and some people can tolerate a very tragic angle of funny, while some people need or want it more diffused. I believe this is why humor is so personal and why there is so often offense caused by humor: because comedy is sadness refracted.
Thank goodness, right?? Otherwise what the hell would we do with it all? Humor is like recycling for sadness...
I love when I "get" something. When I hear a joke or a a story and think "YES." There is nothing that feels better than not being alone. "I AM HERE!" I want to shout in those moments, "I exist and I GET it, and so does that girl on TV! We should be FRIENDS!"
And when I hear a joke or a story and think, "Oh my god, that is HORRIBLE and SO not funny," it is usually because I feel sad.
Perhaps when we feel outrage or offense with a moment meant to be "funny" it's because when the angle of funny is too strong, it can feel violent. In those moments we are MADE to feel our own sadness pulse and shiver inside of us a little too clearly: sadness not enough refracted is just sadness.
Some people develop addictions to control their sadness.
Some people steal things, write things, drink things, cut things, abuse things, abandon things.
Some people spend money, research the best schools, eat organic food, exercise, have sex with strangers, organize, take on huge projects, fly fish, go for a run, eat fast food, masturbate, make money, pick their cuticles, inject heroin, pick fights, isolate, go to work, quote Bible verses, go to bed, make a difference, become ill, cook, buy stuff, put on lipstick, fall in love, go on vacation, smoke weed, smoke fake weed, quit smoking weed, play an instrument, adopt a baby, become an expert, go dancing, argue politics, continue education, have a baby... you get my point, right?
Some people is all people.
Everybody's got the blues, people, and most people, people, are doing their best.
To those who are not, to myself on a lot of days, to those taking the lazy way out: you will never be truly funny or able to really laugh because you will always be too goddamn sad.
Life is too short and too hilarious to blind the fuck out of the people around us.
Also, my eyes are getting old and tired of the abuse, as I'm sure yours are too.
Do the work. Recycle your sadness.
In the words of my cousin Lauren, "What if our belly buttons are afraid of the dark and they just scream in terror the entire time we wear clothes?"
I think that about sums it up.
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