Category: humor

comedy, entertainment, humor, writer, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Empty Your Pockets

Christa Avampato

Last night I was flipping through the channels and landed on PBS which was airing a biography of Carol Burnett – one of my all-time favorite entertainers. I have fond memories of watching the show with my family, and my mother would laugh so hard she could barely breathe. I never knew much about her childhood before this biography. Her story of endurance and love and what her family termed her “pipe dream” is inspiring. 

After Carol Burnett’s biography, PBS aired a shorter biography of Erma Bombeck, one of my mom’s favorite authors. I would read her column in my mom’s magazine’s as a kid and found her so funny, engaging, and honest. I wanted to write that way. The biography ended with Erma’s untimely death from kidney disease and they captured how she viewed life with one of her most famous pieces:

I always had a dream that when I am asked to give an accounting of my life to a high court, it will be like this:  ‘So, empty your pockets. What have you got left of your life?  Any dreams that were unfilled?  Any unused talent that we gave you when you were born that you still have left?  Any unsaid compliments or bits of love that you haven’t spread around?’

And I will answer, “I have nothing to return.  I spent everything you gave me.  I’m as naked as the day I was born.”

Isn’t that how all of us should answer? Why return any bit of energy, any dream or wish or hope? We don’t ever get it back. Once we make our graceful exit to the other side, anything we hoped to start, try, or finish will have to fall to someone else. That’s no way to go out, and frankly it’s not fair to the rest of us for you to be selfish and keep you dreams and talents to yourself. This world needs you; it needs all of us and everything we’ve got. 

art, comedy, humor, NBC, television

I Might Be Liz Lemon, and So Are You

Christa Avampato

I’m a little late to the party on this one – 30 Rock has already won several Emmy’s and is in its 3rd season. I’m just now getting into the series on DVD. Hilarious. And comedy writing is not easy – I’ve tried it and I was terrible. I laugh out loud at the ridiculous behavior of those characters and marvel at how often I think things at work that they say freely to one another. If only all workplaces were that honest, we’d have greater job satisfaction. It’s the passive-aggressive behavior, the simultaneous smile and toss under the bus that kills morale. 


Liz Lemon, Tina Fey’s character, is someone I relate to immensely. She is a single 30-something who lives on the UWS, just a few blocks from me. Works hard, sometimes to the detriment of her personal life, makes impossible relationships a hobby, and eats as much as I do. She’s nerdy and independent. We love our humidifiers. While she has this dream job, she’s constantly worried that she will be reduced to teaching improv at the Y. She’s all our unsavory features rolled in to one sympathetic, funny shell. We don’t love the character because she’s perfect or well-balanced or someone we aspire to be. She isn’t any of those things. We love her because she is who we are, warts and all.

30 Rock is proof that we can do something original in an over-crowded field. It just requires that we put aside our egos, stop looking to others for “copy-and-paste” ideas, and just be exactly who we are and say exactly what we think, funny, nice, meaningful, or not. And for goodness sake, we need to learn to laugh at ourselves and those around us.      
hokey pokey, humor

The Hokey Pokey

Christa Avampato

This post is just for laughs…

It is helpful to explain that my family is a bit like Everybody Loves Raymond. I adore my mother who has the mysterious ability to vacillate between being Edith Bunker and Doris Roberts. I don’t know how she does this. Truly, she is a kind, loving, wonderful person and lord knows she has made umpteen sacrifices as she raised me, my sister, and my brother on her own. She truly is one of those people who does the best she can with what she’s got.

That said, my family has a sense of humor that is rather warped and there’s not much we can do about it. It’s in our genes. Below is an email my mom forwarded to me. I can guarantee that she laughed out loud when sending this, as did I when reading it. The original message is from a while back, though the laughter lives on. Larry LaPrise, may he be shaking it all about in peace.

And now, a word from my mother:
“Thought everyone should know……
Sad News With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote “The Hokie Pokey” died peacefully at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started. Shut up. You know it’s funny. Now send it on to someone else and make them smile.”

The picture above can be found at http://www.rach.com.au/wp-content/hokeypokey1.jpg