Comedy For The Hard Of Thinkin'!: The 'F' Word

"Don't make the mistake of falling into the material trap. To the degree you are a funny person, that's how much you'll succeed ....not what kind of material you have. When I first became a comedian, I thought, gee, I write funny material. I bet I could just get up and read this to people and they would laugh. I tried that. I took sheets of paper out in the nightclub and it meant nothing to the audience."

They wanted something else entirely. What they wanted is an intimacy with the person. They want to like the person and find the person funny as a human being. The biggest trap comedians fall into is trying to get by on the basis of their material. That's just hiding behind the jokes. It isn't getting up in front of an audience and opening themselves up."

Woody Allen

Friend Of The Devil!

"I lit out from Reno,
I was trailed by twenty hounds.
Didn't get to sleep that night,
Till the mornin' came around.

Set out runnin',
But I take my time;
A friend of the Devil,
Is a Friend of Mine,
If I get home before daylight,
I just might get some sleep tonight.

Ran into to the Devil, Babe,
He loaned me twenty bills.
Spent the night in Utah,
In a cave up in the hills.

Set out runnin',
But I'm takin' my time,
A friend of the Devil,
Is a Friend of Mine,
If I get home before daylight,
I just might get some sleep tonight.

I ran down to the levee,
But the Devil caught me there,
He took my twenty dollar bill,
And he vanished in the air.

Set out runnin',
But I'm takin' my time,
A friend of the Devil,
Is a Friend of Mine,
If I get home before daylight,
I just might get some sleep tonight.

Got two reasons why I lie,
Awake each lonely night.
The first one's names,
Sweet Anne Marie,

And she's my heart's delight.
Second one is Prison Bait,
The Sherrif's on my trail,
And if he catches up with me,
I'll spend my life in jail.

Set out runnin',
But I'm takin' my time,
A Friend of the Devil,
Is a Friend of Mine,
If I get home before daylight,
I just might get some sleep tonight.

Got a wife in Chino, Babe,
And one in Cherokee,
The first one say's she's got my child,
But it don't look like me.

Set out runnin',
But I'm takin' my time,
A Friend of the Devil,
Is a Friend of Mine.
If I get home before daylight,
I just might get some sleep tonight."

"Greatful Dead"

"Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be."

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."

"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."

"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything."

Kurt Vonnegut

"A bachelor is a man who never makes the same mistake once."

"I've found a formula for avoiding these exaggerated fears of age; you take care of every day - let the calendar take care of the years."

"I can't give you a definition, (of humour). It is too subtle to be pinned down. I can say that it differs from wit, which exaggerates the truth, while humour presents the truth in an original way."

"Wasn't it Whistler who said that a great painter was one who could hide the effort which he put into his work? The same thing goes for gags. It often takes hours to think up something that is said in seconds."

Ed Wynn

"The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you're off it."

"Our dreams are firsthand creations, rather than residues of waking life. We have the capacity for infinite creativity; at least while dreaming, we partake of the power of the Spirit, the infinite Godhead that creates the cosmos."

"I'm no alcoholic. I'm a drunkard. There's a difference. A drunkard doesn't like to go to meetings."

" Drinking removes warts and pimples. Not from me, but from those I look at."

Jackie Gleason

"I like getting married, but don't like being married."

"I've been paying alimony since I was 14 and child support since 15. That's a joke, but not by much."

"Sometimes I wonder how I got into comedy at all."

Don Adams

Agent 99: Oh, Max, how terrible.
Maxwell Smart: He deserved it 99. He was a Kaos Killer.
Agent 99: Sometimes I wonder if we're any better, Max.
Maxwell Smart: What are you talking about, 99? We have to shoot and kill and destroy. We represent everything that's wholesome and good in the world.

Maxwell Smart: I may never get to play with the Philharmonic, but on the other hand, is Leonard Bernstein licensed to kill?

Mel Brooks

"Humour is just another defense against the universe."

"We want to get people laughing; we don't want to offend anybody."

"Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said."

"You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself."

"If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively."

"Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance."

Mel Brooks

Hermann Hesse

"When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the very devil burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations sets in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse, perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols..."

"Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

"Everything that goes up must come down. But there comes a time when not everything that's down can come up."

"Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, and a good woman ...or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle."

"I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate."

"Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope."

"It's hard for me to get used to these changing times. I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty."

George Burns

"I tended to place my wife under a pedestal."

