Where Does It Come From?

Where does humor come from? Does anyone really know? Sure, the scientific answer would probably include places like your brain, your environment, and your upbringing, but is that truly where humor comes from? Perhaps humor comes from someplace else that can't be seen. Perhaps the funniest of those among us have a direct line to the Comedy Dimension. That might help explain how some people can be funny in an instant, like Minute Rice or pudding. They have supernatural humor powers. Faster than a speeding punchline! More powerful than a Four Loko! Able to leap tall coffees in a single bound! X-ray vision that can see the humor in anything. I suspect that many of these superhuman comedians are hiding in plain sight, posing as dull Clark Kents and working plain jobs, until the next comedy tragedy strikes where they strip off their suits and bear their chests to show the Super C logo underneath. They dash off to save the day, dropping one-liners in their wake. It very well could turn the world backwards on its axis, causing time itself to reverse.

Comedy is very much like a superpower though, isn't it? There are very few people who are truly funny. Sure, almost anyone can make you laugh once in a while, but not many can keep that up without burning out. And also like superpowers, there are many different types of humor out there. Everything from the worn out tropes of cliched humorists to the hate humor of insults and belittlement to the comedians who have somehow found a way to connect to their fans in ways most comedians can only dream of. The Legends of Humor. The League of Extraordinary Comedians. These are the people whose comedy never dies. It lives on, both on its own and through imitation. Those are the comedians that can span generations, and they are very rare indeed.

So, is comedy learned or is it inherited? I would think that there has to be at least some natural ability there to build upon. I don't think you could take the average person with no sense of humor, send them through the 12-step program "How to Become a Hilarious Bastard", and by the end of it they're cracking up their friends like they're God's gift to laughs. Humor and what people find humorous can't really be quantified and then formulated to be taught as a curriculum, not without a strong Foundation of Funny first. Of course, that doesn't mean that somebody can't find their humor later in life. It's not as though you have to be funny straight out of the womb, making baby fart jokes to the OB and flinging jokes at the nurses like an infant shaped comedy catapult. The formative teenage years seem to be most people's time when they discover their funny, which should be no surprise. It's when most people start experimenting with life and pushing boundaries. Some people though, never grow out of the adolescent humor phase, and for them, perhaps that's fine. Diff'rent strokes. There really is no one way to be funny.

Humor is what you make of it. Some people succeed at it, some people don't. Some people think they're funny when they're not, and some people think they're not funny at all but really are. Comedy is a fickle beast, and where does it all come from? Who really knows. And perhaps it's better that way. Because you know that if anyone could figure out where comedy truly comes from, they'd dry it out, shove it into little pills, and sell to you on late night TV as the cure-all to a humorless life.

What a Difference a Day Makes

My birthday was yesterday. Another year came and went with so much to reflect on. Yesterday was a good day. I received many well-wishes and "Happy Birthdays" from people all across the globe.

Today, it's like a new year came and changed everything. So much strife and anguish permeates today. A friend posted how he was sick of hearing about the conflict in Gaza and posed these two questions:

"1. If someone was lobbing rockets into the US everyday what do you think we would do about it?"

"2. Should the blame for the violence not fall on Hamas, terrorists who demand the destuction of Israel which the people of Gaza legally elected?"

 This post received sympathy and also ire. A heated and often dirty discussion proceeded (as it often does online) from two camps. One camp is the American native who sees Israel as the aggressor in the current situation in Gaza, distasteful of having US support and funds furthering the conflict. The other camp is Israeli natives and supporters who see Israel as being the defenders of their land against terrorist groups along the Gaza Strip.

For me, there is no simple answer to his questions. I won't even begin to delve into such murky waters. But that isn't really the point of why I bring this up. The reason I bring it up is how quickly the conversation turned into mud flinging and derisiveness. Granted, when such a post comes along such as this one, it easily has the potential for anger and bitterness to well up to the surface. But does it always have to? Is it now impossible, for whatever reason, be it the relative safety our computers grant us to the pomposity of people to move towards conflict, for people to have a civil conversation while expressing opposing views? Is the art of debate dead? Perhaps that is a rhetorical question, as anyone who has ever watched politics at any great length already knows that civil debates are almost all but gone, especially online. As it sits, both parties have disengaged themselves from the conversation before their anger reaches a boiling point and goes everywhere. They both agreed it was for the best, which is probably the only thing that they had agreed upon during their entire conversation.

