Published: May 01, 2008 12:47 pm            

WRITE ON: We Laugh To Win

A guy dies and goes to heaven. There, in front of the Pearly Gates, he sees two signs hanging overhead. The first sign says: “Henpecked Husbands.” Beneath that stretches a line of men going off into the clouds as far as the eye can see. The second sign reads: “Husbands Not Henpecked.”

Below that stands just one man.

The newly dead guy goes up to the fellow under the non-henpecked sign and says: "You must be quite a man! The line of henpecked husbands goes on forever and yet you're the only one in the "not henpecked" line. How do you account for that?"

To which the other fellow replies: "I don't know. My wife told me to stand here."

It is impossible to have a successful life without possess-ing a sense of humor. You just can't do it. More than any other human characteristic, the ability to see this world in all its pain and suffering—along with its beauty and glory—and still find a way to laugh is not just a good thing: It is essential to survival.

Slaves from the Israelites under the Egyptians thousands of years ago to Africans under their American masters just a couple of hundred years back still found ways to express their frustrations in ways that were laugh-out-loud funny. It's one of the main reasons that Jewish writers and performers dominate the American comedy scene and blacks lead all others when it comes to American popular music. The cowboy hat country crowd may be popular around these parts, classical music survives, but most of the country and the world overwhelmingly prefers Rap, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Blues, and good old Rock and Roll. The African-American has given us all those musical forms, along with most Gospel and Spiritual music.

From suffering has come comedy and "soul" music. The reason for this is that there is something in the human spirit which cannot be crushed no matter how oppressive the circumstances are. Survivors of the Holocaust death camps like Auschwitz and Dachau have written about the jokes that were told even as nearly twenty million prisoners were gassed to death, shot, starved and then cremated. Jesus was crucified as the "King of the Jews." It is history.

By the same token, Blues music and Spirituals rose from those who were worked nearly but not quite to death—slaves were "property" and a dead slave could do no work. History also records their suffering. They were whipped, beaten, and lynched by their cruel masters, and forced to work without pay and with no hope of regaining their freedom. These black slaves had been free before being suddenly torn away from the world they knew and dragged in chains into a life of perpetual servitude. Their response was often to sing and joke about their troubles. They are still singing and joking about them today as they face the enduring racism that remains a dark part of our American society.

My wife and I made most of our careers working with comedians in Hollywood. We were fortunate to be able to make a living by being around those who make us laugh. Looking across the spectrum of comedy and music, one might wonder at first at why two groups-- Jews and Blacks-- dominate these fields. Jerry Seinfeld, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Woody Allen, Jack Benny, The Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis, Shelly Berman, and Jackie Mason are but a few of the great Jewish American comedians. Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Nipsy Russell, George Kirby, Franklin Ajaye and Dave Chappelle are black comedians who have drawn from the same well of suffering and silliness to make laughter out of pain.

You probably never heard of Ella Wheeler Wilcox. I hadn't either. Yet before her death in 1919 she wrote in a poem called "Solitude":



"Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone."



Laughing is a way of showing that you have not been defeated.

I joined a theatrical fraternity in Hollywood called "The Masquers" solely because their motto is: "We laugh to win." One of my favorite movies stars Stewart Granger as the hero "Scaramaouche." It is based on a book by Rafael Sabatini which he wrote in 1921 which begins with this: "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."

It is a scientific fact that hospital patients who continue to laugh even as they suffer have a much better chance of getting through their ordeal than those patients who cannot laugh. Both groups may receive the same care, yet those who don't lose their sense of humor greatly outlast those who've lost it. The healing power of laughter is undeniable.

In a novel I am writing, my principal character reveals that what we call The Big Bang wasn't a "bang" at all. Rather, the sound which accompanied our universe into existence was God's laughter at creation. I think there's laughter in the hereafter. I know that life would be unbearable without humor. So try to keep your sense of humor no matter what life may throw at you.

As the host of a great Canadian comedy series currently airing on PBS called "The Red Green Show" always says: "Remember, we're all in this together. I'm pulling for you."

An old man is on his death bed dying. He is surrounded by his loving children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. As he is about to take his last breath, a child asks: "Grandpa, after you die do you want to be buried or cremated?"

The old man smiles and his last words are: "Surprise me."

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Copyright 2008 Peter Ferrara

        

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