I was watching a documentary on several ridiculously successful comedians, the five of them were sitting around a table talking about their careers. They weren’t talking about their mansions, fleets of cars, or their super popular TV’S shows or movies. Nope, they dove into the hell gigs they all went through, and the horror stories of their careers. And they were howling. It’s where we began, and what we overcame that’s near and dear to our hearts. And no matter what we do , stand up, teacher, bus driver; we all have these stories in us, and they’re our University.

Besides, no one wants to hear how great we are, how amazing our life is, and how much better it’s going to get. Nope, they want to hear how we locked our keys in the car, were drenched by a passing truck, or how an ATM ate our card.

First of all; I believe each of us, is more than we can possibly know. Unfortunately, in Stand Up Comedy, for me anyway, I learnt this lesson the hard way. I’ve always shared this quote: “You work for money, or you get money for your work.” Well, as a stand up, first starting out, there might be work. open mics, guest spots, and community fundraisers; yes they’re are all learning experiences. But the first thing you learn is: you’re doing all these for free. Mic drop.

When I first started, I had an agent that booked bands and lounge-acts. I convinced them because I did an Elvis impression, that I was their man. They immediately get me a booking at 3 in the morning, for an ELEMENTARY WAKE-A-THON. I sit down and write out 50 jokes I thought eleven year old’s would like: “How come we never see monkey bars on Planet of the Apes? You’re lucky. You’re at the age where people are still impressed you’re good at murder ball. Ever notice the smart kids sit up front? So, if you don’t get my jokes you sitting too far in the back.”

I get up on stage, in a half filled gym, 3AM, I go to introduce myself, “Hi. I’m Pau”…. That’s as much as I got out, before some kid in glasses shouts, “you suck!” I instantly look for the teachers, and they’re hunched over on the back wall, laughing. I think, OK, how much more time do I have? I look at my watch. All of it. That’s how much. I’m supposed to do 20 minutes. The whole time I’m being screamed at how unfunny I am by a gym half full of children.

My sister was a teacher’s aide at my nephew’s junior high school. She asks me if I’d be interested in doing a lunch hour show, in the teacher’s lounge, for a couple dozen teachers? I say, “well of course I will.” I show up for the lunch hour show. I’ve put together my favorite just starting comedy jokes, into a pretty solid twenty minute set that should impress the hell out of this group. I get to the gig; I see my sister, and for some reason she can’t talk. She points down the hall to an open door, and races away. She’s a teacher’s aide I surmise, and calmly shuffle to the open door. There’s no mic, stage, nothing’s prepared. The teachers are all sitting around two large tables, eating lunch and talking. I decide to just jump in with both feet.

“Hi everyone. I’m Paul. you might not know me, but in Slave Lake; I’m a God. KFC says a bucket holds one whole chicken. So. the other day I decided to reconstruct a bucket. You know what it was? A human head. Me and my girlfriend broke up. I still see her. She’s in my freezer. My mother’s illiterate; when I was a kid, if I swore; she’d wash my mouth out with soup.”

The teachers don’t look at me, don’t stop eating, don’t stop talking. Finally, near the end of my set, one of them asks why I’m talking during their lunch break? Apparently my sister forgot to tell anyone who I was, and why I was sharing my stand up during their lunch break.

I have more than my fair share of nightmare, worst case stand up scenarios. But when I began as a comedian, my plan was to learn the craft. Watch other comics, and read, listen, perform, tape my sets and listen to the tapes, tag the jokes that were working, rewrite the rest of my set that wasn’t working. Because of stand up, I learnt timing, and how to trust my intuition, the genres of comedy writing and styles. I became an Adult Educator, and taught Stand Up, and Comedy Writing for 3 decades, and received a National Teaching Award. Because of Stand Up, I became an award winning playwright, and a published novelist. Stand Up taught me how to carve out my voice.

It was my ego that I worked through in the beginning of my Stand Up career. But through working on the work, I managed to let go, and trust my intuition; really listen to it. My intuition opened my eyes to honesty, and humor for healing, to sharing my bare bones stories; dysfunction, addiction, divorce, loss, regret, shame, my truth. In following these stones across the rivers of my journey, I began to bump into my highest thoughts, heart, soul, compassion, life after death, healing and heaven.

It’s laughter, intuition, heart, soul and spirit, that have lead me to this moment, and this blog. I don’t know very much, but I do know, that trusting our lowest thoughts, self-criticism, doubting, our happiness and worthiness, are all lies. We are all a part of infinity. When we look up at the stars at night and see the limitlessness in the Universe; why would we ever decide to be small?

It’s been a while. I’ve been under the weather, and still am; I’ve been battling a ton of stuff, but, I’m ready to share some of my thoughts again, about everything humor.

