Doctor Laughter

Doctor Laughter ©

By Michael Casey

Now here's what I've been thinking about regarding Humour. Why do we laugh? We laugh at differences, we laugh at the unexpected. Events happen and that way they unfold gets a reaction. Nowadays people are too Politically Correct, you shouldn't laugh, it’s almost a sin to laugh. I'll give a few examples.

Look there's dad said my brother on our way home from serving the early Sunday Mass. So I run up behind this man and I was going to slap his bald head, or just say boo. Then the man turned around, it was not dad at all. So my brother ran up the street laughing.

So is that funny, or are you unamused.

In the old days it cost an old penny to use the public toilets. So we were on holiday somewhere so my mum was asking a man for some change so she could take my sisters to use the toilet in Rhyl or somewhere. The man gave her a big old copper penny and said "have one on me."

So is that funny or are you unamused.

My dad saved the undertaker's son's life, so when dad died years later the undertaker made my dad look 10 years younger in death. He looked like his own brother.

So is that sad or amusing or both? In fact I put the story about dad saving the undertaker's son's life in my comic novel

The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker.

Fact is stranger than Fiction after all.

Comedy that is based on fact is far funnier, situation comedy if you like. A great British comedian Eric Morecambe once said if it works it works, don't over analyse it

When I write I know where I'm going, but I don't know how I'm getting there. Should I make a joke about this or that?

I have a blind boy called Barry in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, how did he get in the book? I have a dominoes set in the house, they belonged to the man who bought me my first watch when I was 11, for passing the 11plus exam which meant I could go to grammar school.

AS I had the set of dominoes in my house when I was writing the idea came to me that at the dramatic end of the novel the heroes would be playing dominoes. They could not be playing cards as that's associated with gambling and in the story the hero's daughter had been kidnapped. So they played dominoes to stop themselves from going mad with fear for the daughter.

So when Barry comes along he joins in, he even asks them to put a mirror behind one of the other's back so that he the blind man can cheat. He may be blind but he still has his sense of humour. He also can hear the fear and tension in their voices, he knows there is something wrong, seriously wrong. So he the blind man is trying to help them.

Now some may say I should not have that line in the book, but if they do say that then I'd say, it’s them who are blind.

So you can have pathos and humour cheek by cheek. In another story of mine "I want to be a radio star" it’s no 127 on www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com you can hear me read it. Well in that piece I'm poking fun at myself. I always used to say I'd end up as a security guard when I was working in a computer room for 21 years at the same company.

 So in that story I am a security guard, and Doris, which is a kind of comedy name in England, a previous generation Christian name for a girl. Only she has faith in me. It’s a comedy piece. It has a happy and silly ending. I also wrote a story called It’s All in The Stars where again I'm a security guard and in that story I meet a girl who follows her horoscope all the time. In the end she falls for the security guard, he literally saves her as she crosses the road.

So humour can be used to laugh at ourselves, and it always has the underlying pathos. I know all about pathos too.

Find Padre Pio and Me by Michael Casey it’s on the Internet, you'll see real pathos and tragedy there. However there is a very happy ending. Yes that's how I met my wife, really.

So I hope if you have time to read the pieces mentioned you'll see that I'm more than the fat and boring writer with arthritis/Arthur from Birmingham. I've seen pain and had pain, that's why I want to create laughter and smiles with my writing.

Because Laughter is the Best Medicine.