Category Archives: Mischief

How To Be Funny

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Years ago, after a heartbreak (the first of many), I decided to stretch myself. I learned then that, of all things, fear can boost you out of the hole. Fear trumps all other emotions – logically I guess, as a survival mechanism. 

I had worked at and frequented comedy clubs for years, so I went that route of fear: performing (not, say, cliff diving.)  After said heartbreak, I took a comedy class (lame), attempted standup (terrifying; developed periscope-like tunnel vision of audience), and somehow got into an improv group (practice sessions riotous, even though I never got to “play,” as improvers call it, on show nights, my motorcycle constantly croaking in sketchy NYC neighborhoods after shows). 

Anyway, here goes: How To Be Funny

Hang Out with Funny People

Imagine if you ate breakfast every day with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. That was Rob Reiner’s youth. No way he (the director of the fake “rockumentary” This Is Spinal Tap) was not going to grow up to be funny.

Callbacks

This is when you refer to something mentioned earlier in your “set” – or conversation – that made people laugh the first time. Everyone loves callbacks. They’re like, “Oh, I remember that funny thing; that was funny, even funnier now, HAW, how clever!” This is not your classic callback, but close enough, and funny as hell.

Footnotes and Parenthetical Insertions

Use for unexpected laffs. The weirder the better, I find.

Sarcasm

Growing up, our parents used sarcasm to great comedic effect, especially while driving. “Yo Einstein, find a parking spot already, it’s not that complicated.” “Hey Quicksilver, the pedal on the right is for the GAS.” I later learned that my favorite aged kid is eight, because they’ve learned sarcasm but still respect authority. This doesn’t last. Well, the sarcasm does.

And my personal favorite…

The Absurd

Example: Rodentologist and author of “Raising Hamsters Right” urges owners to guide their rodents with a firm hand from the get-go. “Establishing dominance is the name of the game. Letting your hamster think it’s in charge can have disastrous effects.” (Point being: Who can train a hamster?)

Be Like My Dad

He recently had a flu shot and his shoulder hurt. I said,”You should probably be drinking a lot of water.” His reply: “I’ll probably be drinking a lot of gin.”

See Live Comedy and Improvisational Comedy

Best viewed with a group, IMHO. Get a posse and go. GREAT standup show coming up at Randolph’s Chandler in October called the Ivy League of Comedy. Go! Saw them twice and they so rocked. Anyone who knows where to find good improv locally, I’m all ears. My contact info below. Nothing is funnier than improv. You’ll LERV it.

Create a Flash Mob

While working banquet at a stranger’s wedding? Bar mitzvah?

Or, If Unmotivated…

Watch flash mobs on YouTube. The bystanders’ reactions are priceless.

Tell Disgusting True Stories

Like how when I lived in a tiny walk-up in SoHo, New York, I subsisted on take-out pizza, sushi, and bagels. Never cooked. One day after 2 years I opened my oven and an absolute waterfall of cockroaches cascaded out. (They call that The Nest.) My neighbors thought I was being murdered, from the screaming. Imagine if you passed out, and they’d scrambled all over you? This story always gets a laugh and amusing faces of disgust. Note parenthetical insertion.

Tell Flagrant Lies to Amuse Self and Friends

At a boring party? Spice it up. Haul your friend over to someone you both don’t know. Ask the person what they do for a living (very American). Acknowledge their work. Then say, “Sheila here is a rodentologist studying the rat population of minor cities. She started out as a trapeze artist, didn’t you, Sheila? It will be Sheila’s job to keep a straight face and elaborate. (Note: This is a callback in two ways: the hamster reference, plus this game is straight out of improvisational comedy.)

Watch Funny Shows/Movies

I know a cosmic person who says his secret to inner peace is meditation and watching funny movies. With his mom.

I’ve been thinking, since recent flicks “Barbie” and “Theater Camp” had me howling, that what the world needs now (besides love*) is funny, yes, funny. Come on writers and directors, crank out those comedies — highbrow, lowbrow, we don’t care. Bring it awn. Go see comedies in the theater. The shared experience crushes home viewing.

Suggested Movies: A Short and Largely Obscure List of Comedic Brilliance

Not necessarily entirely comedies, but mega-comical moments:

Bridesmaids, Go (clever ensemble piece; the Amway scene!), Wonder Boys, Mother (Albert Brooks and Debbie Reynolds GEM), After Hours (Linda Fiorentino hottt!). Barbie is worth it for the dance numbers with Ryan Gosling, a former New Mickey Mouse Club alum who can DANCE.

