The safest target for humor is always yourself, and the best material reflects your personality.

So it’s time to start digging.

I have not had much success just sitting down and looking in my past for funny stuff. I have however, nearly always been able to come up with pertinent examples of past behavior when faced with a new humorous situation.

You can’t use what you don’t remember, so today start remembering.

Write it down.

It it’s funny, write it down.

If it strikes you as odd, write it down.

If it doesn’t make sense, write it down.

All of these notes become a foundation for future material. The idea that a major comic just riffs on their childhood is crazy. A good routine, with an absolutely natural delivery, that sounds like it’s the first time it came to mind, may take months to put together.

So start a journal, or notes on your iPhone, Blackberry, or computer. As you note present day events and thoughts, related thoughts will start to appear. Maybe not right away, maybe not for every item, and not all the time, but the thoughts will come.

So write them down.

We’ll cover what to do with all this stuff in a later post.

Meanwhile, comments are open, and if you want a unique speaker or MC for your next event… contact me! There are still good dates open for 2010. (2011 is still pretty much wide-open too. And 2012 may mark the end of the world, but I can still take your deposit.)

I have just watched Suart Brown’s TED talk: Why Play is Vital – No Matter Your Age.

Play.

When did we get so serious?

We’re even serious about humor. Somehow somewhere we seemed to get the idea that to be serious, we have to be solemn.

Maybe it’s best to just throw stuff out there and hope something sticks, or more accurately, someone laughs.

Sometimes things work, and sometimes things don’t.

I performed with a man for several years who wrote some wonderful material. But hoarded it as if he would never write anything good again. Anytime I thought something was too good to let go, I locked up, kind of creative constipation. But when I let it all go, new stuff always filled in the space.

This is not new. It’s sort of a comic version of what televangelists call, The Prosperity Gospel, or some motivational speakers call the principle of vacuum.Zen yogis caution us that if we are already full of crap, there is no room for anything else, no room for anything new. If you are busy finding places to use what you already know, you are not looking for new things to learn.

Funny surrounds us.

In Focus On The Escape we talked about locking in on something to the exclusion of everything else.  The only barriers are self created ones. There is always another story, always another joke, always another stupid frat guy who not only does something stupid, but films it and puts it up on YouTube for the world to see.

The only way to find out if something is funny is to put it out there.

If you are one of those rare individuals who has such a highly refined sense of humor that only three people on the planet share your insights, as long as they are not bedouins who live in a tent, or pygmies who live in the jungle of New Guinea, you will find each other and laugh.

So play.

It’s OK.

If it works, it works,

if it doesn’t…. try something else.

And if your company or group has forgotten how to play, bring me in for your next meeting or event! (I’ve got kids in college, and an expensive wife, I need the money!)

Meanwhile, play around with comments, and with the subscribe buttons.

Bugatti Veyron

This is an incredibly simple concept, once you get it. But tough to write about.

Status is our relationship to the world. Not only to people but to things and to places.

For example: Why are we quiet and reserved (usually) in church?  Movie theaters are similar physical spaces, but treated completely differently.

Could it be because one is “God’s House,” and the other is Jim Carey’s?

Would you eat popcorn in church? Could you watch a movie without it?

How many have noticed that, when you go home,  even if you have become a multi-national billionaire philanthropist, you instantly become the “little brother” AKA “Pizza Face.”

One of the best books on improvisational theatre, is Impro, written by Keith Johnstone. Keith is the founder of the Loose Moose Theatre Company in Calgary, Alberta Canada. And one of the theories that Keith writes about is that every day, in every way, in every interaction, we are all playing, status games.

Depending upon how we feel about ourselves, or about the people we meet or even the places we go, we are attempting to adjust our status to what is comfortable for us. We “play” either higher or lower than the other party. In many cases we are status matching with the other party, trying to maintain an equivalent status with them.

This has relevance for Using Humor, because humor relies upon status to work. Status is what drives classic “Dumb (insert group here)” jokes. We get to feel superior to the country hick/city slicker/blond/brunette/engineer/golfer/etc. Many times when humor doesn’t work it is because the status was not right. And it isn’t as simple as low status making high status comments. It may be because there is nothing funny about high status making high status comments.

Sometimes this is easy to recognize. We all know someone who, no matter what we bring up, they have done it better, faster, or spent more money.

These folks drive me nuts.

So turn the tables on them, using status, Talk about how bad something was. When they reply with something much worse. Lower the stakes even more.

If they don’t catch on, you could progress from talking about a rash, to broken bones, to internal injuries, to dire operations, to tropical diseases. And in rare instances they may end up trying to convince you they were actually dead, and brought back to life.

Next time you attend a party, or social event, it will transform how you view everything.

“Suddenly we understood that every inflection and movement implies a status, and that no action was due to chance, or really ‘motiveless.’ It was hysterically funny, but at the same time very alarming. All our secret manoeuverings were exposed.” – Keith Johnstone

There is no way to be neutral.

In trying to be “neutral’ you adjust your status to those around you, and they will in turn adjust to compensate for your modifications.

Go now and observe. Report back in comments what you overhear or participate in.

A real key to seeing the funny, is seeing the “What ifs.” Here is something you can do to help develop those “What If” muscles.

The game is called “Objects” and requires the name of a small inantimate object. Then you open the gate and let your mind off the leash.

