Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Writely Wednesday 1: Humor & Truth

(I meant to post this last night, but for some reason, saved it as a draft instead. Here it is.)

      Jean posed an interesting question about yesterday's post (Tuesday) in comments. Jean asked, "I can't tell, is this fiction or your real life? The 'getting sober' comment clued me in that it might be fiction."
      A portion of my reply: "Unfortunately, Jean, it's only slightly exaggerated."
      I've run into her question before. My humor is basically based on exaggeration. I have something bad happen to me, and from that kernel, I expand it into a humorous (I hope) story. All humor, I think, has a grain of truth in it.
      I seem to naturally attract more than my fair share of accidents and flubs. So I usually have something to write about it. But without those events, I don't have the spark to write something. That's why the humor posts dried up during the worse times of my back injury. I could only write so much about staring at the ceiling and physical therapy, and then the well was dry.
      In college, I had two different humor columns, one at a college in Arkansas and one at a college in Oklahoma. I won a lot of awards with the Arkansas one; my Oklahoma column was cancelled. The difference? The college in Arkansas was a community college and had mostly older people enrolled and no students in dorms. They found columns about life outside the college interesting and funny, which happened to be what I mostly wrote. But the Oklahoma column was written for a college newspaper that was mostly read by students who lived on campus. They wanted stories about college life, of which I had only a few. They mostly responded to stories of my disastrous dating life, but to my horror, they would assume that the columns were totally true.
      Example: I wrote a column about a date that ended with the riot police being called out. Now, the date was bad, but it stopped well short of needing the police. I thought that would be obvious since the story included a fire, an UFO sighting, and Lord forgive me, several Dolly Parton references. (I, uh, had a fixation on her then.) But several students actually thought I spent a night in jail. I even had one college professor seriously counsel me about what future employers would think about my record if I continued in my criminal ways. Although it hurt when the editor -- a woman who didn't find much funny in the world -- cancelled the column, it was a relief, too. (When my column won an award later, the editor told a friend of mine: "No one else must have entered." She was wrong on that, and I wish I could tell her that today, but she's a highly successful journalist in a major city while I'm just in customer service in the financial realm so what do I know?)
      I try to make it clear when I write when I'm attempting to be funny and when I'm being serious. Sometimes I know I do me a disservice by making light of hard times in my life. It has a tendency to make people think that I'm not suffering or that I don't need their help because I'm able to make a joke or two about it. Be that as it may, humor remains my defense against terrible things. Somehow if I can laugh at a problem, I can deal with it.
      Not that humor can handle everything. It can't. There's a great movie with Emma Thompson called Wit, based on the stage play of the same name. Emma's character, a learned and witty college professor has to confront cancer. Although this isn't the theme of the movie, I carried away from it the profound (to me) realization of the limitations of wit and humor. In other words, wistful thinking aside, humor is not the best medicine when confronting a life-threatening disease. It may raise your spirits and help you endure, but it won't make cancer cells go away. Take your chemo and fight the good fight.
      I have confronted the limitations of humor several times in my life. At my father's funeral, the skirt string of one of his elderly aunts broke as she leaned over his coffin. There was a doubtless funny moment as her skirt fell and family members scrambled to preserve her modesty. Even now, I can't find the humor in it. Maybe someday it will become a funny story that I will be able to tell, but not yet.
      I guess another facet of my humor is that I try to be not cruel. I don't like humor that is hurtful. I mostly stay away from satire because it can be quite mean-spirited. Peter De Vries said, "The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance." I'm definitely in the catch-and-release program and proud of it. I hope to catch you and give you a few more laughs in the years to come. And that's about all I have to say about that. Good night!

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I mostly know when you're being funny and when you're being serious. But I also have an advantage that many of your readers don't. I can always pick up the phone and call you! :)

Slim said...

WHAT??!!!!! You mean the story about you and disco elephant isn't true?!! I'm shocked!!! :)

SBB said...

Actually, Gloria, a fair number of my readers can call me. You, Crystal, Randall, Roen, ER, AmberClear and J.K.C. all talk with me either fairly regularly or every couple of months or so. Michelle and I have spoken by cell phone once or twice, and while FF and I haven't spoken by phone, we could if we wanted to since we know each other's real names. I guess I don't really have a secret identity online or it's not a very good secret!

Slim, that must have been some other blog. I don't have a disco elephant story, although I wish I did. It sounds funny. :)

Anonymous said...

Tech, I don't know where your humor comes from but you're one funny guy! Your last play was a riot!

SBB said...

Thanks, JKC. I'd glad you enjoyed it.

SBB said...

FF, I regret to say that the fact you're married did enter into my decision to not call you. I know how sexy my voice is over the phone and how women just fall in love with me immediately and so I didn't want to do ANYTHING that might damage your married bliss ... :)

SBB said...

I have put some thought into how I'm going to autograph Floozy & Me. Since the book will probably be sold by Lulu.com or another POD publisher, I won't actually have the book to sign. I know some authors sign bookplates and send them out to people who buy their books. I might do that. Or I guess I could buy several books and autograph them and then people could buy the books from me, but I'd have to charge for shipping. So I think bookplates are best. Or maybe I'll have a book signing at my local bookstores and a couple libraries. But I've got to get it written and published first!

SBB said...

FF, me and you and another blogger on the phone at the same time?! Wow, you California girls are amazing! :)

Michelle said...

ME, me ME! LOL

Actually, we only talked once a year ago, Christmas. *sigh*

I don't have your number anymore as it was lost on my caller ID. Dang phone...

Otherwise, a Christmas you would have received from me :)

Michelle said...

"call" a Christmas call...is what I meant.

Michelle said...

Oh..and his voice IS charming Frenzied. ;)

Jean said...

Understand about humor based in real life. You have horrendous road work underway in your neighborhood. Check. The rest? Some fact, some fiction. Got it. I hope they get it wrapped up soon -- but feel free to turn loose some more stories as you see fit.

SBB said...

Wow. I'm away from the blog for a night and lots of you comment. From the top:

Michelle, I'll give you a call again. I admit I'm surprised. Most women tattoo my number somewhere on their body ... :) My voice is charming? I say, you'll turn my head with talk like that.

Thanks, Randall. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Jean, I figured you understood. I just needed a subject for a writing post!

Amber, I'll take that trade! Of course, you don't realize that my street is currently mud, metal and piles of gravel. It's actually become worse since I wrote the post because we had lots of rain. As for the game, we are waiting to hear about Cartoc's schedule at his new job. He started Wednesday.

FF, while I naturally know about conference calls, I've never actually had one, certainly not one with cute girls from California and Oregon!

Jean said...

;) Glad to help.

And that three-way? Wow. I thought this was a nice family blog. :D

SBB said...

JEAN! I hadn't considered that aspect of conference calls.