July 4, 2005
Variation on a Theme by Brownsville Station
There's a scene in the movie Arthur where Dudley Moore, playing the title character, is sitting at a table silently eating dinner, when suddenly he bursts out laughing. When he sees the perplexed look on the face of his dinner guest, he explains: Sometimes I just think funny things.
I can relate. Sometimes I just think funny things, too. On a good day, it happens when I'm trying to write something funny. Like a blog entry, for instance. But that's on a good day.
I don't always have good days.
Sometimes when I'd really like to be funny - say, when I'm toasting somebody at a dinner party, or trying to write this blog - the unspeakable happens. I dig deep, only to find ... squat. Diddly. Bupkus. Any other thesaurus entry for nothing.
But that's okay. That's just writer's block, and we all get that from time to time. Er, we DO all get that from time to time, don't we? Sure we do. At least that's what I'm content with telling myself.
But - as I am often wont to do - I digress. This epistle is not about writer's block. It's not about dipping one's pen into the inkwell of humor, only to find it has run dry. It's not about swinging for the comedic fences, only to strike out. It's not about sailing a bowling ball down the alley of laughter, hoping to pick up the 3-10 split of jocularity. It's not about ... oh, hell, I think I've stretched that metaphor beyond all recognition, haven't I?
Anyway, what this is about is that special moment when I do succeed in thinking a really funny thought. At absolutely the worst time or place.
I work for an Evil Corporate Giant, generating reams of marketing copy geared at persuading you to buy products you'd buy anyway. Needless to say, it's less than scintillating work, which drives me to consume large amounts of coffee. I am not alone in this - I've noted the coffeepots in our break areas are rarely full.
They may not be full, but the bathrooms are. With hundreds of us drones on each floor of each building in the Evil Corporate Campus chugging down gallons of Joe every hour, it's standing room only (so to speak) in the restrooms. Thus, at many points during the day I'll find myself standing shoulder to shoulder with other Evil Corporate Types, lined up along a wall of urinals with our Evil Corporate Neckties slung over our shoulders - a nifty splash-avoidance trick I only learned since joining the Evil Corporate Horde - getting rid of the coffee we've only recently ingested.
And that, my friends, is when the same muse that struck Arthur at that dinner table will so often choose to strike me. That is when the dreaded Funny Thought - so elusive when I'm actually trying to write - will choose to imbed itself in my cerebellum.
That is when I'll start to giggle.
Now, I'm sorry, but even the most non-macho, comfortable-with-his-own-sexuality guy on earth will tell you, it's just not cool to giggle while standing shoulder to shoulder with other men in the act of communing with nature in this way. It just doesn't go over, violating every spoken and unspoken Code of the Urinal (a topic about which many a scholarly study has been published, my favorite being this one)
In this situation, surrounded by Evil Corporate Types with whom I have nothing in common other than a desire to earn enough money to drive a car not known as the "Dodge on a rope," not even Arthur's simple explanation would save me. If anything, admitting to "thinking funny thoughts" while my fly is unzipped would only make matters worse.
So, I do my best to do what Archie Bunker was always telling his wife Edith to do: I stifle myself.
No one knows what goes on behind closed doors
There's an even worse scenario. I know, because I've been there. As if the Code of the Urinal weren't strong enough, there's the even more rigorously enforced Statute of the Stall.
While minimal amounts of highly neutral conversation may on rare occasions be allowed between men who find themselves mutually aligned (so to speak) along a wall of urinals, the rules change drastically when one closes the door to a stall, drops trou, and assumes the position. The stall then becomes a Cone of Silence - even if the activities undertaken within its confines are far from silent (that's just nature; it can't be helped). No conversation is allowed. And certainly no giggling.
Try telling my muse that. I'll be seated in a stall, keenly aware of the $200 Florsheims I see on either side of me - a sure indication of the presence of Evil Corporate Executives looking for reasons to torpedo my career - and that is when I'll remember the incredibly embarrassing (and thus, hilarious) thing that happened to my buddy Robert once. Or a great line from a Peter DeVries novel or a Fletch movie.
And then the giggles will start.
Despite my being surrounded by $400 worth of Executive Footwear. Despite the well-defined and universally understood rules regarding In-The-Stall conduct, of which I'm all too keenly aware. No, that is when the Humor Gods will decide that laughter is indeed the best medicine, and that our pal Keith is due for a dose.
We are not alone
The one consolation I can draw from all this is the knowledge that I am not the only one who is an Inopportune Laugher. Surely this stigma was either shared or witnessed by whatever screenwriter(s) penned the infamous episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show in which Mary burst out laughing at the funeral of coworker Chuckles the Clown.
That comedy classic was mirrored in real life many years earlier by a kid I went to school with, whom I'll call Herbie. Herbie was an extremely popular kid: handsome, charming, talented, and above all genuinely nice - a quality that prevented less fabulous people like myself from hating him for having all those other good qualities.
