The Gag Reflex

I once overheard a comedian tell an inquiring, young and attractive female fan that comedy is like sex.  The comedian described the feeling of hearing a room full of people laugh at his material as orgasmic. I did not point out that you can also feel orgasmic by masturbating or that is his comedy like an orgasm because it makes you sleepy. Far be it from me to undermine his poor analogy (ha! anal) as the ultimate purpose of that Comedian’s discourse was to engage in sex, with an inquiring, young and attractive female fan. However, as I am neither trying to seduce or sex you, comedy is not like sex.

The objective of sex is not to amuse by creating laughter. If you use sex for the purpose of amusement and it produces laughter then perhaps you could conclude comedy is like sex, but who wants to mash their pink bits together because they find it amusing.

The aim of comedy however is to amuse people by creating laughter. If people are smiling, then it is not comedy. If people are thinking, then it is not comedy. If people are expressing shock and horror, then it is not comedy. You can make people smile, think or shock/horror them in an manner that is amusing, funny and even comical, but if people are not laughing, then it is not comedy. This is a point that often missed by both comedians and audiences.

Creating laughter for the purpose of amusement, is a process. For people to laugh, they must be happy, for people to be happy, they must feel at ease. This is why a racist joke shared among friends gets a laugh but makes headlines when told at a press conference (note to any Queensland LNP Ministerial Advisors).

People also laugh for all sorts of reasons and not just to express amusement. For example, I am moved to laugh when something terrible happens. Once a very senior and important partner in a business I worked in heavily collided with a spotlessly clean glass door while talking on his mobile phone. The man broke his nose, phone and the noise of his face colliding with the door made a horrendously loud bang. It happened right in front of me and I laughed so hard I had to sit down. I no longer work at that company. In fact in the moment after I was told I was being let go, I laughed.

It is fair to say that I am motivated to laugh by both fear and misfortune. The fact that I am also at ease in experiencing either fear or misfortune should not be explored. My point is that you need to be aware of why people are laughing, because it may not always be an expression of amusement.

So let us summarize:

1) If a comedian tells you comedy is like sex, then they really trying to bang you (and if you cannot spot a poor analogy being used for the purposes of seduction then you deserved to be banged by a comedian).

2) Comedy requires laughter.

3) If you want to make people laugh start off by making them feel at ease.

4) Finally, if you see me working as a window cleaner it is because I am in need of a hearty laugh.

Joe and the Volcano queue at Centrelink.

Ganesha, the Hindu God of wealth and wisdom, tried his hand at Stand Up. At his debut, Ganesha moved on stage as only a nervous, omnipotent, four armed elephant headed, mouse riding deity could. He reached for the microphone and before he could speak, a wry voice from the dark heckled, "What's with the elephant head?"
Ganesha paused then said, "It's because we get paid peanuts."

I believe female comedians are not only funnier than male comedians but their subject matter trumps male comic material for hilarity, for example:

Fart jokes, funny (male).
Fanny farts, hilarious! 

Kicked in the nuts, funny.
Camel toes, hilarious!

Cock jokes, funny.
Funny looking cunts! H to the I to the L to the Arious!

Speaking of funny looking cunts, what about Australia's Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey.  Joe is qualified to speak on Australia's finances but he mostly resembles a piggy bank (i.e. fat and pink, like a funny looking c…).

Joe noted that we are at the end of the age of entitlement (http://bit.ly/JsDfOG).  The "Age of Entitlement" is the practice of state issued welfare support (eg. pensions, unemployment support, disability allowances etc). Welfare, according to Joe, is where poor, misfortunate and often disabled people, by virtue of being poor, misfortunate and often disabled, are entitled to receive tax payer funds to dry their poor, misfortunate and often disabled cocks and c...Joe Hockeys.

However, let us not get caught up in whatever poor, misfortunate and often disabled people are entitled too. Joe states that means testing welfare recipients is the only way to limit welfare. Further, Australia's continued welfare entitlement mentality will diminish our competitiveness against Asian countries that don't have welfare support.

These points illustrate that the growth rate of Clive Palmer's bank balance will only be exceeded by the amount of people requiring welfare support and that we cannot manufacture Apple products in Australia.  Joe, cleverly and simultaneously, recognizes and disowns the fact that Australia's welfare policies have contributed to the development of stable and secure society that is the envy of the world (including Asia, where they manufacture Apple products).

Nonetheless Joe should remember that unlike in most Asian economies and societies, in Australia, welfare recipients are made to vote.  I wonder if the end of the age of entitlement applies to Parliamentary superannuation packages.

Feeding the chooks.