Mel Brooks: Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, and High Anxiety.

Forget Paris: the pigeon scene with Debra Winger

Stuber: So, so good. You won’t regret. Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista!

The Spy Who Dumped Me: the chase scene alone…Milla Kunis and Kate McKinnon

Three Woody Allen movies you may not have seen that kill: Small Time Crooks (Tracy Ullman), Hollywood Ending (absurd plot, luminescent Tea Leoni), Manhattan Murder Mystery (Diane Keaton)

Cricket On The Hearth: old-school animated Christmas movie my nieces love.

Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion (when they ask for a Business Woman’s lunch)

Pink Panther flicks (“It’s not my phaone.”)

Bill Murray: Scrooged and Caddyshack

Groundhog Day: romantic to boot!

The Royal Tenenbaums

Overboard: I’ve seen it 10 times and I do not re-watch movies.

Anchorman (I’ve never seen)

Christopher Guest: Best in Show

Napoleon Dynamite: The dance sequence, you’ll be afire

Alan Arkin (total god): Glen Gary Glenross, Little Miss Sunshine, The Russians Are Coming The Russians are Coming

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: another old nugget

Meet the Fockers (I’ll tell you a funny story if you ask at contact info below)

Shows: Maybe another column, with Dear Reader’s input? Your call. Good day.

*Nod to Burt Bacharach

Ann Aikens has released a darkly comical yet uplifting book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, available on Amazon and local Vermont shops. She has written her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Information at annaikens.com.

Cutie pie Ginger! At top is Marshmallow; RIP our classic darling. You brought only joy.

Weather Throws People Together

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At Colgate’s reunion this weekend, the campus storm tracker alerted all to head indoors. Someone who graduated 6 years after I was born landed inside our reunion housing. He tolerated our bawdy stories and antics. Turned out he and I were both to be at the All-Class Authors’ Book Signing the next day. 

His book about his father looks really interesting. We both brought along artifacts–his were letters and such from which he had pieced the book together, kept in a cigar box–and switched our chairs next to each other. We both lamented not having asked questions of parents while they were still alive. He is the third in his family lineage to have the same name, so long ago they nicknamed him Trip. 

Harry Haldt, AKA Trip, it was fantastic meeting such a gent and thanks for your help. Happy the storm threw us together. And as I’m sure you tire of hearing, you are a trip.

Good luck! See you in 5 years.

O Come, Let Us Assemble It    

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There seems to be some pushback this year, in various media, against the “Magic of Christmas.” I understand. Times have changed. It’s not Bing Crosby’s holiday so much any more. Hallmark’s cookie-cutter Christmas movies seem woefully out of touch. (The personal assistant saves the day and wins the heart of the widowed billionaire… again! The guy on the Snow Ball committee helping the down-and-out girl, able to value her quirky ways, is secretly… a prince… again! With the requisite cookie-baking scene…flour on his and her noses… adorable!). What happened to the good stories? They used to be good.

This year perhaps more than most, money is an issue, germs remain an issue, and weather, fuel costs and world events are bringing us down. Power outages have caused many people and businesses real hardship.  Perhaps a creature or person you love died. It’s hard to care much about the Perfect Gift—or even wrapping it. I, for one, used to get very, very into wrapping.

They say nostalgia glosses over the past. Makes it seem prettier or more enchanted than it was at the time. As a nostalgic, who talks to other nostalgics, I don’t buy that. We say it was in fact enchanted. The following story illustrates when Christmas was pure magic. 

I preface the tale with my own childhood proclivity for holiday snooping. Driven in part by our keen sense of smell, my siblings or I would notice something in December when we went to, say, get a towel from the closet. That smell. Sniff, sniff. Why does it smell like that in here? The unmistakable smell of… fun. 

The smell of toys. Plastics. Whatever they pumped into the air in toy stores to make you want live there. That smell was, weirdly, right in our own closet. Let us get a step stool and investigate! Dear Reader knows where I’m going with this. Snooping for presents secreted away by the parents during the weeks leading up to December 25th. Many of them mercifully already wrapped by the grandparents and aunts who’d mailed them. 

On to the story. I hope to do it justice.

My Vermont friend was a little boy growing up with his older brother in the 1960s. Remarkably, their parents took seasonal nighttime jobs in addition to their already demanding day jobs in order to pull together a nice Christmas for their two sons. Which left the sons entirely to their own devices several nights per week. At which point the snooping naturally began.