First, there’s nothing more important than laughing, and I don’t mean snickering, guffawing, or giggling. I mean belly laughing. I mean, at some event where you’re not supposed to laugh, a tax audit, colonoscope, or a funeral.

Listen. I believe when we’re creating laughter, it, should be our highest thought. I mean, we’re co creating with some of the best energy humanity has to offer ; it should be our higher power, if’ its our highest thought, whether that be God, Buddha, Siva, the Universe, Tito Puente.

Remember the last time you laughed so hard you had tears? Was that not the best, most healing moment we’ve had, since we got our Snuggie? (Think manatee onesie. A Snuggie is a fully body quilt that you wear while binging junk food, on the couch, binge watching “Connecting”)

Connecting, was a pandemic series, about being quarantined, where friends met via video chat, and discussed things like standing in line at a Giant Tiger, having to sell a kidney for morgue scented hand sanitizer, or watching someone buying the last roll of Toilet paper. Only 4 episodes, of desperate actors trying way too hard, being happy while locked down. What’s not to hate about that?

Once, we were in this ridiculously long line line, and this guy rips off his surgical mask, and starts shouting verses from the bible, about how we’re being punished, and we all deserved to catch Covid-19 for being worthless and weak. I said, “you obviously haven’t seen The Mist, because if you had, you’d known how it plays out when you soap-box Revelations.

Anywho, the guy goes on for several moments, when an old lady sashays up to the Swaggart, and swings her hand bag, full force into his chicklets.

Someone in the back of the line starts that one person slow clap, and then the old lady gets an applause break. Everyone laughed hard.

After all this time performing and teaching Stand Up; I’m going to say, your real life stories, being vulnerable, and as honest as you can, are the foundations of humor.

Story, (especially our secrets)+vulnerability+ truth=humor.

Yes, we can write topical material that’s “out there, “Always get something extra nice for your spouse on Valentines, if they’re clean freaks. They know how to clean a crime scene.”

The real trick to writing, is having the courage to share the things that will embarrass you when others read it. ( Author Arthur Miller)

In the book ‘I killed,’ There was a comic on a ferry with his parents, going to a comedy club where he was going to perform his first 5 minute set. He’s going over his notes, and rehearsing like he’s about to be shot. His parents are telling him to relax, be yourself, tell the stuff that makes you laugh. The guy eats a bowl of clam chowder, and gets food poisoning; and has a full-blown accident in his pants. The parents but him some new clothes. They get to the gig; the place is packed, and the son gets on stage and is tanking. There’s dead silence and the dad shouts: “hey, tell them how you shit your pants!”

If you want to write your best stand up, start with one of your stories, a moment that’s uncomfortable. Write it out, and start asking questions about the moment and then, answer them as honestly as you can. The question is the premise. The punchline is your answer. Now, the deeper you’re willing to explore your moment, the better the material.

It’s the truth.

Nernie and I were in a Fundraiser. It was the first one we did together. The organizer asked if I would get some treats for the after party. I thought, why don’t I think outside the box of doughnuts and invent a pastry treat?

Alright. So, I went to a franchisee that sells tasty snacks that sounds like, “Rim Gortuns.” and I bought five hundred Rim Gits and took them home because that’s what inventors do people.

I then, made different flavors of icing, caramel, mint, chocolate, Bavarian Cream and INJECTED the icing into the Rim Gits.

I then, dipped each Numbnut into caramel and then dipped this into crushed peanuts. (yah, I know, what about the people with allergies? Numbnuts were invented before allergies were.)

We brought the Numbnuts to the after party and the stoned people gravitated toward them like moths to a flame.

Personally my favorite doughnuts are Boston Creams but Numbnuts with actual Bavarian cream inside would be heaven.

Anywho. Nernie and I rented a table at a market with a ton of Numbnuts, ten to a bag and sat there all day and didn’t sell any.

I think it’s the name.

I’ve always been addicted to humor and its power to bring people together and the power humor has to heal. The clubs I’ve worked in and the showcases, festivals, corporate shows and road gigs beg to differ. I’ve spent decades trying to figure out what I was doing in Stand Up, was I soapbox comic, the angry chain smoking recovering alcoholic with a story to tell? Kind of, but without the cigarettes and a lot of the anger diluted by years of “The Artist’s Way,” journals helping expunge my demons.

You might argue that anger is funnier than humor that heals. I was coming out of my first divorce when I started comedy. These were a few of my jokes back in the early 80’s. “Me and my wife broke up. I still see here though; she’s in my freezer.” or this chunk. “What’s with that song, ‘I am Woman hear me roar?’ Let me hear the vacuum roar. Do your job.” “I blame Oprah for my breakup. She said if I loved my wife I’d find her ‘G SPOT.’ I went looking for it. Turns out it was in my wife’s cousin.” These were absolutely stupid jokes made for drunk people that told you that I was an angry idiot but they never told anything about me. Life should be an evolution: body, mind, soul and I’ve spent decades looking for punchlines when I realize I should have been looking for myself.

What does that mean? First of all, angry is funny, rage, desperation, panic and all the emotions that come out of a disintegrating relationship are ripe for Stand-Up. It’s no longer my audience or who I am. But you know what? Heart, spirit and a soul’s journey is not hilarious. But these are the things I’m searching for in my story. They’re calling to me. And they are my audience.

As I’m writing this, my random I-Tunes music selector chose Gregorian Chanting. Coincidence? I don’t know you tell me. There’s still a million reasons to be mad, bills, regret, shaming, bullying on media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. When we put ourselves out there we invite those that prey on others. The old me would have lashed out at being bullied or shamed but now I chose to use these moments as an opportunity to reinforce my spiritual muscle.

I chose to grow in all pillars of life, my marriage, emotionally and creatively. When Nernie and I started dating almost 20 years ago she had this dream where I was on stage and a rope was being pulled out of me. I’ve come to believe her dream was her asking me to be real, allow the real Paul to show up. I’ve never really known where I belonged. I’ve just known I needed to create, that has taken the form of music, writing live theatre, novels, teaching, performing Stand-Up and Keynotes. I’ve been in too many miracles not to believe they’re real, all the near fatal car accidents I’ve been in across the country. Planes that should have crashed but didn’t. Me, twenty one years sober and in love with the woman I preyed for. Don’t tell me the Universe isn’t listening to us.

Once, I was driving in the middle of a nightmare blizzard, in a piece of junk truck with faulty wiring; at three in the morning my head lights go out. The comic in the passenger seat SCREAMS looks at me and swears like a mechanic that we should have never left the hotel we were in. Yah, well if we would have stayed we wouldn’t have this story would we? He smashes his hands into the roof of the truck trying to ready himself for the impending head on collision. I’m in shock. That’s what I do in moments like this! When my wife asks where the remote is, when a vendor in a food court asks if I want extra mayo, when an AMAZON driver asks if I could please write my name on that electronic slab from the future. I panic. So, here we are pitch black in a whiteout blizzard, no lights going one hundred and twenty kilometers an hour. I do the cardinal sin of driving in the winter on the Canadian Prairie; I slammed on the breaks! The truck slides sideways on the QE2, the six lane highway between Calgary and Edmonton. I’m white knuckling the steering wheel staring out into the blizzard likes it’s a horror flick. The comedian next to me isn’t talking to me. He’s hyperventilating and seeing his life pass before his eyes. The truck slams into a snow drift I never saw and my vehicle explodes into the ditch up the side and slides sideways over an access road and my truck slides through a truck stop parking lot and shimmies into an empty stall near a massive gas station until seconds earlier did not see and did not know existed. The comic I’m driving with stops shouting and I say: you want to get some breakfast? Swear to God. It’s true. There’s something looking out for all of us and that’s the place I’m going to start with my humor.

I’ve burnt more bridges than the Nazis because I chose to grow and be true to myself and my heart and be the Paul the Universe has been asking me to.

I’m beginning to think my parents had all us kids so they had a bigger group when they were shaming one of us. I’m not good with confrontation; When I was a kid I froze and it was debilitating. Even though I’ve suffered through this ( I’m sure I’m not the only one, being put on the spot in front of a group? Maybe it’s the degree of paralysis, that I’m effected by.) The point I’m trying to make is, this paralysis is an absolute gold mine. It’s a secret and I’ve come to realize that secrets are like found treasure, like pictures that we never knew we had? They tell so much about us. And they’re a gold mine for humor. They’re my secrets so I get to share them. If someone else isn’t at a place where they’re not comfortable peeking behind their curtain; try using your humor as a flashlight.

My challenge is I love writing and Stand Up and craft and through this process I’ve found, I can lose myself like the forest through the trees. If I was to look at shaming as my kryptonite I’d first look for the stories from my life that had these examples and then I’d search for the secrets, the things I’d be afraid to share. My elephants in the room.

So, I look through my life and scour for these moments. They’re not hard to find.Remember how parents made us sit at the table for supper? Mine did it so they could shout stuff about kids starving in China, how hard dad had to work to buy spam and get our #!!*# elbows off the table. It wasn’t supper; it was a shaming circle. I don’t know why I’m so paralyzed when I’m shamed. Maybe because the guy who did most of the shaming played the polka for a living, and as a kid it’s hard to throw that in his face, you know since he was the guy putting spam on the table.

