THE DARK HALLS OF COMEDY

i was thinking about peter cook in the pub today. i also thought of tony hancock and spike milligan. and lenny bruce.

humour comes from a nasty and unforgiving place. it comes from waking up in the morning and going, ‘oh, so i’m still alive again’. i tried to explain this to trouty but i don’t think that i made a very good job of it. in fact, i’m not making a very good job of it now.

the best jokes come from weariness with life, with the understanding that everything is absurd and also largely rubbish. and then thinking of something awful to say.

what i was doing was wondering why so many comedians are so deeply unhappy and drink heavily and take drugs. perhaps it’s a mindset thing, perhaps there are very many people who see the world through my eyes, with bitterness and a fair amount of woe. i was just wondering.

now don’t get me wrong; i’m not saying that i’m a great comedian and that i should belong in the company of the aforementioned for one single moment. what i am saying is that i can empathise with them and that i understand the way that they must have felt. the black tsunamis of depression are no stranger to me but the thing that keeps me going is that there is always a joke in there somewhere. no matter how shitty the day there will always be a joke. so that’s something.

i’m not really explaining this very well, but i know what i mean.

anyway, i saw my brother and his girlfriend in tesco today and i knocked off another cache. it did not rain and i’m eating some olives with lemon and herbs so that’s all very well. but the darkness does descend. well, it doesn’t so much descend as come crashing down.

so it was a good day, all in all, nothing wrong with it at all. not a single thing to moan about but here it comes….

call it ‘black dog’ or what you will but here it comes: DEPRESSION.

but i bet i think of a joke though.

here’s to peter cook and his breakfast lager, here’s to tony hancock and his whisky bottle, here’s to viv stanshall opening the door without his trousers on. and here’s to everyone who feels like i do; walking through the woods and staring like a madman, having a swig because there is nothing else…

but, at the end of the shittiest of days, there is always a joke.

on my tombstone i want ‘he loved to laugh’. because although i’m depressed i still love a laugh. i really do.

cache stats: found one
misery stats: clinical depression
fag stats: a few
swig stats: one is too many and a thousand is never enough

sometimes, dear reader, there isn’t a joke at the end. so that’s funny in itself.

isn’t it?