Under the Thinking Tree

Upcoming Comedy
Wednesday, October 10 - The Comic Strip, Edmonton
Tuesday, November 6 - New City Lounge, Edmonton

Upcoming Living Articles in the Edmonton Journal: TBA

Upcoming Teaching
Dating for Dudes (three Tuesdays, starting November 13)
Learn more at www.metrocontinuingeducation.ca


Dan Brodribb's headLINES appears every Monday in the Edmonton Journal's online ed magazine. Current headLINES is here.

A Pair of Singles with Dawn Dumont appears in ed Magazine every second Saturday. Current article is here.

MIKE HARRISON is an interesting comic. He's a comedy idealist, and while I don't agree with everything he believes, I enjoy hearing his thoughts.

One thing I agree with him wholeheartedly on is being genuine on stage (offstage as well, I supposed, but let's keep the discussion to comedy). Being authentic and true to what you want, whether it's experimental or straight down the middle mainstream will keep you from going crazy. I suppose that could apply to anything in life.

That's not to say people can't be succesful doing something they don't like. I've seen it happen. But they aren't very happy.

The audience comes to be entertained. Nothing else matters to them. Authenticity doesn't make a difference to them. In the end, each time we choose to do something that isn't really us, we're cheating ourselves.