Comedy can release you from your terror
of death, you can treat it lightly
It's like the big bully at school
Ye can say aw I could beat him any day
tra la la
as long as he's no there
What is laughter but making the unbearable bearable?
Either being able to laugh at what's really hard to laugh at
or being able to forget the really hard stuff that's gawn on
because you're taken oot ae yourself fir a while
wae comedy
and that's an immense power
I think it is definitely of ma father's generation
which was the same
very difficult for men to talk about things
Even when ma dad was dying it was like
How ye doing?
Awrite
You know, that was
I mean that was it kind of stuff
Well you're not really, you know?
But I think it's easier now
but I think it's been made easier
It's such a tender thing comedy
It lives on a shaky branch, you know?
It can
when it's picked up the wrong way
it can fold terribly the wrong way
but when picked up the right way
it can really enlighten people
and make a situation that was awful better
In today's climate
ye kinda have to be the thing you're slagging off
and I think you'd find it quite
I'd find it quite difficult to take the piss
out of an incontinence guy
But you know like normally if you've got direct experience
people, if you don't have that direct experience
some people will call you out on that these days
cause there's quite a
there's an oversensitiveness
kicking about the planet at the moment
What do you say to people that are quite genuinely
offended by your humour?
Don't come and see me
Sod off
You really have absolutely no time?
They are wasting my time
Time is too short, get out of my road
That's it
I used to talk about my father's stroke
and all that
Met the other men in the hospital
guys who were seriously ill
I would make fun of it
It's just a way of dealing with it yerself I think
Ma wee dad got dementia and passed away
and some of the funniest stuff that made me laugh
was when ma dad was in his darkest days
and when he was lucid
I would tell him the stuff he did
and the two ay us would laugh ourself sick
I went to a doctor in New York
He was a Russian and he said
You realise it's an incurable disease?
And I said oh come on
behave yersel
Say
instead of saying it's incurable
say we have yet to find a cure
It gives me a wee light at the end of the tunnel
You know don't say to people it's incurable
Who the fuck are you, the devil?
It's just
you gotta try
Tae laugh at yer ain
insecurities and inadequacies
what yer effectively doing is yer saying
look at me
Look at the state ay me
And whit they're basically saying is
people are gawn
thank god yer sharing that
thank god yer telling me
that despite all yer outward appearances
inside yer heid's taking ye for a walk
Now that I'm getting older and sicker
it's important that my comedy kicks in
I think that's important as humans
that we unpick the pain
and replace it wae laughter
That's important I think for humans tae survive
as we have tae unpick aw the pain and aw the shit
and go, well whit is the best bit of this?
And the best bit of this is there's a joke in there
and that'll make me cope wae this better
The comedian is doing it for laughs
He's not doing it, like a social worker
to make the world better
but accidentally it can do that
It can make the world a better place
Poets and comedians
they're in charge of making the world a better place
Leaving it a better place than they found it