WHAT I REALLY KNOW ABOUT TELLING JOKES
Almost five years ago, when I was 70 years old, I became a stand-up comic and I discovered that everyone aches to believe that when THEY are over seventy they can go on stage and make people laugh. My best audience is not my peers…they are where I am and know how great it can be. My supporters are people from twenty to sixty who love to hear me make fun of all the things they are afraid will happen to them.Most comedy springs from anger and it is ageism that infuriates me. My routines attack the notion that old people do not remember who they are, cannot walk up a stair and have to wear diapers. It pokes fun at people who need face lifts and Botox to shore up their self image and pills to make them think they want to do what they did when they were twenty. I stand before my audience proof that old can be a lot of fun.
I talk about the independence my age gives me when I tell people my last date took me to a coffee house and gave me $20.00. He said, “Get what ever you want.” And I got a cab and went home.
What I am really saying is you can have dates at any age if you want them and when you go out you can be yourself.
I talk about the old days when one bar of soap cleaned your body, your hair and your language and drive-in theaters where you lost everything in the back seat of a car: your keys, your wallet and your principles. Those jokes remind everyone of the days when our language got us in trouble and our principles trapped us. Now anything goes and we can choose the kind of person we want to be.
Every day gets better for me because of what I learned the day before. When I joke about my wrinkles, my drooping body and driving habits, I am showing those youngsters under seventy that when you are my age, you are so happy to be able to live your life your way, you don’t even think about winning a drag race or snagging a hot one. You are too excited to have finally figured out what you want to be now that you are grown up.