I like to laugh, a lot. Funny then that I don’t much care for comedy. I’ve seen enough Will Ferrell, Steve Carell and Jack Black movies to know that what I think is funny and what most people think is funny are quite different things.

But I do like to laugh, and I do find humor in a lot of this world. The first thing I remember as being truly funny was Monty Python. It was 1976 or 1977, and I was a 10 year old boy looking for something good to spend my last 30 minutes before bedtime on, and I stumbled across Monty Python on public television one night. I was instantly hooked. The dry humor, the sheer and unapologetic silliness, the ensemble, not to mention the occasional full frontal nudity, all were new and exciting to my 10 year old mind. I lay in bed in the dark watching those 30 minute shows on a small black and white television and felt that they were making them just for me, that it was my secret, and that no one else understood or could understand.

As a young man I did, as young men do, take myself very seriously. Perhaps there was less humor in my world during those years, but every now and then something would resonate with me and tickle my funny bone. I enjoyed the Kids In The Hall, for many of the same reasons that my 10 year old mind had appreciated Monty Python. I also thought that Mystery Science Theater 3000, the Joel years mind you, was quite amusing. I drank a lot in those years, and MST3K made for good viewing while getting pickled with a friend on a night when there was no place to go and nothing to do. Joel and the bots would make a lot of sophomoric comments, punctuated with some truly clever and witty jokes. It was kind of like what I imagine people with metal detectors at the beach must feel; long periods of boredom punctuated by the excitement of something happening every now and then.

For the last 20 years if you asked me who my favorite comedian is, I would answer with absolutely no hesitation Spalding Gray. This is usually followed by blank stares and a half hearted attempt to explain to whoever I’m speaking to just who Spalding Gray is. The first time I encountered Spalding Gray I didn’t even realize it. He had a part in the movie The Killing Fields.

The first time I became familiar with who Spalding Gray was, I immediately understood his genius for turning the written word into an incredible experience where his storytelling put you in his mind’s eye and allowed you to become a part of the event from his past that he was retelling. With Spalding it was somehow not a story you were hearing at all, but like some memory from your own inner corridors. Perhaps it was just that he painted such a vivid image with words that it wasn’t really like you were experiencing your own memory, but you were there nonetheless, observing the event with him. His method of delivery was to sit on stage at a large desk with a notebook and a large glass of what appeared to be water (but was probably vodka), and deliver very long, very funny monologues.

The first Spalding Gray monologue I ever saw was the HBO special Terrors of Pleasure. The best kind of laughter is when you laugh so hard you are on the verge of tears, and this did that to me. One of the segments focused on his purchase of a house in rural, upstate New York, and the subsequent realization that the world is chaos; everything is spinning rapidly toward entropy, and superficial changes in your life don’t fix your own internal inability to cope in a world where everything is coming apart all the time. It’s funny because of the things he did to try to achieve some sense of balance in his life at that time, and it’s funny because it’s the same world all of us live in whether we are introspective enough to recognize it or not.

At some point in the monologue he is tearing through a stack of books from the local library, looking for some path to set himself on so that he can live in this world. One of the books is about Buddhism. According to Spalding, there are three paths a Buddhist can take (according to the library book he had on hand) to reach enlightenment, or nirvana.

1. Overcome temptation by removing yourself from it The path of the vegetarian, celibate monk. Engage in a spartan, hermetic lifestyle and overcome worldly pitfalls by removing yourself from their path. He didn’t much like the sound of that option, so he moved to the next…
2. Overcome worldly desires by immersing yourself in them You have the green light to engage in everything that is bad. Indulge your senses. Wine, sex, pork fat, everything is ok. You will overcome temptation by engorging yourself in temptation. He did like the sound of that path, but read on…
3. Live like other people Go to work, pay your taxes, raise a family.

I have to admit that something with the third option resonated with me, then and now. Those of us who ever wondered why and what for need to have at least a shadowy understanding of what it is we’re supposed to be doing here. If there is some kind of purpose, then I suppose we are on a path of spiritual evolution. What we do with our time here is up to us, but I’ve always felt that choices were important, and I’ve always, barring selfish desires to satisfy some physical want or self destructive impulse, tried to make the right ones. The thought that living like my parents had was actually one of the valid approaches to spiritual growth had never occurred to me, but it made some kind of sense and sounded like an easier path to nirvana than becoming a yogi or zen buddhist master.

How can this article possibly tie in with the subject matter covered by Connected Internet? Has Michael been taking mood altering drugs, or had a nervous breakdown? Check back next week and find out in 3 Paths To Blog Nirvana, Part 2.

Subscribe To RSS Feed Updates (What is RSS??)

Bookmark & Share

Related Posts

• 3 Paths To Blog Nirvana, Part 2
• Just How Big Is The Reach Of Your Blog?
• Friday Fun: Best Of Facebook Funwall
• Vengeful Spirits
• Searching For The Goose: Blog Reviews
• 9 Reasons Why Blogging Is Just Like Playing World Of Warcraft
• Watch The Final OF The World Poker Crown Online