Do I Like Me?

Lean too much upon the approval of people and it becomes a bed of thorns.

Tehyi Hsieh
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Hello Rose
****************
Like most actors I spent my working days seeking approval. First of all I wanted to be approved of by the director so that I would get the job. Once in rehearsal I wanted the approval of my colleagues, my fellow actors. Opening night would come and I wanted the critics to approve of me. And then I wanted to impress and charm the audience.

What was this need for approval? It is not germane to a performing artist to need approval. Being liked is a side show. The main event is the preparation and performance of the play, musical, ballet or whatever. The real pleasure for an actor is in the discoveries, developments, understanding the character, being able to create that character's life and presenting the drama in a moving and believable manner with beauty and artistry night after night. When an actor achieves that accomplishment he finishes his night's work with joy and satisfaction, no matter what anyone thinks of him.

Naturally we want to be liked. We want the applause, we want the good reviews and to be respected by our employers. Who doesn't? But when approval begins to take the place of reason, reality and conscientiousness, that's when the thorns start growing.

There's this famous story about a well known actress (maybe one of you knows the story better than I do and can fill in the accompanying details). She was doing a comedy. At one point she asked the character on stage with her for a cup of tea. For some reason it was a very funny moment and the audience would roar with laughter. But one night they didn't laugh. And for the next several nights there was no laughter. She asked a friend to watch the scene and tell her what was wrong. He did and told her that by the way she spoke the line she was asking for the laugh and that she should go back to asking for the tea. She did that and the laughter resumed.

In all areas of our lives it's the integrity and honesty of how we live and what we do that counts not the measurement of our popularity. As the Suna Sirah states "Honor yourself with humility, and give yourself the esteem you deserve." And I say, graciously accept the approval you get from others but know that you don't need them to tell you how good you are.

Disappoint yourself. Forgive yourself. Do better next time. And drink a toast to yourself every day.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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Seriously

Art is too serious to be taken seriously.

Ad Reinhardt
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Hello Sandy
*****************
The only people who take serious art seriously are some artists, (occasionally), people who buy art and art critics. The people who don't take it seriously are those who do it, those who sell it and those wretched people who are somehow forced unfortunately to look at it or listen to it against their will. How do I know this? Because I'm an artist and because I've observed the way art is handled in this age.

Watch a good musician in concert. You may see intense concentration while a piece is being performed, but at the end the musician will probably break into a big smile and maybe even a laugh. Sometimes you even see the smile while the piece is being played. It is the joy of music, or dance that you are seeing. The smiles on the faces of the actors at a curtain call are showing the same joy.

I've known artists who will chuckle at a painting they've done or are working on. It's the same with writers. I know that I will get a laugh out of a particularly strange and subtle twist of language when I'm writing. I avoid cliches, because I champion original thought in myself and in others, so I will go searching for the expression that tells the story without repeating the tried and true. And when I see it in other arts, the dancer who pushes his body into a movement I've never seen, or the musician who gives me a surprising cluster of tones, I feel the same delight.

There is a solid bedrock of mystery involved in the relationship between an artist and the work being done. It has to do with value and origination, an invisible generic bond of co-creation between the artist, the work and the inspiration that demands and forces it into being. It is as if there is an anonymous angel of pure spirit that finds it in whatever galaxy it lives, brings it out of hiding and gives it to the artist who is ready to respond.

The scientist will study to uncover the secret laws of nature. The engineer will design the mechanism that measures. moves and controls the natural forces. But what the artist does is transcendental. And who can be serious about that.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***********************

For Laughing Out Loud

Contents:
For Laughing Out Loud
Summer Question
Weekend Puzzle Answers
-------------------------------

Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.

Shakespeare
*****************
One of the most difficult things for an actor to do on the stage is to laugh. It is easier to cry than to laugh, we all have sorrows and injustices to weep about and it's fairly easy to make a connection with them. But laughing is another matter. People have fake laughs, polite laughs, obligatory laughs, laughs that indicate something is supposed to be funny but you aren't really laughing at it. Some characters have those kinds of laughs also. But at the moment in the play when the character is genuinely amused to the point of laughter the laugh has to be genuine. And that's hard, particularly when you've heard the amusing remark a hundred times or more.

The best on stage laugher I ever worked with was an actor named Rob Gomes. I did five performances with him n a Pintauro play. At one moment something strikes his character funny and every night Rob was literally overcome with mirth. It was a pleasure to watch.

