Health experts say " it takes thousands of muscles to frown, and only one to smile." Good advice for sulkers, mopers, whiners, and negas.
I have a friend from Toronto, now in Vancouver, who can only say funny things. You can never tell if he was joking or telling a fact. He's sixty-ish but looks forty-ish.
Another in-law relative cracks up her friends and relatives; she's juvenile diabetic but very postive and now recently married and optimistic about new life.
Alborz, a friend originally from Iran, has always lighten up party tables by his sheer glee. At the office kitchen table, he'd share his lunch with us, and rattle off the weekend prices of gala apples, plum, apricot.
Is the funny bone inherited or does it have DNA components? I'm sure it is, referring to former query.
Just look at the Dolphy clan. Dolpy, Rolando Vera Quizon, in real life has numerous sons who took after his funny disposition. There's Van Dolph, Epi, and Eric - all three have followed Daddy's footsteps and appeared as comedians.
Another Pinoy funnyman was Pugo, Mariano Contreras in real life. Pugo was the suave and slick and yet bungle-prone Don Mariano, father to Bitoy and Ibyang (Sylvia La Torre) in the hit radio and TV show of the 50's and 60's Tang tarang Tang. He was called "matandang kalbong ito" by his balae Aling Charing (Rosa Aguirre). Pugo's character Don Mariano reminds me of the Al Bundy character in Married with Children, he the loser, who can't seem to do good no matter how bad or good his intentions were.
There are souls who just say the funny things even without knowing it.
I remember when I was working with an ad exec who produced corporate road shows on the side, and we had Apeng Daldal as one of the casts in one of our out-of-town shows. We were in a Ford Fiera and Mr. Apeng, even if he was dead serious, was very funny.
Today's hot topic is whether transgenders should be allowed into female beauty contests such as the Ms. Universe. I wonder then, if they were allowed into such events, would they crack up the house with their innate "humour?"
I based this on my observation that homosexual people tend to be funny and alive at almost all times. Just look at the local celebrities like Vice Ganda, Pokwang (who try to act like a homo), Boy Abunda, and others, and of course funny man Dolphy, who made hits acting as a bakla.
This "being funny" by homosexuals is one of the assets that endear them to people. I think it's in their genes.
My bro in law from Ohio has a stack of jokes under his sleeve. Sometimes I get it, at times, no. It's hard to understand him deliver the punchline because of his Ohio-an accent, I guess.
In our family, there's no joker. The closest I could think of was my uncle who was all 5'9" and married to my aunt who was all 4'9". They were a childless couple so they sort of adopted all of us siblings at varying stages in their lives.
My uncle was the family magician and a natural humour who'd make our sister disappear and turn her into a langka.
I don't remember my father cracking up any jokes; he'd sing, instead. He'd be on top of his lungs doing "La Paloma," or Rico J's "Buhat." When we were kids, we thought his singing was funny, only my mother loved it.
Although my father was no joker, he had the most charming smile. In photographs, the smile was always captured beautifully. When I brought him and Mother to Niagara Falls, he asked for solo photos of him with the Falls in the background.
Mother was the good listener. She was a talker, too, but in the company of my ever-talking aunts, she'd be more the laugher, and yet, her soft laughter would be drowned out by boisterous laughter of her three cousins, which we could hear three houses away from our house.
Laughter is the best medicine. And the Pinoys, even if we're at the lower rungs of the ASEAN economic stairways, have always proven this to be true. For how could we have endured martial law years,and political ineptness at all levels of government, if we didn't have the funny bone?
Nowadays, I find laughter in the televised Corona impeachment trial, which I could turn on and off anytime I wish to. MDS or Senator Miriam provides comic relief.
In the popular blog, www.raissarobles.com, a commentor posted this photo. Ha ha ha.
2 comments:
Pinoys are inherently happy and funny.
It's more fun in the Philippines, because Pinoys don't take themselves seriously. If they take themselves seriously, they'd be really mad at how the politicians continue to deceive the citizens and only care for themselves; and how their Chief Justice continues to be sitting in his throne.
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