But Herbie had one weakness: it was incredibly easy to make him laugh. I'm talking unbelievably easy. You could make him laugh on demand, without even doing anything funny. I know this because we tested this extensively. We ultimately honed our mastery of his susceptibility to involuntary laughter to the point where you could walk up to him, holding your thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Herbie," you'd say, "when I pinch my fingers together, you will laugh." Worked every time. Slowly, excruciatingly, you'd bring your thumb and forefinger closer and closer together, while Herbie would watch helplessly, lips trembling. When your fingers inevitably connected, he would burst into laughter. Every freaking time.
It got to the point where you could just walk up to Herbie holding your thumb and forefinger in the shape of a letter C, wordlessly threatening to pinch them together. This would drive Herbie into droves of Pavlovian laughter. Again, I only know this after extensive testing. I am nothing if not scientific.
Apparently Herbie shared Arthur's capacity for thinking funny things. In the most legendary occurrence, he started cracking up at a funeral. But unlike Mary Tyler Moore, this was at a real funeral. Something - he can't remember what - struck him as funny, and he felt a volcano of laughter beginning to simmer inside him. Herbie is a good guy, I hasten to reiterate, and would never intentionally behave in a disrespectful manner. But finally he hit a boiling point. A critical mass. And there, in front of God, a dead guy, and everybody else, Herbie lost it. Starting with a giggle or two, but finally exploding into a Mount Saint Helen-like eruption of laughter.
Herbie has done well in life, first pursuing a successful career as an actor, and recently becoming a highly regarded religious leader in his community. This suggests to me that he finally got his ILS (Inopportune Laughter Syndrome) under control.
As for me, I'm still plagued by it, particularly at my new Evil Corporate Job. And I'm a big believer in Karma. So now that I've shared Herbie's most embarrassing moment with the general public, I'm guessing the next time I find myself surrounded by men in Executive Florsheims sharing a "bio break" (I swear to God that's what my Über-Corporate boss calls going to the bathroom), my mind will wander, and I'll start picturing young Herbie fruitlessly trying to control his laughter at a family funeral.
And that's when my shoulders will start to shake, my breath will come in short gasps, and there I'll be:
Giggling in the boys' room.
In Other News
Youths in China are being institutionalized to treat their addiction to the Internet. Symptoms vary, as does the treatment, which ranges from therapy and acupuncture all the way to shock treatment and medication. According to MSNBC, "Some patients receive a clear fluid through intravenous drips said to 'adjust the unbalanced status of brain secretions,' according to one nurse. Officials would not give any other details about the medication."
Yeah, I'd feel real good about getting hooked up to an IV of Clear Mystery Fluid to help me get over my Freecell addiction. Where do I sign up?
The Daily Haiku
A seventeen-syllable ode to my own control issues.
Nicely Put:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence
I can relate. Sometimes I just think funny things, too. On a good day, it happens when I'm trying to write something funny. Like a blog entry, for instance. But that's on a good day.
I don't always have good days.
Sometimes when I'd really like to be funny - say, when I'm toasting somebody at a dinner party, or trying to write this blog - the unspeakable happens. I dig deep, only to find ... squat. Diddly. Bupkus. Any other thesaurus entry for nothing.
But that's okay. That's just writer's block, and we all get that from time to time. Er, we DO all get that from time to time, don't we? Sure we do. At least that's what I'm content with telling myself.
But - as I am often wont to do - I digress. This epistle is not about writer's block. It's not about dipping one's pen into the inkwell of humor, only to find it has run dry. It's not about swinging for the comedic fences, only to strike out. It's not about sailing a bowling ball down the alley of laughter, hoping to pick up the 3-10 split of jocularity. It's not about ... oh, hell, I think I've stretched that metaphor beyond all recognition, haven't I?
Anyway, what this is about is that special moment when I do succeed in thinking a really funny thought. At absolutely the worst time or place.
I work for an Evil Corporate Giant, generating reams of marketing copy geared at persuading you to buy products you'd buy anyway. Needless to say, it's less than scintillating work, which drives me to consume large amounts of coffee. I am not alone in this - I've noted the coffeepots in our break areas are rarely full.
They may not be full, but the bathrooms are. With hundreds of us drones on each floor of each building in the Evil Corporate Campus chugging down gallons of Joe every hour, it's standing room only (so to speak) in the restrooms. Thus, at many points during the day I'll find myself standing shoulder to shoulder with other Evil Corporate Types, lined up along a wall of urinals with our Evil Corporate Neckties slung over our shoulders - a nifty splash-avoidance trick I only learned since joining the Evil Corporate Horde - getting rid of the coffee we've only recently ingested.
And that, my friends, is when the same muse that struck Arthur at that dinner table will so often choose to strike me. That is when the dreaded Funny Thought - so elusive when I'm actually trying to write - will choose to imbed itself in my cerebellum.
That is when I'll start to giggle.
Now, I'm sorry, but even the most non-macho, comfortable-with-his-own-sexuality guy on earth will tell you, it's just not cool to giggle while standing shoulder to shoulder with other men in the act of communing with nature in this way. It just doesn't go over, violating every spoken and unspoken Code of the Urinal (a topic about which many a scholarly study has been published, my favorite being this one)
In this situation, surrounded by Evil Corporate Types with whom I have nothing in common other than a desire to earn enough money to drive a car not known as the "Dodge on a rope," not even Arthur's simple explanation would save me. If anything, admitting to "thinking funny thoughts" while my fly is unzipped would only make matters worse.
