The last time I laughed like that—a surprising double-barrel seizure of hot air and chortle—it was during the episode of 30 Rock you told me about watching on Hulu. Or maybe it was just hearing you explain, “I streamed it.”
Yeah, buddy. I bet you did.
If you can stream it, you can achieve it!
Bernie McGinn goes surfing wearing Bobby’s Idol. Nude Bowl stand-up. Photo: Tod Swank
I’m not usually one for the involuntarily displays, but despite what my anger management coach tells me, they can actually be quite rewarding. Endorphins—I heard a guy say—squirt all over your hippocampus when you laugh and it gets you way-sted. Or maybe it’s the medulla oblongata where the most I-want-to-get-high receptors are located. But in times of deep thought, personal reflection, after a soda or two, I’ve concluded that it’s higher than that. Any major dude will tell you.
Everything is right with a laugh such as this. Timing, meaning, volume, and there’s no shame in the game. The laugh outweighs all and you’re relegated to simply smile in its afterglow.
The memory of such an afterglow has got me happy right now even though I’m living in pain. Fell hard onto the outside of my palm the other day and kind of twisted it wrong. I have yet to get it looked at so I don’t know if it’s broken, sprained, or if it’s the catalyst for some new evolutionary track I’ve set myself on that will eventually allow me to stall eggplants for ten seconds. I just know that it hurts.
It hasn’t really kept me from doing anything important. But, you know, pushups would hurt pretty bad, high fives are out, and no eggplants … but I wasn’t doing ’em anyway.
Reese Simson carries the egg torch for those who currently cannot. Up McGill’s extension. Photo: Mark Waters
As is the case with injury, sickness, and accelerated evolution, one tends to turn their focus inward. And when your focus is inward, you talk about yourself. It’s a victimless crime, but that isn’t to say that other people aren’t affected. Or without affect.
As a matter of fact, I was telling someone about my owie the other day, and in the middle of my riveting explanation, he interrupted and asked, “Skateboarding?”
And I had to pause. “Yeah,” I answered, confused.
“No comment,” he said.
I suspect he had a comment, though, and that was just his well-bred way of telling me that he did in fact have something to say, it wasn’t nice, and like the old saying goes, “Don’t say anything at all (but let it be known that you wish you could).” It’s a passive style of non-commentary that he either picked up from his grandma or a bad boss.
A bit of a dust-up, Levi Brown fights a victimless kickflip. Photo: Brian Gaberman
And, I’m happy to say, all I had for him was that loud, involuntary laugh bomb. That guffaw. I literally couldn’t help it. A couple hours later, of course, on my way home, I realized that I should have resorted to the classic raising of three big fingers and the unspoken “Read between the lines.” I’ll totally have to remember that one for next time.
I’m still stoked about the exchange, though. And not because of some smug rationale I’ve cooked up to justify my complete awesomeness or because with my newly evolved super hand I will soon be able to exact my crushing revenge on him and anyone who has ever looked down their nose at the likes of me. It’s not even because I think I know something that he doesn’t know.
It’s what I don’t know that makes me happy.
I don’t know what it’s like to live without something so fun and so real that I’d gladly trade a sore hand for it. I don’t know what it’s like to have my gauge calibrated to avoid a couple months of nagging soreness just for the sake of finding a new line. I don’t know what it’s like to pray for a world without pain (amen). And so, for those and my other blissful ignorances, I rejoice.
And I invite you to continue doing the same.
Fun, fun, fun. That’s what he say. Randy “Biscuit” Turner cruises a Big Boys daffy. Photo: Mörizen Foche
Let’s pour a bit of this stuff on the ground, let’s watch it splash, and let’s laugh. Loud, stupid, and happy … at least when we hurt we’re reminded how good we’ve got it, and, above all, we’re aware that there are some things we know that we don’t know.
You know?
Listen to Bernie McGinn’s Celebration of the Serendipity of Shuffle and Musical Non Sequiturs Playlist.
