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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.

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