Chris Farley and his Demons

 

On December 18, 1997, one of the most famous and beloved comedians Chris Farley was found dead inside his rented 60th-floor high-rise apartment on Chicago’s Miracle Mile. He was only 33 years old, like his hero John Belushi.

In the days before his death, it is said that he would have put Nero to shame, binge eating, binge drinking, binge everything. He was seen drinking at a bar called the Crobar and at a bar called Karma, at the Cheesecake Factory, at the Berghoff Cafe and at the Hunt Club with his brother John, where he did a Wolfman Jack impression and let strippers drape themselves over his body.

A Bible Lesson From Kevin Hart's Mom

When Kevin Hart decided to pursue stand-up comedy, his mother gave him a year to prove that it really was his dream. Months later, when Kevin asked her to help with rent, she responded with a question of her own: "Are you reading your Bible?" Hear about the clever trick she played on Kevin to teach him a lesson — one that almost got him evicted.

Joking About Serious Matters - The Lesson of Voltaire

By Archimandrite Theophilos Zissopoulous

Voltaire is considered the patriarch of atheists. One day at a dinner table he wanted to say a joke, as many smart people do to show their spiritual emptiness:

"I'm selling my seat in paradise for five franks," he said.

Making Comedy of the Cross of Christ

By John Sanidopoulos

April 15, 2009

Wittiness has become something of a virtue in our day. Wit combines cleverness and humor to offer amusing insights. Though entertaining and often insightful, sometimes wittiness enters the realm of the ridiculous which could also be amusing, yet essentially pointless.

An example of such ridiculousness can be found in the April 10th edition of The Huffington Post in an article titled "Killing Jesus For Today's Market" by Spencer Green. The article is based upon the popular quote attributed to H.G. Wells that basically states: "If Jesus Christ had been hanged, the symbol of Christianity would be a noose." The author tries to make the point, albeit in a humorous way, that the cross of Christ has become too commercialized in our day and has become a symbol that may be powerful yet is unrelateable to the contemporary age. He then proceeds to give alternate tools of suffering and death Christ could have gone through to make the story more attune to twenty-first century ears. In doing so, he proposes alternative symbols for Christians that would make the story more relateable, such as the hammer and nails instead of the crucifix itself. Green further elaborates the hypothesis of H.G. Wells with a bunch of "what if's". For example, what if Christ had been hanged by a noose? "Would Christians today wear little nooses around their necks?" Green asks. Or if he was killed by a firing squad, would we wear little guns. After being creative with a bunch of death scenarios that could have been used for Christ, such as tying him to a boulder and pushing him off a mountain, or being kicked in the balls by Roman guards in a cage fight and other such tortures involving the penis, or tearing him to pieces in the arena which would make for a "kick-ass resurrection", the author then asks what symbol would Christians use if Jesus never died at all. His answer: not much, which means Jesus would get depressed, drunk and probably hang himself.