They found in a closet one year a well-made and elaborate Lionel train set they had badly wanted. Overcome with excitement, they got on the step stool and brought it down. Very, very carefully, they unboxed it. And proceeded to put it together. It was complicated and took a long while. Then they played with it happily for hours. With an eye to the clock, they very, very carefully re-boxed it, got on the step stool, and put it away. Each night they went through this ritual. Each night they got faster at assembling the set, and at re-packaging it perfectly.

On Christmas day the boys could have won Oscars® for the gleeful surprise they displayed upon opening the well-made and elaborate Lionel train set they had badly wanted. They were eager to put it together, this time without fear that they might get caught. The train set was finally theirs.  

The parents were beside themselves with the Christmas Day delight they had brought to their sons. All their hours of hard work had paid off. They felt as much joy as their sons. Their joy was overtaken by astonishment. Look at them go! Our boys! How could our sons be this clever, this talented, that they could assemble the thing with such rapidity? They must be advanced, possibly even geniuses! Clearly, they must go into engineering.

I love that story. I don’t know if they ever told their parents—ask David Atkinson for the full story. For now, it stands as is: a charming, true tale told at dinner one night at a holiday party in Vermont. It brought the house down. Magical times revisited.

The story takes me back to our own childhood. When Mommy would make a huge deal about  snowfall, illuminating the outside lights and opening the curtains so we kids could gaze at the different sizes and shapes of the swirling flakes. When Dad building a fire was a thrilling and special occasion; even the dog got excited. When hot chocolate was made by us children with 50% marshmallows—the big, fat, “jet-puffed” kind—as tinsel clung to our polyester pants and dog, and the parents sloshed brandy into their eggnog. Our hearts soared at the holidays.

Now Mommy is gone and Dad can’t build a fire. But there is still something about snow falling, seeing someone drive by with a carefully selected tree atop their car, children terrified or overjoyed to meet Santa at a town gazebo, and the first few bars of pretty much any Bing Crosby carol. It legitimizes our nostalgia. There was holiday magic. There was. I was there, I felt it. As, hopefully, Dear Reader, did you. If we can’t feel it this year, for whatever reasons, let us quietly watch others feel it. It’s out there. Even if we’re taking a year off ourselves. Good (holi)day to all, with love and memories.

Tip for Parents: Hide the step stool.

NBC Mission: Impossible

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The NBC did NOT bloom last night as I badly needed it to before I skipped town. Unable to leave her to bloom unobserved, I enlisted a kindly neighbor to get her in the car, knowing full well how unlikely the bud would hang onto the plant during my drive east. What with my crap suspension system and Vermont roads and all. She is buoyed by an old printer, a pillow, a beater bathing suit, and a back rest.

We stopped at my favorite gas station in the world, Irving (Hello!). I added an ugly brown fleece to the support system.

There is no way I am the only nutter in the history of the world to take a blooming cereus on the road rather than let it bloom alone. Hopefully another nutter will report in.

Praying this one makes it to New Hampshire, but if it doesn’t, hell, we tried.

I have never named the plant. On the drive it came to me: Luna.

We made it to New Hampshire. Thank you, Forces!

My hosts and I took a celebratory pond dip. Heavenly.

See the fraying tip?

IT’S HAPPENING.

It’s uncertain, though, because the stem is too bent where it comes out of the leaf, due to sag during the drive. I’m afraid to adjust it. We’ll report in as able, Luna and I.

Fingers crossed!

The Annual NBC Nail Biter Continues

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As the bud got heavier, the angle of the dangle went from up to down. You should know that sometimes the bud falls off–OOF.

So it’s looking a little precarious. I’ll need to support it. Wheels are turning.

To heighten the tension, due to circumstances beyond my control I may not be here when she blows and miss the Grand Finale. We cannot have this.

GROW BABY GROW! You’re on the clock.

I remain hopeful.

Thar She Blows – Night Blooming Cereus 2022

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Night Blooming Cereus: ugly duckling, protector…then entertainer for one night a year.

Protector? There were some sketchy things going on in my neighborhood. My NBC shot up a new leaf, the tallest it ever has, which bent towards the window.

She looked like a cobra (see shadow). I snickered and thanked her every time I saw her ~ for menacing evildoers out in the ‘hood.

Yesterday, her first bud appeared. August is her month, normally, so I’ve been looking.

It never gets old!

Looks like the bud is giving us the thumbs up, no?