For example:

What can you do with a No.2 wooden pencil:

The first thing that comes to mind is that the Mirado pencil was actually named the Mikado until WWII when it was felt anti-Japanese sentiments would hurt sales, so the the K was changed to an R. But beyond that, there are so many things you can do with a  pencil.

1. Sharpened and stood upright they become the stockade fence of a fort
2. If you have to move something heavy then you can lay them down and make a little log rolling device, use the actually round ones rather than the octagonal ones for best results.
3. Several of them spliced together create the frame of a kite.
4. About a million of them lashed together make a great raft for escaping that island in Lost
5. Take a hundred or so and lay them out in a circle with the erasers touching and you can make a great Sun mask
6. Speaking of erasers, if your sneakers just aren’t sneaking anymore because the soles are worn out, then fifty or sixty erasers from pencils, glued on the bottom of your shoes can make them like new!
7. Drill a couple of holes in pencils and run a string through them and you can make a great “log” bridge for GI Joe.
8. All those pencils that you took the erasers from for your sneakers? The empty metal eraser shell can make a great biscuit cutter for your GI Joe’s mess hall.
9. Break a finger? A couple of pencils can make a great splint.
10. Lose your cleats for the track meet? Not to worry, cut the points from ten pencils and insert them into the holes for your cleats and you’re good to go!
11. Escaping from a high-security facility at night? Rub the graphite from a few pencils on your face for camouflage.
12. Need axles for an old toy car? Pencils!
13. Need tank treads for GI Joe’s tank? Cut pencils into three pieces and string some wires through two holes drilled in each piece and there’s your new tread.
14. I’ve always thought with enough pencils, a replica of the Eiffel Tower would be really easy.
15. Fifteen thousand pencils glued together can make a great desk
16. If you are into the tricks of the fakirs – 333 pencils with the sharp end up make for a great bed of “nails”
17. Some white tape and a pencil makes a great replacement ear-piece for your glasses or shades.
18. Tent Pole – for GI Joe, or enough of them with some duct tape and it works for your tent too.
19. Archimedes original quote was “With a big enough pencil and a fulcrum point, I could move the world.
20. Trapped in a prison cell? Take the lead out of a pencil and get a needle, dip it in poison (that may be tough) and then use the pencil as a blow gun to subdue the guards.
21. Of course you might just use the deleaded pencil as a straw.
22. In these days of high energy prices how about using pencils as heating fuel?
23. Why stop there? Enough pencils and a boiler and you’ve got steam baby!
24. Tent pegs.
25. Golf tees.
26. Shaped and painted white? False teeth!
27. Unique jewelry for piercings
28. No need to spend money on those expensive wooden roller window shades. enough pencils strung together…
29. And of course a great use for the used up pencil stubs is a “beaded” curtain! So retro! So cool!
30. Rub two together to make a fire.
31. A small arrow for a small bow.
32. Now you try.

The idea is not that any of these make sense, but just stretch us into seeing a few more of the possibilities. You can try it while driving, while stuck in traffic, as a warm up to writing.

Here are some small objects to get you started:

1. A key
2. A red rubber ball
3. Rubber band
4. Paper Clip
5. Drinking Straw
6. Paper Plate
7. A sock
8. Paperback book
9. Shoelace
10. A pillow

This may even have pratical applications: The first beer koozy (those thick insulators for cans) was cut and made from an old scuba diving wetsuit… by a thirsty scuba diver, tired of drinking warm beer.

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This is a blog about Using Humor, so at the risk of spoiling what mystery there is, here is some of the background that went into the last post Happy Birthday, Scofflaw. Please read it first. We’ll wait….

OK, Ready?

Here is the truth behind the post:

I really have taken 14 Defensive Driving courses (or more) The whole idea of someone who has taken 14 courses is humorous and a little absurd.

Texas only allowed one course, to dismiss a ticket, every other year, this was later modified to allow one per year. And for six or eight years I got a speeding ticket about every 24 months. Later on, to stay in step with the state, I managed to pick-up a ticket every 12 months. Just trying to do my part.

DefensiveDriving.com really does send out birthday greetings, originally by snail mail and more recently by email.

One of my best instructors was an eighty year old man. And he really made the comments about backing-up and hitting things.

Florida does have a lifetime limit on the number of Defensive Driving courses you can take. Texas does not.

After choosing the parts, it was just a matter of crafting the narrative.I always ask myself a couple of questions when doing this:

• What is the natural outcome of this?
• What else could happen?

For example, my father in law, I could say he drives fast, gets a lot of speeding tickets and spends a lot of money on attorneys. True. But not humorous. So I ask myself about natural outcomes and alternate events, add back in the topic and the paragraph becomes:

My father in law does not believe in seat belts or speed limits, and has helped send his traffic attorney’s children to college. I have witnessed Arlene sitting calmly in the passenger seat while her Dad used the left hand shoulder to pass a slow moving pickup truck. On the other hand, even with my vast Defensive Driving credentials, she will tense up and grab the armrest when I don’t brake quickly enough to suit her. Go figure.

You too, have experiences, that with a little thought can be made into a humorous narrative. Will Rogers said, “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” So, to paraphrase, just watch your own life and report on it. This seems too simple, but most people don’t take the time to notice what is right in front of them. Part of our duty as humorists could be to report on all this stuff we should have noticed anyway.

The more personal we get, the more universal we become.