Yes, my fellow stand up artists, we all are suffering from this mental disorder at some level.
I did not know about stand up comedy and I am sure I still do not know anything about it. As far as my understanding of last three months of this rawest of art forms is concerned, it's a combination of foolhardy and tomfoolery.
I am sure we all get funny ideas in our heads but whats funny to you may not be so funny to everybody. People laughing at something has no logic or pattern to it.
So it got me thinking, what makes people laugh.
People laugh if someone slips over a banana peel or trips over any other thing and falls down. It's an accident but somehow people think that its funny.
You will find hundreds of videos on YouTube showing people falling down the trees, being chased by animals, their balls being crushed basically nightmares for the persons going through that ordeal, but you will find hundreds and thousands of views for those kind of videos.
Because it is funny. Why? No idea. So what do I do to make people laugh ? I need to do that. It's therapeutic for me.
Simple. Just go out there and make a fool of myself. That will make them laugh. But it cannot be an accident happening on the stage, so I have to describe any other kind of anomaly happening in my life to them.
I did. And people laughed. I poured my heart out to them about my personal life, my appearance, my lineage, my fears, my guilt and even my pathetic sex life and they laughed. And believe me I traded up.
However, it is not that people only laugh at other people's misery. If you are a sport or have an extended happy hours at bars, people will laugh at anything. Even their own miseries.
Political and social hypocrisy, current affairs or news, anything that concerns our lives can be a subject of a stand up act.
And it came to me while performing one day, its the honesty of the story that makes people laugh. If it is true it will be funny. If people think its true it will be funny. So if you tell a story and people buy it, its funny.
There were days when my jokes/stories were followed by pin drop silence. It was very frustrating to me in the beginning. But now I take it as if my Doctor treating my Need to Please Disorder missed an appointment.
So here I am with 40 years of life stories to be told. And trust me its all funny. And that makes me very funny.
I consider "to laugh at one self is an art which can be said the result of self control ."
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to make others laugh at your own expense ,trying each moment to make the scene so funny that every body laughs at you .
This to day,s twitter reminded me of an article of my text book,in school classes by some renowned writer,He explains in it the SITUATIONS in which one laughs.Ik dundhali see yaad aa gaee !
jagjit kaur
thanks bhooji
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