sk someone to tell you a joke or a funny anecdote and you will be able to determine a good portion of his or her psyche. It will tell you if a person has (your kind of) humor, (your kind of) taste, is able to appeal to his or her listener in an entertaining way. At the least, you will find out if the induhvidual involved is capable of remembering three or more lines of text.
Ask that same person to tell another anecdote or joke the next month and you will learn even more for the same price. Still no joke or funny tale : no social life. Does he / she tell the same lame joke as last time : doesn't give a rat's ass to what you're actual talking about. Comes up with a new joke but screws up the punchline again : limited brain capacity. New joke but you're not quite sure, how or what was funny about it : socially challenged. Great joke, good laugh : must have been practicing all month, the loser. Personally I'll classify for all of the aforementioned: I've been using the same joke for the last five years, which I still manage to screw up, but persist in telling it till the end to reap that painful silence and blank stare.
Whatever the case : Humor comes in all kinds of colours and flavours. And as research has shown, people who laugh a lot, live on average a lot longer than people who get into fatal car accidents... which only goes to show the easy going nature of humor : it can readily be stolen (*).
As for the typical local humor, it's ... interesting. Canadian humor features beer jokes, authentic accents and the irreplaceable “eh” as the star attractions. One could say the local humor is a bit of an acquired taste, a delight for a selected few, a niche within the spectrum of specialized specialties... but despite being part of the former British colonies, their former ruler's sarcasm hasn't rubbed off. Canadian humor is quite harmless.
Nevertheless the mission demanded further information on this topic and I set out to see a performance at Yuk Yuk's.
Yuk Yuk is a chain of stand up comedy clubs with establishments throughout Canada. It's a prototypical one too. If you have ever seen the introduction of Seinfeld, you know what it looks like: dark bar, small stage with a microphone prominently in the middle and obligatory wooden bar chair with a single spotlight and a curtain to hide whatever is going behind the stage that the audience is not allowed to see. For the Seinfeld unaware reader, see below.
The arena of comedy
The fun starts at the entrance where it quickly becomes obvious the professional humor industry prefers to select appearance over brains. Swiping the my credit card proves to be a big challenge for the financial operator and she requires the help of her manager, twice ...
"so I swipe it like this... no ? How about this no ? And ... oh"
Inside the night is warmed up by the MC, a Jamaican girl who likes big male genitals, is happy to be in Vancouver and has a cousin in Miami, she also reminds us of the parental values of having a kid who believes in the boogie man. The first act is chubby fellow from somewhere in the north of Canada, deals with relationship issues, life in Vancouver and his handicap: a (s)lisp. Finally the main act appears, a semi famous guy from that show that appears to plagues the world around: “Idol(s)”.His act consists of random jokes and he has brought his guitar. He threatens to play it a couple of times, but he will only play it on the premise that no one laughs and takes the song seriously. That turns out to be quite hard with a song titled “Ginger Ale Vagina”. At the end he's just about to play it but alas “his time is up”.
Good fun.
The careful reader will immediately raise the question: so tell us, oh writer, what does this tell us about the psyches of these stand up comedians ? Or better still, being the professionals that they are, they cater to their audience : what does it tell you about them ? In fact, you seem to remember certain bits more clearly than others – what do we learn about you ?
Interesting questions which I would gladly answer, but yeah ... there's a reason for the title of this blog.
(*) Taken from one of the sketches at Yuk Yuk
Something random this week: Ginger Ale Something Random
2 comments:
Update your infiltration map! I see no Yuk yuks, or Steamworks....
Coming up soon... being the mere human I am, I need sleep too
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