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How Do You Make Someone Laugh?
David Naster • 2021-07-19
Dylan Carnahan:Welcome back to the Simple Questions Podcast. I'm your host, Dylan Carnahan. That was Sunday afternoon by award-winning bluesy Americana band, Knock Kneed Sally. The song was featured on our fourth CD, Dog Tilted Head. This CD marks the fourth CD and third of all original material and was selected by the Kansas City Blues Society as the best self-produced CD of 2019. So go give them a listen on Apple Music and Spotify, a full listing of tour dates and additional information can be found at knockneedsally.com. That's knockneedsally.com. Now let's get into the topic of this episode, which is how do you make someone laugh? We're gonna be going into some larger topics such as the power of laughter and what effects laughter has on people, how to overcome the fear of failure, the science of joking, types of humor, as well as how to deliver a joke. Now, if those topics alone don't pique your interest, then you will be interested in who's talking about those topics with us. We have a nationally recognized comedian who's been featured on CBS, HBO and Showtime. He has shared the comedy stage with legends such as Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy and Jay Leno. He is the only American comedian to open for Celine Dion's World Love Tour. He's had a hand in the creation of one of the oldest family owned comedy clubs in the United States, the Stanford and Sons Comedy Club, where he brought in notable comedians, Sinbad and Louie Anderson. His philosophy, You Just Have To Laugh or YJHTL, discusses how humor can heal, motivate and inspire. He explores his philosophy through his You Just Have To Laugh speaking, writing, podcasts and Naster classes. You Just Have To Laugh is endorsed by the founder of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher, Bob Costas, the CIA and many, many others. Please give a warm Simple Questions welcome to comedian David Naster. All right, well, it's a pleasure to see you, David. You know, I'm really excited for this. It's awesome to have you on. I kind of want to start out with just you and your stories. So let's begin with, how did your comedy career begin?
David Naster:Well, I was born. I grew up in a very smart, elite family. A lot of sarcasm, a lot of sarcastic thing. So when you grow up, and that's not to put my family down, many families are sarcastic, especially the men. And when you live in a sarcastic family, or people do they take shots at you, you got to learn, am I going to walk away with the lowest self-esteem on the planet? Am I going to go spend the rest of my life in jail because I'm going to go shoot them? Or am I going to develop a wit? Am I going to be able to think funny? So if they say something to you, then you can come back to them because that's the key. If you, if somebody, and this goes with bullying, you know, bullying is taking on a whole new meaning. But bullying basically is when somebody tries to overpower somebody with physical force or intimidation on somebody that attempts to be weaker than them. That's bullying. But now we've confused that with teasing, with sarcasm, with taking a shot at somebody, you know, like they say in Italians, you know, busting balls. They say busting balls and do that. You know, so that's what it is. So I grew up in a family where I had to learn and there was a lot of humor in our family. My parents would buy, you know, comedy albums, we'd watch the Tonight Show together, we'd watch comedy things. So we were, my dad was very funny. My dad was always telling jokes. So we were always doing that in a family. So I just, and then I learned how to be funny because I realized that's how I got attention.
Dylan Carnahan:Wow, that's, yeah, you got to have, you know, a little bit of a sharp tongue to get back, you know, keep that self-esteem, you know.