Once, I was working this day job back in the day; there was about ten of us crowded into this construction shack, having a break. I was sitting next to the window and Ron, the senior guy, asked me to close the window. I slam it closed and unbeknownst to me, someone had put a bunch of creamers in the windowsill, so when I slammed the window closed, I took half a cup of half and half in the face. The shack erupts in stupid, over the top laughter. I thought Ron was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard. But, I think being paralyzed by shame attracts more shame. There’s also this self defense mechanism that kicks in and sees everything like an attack and that’s not good. Not taking everything seriously kills the shame. It’s also liberating.

Ron was a chain smoker and had a bad heart and had a bypass. He was always taking these nitrogen pills. So, one day I get one of these hand buzzers and wind it up and shake Ron’s hand in a crowded street. (why the hell would I do that?) The buzzer goes off in Ron’s hand and his eyes bug out, he grabs his heart and falls to his knees on the sidewalk then lands on his face. I scream, “OH MY GOD!!!” Ron gets up and starts howling. So I’m the brunt of my own joke. But Ron would always say I was the funniest guy he had ever been around. I’m sure we’ve been all told that at one point in our lives. But, as I’ve examined some moments with my buddy Ron, I’m trying to see what it is that makes us funny.

It’s been moments like this, being laughed at and not with, that I’ve been afraid to share. I’ve always felt though, that these were the exact moments we have to share because in all things humor, in the end, we’re not just looking for the punchline; we’re looking for ourselves. Shaming and bullying and how we react to it, tells us how close or far away we are to the reasons we’re so paralyzed when put on the spot. Keep looking for yourself in these moments and you’ll also find the treasure.

E mail me: paulsveen@shaw.ca

TAGGING means to develop, work on or expand on an JOKE. The best way to create new jokes from an original joke, is to begin at the KEY WORDS, or PUNCH WORD in the PREMISE. If we use the PUNCH WORD, the TAG we create better be as strong or stronger than the original joke, because the TAG is being telegraphed in the original PUNCH WORD. Confused? Good. The  Here’s a premise we can use as an example: “The first time I was on stage I fell off of it!”  look at the KEY WORDS in this premise ( FIRST…….TIME…….STAGE……. FELL) We begin by looking at these key words for a premises and PUNCH WORD and PUNCHLINE in our new jokes. let me give you an example.

Our PUNCH WORDS are: first, time, stage, fell: Where do we begin? We begin by looking at our FRAME and TAG the SENTENCES or look for SIMILAR to this premise we’re playing with in our sandbox. We can also find GOLD in the ideas that bubble up in our POOL. Our POOL can generate random ideas, emotions, key words and phrases that have connections to FELL? PAR EXEMPLE: FALLING IN LOVE, WINTER, SUMMER, SPRING,”
FALL; “Ever since I fell? off the stage, I can’t perform in FALL.” ( I asked myself if CAREENED off the stage would be better, so I don’t telegraph FELL) I put a question mark next to fell to remind me to try different words in the premise. Ever hear the phrase I laughed so hard I FELL off my chair? If we connect this phrase to our word STAGE, we end up with: “If you want an audience to fall off their chairs laughing, just fall off the stage.” ( When I insert this joke into MY FRAME, this TAG carries the emotion of falling off a stage in a full nightclub. REMEMBER: When we tag a joke, our TAG carries the EMOTION of the joke we TAGGED. Experiment with different emotions. Se what the result it 🙂 

How about TIME? What are the phrases of time? ( I like to use phrases. It’s the same as song writers using popular catch phrases: “Here For A Good Time,  Two Out Of Three Isn’t Bad.” When you hear the song, it’s already embedded in your joke writing arsenal. “You only have so much TIME on stage; unless you fall off it, then you can spend as much time as you want on the floor.

So, we begin with a JOKE in our FRAME. We Q and A the KEY WORDS or PUNCH WORD- (the WORD that makes the joke work.  in the JOKE we’re TAGGING. We ask the emotional vulnerable question about a KEY WORD; we can ANSWER with SARCASM. We can also make the KEY WORD look at itself in JUXTAPOSITION, by putting the KEY WORD against its opposite; EXAMPLE: or SIMILE; Falling off a stage is like?

Have fun. REMEMBER: New FRAME: Write 3 jokes and CREATE or TAG 2 NEW JOKES from the 3 original jokes. Great job everyone in the last class. Thank you for working so hard. It’s also awesome to see how much fun we’re having. LOVE IT!!!

Thank you Dan for sharing this awesome comment about my Stand Up Writing class; 7 times really appreciate it sir.

E MAIL ME paulsveen@shaw.ca