When of the interesting things I inadvertently have discovered about myself has come from reading my own writings. I’ve written two books and two live stage shows and in each a main theme and source of the humor has come from disappointment.
I apparently find disappointment extremely funny. That is, I like to build anticipation up to a point and then not deliver the goods. One example is in our current production of Rock & Roll Rehab at the Hayworth Theater. In the show we talk about a mythical movie called Rocktasia which was animation done to Classic Rock songs. The band is about to play the soundtrack to this film live as the movie is projected on a screen above the stage. It is the first time in the show that the band plays a known hit song as the show is all original music. A short movie trailer proceeds this which also builds anticipation but when the band begins to play the song, the Beatles’ I Am The Walrus, the show is stopped by a lawyer who has an injunction against playing copyrighted material in a theatrical setting.
Big disappointment, we don’t get to play the Beatles’ song. For some reason I can’t explain I find this hysterical. In the show I wrote for Tim Piper’s Working Class Hero, The John Lennon Experience, called A Day In His Life John is to perform on a television show in the mid-west in the 1970s. A snowstorm stops the show’s other guests and John’s band from showing up which ruins the TV taping, then the host gets drunk and has to leave and finally there’s a power failure. I know that does not seem at all funny but it was, very funny.
I apparently find disappointment extremely funny. That is, I like to build anticipation up to a point and then not deliver the goods. One example is in our current production of Rock & Roll Rehab at the Hayworth Theater. In the show we talk about a mythical movie called Rocktasia which was animation done to Classic Rock songs. The band is about to play the soundtrack to this film live as the movie is projected on a screen above the stage. It is the first time in the show that the band plays a known hit song as the show is all original music. A short movie trailer proceeds this which also builds anticipation but when the band begins to play the song, the Beatles’ I Am The Walrus, the show is stopped by a lawyer who has an injunction against playing copyrighted material in a theatrical setting.
Big disappointment, we don’t get to play the Beatles’ song. For some reason I can’t explain I find this hysterical. In the show I wrote for Tim Piper’s Working Class Hero, The John Lennon Experience, called A Day In His Life John is to perform on a television show in the mid-west in the 1970s. A snowstorm stops the show’s other guests and John’s band from showing up which ruins the TV taping, then the host gets drunk and has to leave and finally there’s a power failure. I know that does not seem at all funny but it was, very funny.
I find this same theme of disappointment used as humor in the books I’ve written as well. It is something of which I had no idea and did not do consciously but only discovered well afterward when enough time had passed that I could read my own works objectively. I wonder what else I don’t know about myself?
FRIDAY FUNNIES
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