Getting a good laugh

In the past couple of weeks, my wife and I saw a couple of comedy shows featuring well-known comedians. To say the least, we laughed a lot.

Humor with comedians runs the gamut. Most topics are not off limits and there are a lot of things that we can agree with.

In general, families are the first targets and relating to some experiences are closer to our own reality than we would like.

But having similar experiences are what makes these shows so laughable. Politics certainly is a close second on most nights.

If you wonder about how difficult it is to be a standup comedian think about the last time you told a joke.

Did anyone laugh? Did you have to explain the joke? Did it offend anyone?

To be a comedian you have to have good timing. A comedian has to make themselves laugh otherwise they probably aren’t funny.

A comedian has to get noticed and may only have about five minutes to get that done. When a comedian makes it they will need to have over an hour’s worth of material to piece together so guess what?

They are going to have to do the routine over and over until they can say it in their sleep.

By this time they may be bored with their jokes but to get the paycheck they will need to make a group of people in one city laugh and then repeat the same jokes in a city 300 miles away the next night.

The comedian will need to be able to make a quick come back line if they are getting heckled by the audience otherwise the heckler can become the main event.

Think about the toughest job you ever had. Was it boring? Did you have to do the same thing over and over all day long? Did you have to take a lot of criticism from coworkers or clientele?

I’m sure standup is a good gig especially if you get a big paycheck but you need to keep refreshing the act or else you will start to lose fans. And that is not a good thing at all.

That’s probably why you see some comedians get into acting because writing their own material isn’t easy but falling back on someone else’s humor might keep the laughs coming.

I think we’ve all heard someone say they wanted to be a rock star. How long do most rock stars last? How many one hit wonders are there?

I love comedy and I enjoy listening to some music, but to last and keep fans is not easy. It may not be healthy either.

The thing I really enjoy is sports because it isn’t scripted as to a beginning and end outcome. Teams practice and game plans are worked on and if all goes well a team can ride it to victory.

But there is another team that is also working on a game plan and could make things miserable for the opponent.

But that is the great thing about sports. Two teams can play each other in the same season a couple of times and the outcomes can be entirely different.

Adjustments are made, offenses and defenses can be changed or maybe one player can have an off night and then be unstoppable the next time they play.

We see upsets all of the time and we act dumbfounded that it happened.

This team is loaded with talent while the other team continues to find itself. Mentally and emotionally a weaker team can find the ability to string together a complete game and pull off a crazy win for the ages.

You see it in football, basketball and baseball as well as many other sports. There may be no rhyme or reason why it happens but a team has a belief system that they can beat anyone on a certain night.

They may not be able to do it the next night or even a couple of nights later but it doesn’t matter because they made breaking news with a huge upset that may be all they ever wanted anyway.

If you want to watch sports and get a good laugh then I suggest watching professional wrestling or maybe the Harlem Globetrotters.

I think most sporting events are great to watch because we don’t know the outcome at the beginning of the game and hoping our team wins or wishing for an upset often times keeps our interest alive.