David Naster:Well, it is, and you know, Dylan, it's very interesting. You know, people say, you know, a sense of humor and the senses come in is the sense of seeing and the sense of listening. That's where the sense of humor comes in because once you, I know you're gonna ask me this question, so I'm gonna jump to it. I know you're gonna ask me. We talked about this and the question is, how do you make things funny? How do you make things funny? People wanna know that. And I've actually categorized it into three different ways, exaggeration, wordplay or absurdity. You have to take something that, see something comes in my brain that I go, that wait a minute, that's odd. There's a joke to be made there. That's one of the first things I think, there's a joke to be made. And then, so I'll just walk you through it. I mean, I just thought about this last night. So I'm driving and I find out in Pennsylvania, they invented this little whistle, this little contraption that goes on the front of a bumper of a car. And as you drive down the highway, the deers hear the whistle. It's a very high pitched noise. And so the deers don't run in front of the cars and you shut them up because, because and they invented this because there were so many road killer deer on the side of the road that they wanted to stop this. And I heard that, okay, so what you have to lay out in a comedy bit, Dylan, is there's the premise. A whistle that goes on the bumper of a car that as you drive down the highway, the wind goes through the whistle, creates a high pitched noise. Similarly, the deers can hear and they don't run out in front. So then my mind starts working. Let's make that exaggeration. What about the dogs? There's dogs, dogs respond to high pitch. But then I go, nah, that's, you know, and I would do the joke, what's maybe messing up a few dogs every now and then. But I said, you know, with that deer whistle, that there's deer in the middle, they're having deer meetings in the middle of the forest and people around, because they hear that and they're going, shut up, I can't sleep, shut up. And I said, you know, the elders are calling a deer meeting and go and say, okay, look, we need a sacrificial deer. We need a kamikaze deer to run in front of those cars and shut them up so we can get some sleep. Who's in, who wants to go? And I'll say to the audience, you think that's stupid, don't you? I said, have you ever seen a deer run out of the woods? They never run out of their woods. They always look like they're pushed. And then I said, and then I exaggerated on stage and I act like, and then I act like I'm pushed out of the highway and look around and go, ah, and then act like I get run over. There's the bit. So what I did was I took the absurdity. Now here's a funny thing about that too. Wait a minute, if the whistle's going down the highway and the deers can hear it, the deer's coming up ahead, they can't hear it. So why wouldn't they run in front of the cars? You see what I'm saying? And so it doesn't make any sense, the whole thing. So then I'll make jokes about that. Now, even if you don't hunt, that's funny.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, so how do you get those premises? Is it just from, like you said, hearing, seeing, just something that comes to mind?
David Naster:I'll hear something in my head, okay? And they said, like they say, hunting's a sport. And I'll say this on stage, and hunters will get mad at me, they'll boo me. And I'll say, hunting is not a sport. It's a stalk, a drop, and a kill. You hunt for, you don't hunt for the sport of it, you hunt to kill. I said, you sneak up on an animal and you shoot it. I said, isn't that like walking down the street and seeing a senior citizen wait at a bus stop, and you go up and smack him and knock him down, and then look at him and go, oh, didn't I tell you, we're boxing. So I will hear something, I will hear something that I will say, you know, that a sport, you know, what is betting? Betting is an agreed upon terms of two people betting on an undetermined outcome. And I went, that's not gambling, that's marriage. So what you do is you lay out the premise, you take the facts, and you flip the words around, and you add some absurdity to it, and you exaggerate it. If you look at any comic who does that, that's what they do. But you have to lay out the premise for the audience right up front so they get what you're talking about. They have to get it. Then what happens in the brain, the right side of the brain, here's all the stuff. The left side puts together the incongruity of what you're talking about. It's a puzzle. And then you hope by the grace of God, they get it.
Dylan Carnahan:So that's how you structure the setup and kind of punchline.
David Naster:Yes. So there is a definite science to creating a joke, creating a punchline.
Dylan Carnahan:That methodology.
David Naster:Yes, and then you also, after a while, when you do comedy, you have to get your own voice.
Dylan Carnahan:OK, and what do you mean by that?
David Naster:You have to go on stage and figure out what do you have to say? What do you have to say that makes David Naster's take on the world different than yours, than Dylan's? What's my take on the world? Then I have to create a rhythm. A rhythm, and this is something that you don't do. I didn't do this consciously. I have a natural rhythm the way I talk. I've arisen the way that I do things that are funny. And then I present it. And after a while, once the audience gets into my head, oh, that's the guy on stage, and they get into the rhythm I do it, they're with me.
Dylan Carnahan:They're in sync with you.
David Naster:And so, you know, but you have to remember, I started off here in Kansas City. I mean, you're talking right now to the very first street performer that ever performed in Kansas City. I performed, I went to the Country Club Plaza first, and they told me, if you ever come down here again and do this show and attract a crowd and interrupt traffic, we're going to arrest you. That's what they told me.
Dylan Carnahan:So how do you get from there to on stage? I mean, that seems so far.
David Naster:So what I did was, I really want to, and at this time, I was doing pantomime and clowning. That's how I started off. I was with a pantomime and clown troupe. And so I went, okay, I went up to the corner of Westport, right across from Kelly's in Westport Square. There was a store there, and there was a little place to do a show. And then I also played drums. So I brought drumsticks, and there's a mailbox right there. So I'm playing the mailbox like a drum, which I found out later was a felony. You can't do that.
Dylan Carnahan:It's actually the limitations of the long past.
