This
young man I know is working out as a stand-up comic and making the
rounds of comedy clubs in Los Angeles trying to get a laugh. He said, I
don't know if I can ever make something of this, but I just want to be
authentic.
I snorted in reply. Authentic? Nobody cares.
What matters is are you funny? People come to the club to get some
laughs, so give them some laughs. There are no new jokes, only jokes
they haven't heard before. Forget authentic. Forget about being
yourself. Forget original. All that matters -- is it funny, and you
don't decide what is funny, the audience decides that. If they think
it's funny, it's funny. Otherwise, it's not funny. If you believe in
your material and they don't, you're dead.
My advice?
Steal. Steal from the best. Steal from the old comics because they were
masters, and because the young kids haven't heard that stuff. Steal from
Jack Benny. Imitate his timing and his dead-pan look. Wear the same
coat and tie. You're going to end up being yourself anyway. But if you
can get them to laugh -- then you're a blessing for humanity. Get the
laughs, forget about yourself.
Leading Ladies. We
will soon have three leading ladies -- a surplus of competence and
practical planning -- Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, Theresa May,
Prime Minister of England, and our own Hillary Clinton, President of
the United States.
Angela,
Theresa and Hillary -- not majestic like Indira Ghandi, nor regal, nor
queenly like Margaret Thatcher -- but competent, measured,
careful....... unremarkable in appearance... not like Golda Meir, whose
face told the story of a thousand years..... no, our new leading ladies
are the plain truth -- what you see is what you get -- no maternal
warmth, no beauty, no creative imagination.... only the plans, and the
meetings -- the long, long meetings -- and the policy papers,
single-spaced and endless. They are all three too much the same and for
that reason they might hate each other, as if looking in a mirror and
you don't like what you see.
Angela,
Theresa, Hillary -- they will be celebrated for putting things in
order -- no daring, no heroics, no drama.... we will be bored beyond
relief, but it seems necessary and we might even be grateful that they
were willing to take on this job.
Angela Merkel Is Not So Smart. She
is admired for her stubborn intelligence, but Merkel loaned billions of
euros to the Greeks and believed they would pay her back. We could
almost fall down laughing -- you loaned money to the Greeks? And you
thought they would pay you back?
Then Merkel welcomed a million refugees from the Middle East and she thought her neighbors would not mind. They did mind.
Quick Decision. A
scant three weeks after the surprising Brexit vote, the English people
have selected a new Prime Minister -- Theresa May. Various pretenders
launched campaigns, tested the waters, found support lacking, then gave
way, offering resignations with remarkable dispatch. In America we
admire this brusque efficiency. Our elections last forever We wish that
some of our politicians would resign -- by the dozens.
For news of England, I go to the Economist and the Guardian.
The Economist is free trade and conservative. The Guardian is leftish.
Both publications favor remaining in the European Union.
Clinton and Trump. Meanwhile Clinton and Trump slog it out through the humid summer months. I cannot stand it.
"Are We on the Path to National Ruin?" No, not in the least. But that was today's headline in the New York Times,
copied verbatim from David Brooks' column. You can get scared and
stressed out by reading the news. You need to pause and look out the
window. The sky is not falling. The nation is whole, and it's you and me
that make it whole, not these idiots who give speeches and write
columns in important newspapers. I am not on the path to ruin, are you?
Four Cops Murdered in Cold Blood.
This happened in a suburb of Seattle in November of 2009. But there
were no smart phones recording the video. So it didn't really happen.
President Obama did not come and lay a wreath. The four cops were white
and the killer was black, but there was no video.
It only
matters if we get the video. Social media, live streaming on Facebook,
is praised for immediate access to murderous events. There is some good
to that, but it can stir passions beyond control, and it offends the
dead.
Death is private. That has been our custom for
ages. We do not watch people die, unless we are family, unless we are
invited. It was an offense against the men who got killed in Minneapolis
and Baton Rouge to broadcast videos of their dying moments. Regardless
of the crime, if it was a crime, as it seems to be -- but we are not
privileged to watch this. More recent re-broadcasts of the video show
the victim's image pixilated, as if a shroud had been passed over him,
which is the decent thing. But beware of Facebook and smart phones --
they are powerful tools which can lend witness but also cause great
harm.
A Young Man I Know. A young man I know
seems to be breaking up with his girlfriend of several years. This can
be hard going. I don't think the young man did anything wrong -- just my
instinct here -- and I only said one thing, "Don't do anything stupid."
God, that was brilliant. Don't do anything stupid. I wish somebody had
told me that when I was young.
Frog Hospital is waking up and picking up the pace. There is work to be done.
No comments:
Post a Comment