On a serious note, please click here to donate to help the Japan relief effort. Our positive thoughts and prayers go to our friends, currently in Japan, who are safe but continue to deal with difficult days. Stay strong and healthy.

Stagetime matters big time.

A long time ago, when Madonna didn’t speak with a British accent and the US was actually cleaning up oil spilled from that Exxon DUI in Alaska, I climbed onstage in front of a bar full of strangers and attempted to make them laugh. I succeeded, and those few minutes in a red-velvet-decorated strip mall comedy club changed my life. I could write a joke.

Before and since that night, I have enjoyed and analyzed comedy. (Admittedly, I analyze everything I enjoy.)  How psyched was I, then, when the May 2010 issue of WIRED magazine featured comedian and Web Soup host Chris Hardwick’s article Crafting a Joke: The Arc of an Act? Completely, and I was completely impressed. Many, many comedy professionals and feigned comedic personalities have attempted to describe their joke processes, but Hardwick, in sharing his approach and the perspective of others, boils it down to the essentials.

Want people to laugh with you instead of just at you?  Read Hardwick’s advice, start thinking funny, right it down, and go.

~pp