David Naster:And so you have to remember at this time, there was a guy that I saw, that I got to be good buddies with. His name was Mark Weiner. That was really his name, Mark Weiner. And he was hysterical. He was funny. And we hit it off really well. I met him in New York. And this was when Robin Williams first came out when he did Mark and Mindy. And Robin had this crazy style that he did and this stuff. And I realized that's the style I had. So I would go in the corner of Westport Square, and I would juggle fire. I would climb the fire escape and do renditions of West Side Story, the musical. I would play the drums. I did all kinds of little pantomimes and did things to engage the audience. And I did a street show. And then after the street show, I passed the hat. And then I noticed across the street, Stanford and Sons had a restaurant and they had a room upstairs. So I talked to a guy about starting a comedy club. And I started the first comedy club at Stanford and Sons in 1980. And the whole point of this is if you want to do something bad enough, you'll figure out how to do it. And I wanted to be an entertainer and I want... I started off as a pantomime and a clown because that's what got me money. I mean, they used to call me the chubby mime. They used to call me the fat mime because I got bulges in my body sticking out. That's not skinny, you know, that's not skinny. But I got all the work. People were hiring me because I was funny. But then I made the transition. And then I also realized, I went to the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, performed there, and I went to, I did an exchange program in South America doing pantomime and clown. And I realized real quickly, you can't make any money of this in America. Nobody cares about pantomime or clown. They're not gonna go pay to see it, but they will pay to see stand-up comedy. So I was part of the big stand-up comedy boom in 1980 that started the whole comedy thing when there was no David Letterman show, when there was no, there was only Johnny Carson. David Letterman just started, but there was no HBO. There was no Showtime. There was no cable television. I mean, internet, there was even the internet, man. You had to pull over and use a payphone. And so, but I wanted it bad enough, Dylan. I figured out a way to do it. And so I did it. And that taught me, and I failed a lot. I mean, I did shows, it didn't work. And that made me think, okay, okay, what can I go make that work and go get the audience? And so that's what you have to do. Whether, no matter what you're doing, whether you're a scientist, whether you're an artist, whether you're a teacher, whether you're anything, whether you're a stockbroker, you're going to fail certain places along the way. Hopefully many doctors don't. But you fail along the way and then you figure it out. You figured out, okay, I got to do it. But I just had a natural tendency. I just think funny. I hear something and go, ah, there's a joke to be made out of that.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, that's substance special. So can you kind of tell us like, you know, your transition kind of the street performing, you know, until you get in kind of a venue.
David Naster:Yeah, so I started being a street performer and then I moved into Stanford and Sons. And during this time, schools and people are starting to hire me to do performing. And then once I started Stanford and Sons, I started incorporating the pantomime and clowning and with a standup comedy. Then a guy heard about me for colleges. I did a college audition and they have things, it's called the National Association of Campus Activities. So they would have conventions all over the country in certain areas and they would hire for colleges. So then I started doing colleges. So I'm doing colleges, doing pantomime, clowning and standup comedy, I'm doing all combined. And I mean, I'm getting shows. I remember I did a show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin at their Votek school, at their Votek school. And I had to stand in front of a buffet where the kids are behind me going through a buffet. I had to stand in front on the other side where the people sat in the dining room and make them laugh for an hour. And half of the people sitting in the dining room were Asian who didn't speak English.
Dylan Carnahan:It's a tough crowd.
David Naster:So, you know, plus my pantomime clowning balloon animals, I just did crazy stuff. So there I am inside going, well, this is just a street show. I can do this. Here's the audience. And so little by little, I figured it out in the comedy store in Los Angeles. Mitzi Shore asked me to be a paid regular. I was at the comedy store when Paulie Shore was 8 years old. So I made the transition that I wanted to go here, wanted to go there. Then I started working as a performer at Silver Dollar City, as a street performer in the 80s. And then people hired me here. And you know when you're good because people keep hiring you. People hear about you and hire you. They, oh, I heard about this. Can you do this? And so I'm getting calls. And then somebody said, have you ever thought about public speaking? And I went, what do I, I don't know about public speaking. They said, well, what do you write about? I mean, what do you do? And then I remember, I remember I did a show, like 1978 in Edgerton, Kansas, and it was at a church. And I have to perform in a church in Edgerton, Kansas. 