Be it religious caterwauling or the latest symposium on the current influx of the dung beetle into the ecosystem of the Great Plains, public speaking has found a comfortable niche in society, filling a certain void left by a shortage of decent comedians, silver-tongued politicians and quality summer re-runs on the television.
Before profitable public speaking made its way into the mainstream, it cut its profitable teeth on the college circuit, with universities in the glory days of College Public Speaking paying big dollars to aging film icons, such as Groucho Marx, who had gained a late-life resurgence in popularity, to take the stage, share witty anecdotes and field questions from stoned college-aged fans.
Mark Twain famously used a series of public speaking engagements at the turn of the century to not only bail himself out of extreme financial hardship caused by horrible business investments, but to also facilitate a few weeks of relaxing travel on a luxury intercontinental steamship. Savvy. So it began.
But I digress. Now, it has blossomed into a cottage-industry which seemingly has no bounds in terms of subject or audience.
Recently (well, last year - perhaps the year before... Time passes so quickly these days), I had the opportunity to attend an hour and a half presentation on storytelling. It was aimed for salespeople and business folk that would perhaps appreciate a little insight on the art of conversing with a client or colleague in a delightful, colorful manner. It was all fine and dandy until the jacket and tie-wearing huckster threw out the nugget that being funny could be taught. I was roused from the semi-doze to which I had succumbed, mentally fatigued from the internal battle that was being waged in my brain on whether I would have a salad for lunch, or drive over to Wendy's for a Single With Cheese, Fries and a small Frosty (after all, I'm not an animal - a large Frosty would be nothing more than a deep-knee-bend curtsy to my lizard brain). Wait, I thought. What's that you say? Funny can be taught? Well, this was a preposterous notion as far as I was concerned and I had to restrain myself from bursting out with a hearty "the fuck you say!" After all, he was being paid a courtly sum to lecture us on public speaking and I was but a non-paying, presumably appreciative attendee.
But this curveball wound me up inside in a manner that made me feel most uncomfortable. Not only could funny be taught, you could purchase his thin, overpriced, self-published paperback (and I know thin, self-published paperbacks), which would show you in a few easy, repeatable steps how to be a fully-functional, witty, public-speaking smoothy, entrancing audiences around the country - nay, the world - and be highly paid to do so.
I looked around me and observed that no one else in the room was engulfed in a similar outrage to my own - in fact, most seemed relatively engaged and some even nodded their heads in agreement with this outlandish notion. I folded my arms in front of me and smoldered for the rest of the session and left as quickly as I could, turning my nose up at the table of thin, overpriced, self-published paperbacks. I returned to my place in front of my computer monitor with its colorful spreadsheets and documents, but I felt distracted. I turned to my co-worker across the aisle, who was not distracted and had resumed whatever tasks that consumed her day with apparently no lingering disgust at the idea that funny could be learned.
I was not to be distracted alone, so I intruded into her business with the question, "Do you think that being funny can be taught?" She shrugged. "Why not?" "Why not???" I asked. "Well," she said. "I think most things can be taught, right?" She outlined her opinion that one could be taught how to tell a joke. "You could write the joke, teach them where to pause and they could learn how to tell the joke in a funny way..." I highly disagreed.
There are formulas in humor. Gags can be written around the classic triad - something repeated twice, to establish pattern, with a twist thrown in on the third repetition. Hilarity ensues - everyone feels smart at the expense of our comedic foil. There are setups, situations and payoffs. Comedy can indeed be written, in fact some of the best comedy performances are written by someone other than the performer.
But there is a reason those writers aren't performing the acts in most cases- because the funny people are. Funny is in the bones. Funny is in the manner with which the performer elevates the written material, transforms it into something relatable and ironic. A facial expression, a tone of voice, a quick trigger that allows the audience into the mind of the performer and transforms a written sentence or an improvised thought into comedic gold. For that one moment, often built on a flimsy idea or flight of whimsy, the thought turns funny.
Personally, I have had the tremendous good fortune to know a handful of people with funny bones. These people have left my stomach sore and my jaws aching from hours of unbridled joy and laughter. Their turn of phrase and ability to take the most inane of conversations and turn them into a colorful, often ribald tale of misfortune, blasphemy or outrageous consequence have given me hours and hours of wonderful memories.
Funny is in the bones and if I had thought of it, I would have followed our intrepid speaker to the parking lot and given him a humorous thrashing for insinuating otherwise. So, my conclusion is this - funny cannot be taught. A person is funny or they are not. There are those that fall somewhere in the middle and they mostly host parties in their homes. But if funny cannot be taught, I'll bet there is a handsome living to be made traveling around the country - nay, the world - talking about it. Hopefully by someone with funny bones.