The bud grows hourly. Stay tuned!

Those Three Little Words

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tempImage9gL1KMThis time of year, the romantic love promo machine kicks into high gear. People without a partner, or a partner that seems not to care, feel Less Than. It’s enough to make you irritable.

But then everyone is irritable lately, so you’ll blend right in. Even Siri is cranky. “Ready to send it?” she asked this week. I did not respond quickly. READY TO SEND IT?? she repeated. I said never you mind, Missy, I’ll send it myself.

The reality is you don’t need romantic love to be happy. You can love all manner of things. Your home. The arts. A creature. Night. Friend Denise said that in 2022 she wants to do more things that bring her joy. Smart. Maybe you love a sport or hobby. Doing good deeds. Cooking. Napping.

Me, I love bargains. Like discounted grocery items (expired oatmeal: the other ancient grain), and buying used medical supplies on eBay. Also watching the Olympics, much as the winter sport crashes terrify. Resting. Learning an instrument or language. Sending unexpected gifts. And reading those three little words that form the perfect sentence. More on that later.

Angels among us 

In December I searched online for Flash Mobs because my niece had suggested we do one at a Catholic christening we were to attend. I gazed at Youtube, entranced by mall shoppers suddenly ripping into Ode To Joy. As one will, I got sucked into other Youtube recordings, and came across Angels Among Us by Alabama. Despite the corny 80s filming and styling (sunglasses indoors) and overt whiteness, I dug the song; the images of simple people who had done great deeds (including two children) had me bawling. I dare you.

Never trust a snow bank

In a recent storm, I drove through a slender snowbank in a parking lot, which sadly concealed a curb I had never seen before. In nautical terms, I ran aground. After frantic calls to the manly men I know, no one could help beyond some best-guess suggestions, including Trusty Editor who was, I think, impressed with my trick driving. I sped on foot to NAPA for pro advice, where two manly men were eating pizza in a large pickup, the kind of rig that means business. You could tell they were the sort of men that know…everything. I explained my car was on a curb. Expressionless, they set aside their pizza and followed me.

At the scene, one instructed, “You’ll throw it in reverse and we’ll lift it.” (You’ll LIFT it? A car?) Sure enough, after briefly analyzing angles, they lifted it exactly right, off the curb. I gushed, “I wish I could embrace you without COVID!” One replied, almost amused, “There are nice people out there.” With no ado they returned to their truck and pizza pie, which I’d have paid for if I’d had any cash. While they looked like the type of men that don’t accept much in the way of thanks for a good deed, I nonetheless should have offered. Gentlemen, if you see this, I owe you a pizza. Good people indeed. Angels among us.

So, Dear Reader, stop being cranky, shop local for your Valentine, whoever or whatever that is, and do things that bring you joy. Lie down outside and look at the stars. Help or be helped by a stranger. Build a snow fort. And, oh, the perfect three little words?  Reduced To Clear. Bring on the bargains. Good day.

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Cereously Tryna Break Out of Here

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I can’t tell if my Night Blooming Cereus has COVID Cabin Fever or if he’s trying to find his son across the street, but look at this baby go!

A week ago, we see him trying to bore through the ceiling.

 

Then he heads southwest, sensing a better way to make a break for it.

 

My guess: he wants to see his son, waving from across the street. I’ll have to ask my neighbor who owns him to do a drive-by at the window. The son is more mobile.

Which is exactly what the bloom viewing will have to be this year — drive-by — if we don’t get rid of this damned COVID!

Not To Be Outdone…

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…by Cereus or Son of Cereus, this gutsy little potato, totally unmonitored and uncared for, put on a show of his own.

There’s an I Dream of Jeannie bottle vibe to his photographic staging here. Ordinarily he lives, unobserved, in a forgotten window sill. He was happy for his moment in the spotlight. As are we all.

Son of Cereus

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In the prior post, you see a gnarly Night Blooming Cereus, which had finally grown enough for me to make a serious cutting. In the interest of gifting a plant to a deserving NBC fan, I boldly took clippers to soon-to-be Father Cereus. It was a gross feeling. I did not follow internet instructions on rooting. I took the easy way dictated by maven Jeanne in Hanover.

Just look at him go! I’m so proud I could cry. He already sprouted his first leaf—as if a tiny hand, proudly raised high, waves, “Good-bye Mommy! Good-bye! I’m going to live with your favorite neighbor!”

(You know who you are.)

Sniff, sniff.