2,500 people in the town. So I chose to do clowning, you know, pantomime. And I got a guy randomly. I just picked a guy randomly because he was so tall. I thought, well, this will be funny. He's tall, I'm short, I'm 5'5. This guy was like 6'3, maybe, maybe taller. I get him on stage with me. I convince him, this is all through pantomime and clowning. I don't say a word. I convince him to get on a stick horse, ride it like a real horse, put a kazoo in his mouth, make sounds of a horse. I get on a unicycle, which I learned how to ride. I make sounds of a motorcycle, and we race around the church. First one to cross the pulpit got to pick up a spray bottle and spray the other one down with water. Of course, I let him win. Of course, I'm going to let him win. Because the joke is, I get sprayed with water. That's the joke. Everybody loves that. People are laughing hard. Ministers laughing so hard, he's crying. Just a great show. After the show, I'm walking out to my car in the parking lot, giving thanks. I always give thanks after I do a show. Thanks for helping get me through this one. Sometimes I think that's why I do it. I just want to see if I can pull it off. And I know that's really a strong reason why I do it. And the guy that I had on stage, Dylan, he follows me to my car. This guy standing behind me, excuse me, scared me to death. He goes, can I talk to you? I said, sure. And he goes, I want to thank you. And I put my hand out to shake him. He won't take my hand. He comes up to me, puts his hand on my shoulders, and looks down at me and says, you don't understand. And I'm thinking, you're right, I don't understand. And he says, three months ago, I lost my baby boy, he died. And this is the first time that I've been able to laugh and have any joy in my life. Thank you for reminding me why you just have to laugh and walks off. And I'm standing in this parking lot in Edgerton, Kansas, going, please, what was that? And something clicked in my brain where I went, you know, it wasn't me. I didn't take credit for that. There was something else that happened. And that is what got me on the journey of figuring out why you just have to laugh. My whole brand, my books, my premise is you just have to laugh or what that guy said to me, you just have to laugh. So then I got on the journey of how does laughter help us get through difficult times? And that got to be what I spoke about publicly. And all these people, I started getting story after story, you know, how a woman came up to me one time and she said, I just heard you do your talk on humor. And she said, you're right, you do have to laugh. She said, David, read my shirt, read my shirt. And the shirt, t-shirt read, of course, these are fake. My real ones tried to kill me. She had survived breast cancer. And she's wearing a t-shirt laughing about it. And then she says, then she said, David, and she was from Texas. She goes, David, my sister Rowena, she got breast cancer too, David. And she had a mastectomy. And we went bowling afterwards. She just loves to bowl. We all like to bowl. We're just laughing, drinking beer, bowling. And she was nailing strike after strike after strike. And she came back and took a big gold pad of beer, put it down and said, you know what, gals? I'm going to go back to that doctor, have him lop the other one off, and I'm going pro. Now that's funny. That's funny. And it's a real story. And those are the stories that I do. So after I started doing stand-up comedy, less clowning, more of those stories. And I found out the more I told those stories, people connected.
Dylan Carnahan:They resonate.
David Naster:Absolutely, because everybody goes through crap. Everybody goes through a tough time. Everybody. Illness, injury, and grief. We're never escaping those three.
Dylan Carnahan:So how do you talk about such a dark subject?
David Naster:So that story I just told you about the guy in Edgerton, I do that every stand-up comedy show. And every stand-up comedy show, I do that. And I do that show, and I do that. And thanks again, Lab. And I tell them, I said, you know, you're probably wondering, why would I tell you that story here? Why? You're on a vacation. And I said, folks, I'm going to tell you something you're never going to forget right now, what I learned from that. Humor is a vacation from the emotions that paralyzes. And they start clapping. This is in a stand up comedy show on a cruise ship. And they're clapping. And I say, tomorrow I'm doing a presentation here on You Just Have To Laugh. I'm going to get in that any deeper. And I said, and if you don't think you've got problems, I said, I guarantee you all came here to get away from your problems. And you're going to go home and your problems are going to be at that front door going, I thought you would never come back. So what I do is I can get people in and I can get them out of it because I'm sincere and I know how to tell the story. For example, bringing a little insight, the story I just told you. How did I tell it to you? She kept rolling strike after strike after strike. She came back, sat down, started to laugh with the girl, take a drink out of beer, put the glass down, pop. I just set you up for the punch line. Now you're ready to hear what she said and hit you the punch line and you start laughing. Everything that I've learned in stand-up comedy taught me how to tell that story. That way, pause, break, get you to laugh. That's how you tell a story and how you tell a joke. There is a science to doing it and you just witnessed it.
Dylan Carnahan:It seems like, you know, outside of like the formation, right? The methodology of like how you place things. It seems like it has a lot to do with delivery as well.
David Naster:Absolutely. And I know my delivery and I know how to do it. And it's the economy of words. Most understood, least amount said. You don't want to throw too much stuff in there. And I learned that from writing. Keep it simple. Keep it very simple so they get what you're saying. When we learned how to write in high school, we were taught to put all these flowery words and these beautiful words. That just distracts people from the point.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. You can lose people along the way.
