The Power of Laughter

The Power of Laughter(c)

By Michael Casey

Well I've just watched episode 18 of Vincenzo, and I've laughed till it hurts, with my hernia through  my bypass scar it really does hurt when I laugh. So I've taken 2 paracetamol and I'm gingerly rubbing my "breast" and it does look and feel like a breast. But at least it gave me the idea for today's talk. It'll kill me in the end, but to die laughing would be ok, though I need 7 more years till my small daughter over there in the corner gets her PhD. Yes I want more, Laughter and Years, but that's up to God not me. Which reminds me I need to pay our priest a visit, I have present for our  own Don Camillo.

The sun is bright, but there is a chill in the air, I could tumble down the hill, to visit priest and church, but getting back up again would be a struggle, from day to day or hour to hour, I never know the state my body is in. Though I did shave, shower and S---, the 3rd S after all, I said that once to somebody they totally misunderstood, because nobody listens they just react, or maybe they just could not be bothered to listen to me. I always want a  conversation, so never say How Are You to Me, because I always take it as a Literal invitation for Conversation not just vacuous Pleasantry.

So why does laughter have power? Because it is an equaliser, literally Equaliser. I learnt that at the hotel, I had the most Power there, though I was the very least of the brethren, because I could always make the guests laugh. Maybe 100,000 conversations over the 3 years there, some like Ami on the  desk called it "my act" but it was not. There is too much servitude in hotels, I know it's meant to be like that, but some people just did not know how to treat staff, others did and do, but some should have felt my shoe up their backside. I'm far more "Mouthy" now I'm a retiring writer,  but before with toddlers I had to put  up with anything, like a rubbish boss hiding in the concierge room, pretending to sweep a broom.

I can laugh at it now, but 12 hours all day standing on marble with 3 hours travelling on top of it, I put up with a lot, until somebody wanted me to work till Midnight, so I decided to say Goodnite. Yes it was the best fun I had in any Job ever, but it was by far the hardest job ever. So that's the pinch of salt to take with all the other comments I've ever written. My kids always are more important than any job, and ultimately I raised them, which is/was good considering  I could have died in bed, Jan 2015 unplanned quadruple heart bypass has given me 6 years more extra time, a neighbour down the road also with 2 daughters he died in bed. So I'm lucky.

Laughter makes you lucky, because people are glad to see you, he's good for a laugh. He always has a story, or he gets the drinks in, so God Bless him. That's why the criteria always is, they get the drinks in. So we don't care for education, or class, or if you boring about being gay or straight or any which was, so long as you get the drinks in. Can you  laugh, and can you make others laugh. Pinsent Masons when I worked for them were class, everybody was nice, the HR people saw to that. 

But I've sidetracked myself. A show on tv will make you laugh, or a Tom Sharp book, I was talking to the IT guy at Pinsents once and he had only just discovered Tom Sharp. Wilt, Porterhouse Blue, The Throwback were a few of the books, Porterhouse Blue was a great tv show too. I was visiting a friend doing his PhD  when the books were introduced to me, 30 years plus ago. So laughs can be shared and discovered, you'll find them in a reading list, or Shakespeare if we mention him as it was his Birthday the other day. And believe it or not I did an Open University 3rd level course in Will 30 years ago or so, I was called his agent by my Tutor. I did a bit of History too, but gave it up as I was working loads of shifts on computers. The History PhD gave a lecture on WWII and said forget Normandy the War was won with blood in Mother Russia that won it. And for Americans considering this, 40,000,000 Russians died beating the Nazi scum. 400,000 American died too, and many many more from other nations. So imagine a crowd in a church. 100 people there, 1 would be from USA, the rest one be Russian, the  sole American would be lost  in the crowd. So, image that when you scream "Commie Bastards" at some  Trump rally. A study of History would teach you so much more. And that could have made the Peace so much better.

Yes, I could have been a History teacher maybe, if my life took another turn. But you have to live with the way the Dealer deals the cards. And get up and start again, maybe repeatedly, as you follow the long and winding road. So my Writer incarnation  which only began in 1987 is the best of me, 20 years of "study" by radio listening then 1 years of practice, before on Leap Years Day 1988 I'd say I qualified as  Writer, when The Butcher The Baker The Undertaker, the paper version was first written. The expanded computer version was a few years later. So if anybody says my writing is rubbish, you'll hear this SOB, Son of a Blacksmith, call you (&&^&^&&.

I try to bring laughter, and just like in Vincenzo, ordinary, overlooked people can and do surprise you. That's maybe why I like it so much, and should you finally read The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker as people in 90 countries do, in many many languages, you'll see why ordinary people like it, because they can see themselves in it.  And that maybe is the secret, but Publishers would rather sell coffee table books of Kim K'a arse, or is that because I'm just an even bigger fatter but tighter arse?