Humor
This article explores the many facets of humor and what makes something funny. From funny jokes, SMS jokes and funny poems to twisted wit and the distinctly odd. The trait of humor is uniquely human. We are the only creature that laughs. Apart from kookaburras. (This is really funny if you are Australian. If you are not that lucky, Google it and have a laugh on me.)
Humor ranges from simple, physical humor, like a pie in the face, which is only funny if you are not the one wearing the pie, to subtle humor using the interplay and ambiguity of words. Which is, I admit, by far my favorite. For example:
Some say that a world without sin would be ideal. I have to disagree. There are only so many problems which can be solved using cos and tan.
There is gentle humor.
Me: "Hey. Guess what?"
Her: "What?"
Me, crestfallen: "Good guess."
Whimsical humor.
I went to the zoo today. Somebody really should tell the meerkats that everything is fine.
Reverse humor.
I recently started to make a friend online with the same interest in astronomy as me. He is a retired 55 year old head teacher and a really friendly, knowledgeable guy, so we decided to meet up.
Turned out to be a 13 year old girl. I was so disappointed.
Referential humor.
The man who owned the cinemas at Warriewood passed away last Friday.
His funeral will be held this Saturday at 2.10, 4.20, 6.40 and 8.30.
Humor which provides a new or odd way of looking at something.
Did you know that if you stand by the ocean, it sounds just like holding a shell to your ear?
Basic humor.
Oh yeah? Your mum's so fat that she has her own moon!
Cruel humor.
As a doctor, I must say that the best part of my job is prescribing acupuncture to recovering heroin addicts.
Cynical humor.
Who is God?
Well, you know that person you pray to when you need something really badly, and then you don't get it? That's who God is.
Pick up lines humor. (They say that women love a man who can make them laugh. Especially if he has money.)
Do you believe in love at first sight...or do I have to walk by again?
In-crowd humor.
Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator.
Funny poems.
Evil stirs.
Evil kneads.
Evil puts the bread in the oven.
It seems that the ability to laugh is ingrained in humans. Babies learn first to smile, then to laugh and finally to talk. Which is probably why people tell us that it is better to listen than to speak. Laughter is a step towards a healthy maturity. People who do not laugh are generally too self obsessed to find anything funny. They should remember that nobody is really looking at them. A life without laughter would be so sad. Laughter allows us to feel good about our place in the world. And it feels so much better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick!
I collect jokes that make me laugh. Um, that's because collecting jokes that don't make me laugh, um, means that they are not jokes. I love cleverness and wit that shows the irony and idiocy of life.
Imagine if you could write a book that makes the reader laugh at your odd way of looking at the world on each page and leads them on a journey that goes off like a frog in a sock, until the final page, when the reader realizes that they have been duped all along and throws back their head and laughs to the sky. Kind of like The Sixth Sense without dead people.
I have written that book. The only novel I have read that made me laugh like that was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Wit, humor and stupidity mixed into a gleeful pot of unexpectedness. (Is that a word?)
The book I have written is The Adventures of Princess Lau. It tells the story of a beautiful, confident Chinese princess, who has no idea of what is going on but does not let that worry her at all, who is swept into a strange world of dragons, gods, great white sharks, Chick Norris, (yes, Chick), a Dark Lord and cows. A world which is teetering on the very edge of breakfast. The full secret of this world is not revealed until the final page, when the reader realizes that everything in the book is not as it has seemed to be. Sort of like a girl I went out with a long time ago.
There is far too much cruelty, anger and downright nastiness in our world today. It makes me sad sometimes to see so many people yelling hate and screaming for death to somebody or other. As Gandhi said: "If everyone who has been done wrong insists on an eye for an eye, then the world will be blind." Humor is a way of coping with the trials that life sends to us. If you look, you will find that life has a fantastic sense of humor. Have you ever seen a naked mole rat? Google it, laugh and thank your lucky stars that you don't look like that.
Following are a few more of my favorite jokes. If you like this style of humor, then you will enjoy The Adventures of Princess Lau. I do not claim these jokes as my own. I am nowhere near that clever, they just made me laugh. Enjoy and realize that life is more wise than any of us can possibly understand.
I was at the start of the Sydney City to Surf Fun Run this morning when I saw this one guy dressed as a chicken. Then I saw this other guy dressed as an egg.
I thought to myself, "This will be interesting."
There is nothing worse than calling the incontinence hotline and having them say, "Can you hold, please?"
If money makes the world go round, what shape was it before there was money?
Anne Frank would be so annoyed if she knew how many people have read her diary.
I just swung my girlfriend's cat around by its tail. My girlfriend caught me and gave me such a telling off.
On the plus side, our living room is bigger than I thought.
My girlfriend asked me the fatal question, "Does my bum look big in this?'
I replied, "Well, to be fair, it is a small room..."
A soldier in Afghanistan wrote on a forum on Facebook, "Sometimes, on the battlefield, it is difficult to remember what sin is."
To which somebody replied, "Opposite over hypotenuse, dipstick."
My emo little sister said to me yesterday, "Nobody understands me."
I replied, "Just after eight o'clock."
Piracy is killing the music industry.
You try playing a guitar with a hook!
Niceness rules!
Always remember, kindness is more important than wisdom.
Martjn P Kerrigan is the author of two books. The Adventures of Princess Lau, the funniest and wisest book you will ever read. And Uluru Dreaming. The most frightening book you will ever read. He is a student of wing chun kung fu for twenty one years so far and continues to improve. One day he may be very good. His interests are esoteric, spiritual, Star Trek, Buffy, Angel, the beginning of internet consciousness and the humor of life.
To sample the first few chapters of The Adventures of Princess Lau or Uluru Dreaming go to:
