the one I love

David Gray - The One I Love (pops)

Ha! What a twist! I bet you were expecting R.E.M., weren't you? Simple fool.

I went to that suicide prevention lecture today. It was a real downer (obviously). The assembly was held in a very small room for the number of people that were in it (all of whom were ordered by their psych professors to attend). Since it was such a small room, I couldn't sleep or crack jokes, which is my usual modus operandi during lectures and assemblies.

Granted, cracking jokes during a suicide prevention lecture is a little dark even for me. But I would have made a valiant effort, given the opportunity. Every little bit of gallows humor helps.

People say that a sense of humor is equal parts nature and nurture. Some people have an inborn lack of humor, even if they grow up in a humorous environment, while some people are the exact opposite, growing up in a very severe environment yet having a normal sense of humor.

My sense of humor was well-nurtured from birth. My family never really talked to me like a kid, being the precocious little wordsmith I was, so I got an "adult" sense of humor out of the deal. Not in subject matter, necessarily, but in complexity.

They knew better than to try to entertain me with simple jokes, like chickens and doorknockers. I went straight for the deep verbal humor. In terms of Python, I'm Eric Idle rather than a Terry Gilliam. Not to say that visual humor doesn't make me laugh, quite the contrary, but that wordplay strikes a deeper chord in me than does a good sight gag.

(As an aside, my personal rankings of the Pythons, in order from most favorite to least: Idle, Jones, Cleese, Chapman, Palin, Gilliam.)

The peculiar thing about my sense of humor is my fondness for galows humor. Apparently, my extended family says it's a lot like my great-uncle Jack's. I never got the chance to meet Jack (distance and death prevented it), but everyone says I act a lot like him. I look sort of like him, but he had a smaller build and jet-black hair. The faces are a lot alike, though.

Jack had this dark, rich sense of humor that was the blackest gallows humor you'd ever hear. (Again, I'm getting these jokes second-hand. If they're this good second-hand, they must have been great first-hand.) He had a lot of hardship in his life (he spent most of his life crippled in a wheelchair), but he was a good-old fashioned character.

Anyway, I've got this weird inherited sense of humor from a man I've never known. No one else in my family has anything like it, although my family has a big emphasis on humor. The vein in my family runs more to the "storytelling" aspect rather than the rapid-fire one-liners or harsh sarcasm I use.

Well, that post was a good way to fill up space without really saying anything. I guess I'm done. Email me, leave a comment, come to my house and try to rob me.