Even I get sick of myself sometimes, I have to admit. Not in the sense of "I hate Trevor Seigler," but just in the sense that I tend to joke around...a lot. I mean, if there's an opportunity for a crack, I'll make it. If it comes at someone else's expense, I might feel bad about it afterwards (and often do), but in the moment, I'm rolling with it, never letting it stand in the way of a good punchline.
That being said, I can be a dick.
It all started as a defense mechanism, this cutting up and not taking things seriously. Mostly it was a way to offset the obvious scorn and ridicule that came from my peers during that period of developmental hell known as "adolescence," when even lifelong friends come asunder on the shores of Peer Pressure Cliffs and Popular Crowd Aspiration Raceways (my metaphors are clumsy, like my attempts to woo the ladies, but I mean well). It just so happens, if I don't mind bragging a bit, that I have a gift for the witty rejoinder (even if it's not all that witty if you're unaware of nineteenth-century British prime ministers, for instance), and this is, like alcoholism or depression, something that runs in my family.
Many of my family members when I was growing up traded in moments where they could let their guard down and be emotionally honest for the opportunity to make a fart joke, often at my expense. As a sensitive child (no, really; I can't stand perfume, which made accompanying my grandmother to Belk's for a new pair of slacks its own special version of Hell. Headaches galore), I was coarsened enough by such treatment to eventually get my own back, and I'm afraid that the joke had often replaced the heartfelt statement in my everyday interactions with people, be them close friends with whom I have a deep bond or casual acquaintances that will never see me again.
Lately, I've been working through the fact that, for all intents and purposes, my jokes sometimes aren't funny, and sometimes they're even cruel, and sometimes, dare I say it, I say them at times when really, it would be better to be nice and just let the moment pass without a comment by myself. It is true about comedians having dark souls full of inner turmoil (I've read enough biographies to confirm this fact), and unhappiness is often the root cause of great art. For me, though, it's usually the root of a joke that doesn't land, or lands too well, and leaves the other person thinking that I'm kind of an asshole.
But on the other hand, joking around is a way to beat back the three-headed monster that encircles my family and myself, and many other people in the world suffering from the lack of a good laugh to take their minds off what ails them. When I say something funny and it's not cruel, not at someone's expense, and it makes the other person laugh, that's a pretty good feeling. It helps to remind people that drama is alright, but not all the time. In fact, of the television shows I watch with regularity that are still airing new episodes, very few if any are "dramas." Even a show like Anthony Bourdain's has to make allowances for humor, albeit of the sarcastic side that I am almost prenaturally good at and can appreciate.
It's a complicated thing, to be eager to be funny while acknowledging that a certain meanness in you joke might go off wrong.
Anyway, did I tell you the one about Newt Gingrich at a sex club?....
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