LOOK. If nobody on twitter laughs and jokes about me when I die (or whatever replaces it in 2099…robo-twitter? Hover-twitter? Nuclear Fallout Twitter? MySpace?), no matter WHAT idiotic or non-idiotic thing I do to myself (pretty sure it’s going to be Bionic Bear Baiting), ghost-me will be pissed off.

I don’t get offended by much. I’m not at liberty to say why in case any family members find this. We’ll say I’ve been through a lot. A sort of disturbing amount of a lot. And I continue to go through a lot. I know people of every nationality, disability, superability, regular ability, shape, size, religion, sexual orientation, age, shoe size, sense of humor, AC/DC lead singer preference, etc (and I’m willing to wager you do, too). And I certainly wouldn’t trade knowing them for the world (god, stop me if this sounds like “Well, I have a black friend!”, it’s not supposed to). And…perhaps I find the people who prefer the newer AC/DC guy to be a little off-putting, but back to my point. I laugh at things.

I laugh at things that other people think I shouldn’t laugh at. I laugh at people. All kinds of people. I would hope to god or Batman or my cat or whoever runs things that they would do the same to me, because I’m funny. I don’t mean that in the braggy “huh huh, I have 2,000 followers on twitter so I’m hi-larious” sense, I mean that in the “I’m a profoundly stupid human being who screws things up constantly and my existence is a joke” sense. I know I’m no better than anybody else. Nobody is. So, to me, it makes sense that we are all fair game. We’re a bunch of tiny, screaming bugs on a tiny, insignificant planet in a slightly bigger solar system in an even bigger galaxy that still is a speck of dust in what we perceive as the universe. And maybe beyond that there’s an even BIGGER thing than what we call the universe. Maybe it’s the…really really BIGverse. What’s funnier than a bunch of screaming bugs? Nothing. No, you shut your mouth, NOTHING. Not even Urkel.

Besides the vaguely philosophical reasoning, laughter is medicine. Laughter is a stress-reliever, and laughter is a coping mechanism. Laughter helps us identify with each other, and laughter turns enemies into friends if it’s infectious enough. Laughter turns power on its head. It gives importance, and it strips it away. Most importantly to me, laughter takes big, scary things and turns them into much smaller, less fearsome things. Would you like an example? My mother has an aggressive form of cancer, and neither of us know how long she has. I have a lot of family that have either succumbed to or continue to struggle with addiction. A good many of my friends have taken their own lives. I love them all, each and every one of them. I call my mother quite frequently and help take the piss out of her cancer at least a little by laughing with her about it. I make jokes about addiction and I regularly say “Oh, I could just kill myself”. It just helps.

Whitney Houston’s death seems to have hit a very, very raw nerve tonight. My news feed on twitter erupted, a lot of my friends became incensed that she was the subject of jokey tweets. Honestly, she was an amazing talent, but I don’t see why she’s any different than, say, Gary Coleman. When he died, we all joked about him and I don’t remember anybody going on the defensive. “Well, he was a horrible human being who abused his wife. Whitney was a loving mother and she didn’t hurt anybody!”, you may say. …You wanna know how much abuse a mother on coke can inflict on her daughter? Because I would be happy to tell you. I often wake up from nightmares about my own mother screaming that she would flip the car she was driving me in over if I didn’t tell her why I forgot to take an absence note to my junior high school’s office once. She told me I was fat more than once, and shoved me against our stove because she didn’t think I was doing the dishes enough. Both of these people (Gary and Whitney) were abused themselves and did not rise above it well enough to stop the cycle. Neither of them deserves better than the other, nor worse.

And so I laugh. I laugh at all of us absurd people in all of our absurd situations. What choice do I have? I cry enough over my own problems with the people I’m far closer to than a talented celebrity. I do not disrespect anybody I joke about or laugh at other people’s jokes about (maybe that’s where people get caught up. To me, laughter does not equal disrespect. I find it the opposite—in addition to taking the piss out of something/someone, you laugh because of respect. I don’t know, maybe I was just raised on Comedy Central roasts).

I think this might’ve gotten a little disjointed. Blame my dog for taking a pee in the house because I went over his walk schedule while writing this up. My point is, as Jack Handey said, “I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people.”

Because we’re certainly all dumb enough to warrant it.

3 months ago  /  5 notes