Other actors will just rely on a fake laugh, and I worked with a woman, whose name I forget, who had a laugh that was so genuine sounding that it had me fooled for a few days. Most fake laughs are transparently false, sadly.

Some actors will simply walk away from it and not laugh at all because they know they can't do it. They may get by with a broad smile. But with some you won't even see that. I was doing an O'Neill play with an actor, whose name I also forget. At one moment he is supposed to laugh. My next line was "What are you laughing at? I suppose you thin it's funny." The first night he laughed. The second night he didn't. I waited. No laugh. I went on "I suppose you think it's funny." which made no sense. Fortunately I didn't say "What are you laughing at?" The third night there was no laugh. He was just staring at the floor. I said "What are you staring at? I suppose you think it's funny." which also made no sense. On subsequent nights I just cut the short scene altogether and got on with the play. When confronted about it the actor said he was so moved by my performance he couldn't laugh. Sure.

There's another kind of on stage laughter and it's when something is funny and it isn't supposed to be. Every actor has been on stage when someone made a slip up of some kind, usually in a line of dialogue. It hits the funny bone with an unexpected shock and it takes a great effort not to laugh. And it usually happens at a very dramatic moment with a lot of people on the stage or waiting in the wings.

In a performance of "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller a character has a line referring to the devil which goes "death driven into her forked and hoofed."
One night the actress said "driven into her horked and foofed." The rest of us were biting out tongues and cheeks and staring down so we wouldn't make eye contact with each other which would have been disastrous.

I was in a production of Shakespeare's "Othello" when another such slip up accored with almost everyone in the play standing by. Othello is describing Desdemona before he kills her.

"Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster."

One night he said "and smooth as alumental momblebaster." More tongue biting and teeth grinding.

Theatre people also like to do things to break each other up on the stage. I was in a production of "Greetings" when one night, and every night after that, a fake eye ball showed up somewhere on the set. The first night it was in the ice bucket, the next night in the desert bowl, then under the Christmas tree. We never knew who planted the eye ball or where it was going to be, but every performance one of us would come across it somewhere and try not to get the giggles.

The great thing about all these events is that we can get together and tell theatre stories to each other. Did you hear about the night so and so slipped during the big dance and fell into the orchestra pit. Or how about the night what's her name's costume almost fell off and the guy playing the cop had to hold it up from the back. Remember when Alice entered in the black out for her big dramatic scene and sat in the bowl of water?

Life is serious business, so get all the laughs you can out of it,

and
Never give up.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
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SUMMER QUESTION

It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you. Don't let the recent New York State decision rob you of your thunder.

Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

7 answers so far.

You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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WEEKEND PUZZLE ANSWERS

You were asked what the following names have in common?
And for extra points, to identify them.
********************
The answer is they are all non human characters in film and television.

Beethoven - the movie dog

Champion - Gene Autry had a number of horses and they were all named
Champion

C3PO - the tall skinny robot from Star Wars

Ed - Mr. Ed the TV talking horse

Hal - the devious 2001 computer

Lassie - everyone's favorite movie collie

Louie - Donald Duck's nephew

Ollie - From Kukla Fran and Ollie, TV

Scout - Tonto's horse

Toto - Dorothy's little dog from The Wizard of Oz
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First prize of a bunny costume goes to Geo of the Blogspot Tigers who got most of them correct.

Thank You

DB
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Leave Them Laughing

The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.

Salvador Dali
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There's an old saying in Show Business, when you are doing a comedy or a comic sketch "Always leave them laughing."

My readership is so low these days that I thought I would indulge myself a bit and once more write about my grandmother. Those of you who often join me as travelers on the vagabond's journey may remember and enjoy it. I hope so.

Her name was Charlotte Cole. That was her married name and her professional name. She was born in the 19th Century, as were her three children, two boys and a girl, my mother. Charlotte was trained as a youngster to sing, dance and play the piano, she was also given acting lessons..

She married a man who wanted to be a pioneer. So the two of them set off for Nebraska where he built a sod house and was a farmer and rancher. Charlotte gave birth to all of her children in that sod house.

One day she told me about getting supplies from the village. While her husband was working in the fields she would drive an ox cart into town. When the cart was filled there was no room for her so she road back sitting on the ox.

