The Sky is Falling?

I look at the world economic situation and it's ovewhelming. Potentially the worst of our life times. My first thought is how will this will effect me, my wife and our family. But then I stop, and hopefully without too much awfulizing, I recognize there is a world of people living on the edge. On the edge of starvation. People in our own country who are losing their jobs, homes and life savings.

The problem is that it's so easy to sink into business television and the images on the news and lose our way. And if each of us does this then everything that we can awfulize can come true. Our lives and the people we can help are too important for that.

So from this day forward I'm going to ignore what they're saying and just control what I can. Every day do the best I can. Contribute what I can. Keep on keeping on. Work to keep my balance. Focus on what I can do.Maybe if we all do that then we'll get through and we'll have the strength to reach out and help someone else along the way.

And that’s why ten percent of the royalties from the two books I have coming out will be going to the Ocala, Florida Interfaith Food Bank.

Best wishes for all of us.

If this helps, pass it on -

So what does this message of hope have to do with a blog about dark comedy? It has everything to do with dark comedy. The worse the situation the more the need to relax and let your life flow. Reacting can often be the wrong thing to do when times are hard.

So the first step is to break the spell. And how do you do that? The same way you break the ice in most social situations. Say something funny. People have a hard time being afraid and laughing at the same time. In fact it’s close to impossible. And I’m not talking about that nervous little laugh of your brother-in-law.

I’m talking about getting into a comedy, a black comedy or dark comedy and let yourself breathe. Watch actors portray people in a tougher situation than you’re in.Buy yourself time. I’m not talking about denial or any of the other rivers in Africa. I’m talking about 90 minutes of Harold and Maude or Burn After Reading.

Worrying about ninety problems will not do as much as doing something about one problem. And if it’s the right problem – it will make a difference.

Happy Thanksgiving

Dark Comedy – 220 Miles Above the Earth

Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper is an astronaut. Now nicknamed "Lost-in-Space" Heide

And Heide’s not your garden-variety space explorer. She remodels space stations. Her show doesn’t have a name yet but I’m proposing two possibilities – Extremely Extreme Makovevers or Awesomely Awesome Makovers. Of course these may soon morph into Extremely Awesome Makeovers or Awesomely Extreme Makeovers but I’m sure you get the general drift.

I never thought when I was reading Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober (thinly disguised gay porn), that I would ever see "Heidi in space." There are no goats miles above the earth’s surface but there are bags of tools to herd. And apparently Heide didn’t have such a great day. It seems her "grease gun" went off and left an oily mess in her bag and on her gloves and all over her helmet cam. And while using a dry wipe she let a $100,000 tool kit she signed for (and that doesn’t count the cost of boosting the 30 pound set of tools into space or the salvage value it would ultimately bring on Ebay). And now, according to NASA, "The bag that got away is still in the neighborhood of the shuttle-station complex but is expected to fall out of orbit fairly soon." Now with my luck and penchant for dark comedy it should land in my backyard upon me or my favorite orange cat. Here you see O.C. (Orange Cat) helping my credibility by pretending to have been hit by a space wench, I mean wrench. Of course the tools my burn up on reentry or just get hot enough to cauterize the wound where my head used to be. And on the bright side, me or my cat won’t bleed much. You see there’s always something to be grateful. You just have to look.

Heide’s response to her loss: "Oh, great!" Now what kind of response is that for a U.S. Navy captain? I’m disappointed, what are they teaching at the Naval Academy? Since when do they not teach Cursing 101. Any seaman or seagal worth their salt can curse.

Well I was mistaken, it seems our Heide went to MIT. In fact she was the MVP on her crew team. Then she went on to earn a masters of engineering and ROTC. Who knew that you could march your way right into space?

It seems our Heide has been to space before and she’s logged 12 days in space and 13 hours and eight minutes playing outside the space station. She has performed so well she is the first woman to become a lead space walker.

What’s this got to do with black comedy? If she’d compounded the error with a swan dive into the great abyss it had the potential for great dark comedy. Or if the other astronauts had shunned her and not let her back inside the station it could have been a great Movie of the Week (it will anyway but with less darkly comedic undertones). Now our only chance for dark comedy is Heide’s reaction to this honest mistake.