David Naster:Absolutely. But you keep them. You want to keep them so. What is the next thing he's going to say? And then you keep saying things. Sometimes out of nowhere, they go, what? I mean, everybody's got their own style of comedy that they do. And that's why you have to go on stage and just figure out your style. That is fearless, man. I'm fearless. I mean, right now, I am 95 pages into my first suspense novel. I'm writing a suspense novel about a comedian who works on cruise ships that marries a woman from China that disappears, and he wants to find out where she is. And he's got a guy that's going to help him, and he has no idea the guy that's helping him is involved in the massage, and they help him find his wife only now. He's tied into the massage and has to do espionage acts off every port he goes to if he wants to keep his wife alive. Now, here's the deal. You ready for this? I get to now write about everything I've learned on a cruise ship. I get to bring everybody I know stuff about cruising that nobody, that people would be shocked what goes on at a cruise ship, and I'm about to write about it. Also, Dylan.
Dylan Carnahan:So hold on. I just kind of want to dive into that. You know, from the aspect of going on stage or writing a book, you mentioned how fearless you are. How do you overcome that fear for people that aren't accustomed to that?
David Naster:How do you overcome the fear? Well, you got to find out what you're afraid about. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? Well, I don't know how to write. Well, then go learn how to write. You know how you learn how to write? You write. You want to learn how to be a pitcher? You learn how to pitch. You know, Tiger Woods always talked about his weakest part of his game was his short game. So that's what he worked on so much and became one of the strongest parts of his game. If you're not, what are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? Deal with it and go through it and figure it out. I mean, you have to make fear an element, not a component. You have to make fear a component, not an element. It's not an element to stop you. It's a component. So, you know, I'll give you an example. There was a part of me for years was afraid to try new material because I'm afraid they wouldn't like me. And I'm thinking, well, I'm afraid they won't like me. That's what I was afraid of. And I'm thinking, won't like me. This isn't a popularity contest on stage. They have to like the joke, right? The joke. If the joke is funny to me, I'm going to sell it to them. And they're going to get it if I set it up properly. Now, I really did go to China and bring a woman back to the United States of America. I did that. That's a fact. It's not a made up story. I went to China three times and her family brought her back to the United States. I told you I'm fearless. I thought, why not? I guess here's the joke I made. Here's a joke I made. People say, why would you do that? I always said, I've been married two other times. True. I had three other serious relationships. True. I said, English hasn't worked very well for me. I thought I'd try a new language that I like the food. And then I made the joke. I like Chinese food because I'm Jewish, and it's the only place open on Christmas Eve is Chinese restaurants. So now I got another joke out of that. So now I'm doing that. So I go to China. I bring this woman back to the United States. I get a K1 fiancee visa. I do that. Once I get her back to the United States, she's tricked, I'm tricked. They used me to get her into the country, took her and trafficked her around the United States. I've not seen her since the two weeks I brought her back of August of 2011. That is a true story, my friend. That really happened to me. Now, I tell that story on stage, and people look at me and go, you guys think I'm making that up, don't you? And they go, it's not true. I said, talk about having a sweet and sour taste in your mouth. There's a Chinese joke. And then I go, boy, talk about getting the ultimate poo poo platter delivered to you, another Chinese joke. And I said, but I got married again because we all know after you divorce a Chinese woman, an hour later, you want to get married again. And that's a food joke. The food joke of after you eat Chinese food, an hour later, you're still hungry. So now I get all these jokes off of it. But the fact of it's a true story. And I have to make jokes about it if I'm going to get through it emotionally, because if you don't joke about it, then you're going to get hurt. And I learned this. Did you ever see the movie Patch Adams, Robin Williams' Patch Adams, or hear about it?
Dylan Carnahan:I believe so, but it's been a while.
