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by R. C. (RCat) Arquette
"Smile, it makes people wonder what you've been up to! " - Anonymous
Dolphins have a large brain and have been found to interact through clicks and whistles. If you listen to tape of them making these sounds underwater you can almost pick out sounds that mimic laughter, but not quite. It is easy to picture them laughing, they do have that silly grin pasted on their faces all the time, and we know that they are the only creature other than man that actually has sex for the fun of it. I know sex makes me laugh, so maybe dolphins are laughing and grinning for a good reason. If I could swim around naked all day copulating at random, while having someone bring me pickled herring three or four times a day, hey, I'd grin like an idiot too! In spite of their brains though, you don't see any of these slippery fellows appearing on "An Evening at the Improv" with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams. Chimpanzees and Gorillas are a bit questionable when it comes to the idea of humor. Oh yes, we've seen 'Cheetah' laughing to a dubbed soundtrack in the old 'Tarzan' movies, but to actually picture him sitting around a card table with a bunch of his banana swilling buddies, telling jokes about their hairy mothers-in-law, is a real stretch. Gorillas have been taught to use sign language to communicate, indicating a higher level of thinking than most animals. They will even request their handlers to 'tickle' them and then make what appears to be a smiling face when they are actually tickled. Tickling seems to be a physical reaction to direct stimulus, whereas humor is a reaction to a visual or verbal stimulus, something the Gorilla doesn't comprehend. Have you ever seen a Gorilla slip on a banana peel while another Gorilla sees it happen and ends up laughing so hard it peed itself? Or the resulting brawl when the Gorilla that slipped took exception to the second Gorilla's laughter and proceeded to drag him to the parking lot to beat his hairy ass! No, I dare say you haven't and I'd bet a pay check you never will. It's just not part of a primate's mental abilities to be a joke writer for Conan O'brien or David Lettermen (even though we may suspect that they have a few primates on their staff already). Humor would appear to be, therefore, a purely human ability; a function of our advanced brain development. I have to stop and wonder though, if we're so damn advanced, why is it that we laugh at the likes of Don Rickles or Gilbert Gotfried? I suppose taste enters into it and there is no accounting for human taste! No matter where you go on the planet you can hear people laughing. (except maybe at the White House, where they're still trying to learn to read without moving their lips!) You can find the Chinese, French, Italian, Brazilian, Japanese, Norwegians, all getting a great laugh out of something that is being said or done. The interesting point to this is the fact that a Norwegian isn't laughing at a French bit of humor, no more than the Italian is laughing at the Japanese sense of humor. Why is this? It would seem that humor is not something uniformly funny wherever you may go, but is culturally based and only funny to those members of the particular culture telling the joke. Americans are always complaining about the dryness of the British wit, their potty humor and preoccupation with dressing up in drag. While at the same time, the Brits think the French are a bunch of lowbrow clowns absorbed in the idiocy of slapstick and seltzer bottles. You don't have to look very far to find one cultural group scratching it's head over the supposed 'yucks' of another. There is a story I recall about an old Catskills comedian, on the road, doing one night stands and conventions that his agent had booked. The comedian was Jewish, (who else plays the Catskills, right?) his agent was a gentile (there is a switch for you!) and wasn't paying a lot of attention to who the audiences were that he'd booked for his comedian. The comic appeared at a convention out in the Midwest somewhere, held at a 'Dazed Inn,' and launched into his usual Yiddish stories and jokes. The audience sat grim faced and unmoving. Even with his 'A List' material no one cracked a smile. He was bombing terribly and decided to push through to the end of the act and get off stage before they started tossing old fruit and vegetables. He didn't learn until later, talking to the disgruntled organizer of the event, that he'd been playing to an audience of white supremacists, neo-nazis, and members of the regional KKK. Talk about not getting it! These guys not only didn't get it, but were pretty close to carrying off our ignorant comic and nailing him to a flaming cross. Not everything is funny to everyone; point proven. I have observed that at some point in everyone's life they try and tell a joke. Some little bit of fluff they thought was funny is passed on to the next guy in hopes of bring rewarded by laughter. It doesn't always work that way though, some people have lousy timing and can screw up a joke in a heartbeat. There is an art to it. It may be easy to toss off witty barbs to your beer buddies or the ladies at the garden club, but to be genuinely funny is a real full-time job. My hat is off to the stand-up comic. All those grinning neurotics we see on TV and in the movies, who keep getting up in the spotlight in spite of the dangers of being booed into oblivion or having their egos crushed. Hurray for the funny people, for they make our world a somewhat tolerable place to do time! In that regard, let me put in a plug here for Robin William's "Live 2001" comedy CD (it just won a Grammy the other night for best comedy album of the year) It is a two disk set. Disk one is a long concert performance put together from shows all over the US and Canada. Disk two is the specific reference material to the cities that disk one was recorded in; it's okay, but disk one is the keeper. It is Robin at his maniacal best on everything from politics to kids and everything in between. It is off-the-wall, and laced with a lot of very liberal speech (if you get what the **** I mean?!) and you'll love it. Just remember not to plan anything to do while you listen to it, because if you do, it just ain't gonna' get done, son! Remember; Laughter is king...and laughter is the best medicine...laughter is the true center of man...so enjoy your life and laugh it up before someone laughs at you! - Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk! Your Faithful Reporter - RCat
Currently, his duties include acting as the head of a family consisting of an overworked wife, a vibrating teenaged son, and an over stimulated housecat. An elder daughter resides at some distance with her own family; a husband, two sons, and a daughter. As head of this merry band of pranksters, the illusionary aspects of his carefree life are played out on the stage of daily routine. RCat is a self described "survivor," having lived through the "flower power" promises of the 1960's with the goals of world peace, universal brotherhood, free-love, and the legalization of certain organic herbs. Contrary to what others might say, he can still remember parts of it quite vividly. Sadly, those cosmic issues have now been reduced to the cliché. He now, more realistically, understands the world has gone quite mad and no longer cares to be a part of the continuing descent into oblivion. The thought of putting on a loincloth to venture forth and live out his days meditating in a tall tree in a distant forest sounds appealing. Of course, he isn't kidding himself. Chances are a noisy bunch of cretins will quickly invade the tree next to him. Ah well, such is the way of this planet we call home. In the meantime, he scribbles poetry, short stories, and essays, as well as a choppy stream of drawings, cartoons and works of art. All done with a grin as meditative mental therapy in an effort to hold onto what little remains of his sanity. Enjoy him while you can, he is the quintessential endangered species. |
Nothin' Better
Songs
of
Life In The
I've learned from watching the Discovery Channel,
National Geographic specials, and The Learning Channel, that
there are some interesting things going on in our universe. One
such interesting thing is humans seem to be the only species
(as far as the scientific community can discern) that have the
gift of humor. We not only have the ability to make our reaction
to humor known through the physical expression of laughter, but
we have a brain developed to such a level that we can formulate
humorous ideas and express them to one another in order to elicit
such responses. I suppose this is why you don't see many chickens
on the comedy club circuit; even if they could tell a joke (why'd
the human cross the road!) the chickens in the audience just
wouldn't get it.
R.
C. Arquette, "RCat" to friends and fellow writers,
is an aging hippie and practicing curmudgeon. He was dragged
into the world, kicking and screaming, back in the middle of
the last century; 1950 to be exact. His outburst clearly showed
his disdain for reality at the earliest of stages. He grew up
living in the sub-tropical splendor of the "Sunshine State,"
Florida, US of A, where he attended Jr. College and after twenty
years received his AA degree; what can I say, life kept getting
in the way.
