Easy Come, Easy Go

A parable from the Sufi as retold by Robert Anton Wilson

A man who had studied much in the schools of wisdom
finally died in the fullness of time and found himself
at the Gates of Eternity.

An angel of light approached him and said, "Go no further,
O mortal, until you have proven to me your worthiness
to enter into Paradise!"

But the man answered, "Just a minute now. First of all, can
you prove to me this is a real Heaven, and not just
the wild fantasy of my disordered mind undergoing death?"

Before the angel could reply, a voice from inside the gates
shouted:
"Let him in - he's one of us!"

Half Truth

For some years I have contributed to a collaboratively written blog called Only Maybe, and sometimes I stumble over old entries that still make me smile.

A Zen master lay dying. His monks had gathered around his bed, from the most senior to the most novice monk. The senior monk leaned over to ask the dying master if he had any final words of advice for his monks. The old master slowly opened his eyes and in a weak voice whispered, "Tell them Truth is like a river.” The senior monk passed this piece of information in turn to the monk next to him, and it circulated around the room.

When the words reached the youngest monk he asked, "What does he mean, 'Truth is like a river'?"The question was passed back around the room to the senior monk who leaned over the bed and asked, "Master, what do you mean, 'Truth is like a river'?"

Slowly the master opened his eyes and in a weak voice whispered, "OK, Truth is not like a river."

mis-attributed jokes

"God is a comedian performing for an audience that is too afraid to laugh." - Voltaire

Or did Nietzsche write that? The Internet seems unsure...

Quentin's message of hope

If you’re on a tightrope when you first set off you don’t know how much play there is in the rope, but when you get into the middle between the ages of 20 and 40 the thing rocks like mad and it’s too late to go back even to look back.

But if you go on as carefully as you can, you see the other platform and then you just make a dash for it not bothering with what the audience thinks, or waving your arms or looking dangerous, and difficult and prodigious.

What you grab hold of when you get to the other side in fact the edge of your coffin. And you get into it and you lie down and you think, ‘my cuffs are frayed’, ‘I haven’t written to my mother’. And then you think ‘it doesn’t matter because I’m dead’.

And this is a message of hope. It will come to an end. It will come, we cannot be blamed for it and we shall be free.

Quentin Crisp

Just for Laughs - memories of Vaudeville - George Carl

When I have a day when I shouldn't have got up, I tend to go for comedy. I ended up doing it for a living (loving) because I couldn't see enough physical comedy in my childhood (no tv, rare films, etc).

10 minutes of George Carl – possibly the greatest clown (in my sense of the word, nothing to do with circuses) with a rather slow audience in Sweden.

A thousand physical gags he could do in any combination of 3 minute spots, 5 minute spots, etc.

It seems like a fairly subdued audience (the jobbing professional) in this 10 minute set (with good quality footage) you can see some of the range, not only of clumsy gags mixed with dexterity (the style I chose to adapt) but with a wonderful Max Wall legs ending (to go with the resemblance in the face).



Here’s a 7 minute set on Johnny Carson, with dozens more variations. A couple of misses (for the jugglers) but more gags per minute than many people achieve in a lifetime – even the magical penetration of the microphone stand (I can live with the buzz on the soundtrack, and this audience seem to really get it!) You get the lot, hat, mike stand, funny legs. His misdirection is worthy of a magician (did you see the microphone go down his trousers? I didn't.



Here’s 6 minutes of lower quality video for Jerry Lewis, and you know some of the gags by now, but he’s storming. And he has a proper vaudeville drummer hitting the highlights. And the audience even notice and appreciate the mike penetration!



OK, OK I stole a couple of gags out his collection of hundreds...but I have no record of any of my live shows (before video phones, and all that). Maybe Reuven Hannah still has footage (he filmed it on roller skates) of a show I did at Riverside Studios, with a genius drummer (we improvised the whole thing for 300 people as I was in a bad nervous state (personal life events) and they carried me through.

And Tim Bat may one day retrieve some low-grade footage of me trying to do my (until then original) juggling act, following a whole evening of juggling acts who had done just about everything (that we knew at the time) already. 11 of us turned up to the convention (from 5 countries) and nowadays you will find several thousand people attending such events.

And finally, a part of the Royal Command Performance (the kind of glimpse I had at the time) of George Carl. If I achieved 1% of the shared fun I can die happy. Peace and humour. Amor et Hilaritas!