Chuckles, chortles and assorted cheer

People who read my blog or my Facebook will see me as stern if scholarly, or of putting pedantry on a pedestal. What they would not perceive me as is a humourist. At least, if they did, it would not follow from my intention.

In my blog, I've wanted to share knowledge using the simple maxim of building a frame and then letting the hyperlinks create synergies. We are all in a circle learning (for those joining).
On Facebook I've posted anything that took my fancy. A lot of sharing, which I never got into in Myspace, and then personal contributions. I'm trying to ease back on the politics, now that we lost, and concentrate on those other areas of exploration.

I'm not averse to the idea of writing satire or of lampooning ideals, but I think I've set a certain tone - quite naturally - and I don't want to mix those in some conscious fashion.

The simple idea that brought a flea and a nightclub together would not fuel my songwriting and would only have limited usability in a poem. There are ideas that are universal and then there are those that are fit to purpose.

I'd think that too much analysis of what makes something humorous would make it less so. To an extent, it falls apart at the touch.

The one way in which I do participate is in my love for puns. This does serve as a conduit into my reservations about comedy; I can get esoteric in my subject matter or idiosyncratic in my approach to it, but if I'm trying to be funny, or to evoke a guffaw, the audience has to get the joke.

The title of my first post on comedy is a play on comedic and medic but, in order to understand how this works, you have to be familiar with the phrase "laughter is the best medicine"

It's a witticism and it stirs thoughts but it isn't something to inspire a snigger, nor is it meant to be. It isn't really doing anything but being clever. And, such is the range of tastes, it would not inevitably meet that criterion either.

I'd venture to say that comedians don't necessarily set out to please everyone; knowing they can't. We all share that load. Some are just fortunate that they maintain the good will of the populace to generate and keep success. Sheer numbers.

While we need them to pay our bills and feed our egos, the appeal of an audience is in their size. But size isn't always good as we've discovered with the number of voters missing important pieces of information before they made their choice, or those who sit at home knitting kardashians. I'm not saying I'm intolerant to persons of no conceivable talent judging others or of radio and television audiences rewarding media personalities who'd otherwise battle to make Sam the Bald Eagle's guest list. Family is almost designed to make you respectful of people who seem stupid on the outside.

But I would say that there are funnymen who devise their own schtick, who project a patented persona, with little regard to the paying public other than to hope they take to it. The difference between an assembly line of sitcom hacks and a great humourist is not that great when you examine this part of the process; it's writing from experience or expounding on one small thing you've noticed and turning it into an act. Or a column.

I don't think this means that comedy must contain a familiarity - an earthiness. We've enough time on our hands to enjoy cerebral silliness and whimsical whoops. You will see a lot of stand-up comics lighting on the domestic and the workaday, the sexual and the social. Whether this is out of design or simply recounting something that happened, infusing it with a humorous take. It's hard with some clowns to tell where each of them leaves off.