Skip to main content

I Just Don't Do Funny

I read Chris Kattan's Baby Don't Hurt Me.  It is a stunning book.  There are all the things you want in a book about a comedian that the world knows from SNL.  There are personal anecdotes, the story for how he got on SNL, his characters, why he left and where he is now.  The writing (not done by Kattan alone) is amazing.  The descriptions took me to a moment as if it was part of my own memory; I could hear the songs in the book enough to start singing along.  (I didn't put together a playlist, but the book is deserving of one.)  While it's not a book filled with laughter, it is filled with beautiful honesty.  I recommend this book to anyone that likes SNL, comedy, and a some people that don't.

For years I have stated "I don't do comedy." It's a pretty barefaced lie, that everyone goes along with.  The truth is that most comedic shows,  and especially movies, make me physically uncomfortable.  I start to squirm and try to fast forward, like most people watching a horror movie.  I've said things like "Oh, I don't know."  "I just don't think it's funny."  and a series of semi-political reasons. Only the last one is true; I really don't enjoy racist, ablest, homophobic jokes. 

I have severe depression and often, enjoyable things aren't enjoyable for me.  It doesn't matter if something is part of my fandom, I might not enjoy something because I physically can't. There was a period in high school in which I didn't enjoy any books in school. Not a single book even was interesting to me.  Years (and a couple anti depressants) later, I watched "dumb movies" from that period and discovered that they were funny.  I still get uncomfortable during a majority of comedic movies.  I just can't handle that feeling being so direct for so long.  Funny is hard for me, the way that sitting in silence with another person is for most people.  I can sit with you in silence even if I just met you.  I can ask a series of scary questions of a person coming in to therapy for the first time while not feeling awkward or struggling with any deep painful descriptions from their life.

I grew up and into my depression and PTSD.  It's happiness that I don't trust. I can watch comedies alone more easily than I can with other people. Comedy is an intimacy with something that can't be trusted for me the way that a silent room with another person is for others.  Depression lies, and that is something that you'll see as you read Baby Don't Hurt Me because Chris Kattan is funny, and this book really isn't.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pile of dead kids

Yesterday, I said I was thankful for my therapist.  Honestly I am not sure that I am thankful.  EMDR therapy is the right kind for me, it is working in an expansion of what I believe.  Yet I don't want to deal with the past memories that we are going to be looking at.  They suck. I am unsure if it is me holding back or maybe she really sucks. I am so triggered being back in Spokane and in this house.  It feels like I am walking through memories sometimes.  Today I keep thinking about a bunch of dead kids.  They used to be my friends or clients I worked with, but at some point as I kept getting older and they didn't, those friends and clients became kids.  Worse than that, they became dead kids just chilling in my mind.  I say pile of dead kids because it is rare that only one comes up in my mind at a time.   If one starts coming into my memory (even a positive memory) another one comes,  Until I end up with all of these dead k...
1 comment
Read more

Sitting down

I've started this blog entry four times this week. First, I was going to tell you about being shiny with my goals. I was all about tracking and support. Those tools are really helpful and I was doing quite well. I had the post all typed out, then I got fired.  In the rest of the week, things got a little off track. There are days this week where I didn't track my progress. I didn't eat according to the plan each day. I didn't complete my full workout each day.  There was even a day where I didn't take my medications.  Knowing that getting off my medications for a day usually leads to migraines, why would I do that?  Why would I ever skip my exercises when my knees hurt less if I do them?  Why wouldn't I move around every hour knowing that I'm at risk for blood clots and strokes? Why would I eat a tub of french fries to make me feel better? As I got stuck this week, I kept asking myself those whys.  It seems like a labyrinth I'll never escape someti...
2 comments
Read more

Mother's Day

I've disappeared for a few weeks (again).  It's because I was dealing with the real world consequences of being chronically ill and chronically poor. These are two things I link together so tightly I almost didn't put "and" in that sentence. I was being kept at a friend's house for a little over a week because I live alone and they were afraid I was going to die.  No one actually says that,  but the simple reality is that no one is saying, "Geeze you are kinda sick and gonna totes get better so please sleep on my couch." There were other reasons too; the simple life goes on when you're sick, birthdays and funerals. I haven't had hours at work which I'm thankful for because I couldn't conceivably go to work. I had a regular-person doctor's visit which turned into several "lets check if you have cancer" visits.  I don't. Yay for that. I removed one medication and added another. I'm having one medication taken aw...
1 comment
Read more