My friend Celia and I were roaring with laughter. Side-splitting gut-wrenching, every time we locked eyes the laughter started again. Jerry came over and asked, “What’s so funny?”
Celia and I looked at each other and laughed even harder. We both knew that if we tried to explain, it wasn’t going to be funny. Her brother had passed away a couple weeks ago, and we were laughing at a dead squirrel in the road. (I did warn you that it might not seem funny.) The antics of her grieving quirky family around that dead squirrel kept me doubled over in laughter as she told the story.
As Jerry walked away shaking his head, we looked at each other and felt the huge release of grief that had been cleared by the laughter. So what did we do? We started roaring with laughter again.
Humor is healing, but few of us really understand what makes us laugh. Some comedians create jokes at the expense of others, often just insults. Others have curse words spewing out of their mouth, relying on the shock value to keep us laughing. If you watch these stand-up comedians, your concept of humor would be skewed.
Storytelling comedians know that humor helps an audience feel comfortable, can give a healing moment of respite, or help us enter difficult emotions. Storytelling is about connection. Insults and four-letter words will divide your audience. As a Master Storyteller, Humorist, and five-time champion of the West Virginia Liar’s Contest, Bil Lepp can keep you laughing with “good clean humor.” He is one of the few that makes a full-time living as a Professional Storyteller, and so he studies and understands what makes us laugh. From a past workshop, the most valuable tip: humor comes from the unexpected. The audience expects one thing, and you deliver another.
“When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.” ~ Rodney Dangerfield