Posted in Entertainment, Health, Life, Philosophy, Television |

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been going through a bit of a — Actually i’m not sure what it is.  I’ve not been depressed, or even sad, just spending too much time thinking about things and prone to see the negative.

So to combat this, I’ve been watching a lot of comedy.  Chicken soup for the soul.

My comedic tastes are quite brutal.  I do like a lot of innocent comedians and their acts: like Ken Dodd, Ronnie Corbett, etc, but i’m really at home with the most disgusting and brutal comedians. 

As part of this, I downloaded a bunch of concerts, roasts, Howard Stern shows (which include a lot of interviews and interaction with famous comedians).

I laughed my ass off, some of the stuff had me in tears and struggling to get a breath.  So all was good.

But while watching the Howard Stern stuff, and checking some things out on Wikipedia, various comedians websites, etc, i noticed that pretty much every one of these people who make me laugh so hysterically and provide this material to cheer up people like myself when it’s needed, are unhappy themselves.

So many of them have problems with alcohol and drugs.  And it’s not just drinking a bit too much here and there, they tend to really hit things full on.  A lot of them end up spending time in rehab, then once they’ve kicked the habit they start all over again, until the next time they’re ready to do rehab again.

Almost all of them spend time every week with a therapist.  They’re nearly all either in bad relationships, or have been, and most of the time those relationships turn bad, it’s because of the alcohol and drugs.  Divorces ensue and children get hurt in the middle, bringing about an all new pain of guilt and loneliness, etc.

• Bill Hicks

Bill Hicks was, and still is (Posthumously) one of my favourite comics ever.  His brand of comedy was very brutal.  He was a strong advocate of smoking, drinking, drugs and a lot of his routines involved angry rants and very accurate observations about life and people, with no punches pulled.  But inside, the man suffered from depression.  He had various bouts with alcoholism and drug addiction.  And ironically, when he’d finally given up on these vices, he died of Pancreatic cancer, aged only 33.

There are many similar stories.  John Belushi died of a drugs overdose and was only 33 years old.  He’d suffered from depression too, and turned to drink and drugs.

There are many others that were huge names, touring the world, making people laugh, raking in the cash and instantly throwing it away on drink, drugs and anything else they could get their hands on.  Most didn’t die young, or at least not as young as 33, but they have led very unhappy lives.  Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, John Candy, to name but a few.

This just seems like a great injustice to me.  I know people make their choices in life, and sometimes those choices aren’t good ones.  I even know that some of these people aren’t good people, sleeping with anything they can find, regardless of partners they leave at home, etc.  But it just seems quite unfair to me, that the people who make us laugh, are often unhappy.

I’m not really sure i went anywhere with this post, i didn’t really think it out and I had no goal in mind.  I just wanted to write something, and you get what you pay for. 

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