"I'm not afraid of death ...I just don't want to be there when it happens."

"If it turns out there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever."

"Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies."

"Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night."

"I think being funny is not anyone's first choice."

"I'm such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own."

"If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."

"Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but, as far as meaningless experiences go it's pretty damn good."

"You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred."

"Seventy percent of success in life is showing up."

"When you do comedy, you are not sitting at the grownups' table."

Woody Allen

"I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate whose who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'."

"I was influenced by every comedian I ever saw work. That's the only way you learn how to do it."

"The first time I got up in front of an audience was terror, abject terror, which continued for another four or five years. There still is, a little bit."

"One of the first things that you learn as a stand-up is, you're the boss. It's your stage, and don't screw with me because I'll make you look bad, which I had to do, because you wind up with drunks and loud people."

Bob Newhart

"I once had a large gay following, but I ducked into an alleyway and lost him."

"I was the kid next door's imaginary friend."

"I got some new underware the other day. Well, new to me."

"You know what I hate? Indian givers ...no, I take that back."

"I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming. They don't know I'm only using blanks."

"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord soesn't work that way, so I stole a bike and asked Him to forgive me."

"I was sleeping the other night, alone, thanks to the exterminator."

Emo Phillips

"I was walking through the cemetary this morning and saw a guy crouching behind a tombstone. I said, "Morning." He said, "No, just taking a shite"."

"Two guys are talking and one says to the other: "What would you do if the end of the world was in 3 minutes time?" The other one says, "I'd shag everything that moved. What would you do?" And he says, "I'd stand perfectly still."

"I went to an extremely attractive female doctor today for my annual checkup. She told me that I had to quit masturbating. I asked why. She said, "Because I am trying to examine you."

"Scottish-Americans tell you that if you want to identify tartans, it's easy - you look under the kilt, and if it's a quarter pounder, you know it's a McDonald's."

Billy Connelly

"Atheism is a non-prophet organization."

"Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your souls goes up on the roof and gets stuck."

"I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?"

"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."

"Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough not to quit."

"There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls."

George Carlin

"Learning to be a comic is like learning to be a boxer with your arms tied to you sides. You just take hit after hit, and while you are getting pummeled, you figure out, "Wow, if I just did this, I wouldn't get hit!" Then you get hit again. I was knocked out a lot. But I learned a lot. I learned I would probably not be much of a comic."

"Who knew that the devil had a factory where he made millions of fossils, which his minions distributed throughout the earth, in order to confuse my tiny brain?"

"That's the funny thing about religion: it doesn't matter what you say, you're going to upset someone."

"And just what is a laugh? While it is as mysterious as music, I see laughter as a cosmic hiccup that allows us to stare into the abyss while we straddle the grave. It makes a bad day bearable. It gives us the breathing room to deal with life's bullshit. It is the mechanism that enables us to cope with the deepest emotional pains and scars. And while sometimes it can be coaxed, laughter, by and large, is a completely uncontrollable physical reaction that seems to come out of nowwhere."

Lewis Black

"I am two lesbians in a man's body."

"So, I've learnt that the world is 4500 million years old. If you're very religious, then it's not 4500 million years old, it's 6000 years old. One of these is not correct."

"If you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid."

"Makeup's just crazy, anyways. Native Americans used to wear it, and it did all right for them until, uh ...well, until you killed them all, I suppose."

"Someone's killed 100,000 people. We're almost going, "Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning! I can't even get down to the gym. Your diary must look odd: "Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death, death - lunch - death, death, death - afternoon tea - death, death, death - quick shower ...'"

Eddie Izzard

Just another Hick!

"One time me and three friends dropped acid and drove around in my dad's car. He has one of those talking cars, we're tripping, and the car goes, "The door is a jar?" We pulled over and thought about that for 12 hours. "How can a door be a jar?" ..."Why would they put a jar on a car?" ..."Oh man, the freeway's melting" ..."Put it in the jar."

"I was in a cab in New Your. The cab had a sign, "Please do not smoke, Christ is our unseen guest." This guy was reaching. I figure, if He could overcome being nailed to a cross, I don't think a Marlboro Light's gonna faze Him that much."

"They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do just as well - you just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference."

"I need my sleep. I need about eight hours a day ...and about ten at night!"

Bill Hicks

"Ever notice how irons have a setting for permanent press? I don't get it."

"I had a friend who was a clown. When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car."

"I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator."