I’m hoping the other astronauts won’t decide to follow suit for the attention-getting possibilities but perhaps we as a nation can laugh at this and maybe it will provide a momentary respite from the landslide of economic terror. And maybe the loss of the tool bag will keep a few more engineers employed and coming up with 9 sigma systems for preventing the loss of any more of NASA’s toys.

So what’s the point of all this pile of sarcasm? It seems to me Heide has become a more valuable astronaut. And, no, she should not become the Bill Buckner of the space program. Now everyone has heard of her and we’ve made a substantial investment in her real-world training she should make the rounds of late night television. It might take our minds off the crazy astronaut chick who drove thousands of miles in diapers and the fact that one of the purposes of this NASA mission is to install a machine that recycles sweat, condensation and urine into potable drinking water on the space station. That’s a fact that you won’t see in the "So-you-want-to-be-an-astronaut books.

But there are dangers lurking for our Heide. The first is the reaction of the folks she works for and with. They can make her a pariah and she could be drummed out of NASA. Or perhaps worse, become a land-locked astronaut.

The second and more realistic danger is that she may not be able to forgive herself. You see Heide is a high achiever and a leader and sometimes people who excel have an Achilles heel – intolerance of their own errors. It’s only through forgiveness that she will continue to reach her potential as Heide of the skies and beyond!

P.S. I am going to send a letter to NASA with a strongly worded recommendation that Heide take a class in remedial cursing. I do think this would continue to uphold the glorious reputation the U.S. navy has earned.

Dark Comedy - The Trouble with Me

November 21, 2008



Dark Comedy



Life complications plus time = Comedy



Tragedy plus time = dark comedy

The funny thing about my life is how I complicate everything.

Rather than living and enjoying the moment I allow the details to get in the way. For me, it’s lists. Everything that tries to glom onto my attention centers gets slapped on a list: a major list, a lessor list or a random scrap of paper to be turned into a list when it grows up. Sort of a primitive evolutionary list. Which reminds me of the two boxes I found in the attic of a relative who was a terminal pack rat. The first was labeled, "string - save." And the second box, "pieces of string too short to save."

And of course then my lists have to be minded. Stacked mostly. And, heaven forbid, I should lose one of my sacred lists. Even if only misplaced a lost list becomes my version of the Grail Quest. I’m all a dither until the list has been returned to its rightful spot – the grand list repository. Usually after three panic-stricken hours I find the wayward list that I’ve folded over on a yellow pad, you guessed it, so I could start a new list.

So what has this got to do with Dark Comedy? I suppose the commonality is dealing with stress. You see we all need drug-free tranquilizers. Well not all of us as some of my friends prefer drugs. They say drugs are far more fun than making lists and far easier than keeping up with lists and the drugs are far less addictive than lists.

So how do you deal with stress?

There’s exercise. I try to get in two types of exercise every day. And I can prove it – it’s on the list there with the tiny little backward check marks. My checks are backasswards because I’m left handed and dyslexic and the backward check just feels more natural. And of course every time I resolve something off the list, no matter how minor, there is that little orgasmic rush that fulfills me so.

Exercise does help with stress but that doesn’t mean I can’t concurrently run one of my negative mind tape loops also nicknamed by my family the Awfulizations of Alan.

Then there’s my favorite stress reducer – the power of laughter. There’s nothing better to eliminate stress. And black comedy has the added benefit of helping you realize there’s always someone who’s got it worse than you. That is, unless the black comedy is all about you, then it can also be a grand stress reliever as confession is good for the soul.

Another good stress inhibitor is meditation and its North American cousin - the daydream (Some people think the North American cousin is the wet dream but it’s not). Daydreams are commonly thought to be huge time wasters but they are actually valuable road maps to your best life. After all life is not about living, it’s about being alive. All this bunk about security is great for late at night when you’re trying to get back to sleep but security (as Wall Street is so abundantly revealing to us) is mainly bunk. Life is either an adventure or it’s nothing.

And finally, one of the best stress relievers is keeping a list of petty concerns that can be handily dealt with before any of the listed items grow big enough to cripple you, eat your house or destroy the entire planet.

So maybe a few lists aren’t such a bad thing after all.