Being Funny

Yesterday, I watched Lewis Black addressing the radio and television correspondents awards dinner on C-SPAN. He was trying very hard to be funny. I've always thought that stand up comedians made poor after dinner speakers. True, after dinner speaking is meant to be entertaining--hopefully funny. However, the setting doesn't work for the type of one-line, quick banter jokes told by the typical stand-up comedian. After dinner speeches are leisurely walks where as stand up comedy is generally a sprint. The audience had consumed enough alcohol to laugh louder than they ought to at his jokes. But as I soberly sat on my sofa, I could tell--it wasn't that funny. But I applaud his effort and the effort of anyone who goes out on a limb and tries to be funny in public--on demand.

Trying to be funny on demand is one of the riskier feats attempted by speakers. Trying to be funny and failing is embarrassing by itself. Trying and failing at anything in public is embarrassing--ask people who go out of the first round in a slam dunk contest. But you also have the embarrassment of having people know you're uncool--like when you wear the out-of-style clothes or admit to liking a musician everyone else think stinks. By the way, I've never understood really why Michael Bolton is ridiculed but Neil Diamond is hip. When you think something is funny and say it out loud suddenly people know you thought something was funny that really wasn't. You've not only failed in public, but you've also displayed that you're not cool.

Most of the humor I attempt comes from the pulpit. Pulpits are safe places to attempt humor. They're safe because no one really expects sermons to be funny. They expect them to be boring. So even if my attempts at humor fail, people generally appreciate the effort to liven up an otherwise boring experience. It's also safe because people will generally give a courtesy laugh or two. Of course, eventually people get to know pastors and will eventually tell them that they are not really funny. They either whisper it conspiratorially to a minister as if to be helpful or else blurt it out in public simply to be annoying. Hint to people who feel they must tell a minister that he or she is not funny: We already know! If we were successfully funny and cool enough to know it, do you really think we'd be ministry?