Another incident occurred today along another a completely different but still upsetting line. Another friend of mine, after years of schooling, has finally gained his degree in the field of his dreams. But it has been tainted with pain and sorrow of losing a love through hurt feelings and anguish. Now, he despises the very degree that he has worked so hard to earn and has written off social media altogether, saying that today will be his last post ever. Here is a man that should be perhaps the happiest he has ever been, but instead he is lost and angry and sad. His joy has been taken from him. I do not know of the specific circumstances to how he came to this point, and I won't speculate on how or why he is where he is today. But I will say that it saddens me to see such a great accomplishment be tarnished by something that, to me, is unrelated.

I understand that school is how he got to know this person, so the two are invariably linked. But he should be proud of where he has come. He has gained what he wanted in his professional life. His personal life is turbulent sure, but should that destroy years of work? Perhaps he is speaking with high emotion and will take up a job using his newly acquired degree. But what if he doesn't? What if the pain he has experienced is so great that it truly removes him from his life's passion forever? I honestly don't know what is more sad. Him feeling the grief that he does now or the grief he could experience by giving up on what he has wanted for years. Either way, I hope he finds his way to happiness, however he gets there.

Today is such a different day from yesterday. And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind having another birthday. Today has just been too emotional and painful.

"Granola Crunches Back Against Attempted Carjacking"

by Evan Vanderhuff

An Oregon man was almost the victim of a carjacking attempt while visiting the Windy City today while charging his electric car in Brighton Park. Gaston S. Pensive of the Portland, Oregon suburb of West Linn was sitting in his Ford Focus Electric plugged in outside the Walgreens on S. Sawyer Ave. when two men approached his car. According to Pensive, one of them tapped on his driver's side window while the other stood behind the back bumper on the passenger side of the vehicle. Pensive at first didn't hear the tapping over the blaring of The Grateful Dead on his car stereo, but after the man tapped again, Pensive rolled down his window a crack to see what the man wanted.

"I didn't know if he was lost or something, so I wanted to at least see what he wanted," recalled Pensive. "It would be the same thing that I would've done back home."

Apparently Pensive cracked the window a little too far because in an instant the man was trying to reach through to attack Pensive. The man kept screaming, "This is a carjacking, granola!" over and over while wielding a crowbar. Pensive tried to plead with the man, claiming that he had just started charging his car 15 minutes ago and only had a 35% charge. That's when the man used his crowbar to smash Pensive's driver's window. Pensive, while ducking to shield his face and eyes from the glass, reached down and grabbed his legally concealed handgun from under his seat. Fearing for his life, Pensive aimed at and fired three to four shots at the carjacker. He fell immediately.

It was at this time that Pensive heard commotion on the other side of his car while the carjacker's accomplice smashed the passenger side window with a sawed-off baseball bat hidden inside his sleeve.

"You'll pay for that, granola!" Pensive recalled the other attacker shouting. "Gimme your car or die!"

Pensive turned his firearm against the new attacker and fired "another three or four shots", according to Pensive. He, too, fell to the pavement, unmoving. Both carjackers were pronounced dead at the scene.

When asked about why he thinks he was targeted or if he thinks it was just a crime of opportunity, Pensive said, "I think they saw me charging my car with my peace sign, "Namaste", and "Green Is More Than Just The Color of Money" stickers on the back and thought that I would be an easy target. Little did they know that I practice at the shooting range once a week with recycled bullets."

Recycled bullets? "Yeah," Pensive explained, "I gather up all of the used lead that I fire, melt it down, and recast them and fit them into recycled copper jackets. I'm a big believer in recycling and reusing things. Why should my ammo be any different?" Pensive then quipped, "I thought to jokingly ask for the bullets that I used on those two men back, but I thought to myself, 'Nah, they can keep 'em. They earned 'em'. I have more at home anyway."

Gaston S. Pensive was only expecting to be in the Chicago area for a few days on business, but with the carjacking and shooting, he'll have to stay around longer to answer some more questions from the police. The police at this time don't expect to press any charges against Pensive, as it seems that he acted in self-defense, but he isn't to leave town without getting approval from CPD first.

When asked if he'll ever come back to Chi-Town again after this incident, he replied, "Yeah, I think so. I mean, sure, it was scary and it really messed with my harmonic rhythms, but I'll be back. Chicago is a big city and has many awesome sights and sounds." Pensive leaned in and whispered, "That giant chrome kidney bean notwithstanding." He went on, "But yeah, I'll be back."

Pensive also had some parting words for any would-be criminals though. "I think this incident just goes to show you that you shouldn't judge a book by its artificial dye free, Amazon free, independently owned, 100% post-consumer recycled paper cover."

The police have not released the names of the two carjacking suspects until their families can be notified of their deaths.