When her husband died her boys were grown and her daughter was a teenager. They moved to Lincoln, Nebraska where my mother finished school. Charlotte taught my mother to sing and dance, and a day came when they joined a traveling theatre company as a variety act. My grandmother was always very young looking so they became the Cole Sisters, a song and dance duo. She had amazing stories to tell about those years.

They played in some very rough places, some of them weren't states yet. Men would come to the theatre with their rifles. The theatres were often very primitive, with little or no sanitary facilities for the actors. There was no such thing as privacy.

One of the skits that was performed involved a Native American being shot and killed by the villain of the piece. Wherever the company went they would hire a local Indian to play the part. In one location he arrived for the show with his whole family and when the villain fired his pistol, once, the entire family fell down.

She told about another time when the entire company got diarrhea during the performance. The only way out was through the back door which was covered by a piece of scenery. As soon as the first act was over and the curtain closed there was a mad dash to the out houses which immediate filled up leaving every one else to use the forest out behind the theatre.

They eventually got to New York City. In those days the motion picture business was located in New York, before Hollywood was born. So Charlotte became an actress in silent films.

She taught me things and encouraged me to go into show business. She was the only one in my family who did.

One of the most remarkable things about my grandmother was her sense of humor. When something struck her funny she would laugh in such a way that everyone around her was infected by it and would laugh along with her even if they didn't know what was funny. One day we were driving somewhere and the wind blew her hat off, right out the window. My brother went chasing after it and each time he leaned over to pick it up the wind would blow it again. After a couple of times watching that she started to laugh. Even though it was her hat she couldn't resist the humor of it and neither could the rest of us. My poor brother eventually saved the hat but didn't appreciate being laughed at.

Another time she was visiting me, my mother and my sister. She decided to take a bath. When she was finished she couldn't get up. My mother and sister tried to get her up but were unable to, she was a bit overweight by this time. So they called me. Charlotte held a towel in front of her, I grabbed her under the arm pits and hoisted her up, then went about my business. Charlotte was unfazed by the whole thing.

The most memorable story about her and her sense of humor happened a few days before she died. She was very independent. She had lived for many years by herself in a residential hotel in New York. One day she called my mother and said to come and get her because she was passing on. We were living in a New York suburb at that time. So we drove into town and picked her up.

This was in the 40's. In those days you didn't enter an upscale New York hotel without being properly dressed. So I wore a tie and jacket. I was 14 years old. Not only that but Charlotte never went out without being immaculately dressed, which meant a nice outfit, her fox fur stole, gloves and a hat with a veil.

When we reached our apartment, which was on the second floor, Charlotte took one look at the stairs and declared that she would not be able to climb them. So I got a chair. We put Charlotte in the chair. Mother got in front, I got behind, and we lifted her step by step up the staircase. Except that every time I leaned over to grab the back of her chair my tie fell in front of her face and she had to blow it away. Well, about half way up the stairs it struck her funny and she started to laugh. Within moments she, mother, I and the two people from the first floor who came out to see if they could do anything, were helpless with laughter.

We finally got her upstairs and into a bed. Two days later she went to the hospital and made her exit. She was 88.

I'll never forget that day. There she was an old lady knowing that she was going off to die and yet she found something humorous about her own passing. I vowed to be like her. If I have to go, that's the way I want to go. Leave them laughing.

Dana Bate
The Vagabond
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My lower bridge came loose this morning. It's painful, very painful to chew, impossible to bite. No money for a dentist, no insurance.
********************
Never give up.
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What Are You Laughing At?

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

Goethe
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Two of us were sitting around the announcers' lounge one day waiting for our shifts to begin. We were visited by another announcer, a port time person who was brought in to cover someone's vacation. While there he told us about a good buddy of his who loved to make his pet cat jump forward and smack its nose against the wall. Then he laughed at the image. The other announcer said "I would say your buddy has a problem." I said "I agree."

The guy who told the story stopped laughing in surprise. Why didn't we think it was funny? It was suggested that his friend had a lot of character building to do. I noted, as I have often, if any one laughs at another creatures suffering, then he better be prepared to laugh at his own.

It does seem amazing what some people find funny. One year the Village Voice, in NYC, held a contest. They asked readers to send in the funniest photograph they could. The winning picture was of a man standing in his boat and peeing into the water. That's not funny, but peering around the corner of a large building, with it's big smile watching him was the huge Mickey Mouse balloon. The picture was very funny.

