MORNING FRESH WITH JODY BRESCH, Thursday, January 23, 2014: Yesterday, because I was feeling knee-high to a grasshopper thanks to caffeine withdrawal and winter blahs, I took a stab at writing humor. Ive never considered this my forte, but I most definitely admire people who do it well. I went to somebody I felt was qualified to demonstrate by example, Erma Bombeck, and read a couple of chapters from one of her published books. 1. Erma uses sarcasm and she uses it very well. 2. Erma uses exaggeration, the bigger, the better. 3. Erma uses the ridiculous. You know when she takes an absurd detour into the impossible, what shes doing, but you still go there with her. 4. Erma doesnt use clichés, she uses one of a kind originals. 5. Erma uses contrasts, extreme contrasts, to grab attention. 6. Erma makes herself the butt of many of her jokes. 7. Erma doesnt attempt to resolve her predicaments. She pretty much wallows in them. 8. Erma harvests the ordinary from her everyday life experiences, and turns it into the extraordinary. 9. Erma gladly lays her immediate family on the altar of humor ( Dan Canny). 10. Erma does recycle material, but when she does it, she does it in a new and original way. Yesterday, I had a couple of friends offer advice about my lifes predicaments. Im pretty sure they were picking up on my tongue in cheek complaining, because JoAnn Wegner made the remark, Not that youre asking for advice... and she gave me some anyway, and I do appreciate it JoAnn. Some herbal teas, I even kind of like. Ive taken a stab at humor a few other times on here, and about 50% of the time I fall flat on my face. Its not the first time Ive attempted it. When I was a student at Wm Penn University in Oskaloosa, IA, for my first few months in college, I actually wrote a column for their News Letter. It wasnt quite as popular as Erma Bombeck, but it did generate a few chuckles sometimes. Since I wrote it under a pen name, very few people even knew that it was me writing it. Id have been okay if I hadnt used the poor judgment to poke humor at one of the Deans in one column that I contributed. The student editor decided it was time for me to take a sabbatical. Since I had just broken my left wrist, and I had so much homework to do anyway, I didnt fight for that non-paying job. Ive considered writing some things under a pen name again. You can say things behind a pseudonym that you are reluctant to say when your own name is attached to it. I dont know if it will be humor though. Luke, our middle-son, probably thanks to middle-child syndrome, claims the family comedian title. It drives his wife up the wall because she hears what to her are his lame jokes over and over again, but I kind of get a kick out of it, because he can lead his audience right to the brink, and then remember to deliver a quality punch line. If I remember the sequence of the story, I usually say the punch line wrong.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 18:46:40 +0000
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