The Best Medicine

I think I am situationally very funny. I'm that guy that is trying desperately to get laughs at parties and in social occasions and can generally get laughs. But none of it is planned, it's organic.

Just about everyone is organically funny in some way. They can drop a movie quote, a current event reference, or something along those lines that gets a chuckle.

To plan out "funny" is damn near impossible. Joke writing is just as difficult as prose, poetry, or any sort of legitimate journalism. It's a craft. I can't really do it. I want to do it - because so many of my idols are so good at it - but I just can't really do it.

In tough times, you've got to turn to what gets you going. I've just caught up on It's Garry Shandling's Show and The Larry Sanders Show. What a world of good that does to the soul.

For those unfamiliar with it, The Larry Sanders Show is one of the most heralded sitcoms of all time. It wasn't on tv - it was on HBO (har har har). The premise was pretty groundbreaking. Larry Sanders was the host of a nightly talk show (cleverly titled: "The Larry Sanders Show"), but the The Larry Sanders Show interlaced footage of the fictional talk show with the behind-the-scenes and personal stories of the cast of characters. Garry Shandling portrayed Larry Sanders as a vain, neurotic, comedy legend.

In one of my favorite moments on the show (it was actually the series finale), Sean Penn played himself as a guest on the fictional Larry Sanders Show. He was promoting his new movie, Hurlyburly, which starred - among many people - Garry Shandling. Larry asks curiously which actor was on the "low end of the acting ability spectrum" and Penn said that it was Shandling and commenced to talk a large amount of crap about him.

It is a fantastic moment of comedy gold. So here we have Garry Shandling playing along with a diatribe against...Garry Shandling.

I always find it interesting to get to know the comedian more as a person. Jerry Seinfeld (one of my idols) released a documentary earlier in the decade called Comedian, and it follows himself and a struggling stand-up through the comedy circuit.

They are all vain and neurotic. Every single comedian that makes an appearance in the documentary. They all are.

It appears to be a nearly thankless medium (stand-up). But not to the listeners.

The listeners are blessed with hearing words, when put in a sentence and in a certain creative way, elicit such a response that we laugh so hard we are danger of cardiac arrest.

Of course, it's not the laughter that kills us. It's not the hilarity of a finely crafted joke.

It's the ensuing reality we are faced with.

Reality is a harsh mistress, and only one thing can save us.

Scott.