So, I do my best to do what Archie Bunker was always telling his wife Edith to do: I stifle myself.
No one knows what goes on behind closed doors
There's an even worse scenario. I know, because I've been there. As if the Code of the Urinal weren't strong enough, there's the even more rigorously enforced Statute of the Stall.
While minimal amounts of highly neutral conversation may on rare occasions be allowed between men who find themselves mutually aligned (so to speak) along a wall of urinals, the rules change drastically when one closes the door to a stall, drops trou, and assumes the position. The stall then becomes a Cone of Silence - even if the activities undertaken within its confines are far from silent (that's just nature; it can't be helped). No conversation is allowed. And certainly no giggling.
Try telling my muse that. I'll be seated in a stall, keenly aware of the $200 Florsheims I see on either side of me - a sure indication of the presence of Evil Corporate Executives looking for reasons to torpedo my career - and that is when I'll remember the incredibly embarrassing (and thus, hilarious) thing that happened to my buddy Robert once. Or a great line from a Peter DeVries novel or a Fletch movie.
And then the giggles will start.
Despite my being surrounded by $400 worth of Executive Footwear. Despite the well-defined and universally understood rules regarding In-The-Stall conduct, of which I'm all too keenly aware. No, that is when the Humor Gods will decide that laughter is indeed the best medicine, and that our pal Keith is due for a dose.
We are not alone
The one consolation I can draw from all this is the knowledge that I am not the only one who is an Inopportune Laugher. Surely this stigma was either shared or witnessed by whatever screenwriter(s) penned the infamous episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show in which Mary burst out laughing at the funeral of coworker Chuckles the Clown.
That comedy classic was mirrored in real life many years earlier by a kid I went to school with, whom I'll call Herbie. Herbie was an extremely popular kid: handsome, charming, talented, and above all genuinely nice - a quality that prevented less fabulous people like myself from hating him for having all those other good qualities.
But Herbie had one weakness: it was incredibly easy to make him laugh. I'm talking unbelievably easy. You could make him laugh on demand, without even doing anything funny. I know this because we tested this extensively. We ultimately honed our mastery of his susceptibility to involuntary laughter to the point where you could walk up to him, holding your thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Herbie," you'd say, "when I pinch my fingers together, you will laugh." Worked every time. Slowly, excruciatingly, you'd bring your thumb and forefinger closer and closer together, while Herbie would watch helplessly, lips trembling. When your fingers inevitably connected, he would burst into laughter. Every freaking time.
It got to the point where you could just walk up to Herbie holding your thumb and forefinger in the shape of a letter C, wordlessly threatening to pinch them together. This would drive Herbie into droves of Pavlovian laughter. Again, I only know this after extensive testing. I am nothing if not scientific.
Apparently Herbie shared Arthur's capacity for thinking funny things. In the most legendary occurrence, he started cracking up at a funeral. But unlike Mary Tyler Moore, this was at a real funeral. Something - he can't remember what - struck him as funny, and he felt a volcano of laughter beginning to simmer inside him. Herbie is a good guy, I hasten to reiterate, and would never intentionally behave in a disrespectful manner. But finally he hit a boiling point. A critical mass. And there, in front of God, a dead guy, and everybody else, Herbie lost it. Starting with a giggle or two, but finally exploding into a Mount Saint Helen-like eruption of laughter.
Herbie has done well in life, first pursuing a successful career as an actor, and recently becoming a highly regarded religious leader in his community. This suggests to me that he finally got his ILS (Inopportune Laughter Syndrome) under control.
As for me, I'm still plagued by it, particularly at my new Evil Corporate Job. And I'm a big believer in Karma. So now that I've shared Herbie's most embarrassing moment with the general public, I'm guessing the next time I find myself surrounded by men in Executive Florsheims sharing a "bio break" (I swear to God that's what my Über-Corporate boss calls going to the bathroom), my mind will wander, and I'll start picturing young Herbie fruitlessly trying to control his laughter at a family funeral.
And that's when my shoulders will start to shake, my breath will come in short gasps, and there I'll be:
Giggling in the boys' room.
In Other News
Youths in China are being institutionalized to treat their addiction to the Internet. Symptoms vary, as does the treatment, which ranges from therapy and acupuncture all the way to shock treatment and medication. According to MSNBC, "Some patients receive a clear fluid through intravenous drips said to 'adjust the unbalanced status of brain secretions,' according to one nurse. Officials would not give any other details about the medication."
Yeah, I'd feel real good about getting hooked up to an IV of Clear Mystery Fluid to help me get over my Freecell addiction. Where do I sign up?
The Daily Haiku
A seventeen-syllable ode to my own control issues.
Stiff Upper Lip
While I love to laugh,
'twould be handy if I could
pee seriously.
Nicely Put:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence
