I was commuting from Grand Rapids to Detroit yesterday, listening to AM radio. During the drive, I realized that I was once again drawn to conservative talk shows. Maybe "drawn to" isn't the right phrase. "Geographically forced to listen to" is more like it. Glenn Beck gets my attention because he is funny. I don't agree with him nearly 90% of the time (91% is my cut-off and I'm forced to turn the radio off.) But most times he's very funny, unless he's sounding the alarm that it's the end of the free world as we know it, and we need to stockpile on guns and ammo while we still can. But even THAT's a little funny. Bill O'Reilly is not funny. Most talk radio personalities can be a little funny. Rush, Dr. Laura, Michael Savage all have a moment or two, but not Bill. I've never heard him say anything remotely funny. (I take that back about Dr. Laura. She's not intentionally funny. I find it funny when she yells at her callers, which happens to ....every caller.
So, listening to Glenn Beck, I realized that if someone with a completely different view point then myself punctuates their agenda with a funny remark, or delivers a message with a dollop of humor, I'll keep listening. Realizing this, I wondered who may have influenced me over the years, personally, politically and religiously. Clearly, I'm drawn to humor, so most likely I would have been influenced by those who are funny.
I grew up with the likes of Steve Martin, M*A*S*H*, and Cheech and Chong. "The Jerk" and M*A*S*H* still crack me up, but I'll be damned, Cheech and Chong are no longer funny to me. Rodney Dangerfield was really funny to me, Robin Williams was not. SNL in the 70's was funny. I'm sure that it had some influence on me. I can't think of one funny thing about the 80's, except Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon and those ridiculous headbands, which wasn't funny then, but is really kind of a pathetic funny now.
In the 90's, Howard Stern was very funny. He may have influenced me. Though, now that he's on satellite radio, he's surprisingly unfunny, or just so much more sophomoric. Had he been on the air when I was a sophomore, he would have been my king of comedy. Joan Rivers was funny before her third face lift. Though I find it very funny that she looks almost exactly like the dummy named "Madame", from the ventriloquist comedy team, Waylon and Madame.
Ironically enough, I never found many comedians that were funny, and I still don't. Up on the stage with their "jokey" jokes... yet, If I see them live, I'll laugh for fear of getting singled out and picked on.
Bullies weren't funny, as I remember them. Although they WERE funny to their cronies. The kids that they picked on were funny; most of us being forced into a Woody Allen impression.
Most handsome men are not funny. I can't really think of any. I suppose that Jerry Seinfeld became more handsome as he progressed into the 90's. So, clearly, if someone is not good looking in the traditional way, but is funny, they may do better with women.
Me thinking about handsome men or how handsome a man is, is not that funny.
Historically speaking, many leaders were not funny. Socrates was not really funny, but Buddha had a moment. Julius Caesar was not funny, though the movie "Caligula" was hilarious! Jesus was not funny as far as the records show. I'm sure that even HE had the ability to share a knock knock joke, but apparently kept it to himself. Just imagine how much more influence he would have had on the world, had he been a little more self-deprecating. But that would have been blasphemous.
God was really funny in "Oh, God" but not so funny in "Oh, God Book II". He lost his edge in that one, and some movie goers as well.
George Washington was not funny, in fact, he was downright unfunny. Abe Lincoln was a real cut-up. I always feel like Kennedy was in on a joke that Nixon never really got. George Bush Sr.? Kind of funny. Jr? No.
Al Capone was funny, at least in "The Untouchables". "Bugsy" Malone, not so much. Bonnie and Clyde were pretty funny, records show. Shields and Yarnell, never funny.
One of my best friends, Lee George, is probably the funniest guy I know, though he rarely even has to say anything remotely funny anymore. We just crack up to tears almost anytime we get together, for no apparent reason, other than the long history we have together as friends.
My Dad is VERY funny, but sometimes at the expense of others. Well, it used to be that way. Over the years, he's mellowed out, and has been much more self-deprecating, making himself the butt of the jokes. My Mom's not really that funny, and has a hard time telling jokes properly, but she has a GREAT, gutteral laugh when she finds something funny that she probably shouldn't.
My wife is very funny, but fails to see any humor in the neurotic ramblings of Larry David, Albert Brooks, and me.
After all of that, it's hard to say who has truly influenced me over the years. I would say the combination of all of the funny people I've listed above, and maybe those were profoundly unfunny, have swayed me in the directions I have gone in life. And it continues with every new episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm or Jim Gaffigan monologue.
I'll continue to live my life channel surfing, inevitably swapping a few unfunny friends for some funny ones, and going to movies, trying to find some humor where ever I can. And in the end, on my deathbed, I'll lie there, secretly hoping that God has a better sense of humor then he did in "Oh God, You Devil".
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