![](\"http:\/\/www.revolutionsf.com\/images\/content\/lettermanbook.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Them bats is smart. They use radar.<\/i><\/p>\n
That’s one of the many, many goofy things that David Letterman lodged in my brain. He inspired me at a young, goofy age to try to be funny.<\/p>\n
I do not want to get super-sentimental about it. He’s not being fired. (That already happened to him, and he came out of that OK.) I don’t know him personally. He’s not dying. He’s just not doing a show anymore. But his show started me on a path to being a creative person.<\/p>\n
When I was 12, 13, 14, I didn’t talk a lot to people and thus, didn’t get noticed by people. Not a bad thing, really, but for some reason, it stressed the heck out of me as I was going through the social stuff that one goes through at school.<\/p>\n
Letterman was a huge influence on my sense of humor. He helped me step outside my worries and just try to do stuff. He approached everything as a smarty-pants. He did the silliest things and grinned while he did them. He’s incredibly smart and incredibly sarcastic. He made me love the silliness that’s a basic part of all popular culture. He made me think “I can do that.”<\/p>\n
So I told a funny speech and won a spot on my oh-so serious high school student government. I told jokes and won a talent show while wearing nothing but a raincoat. I rode inside a giant toilet on a homecoming float.<\/p>\n
Doing all that just to gain confidence is like using a bazooka to kill fire ants.<\/p>\n
In college, I volunteered to write a column for the campus newspaper. I made up my own college-TV channel show and had my Mass Comm buddies on as guests. We turned on the cameras and just winged it. Letterman gave the impression that’s how he did it.<\/p>\n
We didn’t have social media back then, so I don’t know if anyone read or saw what I did. But I’ll be honest. I thought I was terrific.<\/i><\/p>\n
Letterman and Saturday Night Live<\/i> were languages spoken by lots of people my age. When Letterman published a book of his show’s top ten lists, I thought that was the Holy Grail. I took to reading Letterman’s Top Ten List books as if they were instructions on how for me, personally, to accomplish things. The lesson I learned from them was that eight or nine out of ten things were of no value at all, but the complete package, together with that tenth thing, wow, my goodness.<\/p>\n
Letterman isn’t my only inspiration, he was just my first pop-cultural one. My grandma and my dad taught me to remember funny stuff even when things are terrible. My wife and my daughter are the funniest people I know.<\/p>\n
Letterman taught me to find humor in everything. Every single thing. Of course I love the stuff he famously did. I also love a short Letterman skit about Mark Hamill teaching parallel parking.<\/p>\n
Because I decided to try being goofy, now I sometimes get to be goofy in public. I did stand-up comedy, and made three or four other comedians laugh. I host game shows at sci-fi conventions, I write about TV and movies. I get to write at my job. I make my family laugh (and don’t let them tell you any different.)<\/p>\n
Letterman inspired me to find ways to be creative and share my creativity, and that improved my whole deal.<\/p>\n
I feel like being funny helps everybody, including me. People laughing at stuff I have said or written is just the best.<\/p>\n
Some people go through their days making everyone else feel like crap. Letterman ended many of my days on an up-note after I dealt with people like that (or did that to myself.) I hope, like Letterman, that I don’t let anyone stay stuck in the mud with those people.<\/p>\n
Of course, being funny and helping people aren’t the only things you need to live your life. But they’re on the top ten list.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Them bats is smart. They use radar. That’s one of the many, many goofy things that David Letterman lodged in my brain. He inspired me at a young, goofy age to try to be funny. I do not want to … Continue reading