David Naster:Well, the real Patch Adams invited me to his home, the Robin portrayed in the movie. It's a real guy invited me to his home. Amazing man. He's in my series. And he told me something, which is really true. Emotions are only a problem when they become chronic. Emotions are a problem when you stay with them. So getting back to your question, what was I afraid of? Okay, what was I afraid of? Well, here's what I'm afraid of. And here's what I have to do. So I start, I have this idea. Again, I go, man, I want to write a book about a comic who has to do espionage acts off of cruise ships because I get off ports everywhere I go. And nobody stops me or says a word to me about anything. And it's not what I'm carrying. It's what's in my brain that I can tell someone that somebody doesn't want to tell someone over the Internet or phone because there's ways to trace it. But you can't trace it face to face. So I create a character who has a great memory to do all this stuff, and now I get to do this. And the whole point of the book is he's trying to find his wife who got kidnapped, and that happened to me. They took her. It took me a while to figure it out. Now I'm going to write a book about it, but I'm going to present it as fiction. So I believe that what happens to me in my life, it happened to me for a reason. I got to give it a reason and kid around about it and joke about it. Or that way, and I say this to audiences, if you can laugh about what bothers you, if you can laugh about what scares you, if you can find the humor in it, and they all love this. This is one of those applause lines. I said, now you, now you, okay, ready? Now you own the emotion, the emotion doesn't own you, when you can laugh at it, when you can do that. So there's a real deepness to what I did. Now, mind you, Dylan, I started off just being a goofy clown in a mine because I wanted attention. Because that's why I always got attention, at being funny and being a character. Then all of a sudden, people are starting to tell me all these really deep stories, how they got through the toughest thing, how they got through grief. How they got through grief. That's the toughest thing we go through. And I have these hysterical stories about... This was told to me by the minister who was there. Grandpa died. It wasn't his grandpa, but he was the minister that officiated it. Grandpa, this grandpa wanted to die in his home. Hospice was there. Again, this is not a joke. It's a true story. Grandpa died in his home. Hospice was there. The family starts the prayer circle. As soon as the prayer circle starts, the phone rings. Now, this is a landline. This isn't a cell phone. It's a landline. The phone rings. After the 9th ring, and who's going to stop and answer the phone? Nobody. I mean, wouldn't you agree that's a sacred moment?
Dylan Carnahan:At that point, yeah.
David Naster:Yes, a sacred moment. The phone rings. And people kind of look at each other. Nobody's going to answer. On the 9th ring, the recorder phone goes off because it's a landline. And it's a recorder phone you can hear all over the house. Whose voice is on the recorder phone? Grandpa's. What does everybody hear? Hi, I'm not here right now. And then they all start, they all look at each other. Can we laugh at this? And then they hear and he says, and leave a message because I'm not sure when I'll be back. And they all bust up laughing. It's a true story. And the people that tell you those stories will say, the beauty of that story and stories when something happens with humor is when you go back and think, I miss my grandpa. He was a great guy. But man, that was a funny thing that happened. And what that does is that turns down the volume of the intensity of the feeling. The feelings never go away. You're going to be sad that somebody that died that you loved cared about. You're going to be sad. Of course, you're going to be sad. Why wouldn't you be sad? But when we find a way to turn down the volume, as Pat said, it doesn't become chronic. So who would have thought that I would be doing shows about this when I started off as a clown juggling fire doing street shows in Kansas City? Everything that I learned at those moments, I can apply now when I'm on stage.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, that's interesting. Just the comparison there, right? Because the subject matter obviously is a lot more whimsical compared to, you know, a lot more heartfelt and kind of dark subject matter.
David Naster:But Dylan, I learned how to present it in a sincere, whimsical way. So now they buy it easier. It's not heavy. I don't, I don't, I mean, I even talking about being, I even talk about being with my dad when he was dying of brain cancer. And I'm, I'm, I'm a week after my dad died. I'm on stage talking about it. I can barely get it out, but I know I have to, because there are funny things that happen. And, and I'm getting choked up and, but I got through it. The audience was very patient with me. Then a woman comes up afterwards. This is the best. And she, she calls me on the side and she's, and this was on a Texas cruise and people from Texas are hoot. And she goes, David, I'm a professional motivational speaker. I love what you did. Understand you cry because you're dead. It means a lot to you. David, we can't cry when we're speaking. We got to get the message out. Here's a little trick I learned, David. If you start to cry on stage, you clench your butt cheeks as tight as you possibly can because it is impossible to cry and clench at the same time. So, and so after she told me that, guess what I did on stage the next week? I told that story. I told that story. And I went, oh my gosh, folks, it's working. I'm clenching right now and everybody starts laughing. And then I do a joke about it and said, you know, that's going to be my next book. You can't cry and clench at the same time. So now I got a bit. Now I got a funny bit. And now people will come up and talk to me or they'll send me a story and go, and they'll send me a story and go, and by the way, Dave, I'm clenching right now. So I found out something in doing this whole thing with comedy. So you take those things about how you make things funny and they're real. Remember, all these stories I'm telling you, they're funny, but there's that exaggeration. There's absurdity that a guy's just died and the recorder phone goes off. Is that absurd? That's really a very absurd moment, you know? And hi, I'm not here right now and I'm not sure when I'll be back. There's the wordplay that people get. But I didn't have to exaggerate it because it's true. And then there's a whole new thing that came in there. When you tell a story like that and you do it, there's a sincerity and you can't fake sincerity. You'd see that there it's not and people get that from me. So I would say safely, Dylan, everything that I've ever done up to this point in my life as an entertainer has prepared me for what I'm doing now, everything.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, it all kind of culminates. You kind of add some things to your toolbox. You kind of have your past experiences and then some tools of the trade that people teach you like clenching.
