DaretothREdux (99.56)

LOL. My Wife Just Left Me…

April 03, 2009 – Comments (12) | RELATED TICKERS: BUS , TE , R

You can call me Buster. When I was a little kid my parents were in the circus, and I was incorporated into my father’s act. What he would do is punt me around like football, and I would fly through the air and land safely only to repeat this process as the viewing public found it both simultaneous hilarious and amazing.

I never really found it that funny, but nevertheless I was small and quite the performer. I discovered that if I gave a look of total disinterest (a stone-faced expression) after I landed, then the laughs I got were even bigger. People loved to laugh at my expense and I loved them laughing.

As I grew older I got even better at my schtick. I could slip and fall on a wet banana peal better than anyone you had ever seen. The goal, of course, was simple: make it look like it really hurt. The greatest moment in life was when I realized that I could make an entire audience hold their breath at the same time, only to be released with a roar of laughter after I emerged unharmed.

Then along came silent film. I was a natural at sight gags (after all, I had been practicing from a very young age). Then one day, I looked up to find myself on the silver screen. And the next day I was famous. I never had speak a single word. Not many actors can say that. Chaplain had nothing on me in the early days.

Film was different then too. There weren’t many special effects. Stunts were stunts. If you saw it happening on the screen, it meant that I did it in real life. Sure there were models and ways around reality, but I never cared for them. Why use a model when I can crash a real train? That’s right, a real train. It’s still in the bottom of that river today.

When I filmed The General it was a slightly different time than today, but many of people’s problems were not unlike they are now. I remember one day in particular. My wife had just left me. I was an emotional wreck on the inside, but I remained stone-faced on the outside.

One stunt in particular I will never forget. I was to have the side of a house fall down and the plan was for me to go through the small window as the wall crashed to the ground. The wall was very heavy, and we had not had time to measure exactly where it would land. Remember my wife had just left me, and so I said screw it. I didn’t care anymore. If it killed me, then it killed me. And hey, at least, I would’ve gone out at the peak of my popularity, squished in glory on the silver screen.

The wall missed me though. I went right through the window. It was quite a rush. For a brief moment I felt alive again, but I didn’t smile. No. I never smiled. Old Stone Face. That’s what they called me.

I brought joy to people, millions of people forgot their troubles because of my pain. Because I always stood up afterwards and dusted myself off.

It would’ve been a very different world if I had been angry and bitter. If I had not met my fate with a stoic resolve, perhaps, no one would’ve laughed. No one would get the joke.

It’s a takes a very special person to remain “stone-faced” with all the idiocy in the world, and all the pain. It takes a hero to be able to let the world laugh at him.

The only way to leave all the idiots behind is to move to a deserted island by yourself, and you might realize one is living there...

In college my Dad was quite the practical joker. One time he jammed a bunch of pennies into a neighbor's door and made it impossible to open. He then filled a brown paper bag with shaving cream and slipped the open end under the door. He knocked on the door and waited for the occupant to attempt to open it, and then STOMP! Shaving cream all over the room. I asked him once how the other guy felt? He said, “Don’t know. I never stuck around to find out.”

The perfect practical joke requires that someone gets hurt. Only a real man can be that person, and remain silent while the world laughs.

The Great, Late, Buster Keaton

a.k.a The Blogger Known as Dare