Thoughts From the Mind of Mitch

I was lounging around last night waiting for clothes to dry watching Matrix: Reloaded. Yes, reloaded. As in, here’s a gargantuan pile of turd, let's reload the 50 millimeter shit cannon and blast it at paying customers. But the movie is a train wreck, so I have to watch it. TBS is doing this thing where they are "separating the funny from the unfunny" and they're doing some stupid show where they have all these "funny" people telling you what's funny (if I say funny again shoot me). Leonardo DiCaprio is listed as one of the funny people on the promo. BANG!


Riiiiight. The only thing that comes to mind when I think of Leonardo Bi-curio (shout out to DDT) being funny is Carl Childers: Not funny ha ha, funny queer. I like those commercials they do where people call in to a call center to ask whether a particular situation is funny, and they wait to laugh until they get an answer. But I'll be damned if I'm going to watch some "star-studded spectacular" where a bunch of celebrities tell me what's funny. What kind of stupidity is that?

I've been told by a few people that I'm a pretty funny guy. But most of my humor is stolen from stuff I've heard, things I've seen on TV, etc. Every now and again, I get off a good one with the right timing and it's original as far as I know, but most of the time I'm repeating something and maybe making a slight modification. Then I feel kind of guilty if I don't credit the source. The question I've been asking myself recently is whether the mark of a true comedian is using the catalogue of original and unoriginal funny stuff in his head in a timely manner. After all, comedy is all about timing, right? I mean, I could say something simple like, say, "And so it begins" and that isn't stand-alone hilarity. But in the right situation, you could have people rolling with a comment like that. Certainly no one is going to the copyright office and saying, "I said 'and so it begins" the other day during a conversation with my co-workers and they all thought it was hilarious. I can't explain the situation because, you know, you had to be there, but I'd like to copyright the phrase and use it in my act on open mic night at A Thousand Laughs comedy club," right? Because that would be damned asinine. So why do I feel guilty if I don't tell people that the hilarious comment I just made has been sitting in the outbox of funny in my head ever since I heard it the other day on Mind of Mencia?

I guess the idea of contemplating what is and isn't funny is an exercise in getting one's mind blown. My head hurts like hell right now trying to figure this out. Suffice it to say that funny is a situational thing, and if your timing is off you’re a complete douchebag, whereas if you say the right thing at the right time, it's a zinger. Strangely, my good sense of timing has never gotten me laid. All that crap about how women love a man with a good sense of humor really just means "I want a man who treats me like crap and has a large phallus."