David Naster:You said how do you make things funny? Well, as a comic, you have to learn how to make things funny. And as a baseball player, if you're a pitcher, you got to learn how to throw strikes and how to fake them and out-strategize them and do all that. And you're only going to do that by doing it. You heard that theory about the 10,000 hours? Okay. And we all get the premise of that. So whatever you want to do, I don't care whatever you want to do. My daughter, I helped my daughter through this when she wanted to be an esthetician. Now she's got an incredible esthetician business. But when she started off, it didn't work very well. And she had to, and she said, you know, she kept me dead. It's not working. What do you think I ought to do? I go, what do you want to do? I want to be an esthetician. Go figure it out. Go figure it out. But I'm not making any money. Then go make money. So then she gets a job working at bars, making it, making, working at a bar while she's trying to do esthetician work as a waitress and a bartender. She's making more money cash than she ever made in her life because it was a very popular bar. And she came up to me and she said, Dad, you know, people are making fun of me because I work at a bar, you know, some people in my family are making fun of me because I work at a bar. And I went, uh, yeah. So what? And she goes, Aren't you embarrassed? I go, No. She goes, You're not? I said, No, why don't you learn the bar business? She goes, What do you mean? I said, Do you realize in the in the whole history of the United States, when the SH hit the IT, as my mother would say, that was one of my mother's expressions, when the SH hits the IT, and she said, you know, in all hell breaks loose, what's open, bars and restaurants and food. So learn the bar business. Don't drink it. Learn the bar business, set up a bar. And once you know how to do that, you're going to make more money and have a great living anytime you want to. And she said, That wouldn't bother you. I go, It's your life. It's not mine. Do what you want. She goes, I want to be an esthetician, then figure it out. And now she's got an incredible esthetician business. But she had to go through all those different places to get there.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah.
David Naster:So as a parent, the best thing I can do is love her and keep going. But I didn't try to help her. I didn't try to bail her out money because I knew that wouldn't work. You can't bail them out money or they're going to keep coming back for money. She had to figure out how to make it. She did.
Dylan Carnahan:In that same vein, you know, earlier we talked about, you know, for people that say they want to pursue something, but they got to figure it out, right? So we talked about, you know, kind of how to overcome fear, right? Just by simply doing it. As it relates to comedy, you know, say, you know, you haven't been doing comedy a whole lot, right? You're just starting out. You know, those small victories mean a lot. But those small, you know, losses can mean a lot too. So yeah, what what do you do, say, if you tell a bad joke, you know? What do you do?
David Naster:Two things. Bobby, not Bobby Nelson, Bobby Nelson, the golfer, world golfer, so Bobby Nelson, Bobby famous golfer, I can't remember his name, not Bob Nelson, Nelson is a comedian. But he said, I never learned nothing when I won a golf tournament. I never learned anything about golf when I won. Okay. So that's what I'm going to ask you, answer one of your questions, because now your brain's got to figure out what that means. So you're not going to get good at anything by doing it great all the time. You got to be, I got to be in the middle of a show on a cruise ship. And I'm 10 minutes into it, and it ain't working. And I got to figure out how to get it to work. Because if I want to stay working on a cruise ship and have them keep employing me, I got to be able to handle a rough audience or do something. So again, that's what I learned about being a comedian when things didn't work. The other question is, I learned this farmer. There was a farmer, a Kansas farmer, and he was a farmer and older guy. And his daughter and son-in-law came up and talked to him and said, you know, we had a real rough year, you know, farming and you know, it doesn't look like next year is going to be very good and we want to know what do you do? And he looked at him and said, you keep farming. Got it? That's it. If a joke doesn't work or this doesn't work, why didn't it work? Is it the audience? I would say the greater percentage of the time and maybe 90% of the time was my delivery. It wasn't the audience. It was something I didn't do that was right. My job is to figure out who's there and then how to give it to them. Now, when you become famous, you get to a level of famous comedians that are filling arenas, then that's easy because they're there to see you, but you still have to deliver or they're going to boo you off stage if you're not funny. But it's easier because they already bought into you. They already know who you are. But that's why as a comedian, you got to go on stage and they don't know who you are. You got to figure out how to handle the rough patches. That's why you have to figure out what to do. That's why I said, Bob, why can't I remember his name? Not Bobby Nelson. Bobby, anyway, I don't like when I can't remember stuff like that. But anyway, that's it. That's it. You figure it out. You just have to do it. You go up and you write jokes and you just figure it out and do it. The most important thing you ask about this, you have to get to the point, what am I afraid of? And you've got to look the fear right in the face and make it your friend and go, okay, I can overcome this fear. And if you can't overcome it, get out of it. Don't do it. I could never train cats because for some weird reason, I am deathly afraid of cats and I have no idea why. If I came over to your house and you had a cat, I could not be remotely comfortable in the same room with you had a cat. And I don't know why. So I know Dave, don't work with cats.