"I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking that if they left earlier they wouldn't have to go so fast."

"I wrote a few children's books ...not on purpose."

"If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?"

"Is it wierd in here, or is it just me?"

Steven Wright

"The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling."

"The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer."

"Can you remember when you didn't want to sleep? Isn't it inconceivable? I guess the definition of adulthood is that you want to sleep."

"I got my dog three years ago because I was drunk in a pet store. We had nine cats at the time. The cats started hiding the alcohol after that."

"I've decided that perhaps I'm bulimic and just keep forgetting to purge."

Paula Poundstone

"I had the right to remain silent ...but I didn't have the ability."

"Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty ...mine's putting in an express lane."

"People are saying that I'm an alcoholic, and that's not true, because I only drink when I work, and I'm a workaholic."

"I believe that if you're a convicted sex offender in this country, when you get out of prison, you should have to put a sign in your yard or on your door that says you're a convicted sex offender because I don't care about you're rights anymore. And I'd also like to know where to get one of those signs because I'd like to keep some kids out of my yard."

Ron White

"I'm not being condescending, I'm too busy thinking about far more important things you wouldn't understand."

"British scientists have demonstrated that cigarettes can harm your children. Fair enough. Use an ashtray!"

"I'm not worried about the Third World War. That's the Third World's Problem."

"There's been a lot of talk about genetic engineering. I was wondering, is it wrong to breed piglets specifically for the purposes of weaning pedophiles off babies, only I'm thinking of starting a company called, "They'll squeal, but not to the cops"."

"Boxers don't have sex before a fight, do you know why that is? They don't fancy each other."

"No matter how much you give a homeless person for tea ...you never get that tea."

"My Girlfriend bought a cook book the other day called 'Cheap and Easy Vegetarian Cooking'. Which is perfect for her, because not only is she vegetarian..."

"I say no to gay marriage. It'll end up leading to gay divorce, and that'll be bitchy."

"See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. Rohynol!

Jimmy Carr

"What is a date really, but a job interview that lasts all night? The only difference is that in not many job interviews is there a chance you'll wind up naked."

"Men want the same thing from their underwear that they want from women; a little bit of support, and a little bit of freedom."

"According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy."

"Men don't care what's on TV. They only care what else is on TV."

Jerry Seinfeld

"Between New York and L.A. there's 200 million people that aren't hip, and they don't want to be hip."

"Find something in life that you love doing. If you make a lot of money, that's a bonus, and if you don't, you still won't hate going to work."

"I have never been jealous. Not even when my dad finished fifth grade a year before I did."

"I used to say that whenever people heard my Southern accent, they always wanted to deduct 100 IQ points."

"The designated driver program, it's not a desirable job. But if you ever get sucked into doing it, drop them off at the wrong house."

"You may be a redneck if... you have spent more on your pickup truck than on your education."

Jeff Foxworthy

"I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that."

"I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long."

"I used to do drugs. I still do drugs. But I used to, too."

"I'm a heroine addict. I need to have sex with women who have saved someone's life."

"Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something."

"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later."

Mitch Hedberg

Giant of a Man!

"Fionn mac Cumhail, (Finn MacCoul, Finn MacCool) was the greatest leader of the Fianna; the military elite of ancient Ireland responsible for guarding the High King. The Fianna were founded in 300 B.C. by the High King Fiachadh. Until Fionn mac Cumhail implemented a code of honour among them, the Fianna had a reputation of being a somewhat unruly bunch of men who considered themselves, to some degree, above the law, due to their position of power. Fionn challenged the Fianna to become champions of the people; to make of themselves models of chivalry and justice that others may aspire to."

The trickster is a very important archetype in the history of man. He is a god, yet he is not. He is the wise fool. It is he, through his creations that destroy, points out the flaws in carefully constructed societies of man. He rebels against authority, pokes fun at the overly serious, creates convaluted schemes - that may or may not work - plays with the Laws of the Universe and is sometimes his own worst enemy. He exists to question, to cause us to question & not accept things blindly. He appears when a way of thinking becomes outmoded and needs to be torn down and built anew. He is the Destroyer of Worlds at the same time the savior of us all. In dreams, (and myth), the trickster can be seen as:

-The Fool

-The Magician

-The Clown

-The Jester

-The Villian

-The Destroyer

Comedy For The Hard Of Thinkin'!

Steppenwolf

Sunday, December 27, 2009

The 'F' Word

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