But the Voice printed an editorial about the contest saying they had received hundreds of photographs of little naked boys. What was so funny about a little boy's genitals was beyond their comprehension. I knew a woman who when she saw a baby boy or toddler who was naked would go into uncontrollable laughter. The people standing around thought she was crazy.

I'm not against laughter. I enjoy a good laugh. I enjoy the ironies and absurdities of life, the banana peels we all slip on now and then. It is healthy when people can laugh at themselves when the banana peel trips them up because it means they are not taking themselves too seriously.

I know I've told this story before but it illustrates what I'm saying and is also one reason for my own sense of humor. I was just 14 when my grandmother died. She knew she was about to die and asked my mother to come and get her. My grandmother was a product of the 19th Century and never went out unless she was fully dressed with fox stole and hat with a veil. When we approached the stairs leading up to our apartment she realized she couldn't climb them. We got a chair and put her in it. While she sat there primly with her hands in her lap we lifted her up step by step. I was wearing a tie and jacket. Every time I leaned over to grab the back of the chair my tie fell in front of her face. After a couple of times she got the giggles. When my grandmother laughed every one around would laugh.

I never saw her again after that day. She died a few days later. But the image of her having the strength of character to find something to laugh about at her own passing has never left me and it showed that there is an amusing side to everything.

DB - The Vagabond
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Weekend quiz, answers.

Comet's driver (5) Santa
Headless egos are helpers (5) elves
Precipitation sound to gentle creatures prancing (8) reindeer
Sooty entrance for bag man (7) chimney
Herb's digit up above (9) mistletoe
Receptacle for feet hanging (8) stocking
Charles' festival song (1, 9, 5) A Christmas Carol

DB
***************

What's So Funny?

Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.

Lawrence Durrell
*********************
What constitutes being a genius? What are the qualifications? You can take a Mensa test and pass it. You can have your IQ measured. You can out think and out talk your friends. You can flash your Phi Beta Kappa key across the over stuffed vest of your three piece suit. And you can brag to yourself about how intelligent you are. But do any of those things qualify you as a genius? On the other hand if you can make a healthy patch of squash grow where no one else could you may have the right to the title.

Einstein said he wasn't a genius but that he was just very curious. And he had a good sense of humor.

It took me many years before I was able to look at myself with a comedian's eye. I got offended when friends laughed at the things I said and did which I considered important and serious. They told me I was too sensitive. They were being kind, although I didn't realize it. But eventually the subjective gave way to the objective and I was able to see the clown's nose on my face. Then I was on the door step of seeing how humorous the world is and particularly the human race. We can smirk at the antics of babies and some animals but to really get that down in the rib cage laugh we have to see an adult human acting like an idiot. Things we do are worthy of a good French farce or a Neil Simon comedy, and that's why they've been written.

In theatre, one of the definitions of farce is " a passion carried to a ridiculous extreme." Even after the awakening to my own foolishness I would sometimes get caught up in such a passion. I could say to myself "Come one, DB, you're being ridiculous." But I knew the farce had to play itself out and that one day the "comedia" would be "finite" and I could then laugh at myself for it.

Now I get to laugh at the self-important antics of our politicians and TV personalities. Who's wearing the clown's nose today and at whom is she or he thumbing it? It's very entertaining. I once queried if the Congress was ever going to be comprised of grown ups. But the fact is they are all grown ups. That's what makes them so funny. Are there any geniuses in the group? It's hard to tell considering the muddy playing field they're on. But mud wrestling has always been an amusement for some.

So what constitutes a genius? I don't know, but a very curious, intelligent person with a sense of humor gets my vote.

DB - The Vagabond
**********************
AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

5 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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Jump For Joy

Get all the good laughs you can.

Will Rogers
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I have a hard time understanding some people's attitudes and forms of behavior. It seems to me a lot of people spend too much time telling other people how to think and what to do. A few days ago I wrote about the dangers of underestimating people and how it can lead to a patronizing and condescending attitude.

One Thanksgiving Day a few years ago my stove and oven weren't working. So I bought some canned food to have for my dinner. Then my can opener broke. What did I do? I laughed. It wasn't a sarcastic, poor-pitiful-me laugh, but a genuine laugh. If it hadn't been Thanksgiving Day it wouldn't have been quite so silly. I ate a peanut butter sandwich and a banana and go on with life.

