Homework

     Here we go again! I decided not to write last week. Well, I guess I did write, but just not like this. I signed up for a comedy writing course. It's a free veterans program, designed to keep us active in the arts. My first class was 2 Sundays ago. It was okay, pretty fun. The class was a lot smaller than I was expecting. There were only 3 of us. I know from an instructor standpoint that teaching a small group is tough. They rolled with it though. They are veterans too. I didn't find them particularly funny, but they are nice. I knew it wouldn't be professional comedians, but I at least thought they'd be seasoned. Both instructors are female, and both seem to only do comedy as a hobby. Open mic stuff mostly. But that's fine. They seem to have the information that I need, so it's fine. I really like coming up with material. Which is why I passed on this last week. We left Friday for a camping trip last weekend. So I had to have my homework done before we left. My homework was to come up with 2 minutes of material. That didn't seem like that much until I tried it. I had to narrow a bunch of stuff down. Which is good. I'd rather have too much to say than not enough. By the time I got done with what I thought was a good routine, I didn't have very much time left, and I thought cramming would be lame. The last time I did that, I just felt empty. The whole point is to be able to come up with some substance. Not just words on a page. I was half tempted to put the routine up as my contribution for the week. I probably should have.

     That may have been an interesting experiment. See how the bits change. Man, I should have. This week's homework was to add another minute or 2. So now I'm up to 4 minutes. I thought it was weird the way they put it. “Next week we want you to come up with a 3 or 4 minute set.” I'm like “Well which is it?” I didn't say that to them, but I thought it. I thought it so hard. Eventually we'll be performing a 5 minute set. There are only 4 classes left, so I figured let's get this thing rolling. I like the pacing. They mean business. We had to come up with material on the first day. I put together this little idea I had been messing around with. I got a lot of good response, except for one piece. I was making a joke about how often I'm asked about being tall. I was using examples from other walks of life, and expressing how you couldn't do that to other people. No one asks short people how short they are, you know, that kind of stuff. I had, a couple of times recently, been using this particular line when talking about my irritation with the tall question. And, every time I used the line, I got a good response. So I went for it. The line is: “If you see a gay person walking down the street, you can't go up to them and say 'Whoa! You are gay. If I was as gay as you, I'd be on Broadway!'” I thought it was hilarious. Several people have laughed at that joke. 2 of the 5 people in the classroom laughed. But one of the instructors thought it was inappropriate. She said I shouldn't say that because I'm not gay.

     I thought that was one of the dumbest things I ever heard. I didn't think it was a gay joke. It bothered me. To think that only gay people can use the word gay is (another word I'm not supposed to use) retarded! That's what the G in LGBT stands for. What are we, in Florida? I think it should be perfectly fine to reference gay people. I'm not putting them down, or suggesting there's a problem with them. I'm merely mentioning that they exist. Using that logic short people should not be able to talk to me about tallness. Brunette people should not be able to reference my red hair. The point she was trying to make, is the exact reason the joke was being made. They didn't tell me I couldn't use it. The other instructor thought it was funny, and actually laughed out loud. She seemed to agree with me, that it was not offensive, so I kind of felt like I got the green light. But I struggled. I wanted to stick with it, but I don't want to make people uncomfortable. I spent two restless nights deciding whether I should use it or not. Eventually I came to the realization that I'm not trying to be Mr. Offensive. I'll let other people get the shock value laughs. Not that there will be any with my class. And that's what got me thinking. I know I would not have used that joke when I was teaching traffic school. And that kind of summed it up for me. When I was teaching, I thought people actually enjoyed my demeanor and sense of humor. When I was teaching, I thought I had people's attention, for the most part, and that for most of us, kind of had this bond for the day. I started thinking that probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was “clean.” I envision myself as someone that people can like, trust, and hopefully feel comfortable around.