Are you having trouble sleeping? Is your appetite failing? Are you unusually irritable?
If so, stop for a moment. First, put that extra cookie down! While you’re up, put a lock on the fridge door! Then, give that endless loop of puppies scampering through sunlit meadows a rest!
That should free up some time and attention for three classic comedy routines that, appropriately, squeeze a laugh out of frustration, futility, and fury.
They’re not a vaccine or a cure, but could be an Ibuprofen for the mind:
1. Bob and Ray’s Slow Talkers of America. (Bob and Ray were a comedy duo on the radio for decades. My father loved them, and my sister and I learned to love them, listening in the car when, each week, Dad drove us home from piano lessons. Many years later, Dad’s memorial service started with a recording of Slow Talkers … honest!)
(Google “Bob and Ray Slow Talkers.” A You Tube video of the routine is ok, but probably better is the audio recording that shows up as the yellow record-jacket above.)
2. Monty Python’s Flying Circus’s Dead Parrot sketch. (When we were living in London, Monty Python was just starting on British TV, but we didn’t have a set. Back in the States, we watched them, and caught them live, in New York, in 1976. John Cleese tantalized the audience by carrying a bird cage on-stage, then off, before the troupe finally did the sketch.)
(Google “Monty Python Dead Parrot.” Make sure it’s 5 minutes, 27 seconds; one view cuts it off in the middle.)
3. Gerard Hoffnung’s The Bricklayer Story: (Hoffnung was a British humorist, artist, and musician. The Bricklayer Story was part of his address to the Oxford Union in 1958.)
(Google: “Gerard Hoffnung Bricklayer Story You Tube.” You might also try Gerard Hoffnung French Widows & Advice for Tourists, an equally hilarious part of his talk.)
In case you want to work it into your own stand-up routine, here’s the Bricklayer in print:
A striking lesson in keeping the upper lip stiff is given in a recent number of the weekly bulletin of ‘The Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors’ that prints the following letter from a bricklayer in Golders Green to the firm for whom he works:
“Respected sir,
When I got to the top of the building, I found that the hurricane had knocked some bricks off the top. So I rigged up a beam with a pulley at the top of the building and hoisted up a couple of barrels full of bricks.
When I had fixed the building, there was a lot of bricks left over.
I hoisted the barrel back up again and secured the line at the bottom and then went up and filled the barrel with extra bricks.
Then I went to the bottom and cast off the line.
Unfortunately, the barrel of bricks was heavier than I was and before I knew what was happening, the barrel started down, jerking me off the ground.
I decided to hang on, and halfway up, I met the barrel coming down and received a severe blow on the shoulder.
I then continued to the top, banging my head against the beam and getting my fingers jammed in the pulley.
When the barrel hit the ground, it burst its bottom, allowing all the bricks to spill out.
I was now heavier than the barrel and so started down again at high speed.
Halfway down, I met the barrel coming up and received severe injury to my shins.
When I hit the ground I landed on the bricks, getting several painful cuts from the sharp edges!
At this point I must have lost my presence of mind because I let go the line.
The barrel then came down, giving me another heavy blow on the head and putting me in hospital!
I respectfully request sick leave.”