“You can't write if you can't relate.”
Aaaaa?Beck
“One day Chevy Chase woke up and realized he just wasn't funny anymore.”
Aaaaa?Graffiti on a stall wall in Skipper's Smokehouse
“Anybody seen a naked midget running around here with a hundred dollar bill?”
Aaaaa?Eddie Murphy
A lot of people wonder what happened to comedians and actors like Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase and Steve Martin. We just don't understand why they're not funny anymore. Well, my friend Daniel has a theory and he lacks any kind of Google presence, so I figured I'd blatantly steal from him, put his idea on The Nate Way and present it to you. Some call this “writing from life” whereas others call it “stealing” but I don't care either way.
Daniel feels that to truly be funny, you have to be able to relate to the common man. The more artists and aristocrats one surrounds oneself with, the further out of touch one gets with the common human. Once one loses touch with the common trains of thought, one loses the ability to know when one is on the tracks, and as such, one never knows when one's jokes are actually manipulating that train of thought. Which is to say, if you don't relate to people, you won't make them laugh. And if you don't hang out with common people, you won't relate to them. I think that's right.
Now, I don't know how many of you people have access to Eddie Murphy, or to friends of Eddie Murphy, or to anyone who even remotely has a chance of speaking with Eddie Murphy in a given day, but I really need him to be funny again, so if you could print out the following three steps to Humorville and give them to him, that would be great.
Step 1: Buy a house in the suburbs?not too nice, not to bad. You can have big screen television but no pool. You know what I mean, here? Middle class. Limit your annual spending to a quarter million dollars, and do all of your own work (shopping, lawn care, house maintenance, etcetera).
Step 2: Interact with the people in your community everywhere you go. Become a part of the place and actually personally deal with all the strange, uptight weirdos your area has to offer.
Step 3: Make the fucking sequel to The Golden Child already!
Seriously, one of the funniest movies ever made and it gets no sequel? You did Beverly Hills Cop III for the love of Holy Jesus. I mean really, that movie sucked the air from a dead rhino's asshole.
Come on, Eddie. Be funny again. The world needs the healing power of your humor.
(And a sequel to The Golden Child.)