On Humor

I just read a good book on humor. It's called And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft, by Mike Sacks.

As I read through the book I continually asked myself, "How is humor made? What are the precursors in order to create humorous material?"

So far, I haven't found the answers. Yet, piecing together things in this book and comments in other places, it seems the answers encompass a few things (at least):

--The person living a full, rich emotional life. That is, being in touch with his or her emotions.
--Taking in a lot of creative material. For example, essays, books, movies, plays, documentaries, etc. (The writer Ray Bradbury talked a lot about this in his book, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity.)
--"Downtime" to let things marinate and allow humorous things to bubble to the surface.
--Reading lots of humorous material.
--Writing lots of humorous material.
--And lastly, a suggestion I've seen mentioned in a number of places, and maybe the most important suggestion: "Don't concentrate on becoming a better humor writer, just concentrate on being the best writer that you can become. If you're funny, the work will end up being funny." (John Hodgman)

I will try to take that to heart.

Ailes Helps Ailing Conservatism

I just read an interesting article on Roger Ailes. It called him the man who propelled conservatism to its present stature. It talked about how he got his start working for Richard Nixon, meeting Nixon in 1968 on The Mike Douglas Show. He told Nixon that unless he warmed up to TV, he would continue to lose. Nixon then hired him as a sort of media coach.

But Ailes big break came with the Fox Network. And it was him, not Rupert Murdoch, who was the creative brains behind the network.

And Ailes set the rules on how the network and his politicians would interact with others: through blaming, scapegoating, and blaming the liberals in power.

The article suggests that President Trump used those same tactics to "win" against Ailes, Fox, and the Republican Party. He just used them to a greater extent.

Now, it will be interesting to see what will transpire with President Trump.

With one month in office, his presidency appears in disarray. Even though he says his presidency is functioning like a "well-oiled machine," is seems (to many observers) to be functioning like the Tin Man, sans WD-40.

Bibliography:

Greenberg, David. (2016, July 20). How Roger Ailes Created Modern Conservatism. Retrieved from http://www.politico.com.

2nd Part of Previous Post

In the last post I said I would talk a bit more about the excellent article by Andres Miguel Rondon. The first piece of advice Rondon gives about fighting a populist is Don't forget who the enemy is. Rondon says "Never forget that you're the enemy...What makes you the enemy? It's very simple to a populist: If you're not a victim, you're a culprit."

The second point is to Show no contempt. This is where I think many have fallen down in dealing with Pres. Trump. The attacks against his character have been nasty. Even if a statement is true about Trump, the comment still comes off as bitter and full of sour grapes. Then when the president attacks his enemies he seems to just be playing the game everyone else is playing (and he's quite skilled at the game). The epitome of that was when Senator Marco Rubio went toe-to-toe with Trump during the debates. No one came out a winner, but Rubio came out more of a loser.

The third point is Don't try to force him out. "In Venezuela," Rondon says, "the opposition focused on trying to reject the dictator by any means possible--when we should have just kept pointing out how badly Chavez's rule was hurting the very people he claimed to be serving." Indeed, we already are beginning to see this by some of President Trump's cabinet appointments. They surely don't seem like they will work for the welfare of the masses.

The fourth, and last, point is Find a counterargument. Rondon says, "Show concern, not contempt, for the wounds of those who brought him to power." For many of those voting against Trump right after the election, this would be quite difficult. Speaking for myself--at least now--I do find this attainable.