Yesterday I had some fun talking about the gremlins in our computers waiting to jump out when we approach there hiding places. In spite of how aggravating they can be there is also a humorous side to them if you look for it.

I have been called by some a dark and sinister man. I was never able to understand that considering the joy and laughter I get out of life in spite of being an old coot, with a meager income, debts and decrepitude. Finally I realized that those who were calling me dark were in their own darkness, standing with their backs to the light casting their own shadows on to me.

Years ago I learned that there is a light source in even the most dire tragedy. It may not produce gales of guffaws but it is fuel for healing. But it can't be seen unless there lives inside of us the propensity for joy. As an actor I loved doing comedy because I liked to hear people laugh. I would try to get as many "good" laughs as I could

We may laugh at the antics of kittens, puppies, apes and monkeys, but nothing is funnier than the human being. Us. Me. You. "'Tis the season to be jolly" says the carol. When is it not? "Make a joyful noise." I complain bitterly about certain things. Who doesn't? But I can also laugh at them. I enjoy life. And the Email Lions and Blogspot Tigers better get used to the idea.

Joy, joy moves the wheels
In the universal time machine.
Flowers it calls forth from their buds,
Suns from the Firmament,
Spheres it moves far out in Space,
Where our telescopes cannot reach.

(Friedrich Schiller)
----------------------------
The Vagabond
**********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

15 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

Thank you.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
*******************

Laugh It Up

We should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

Nietzsche
*******************
In Eugene O'Neill's play "Long Days Journey Into Night" James Tyrone wants to know what his young son Edmund is laughing about and he says he's laughing at life because it's so funny.

Ancient Greek theatre was a very vibrant, powerful and important one. There would be a festival at which four plays were presented all by the same author. The plays were based on ancient Greek history or legend. It often took a year to prepare them. The acting and the writing needed to be spectacular to hold a Greek audience for that length of time, and they were. Many of those plays still exist and the few famous ones, Oedipus the King, Hecuba, Medea, sometimes show up in regional theatres and Off-Broadway.

Though the plays took their plots from stories everyone knew the themes were relevant to life and portrayed the tragedies and dramas of human existence. While the first three plays in the festival were tragedies and high dramas the fourth play was a comedy. It was a parody, a satire on the same topic as the first three plays. After the audience had been put through the thunder dramas of life they were allowed to laugh about it.

Many of those ancient plays have been lost. But, and here a classical scholar, if there is one reading this, can inform me further if I'm mistaken, as far as I know only one of those final satires still exists: The Cyclops by Euripides, based on the Ulysses story.

There is a great lesson here. There isn't anything in life, no matter how dramatic, tragic or terrifying it may be that doesn't deserve to be laughed at. My developed and cherished sense of humor allows me to poke fun at everything about life, except other people. People change, life doesn't. To make fun of people is a bad way to get a laugh. I don't listen to people like Limbaugh, Leno and Beck. They take delight in putting other people down by scorning them and trying to make me laugh at them. It's cheap. low level. decadent humor and a total waste of my time.

DB
*******************

SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

14 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

Thank you.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
*******************

Present Mirth

You don't stop laughing because you get old.
You get old because you stop laughing.

Anonymous
*******************
There was a joke yeas ago that I liked. An American journalist went to spend some time in The Soviet Union in the 50's. While there he visited a Russian farmer and his family. He asked the farmer "What do you think of Nikita Khrushchev?" The farmer stood up, opened the front door and looked around, then peered out of the windows. He motioned for the journalist to follow him as they went out to the barn. At the back of the barn there was a small room with a door. The farmer opened the door, lit a candle on the small table, then closed and bolted the door. The two men sat across from each other at the table and finally the farmer leaned over and whispered "I like him."

I was doing a play in Boston. There is a place there called The Common where people can stand up and make a speech about anything they consider important. One afternoon between performances I went out there and found a guy standing on a box and declaring that Khrushchev should not be allowed into the country. Niki was coming to speak at the UN, and this fellow was trying to prevent it. According to him no Russians should ever be allowed to come to the USA as it would give legitimacy to their "evil communist society."

It was pointed out to the gentleman that Khrushchev had a right to speak at the UN since his country was one of the main and founding members of it, that the only way he could get there was by landing a plane at a New York City airport and getting in a limo to be driven through our sacred streets. Furthermore he was reminded that the Soviet Union had a consulate in the city and a permanent group of representatives there. So much for not allowing the Russians in. It wasn't long before people were chuckling and shaking their heads in approval of what the others were saying. It's no doubt The Cold War was a serious matter for the world, but this man's objections were laughable.

Today, when I see or hear some authority, whether a pseudo Christian or otherwise, get up on a stage and start lecturing in simplistic terms about what's wrong with the world, the country or anything, I have the same response. They deserve to be laughed at. It's a clown show. Nothing more. It may stir up a lot of people who also lack the humor to see the show, but in the long run it will accomplish nothing else.

Khrushchev came, spoke, hung around for a while and then went back to Russian. Our country survived it. We weren't invaded nor did we fall into the "evil" embrace of Communism. The irony of it all is very funny.

So now the doomsdayers are up again and blaming the government. There's nothing new about that. They've been doing that since the 18th Century.

One of the advantages of having been an actor all my life is that I can recognize bad theatre when I see it, and that's what I see. It may fool a lot of people. But it can't fool anyone who can still laugh.

DB - The Vagabond
***********************

SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

In your opinion what is the most amazing thing that could happen during this decade? Make it as outrageous as you want but keep it within the realm of what you consider a possibility.

Only 7 responses so far.

Answers will be published the first day of Summer.

Thank you.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB - The Vagabond
*******************

What are you laughing at?

Life's perhaps the only riddle that we shrink from giving up.

W. S.. Gilbert
*******************
I think there is nothing in life that doesn't deserve a good laugh. But there are good laughs and bad laughs. There's laughing with and laughing at. There are things we can laugh at that don't hurt, things we are supposed to laugh at: clowns, comics, the shenanigans of some animals in the zoo or our own household pets. But there is another form of laughing at, where someone is made the butt of a joke that may be funny but hurtful.

Three times in my life I had to work closely with someone who got great delight in poking malicious fun at someone else's expense. Two of those people were radio announcers which meant that their barbs went out over the air. I was speaking with a listener one day who was praising one of them for being so funny. I said that he was funny until you become the subject of his jokes.

It was inevitable that some day those jokesters would stick the wrong people with their sarcastic darts. They were both fired from their jobs.

There's a well known TV nighttime host whose opening monologue is almost entirely made up of making fun of people. Some people find it very amusing. I don't. It's cruel. Next time you watch one of those people aim his so-called wit at someone else, imagine if it was you he was talking about. You might stop laughing. If you find yourself telling jokes like that about other people, slap yourself, figuratively, across the mouth and stop it.

That kind of humor is beyond being disrespectful. It is disguised hatred, dressed up envy, a dish of bile with whipped cream on top.

The other kind of laughter is a loving laughter, an acknowledgment of the things that are really humorous, a poking of fun that is not malicious or hurtful, a sharing with others the ironies and absurdities of life.

Why is life so funny? Why is it so confusing? Why do things not behave they way they are supposed to? Why does your garbage weigh more than your groceries? Why did you put your car keys in your bathrobe pocket? Why aren't your shoes where you left them when you took them off last night? Why does the weather report say snow when the bright sun is shining through my window? Why is there sometimes a crack in the solid wall of reason?

The subject of humor is something I could write about forever. Other people write about it and keep writing about it because it's an endless topic and because there isn't anything in life that doesn't deserve a laugh, including life itself.

In the midst of my six weeks of anguish at not being able to get back on line I was on the phone with one of the techies who was trying to fix the problem but wasn't doing it. There are certain things they are supposed to say to every customer, such as "Thank you for calling ...." etc. One of those prescribed comments is "Is there anything else I can help you with" even when they haven't done anything. When this particular techie asked me that I said "No. Unless you can tell me the true meaning of life." He laughed. Considering the people he had to talk to and the problems he had to deal with it was probably the only time he laughed all day.

DB
*******************
How cold is it?
Weekend challenge.

You are to complete the following sentence:

How cold is it? It's so cold.........!

As in: "It's so cold the pine tree is shivering!"
----------------------------------------
There are only 5 answers so far. Come on, I know there's a sense of humor out there somewhere. Be inventive, creative, original, outrageous. Exaggerate. Enter as often as you like. The decision of the judge is final and probably biased.
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