I have been a Comedian for a number of years and no matter the occasion, the size of the stage or the size of the audience, I always get nervous before going on stage. When I say nervous, I don't mean, 'Oh I get a few butterflies in the stomach' nervous. I mean ulcer inducing, gut wrenching, hand shaking, parched throat, concrete blocks for feet nerves. The kind of nerves that if not for supreme bladder control, would leave tears of excitement running down my leg.

To overcome my nerves I’ve found the best way to settle myself is to engage in a wide spread public discourse with as many people as I can find in as big of a group as I can find.  Groups of people in libraries, bus stops and on the train platform are prime targets. I initiate conversations and then often take the opposite position on any point just to keep the discussion going. This is a process of what I refer to as mass debating in public and it is very relaxing.  I can mass debate in public for hours and I’ll tell you now it’s not as easy as it looks.  Ever since Brazilians became popular, nobody likes to beat around the bush.

I have not always been a Comedian.  I used to run a nightclub for dwarves (we called it “The Cottage”).  It was a very successful and lucrative business venture mainly because we sold drinks at mini bar prices.
For a while I also worked on a Ph.D in Ornithology. I was doing a research project near Caboolture, a small rural centre just north of Brisbane.  Caboolture is the home of some of my favourite rare and endangered birds, birds like the Double Breasted Mattress Thrasher and the Wide Mouth Fornicator.  I also liked Swallows, but they were neither endangered nor rare around Caboolture.

The Double Breasted Mattress Thrasher and Wide Mouth Fornicator are nocturnal birds and possess very distinctive mating calls.  I can only describe the calls as either a a high pitched E followed by, 'Buy us a drink' or a not very melodic ahhhhhhh, 'How bout a shag?' While such birds are not ever considered by purists to be a prized sighting they are however easy to find, if you know where to look.

Speaking of rare birds let us talk about Dodos and when I say Dodos I am referring to Campbell Newman.  By cancelling the Premier’s Literary Awards it has only taken one week for the Liberal National Party to make Queensland the laughing stock of Australia. Granted, when the Courier Mail’s target readership has an 8^th grade literacy level it makes a certain amount of sense that spending public money on literary awards is literally, a waste of time.


Nonetheless, Newman’s decision to dump the Literary Awards may prove to be a strategic move.  A little bird has told me (it only cost me a Barcardi Breezer) that Campbell Newman favoured the “Translink Rail Services Timetable” as his nomination for best work of fiction and “What Jesus Thinks About Evolution” was a clear favourite to win the science writing category. The pen may be mightier than the sword but in Queensland as Premier Newman shows, the only tool worth holding is one that votes conservative.

My Family, my glorious Hell.

Friends, I think the My Family stickers on car rear windscreens are great.  Unless if you are like me and consider the world your family, then those stickers become a driving hazard.

There are over six billion people and I drive an Astra. Who do I leave off my rear windscreen? Childless couples raising Labradoodles, people assaulted by Naomi Campbell, Scientologists! How fine do I slice the genome of rear windscreen discrimination?

At least Whitney Houston has my back. The one thing I can rely on is the selflessness of pop icons who die in pursuit of Celebrity's Holy Grail, that is, the ability to continue breathing while unconscious & filling their lungs with liquid and or vomit.

But while Heaven's nightclub is busily rearranging the weekend line up, let us ponder the eagerness in which we are willing to smooth over the reality of our family life with the thin veneer of transparently backed My Family stickers.

In as much as I love to see Norman Price chained to Jupiter and forced to run a mile for all the minutes of mischief he has created for the residents of Pontypandy, I cannot help but think that the My Family sticker phenomenon betrays the glorious hell that is time spent driving with your family.

Everybody depicted on the My Family stickers are smiling. Mum, Dad, daughters, sons, dogs, cats & the occasional carpet python complete with bulging middle after swallowing a possum (the possum is smiling as well).  This sort of a characterisation is a lie.

Unless I am mistaken, technology has not advanced to the point that a vehicle interior environmental controls include third world qualified anesthetists buried under the transmission, delicately mixing laughing gas into the air conditioning to ensure a pleasant trip. In fact, if I were to be stuck inside of car with a sibling who smiled as cheerfully and continuously as their stick figured character depicted on the rear windscreen, I would be looking to test out the warning that accompanies rear passage side airbags are capable of taking a child's head off.

I would hope that somewhere out there my rage is also felt by those who wish to see the truth prevail in all and any situation. Let us see a My Family sticker with a dad fuming while children scream at him to turn off the cricket. Let us see a My Family sticker of a mum holding a UBD upside down frustrated with her husband's inability to stop and ask directions.  Let us see a My Family sticker depict a pet with flatulence problem. Let us see a My Family sticker depicting children sobbing because Dad would not stop at McDonalds.  These are the truths I share with my family that I would not ever seek rendered down like horses hooves to make chicken nuggets (horses hooves may or may not be used to make chicken nuggets). This is My family, this is my glorious hell.