Dylan Carnahan:You can avoid that one.
David Naster:Yeah, there's been there's been a show one time. You know, when I did a show in Kansas City, and it's really not because of this gets out, I don't want to. It's not important to talk to the particular thing. But I was doing a show for people there. I was there to I was there to do a little show and they were honoring three teachers of this, this kind of place. I can't really tell the place anyway. So I start doing the show. And there's people in the front row and they're younger. They're not buying what I'm doing. And they're talking and just obviously kind of laughing at me what I'm doing. Now, over in this side of the room, there's people that are older, that are more of the administration. So I'm doing that. It's not working. I do a, I go into my You Just Have To Laugh presentation, how humor and laughter helps. That doesn't work. Now, I'm 25 minutes into it and it's not working. And I stop and I sit on the stool with the mic and I just look at it. And I waited till everybody got quiet, went, what's going on? And I looked at them and said, nobody knows more than me, this ain't working. But you're not buying what I'm doing. I can feel it, you can feel it. I said, I'm really not sure why I've been doing this at that time. I've been doing this for 35 years. I'm not really sure what happens, but the law of averages is going to catch up with you. And I could probably go into my nightclub act right now and probably get some laughs out of you to shock you because I know how to do that. But we're not here for that, we're not here for me. We're here for the teachers. We're here to honor the teachers. So I'm going to say, let's honor the teachers now for the people that enjoyed me. Thank you for the people that didn't enjoy me. I get it. I get it. But maybe another time it may work in a better place. So I thank you all for the time you gave me. I thank you for all this and let's honor the teachers. And they kind of, you know, they're just incredibly uncomfortable. Even the people that were jerks to me are now uncomfortable because they see I'm a good guy. If I would have jumped on them and been nasty or gone into my nightclub act, they would have not liked me. The teachers back there and the older people are going, what's he doing? I would have made the night about me. The night was not about me. Now when I'm on stand up comedy, I'm on a stand up comedy stage, brother, I'm the alpha dog and it's all about me. And I have got to take charge and control and let them know who the alpha dog is in the room. That's the difference between knowing when you perform. The woman, the head of HR came up to me after that show and she said, the one that I did and she said, you know, I want to thank you so much for not going into your nightclub act because and I started explaining the dynamic of the people in the front row. She goes, no, no, stop. I know what happened. That's what happens at our company every day. I'm well aware what just happened in here. And then she said, she goes, but I want you to cash the check. And I said, oh, I plan to.
Dylan Carnahan:There's no question about that, right?
David Naster:Three days later, I get a handwritten note from the CEO of the company. David, I've seen you many times. You're very funny. Thank you for handling it the way you did. Obviously, you're aware of what we're aware of what's going on in our company. And hopefully, maybe we'll even use you again in a better circumstance. But thank you for not going into your nightclub act. So, you know, again, that was one of those moments that I could have done it. But I just and I can't remember exactly right now, Dylan, where I learned that. But somewhere along the way, I crossed the line and I bothered some people. And I went, OK, don't do that again. And unfortunately, you have to deal with those shows and be honest with the people and tell them. That's what happens. That's just part of it. The law of averages is going to catch up with you. Every comic is going to tell you, I don't care how famous you are. They're going to walk off stage at a major theater with 20,000 people off stage and go, man, did I suck tonight? That didn't work, and they know it, and the law of averages knows it.
Dylan Carnahan:It happens. It happens to everyone.
David Naster:And I believe you have to be honest with your audience, because I learned that from an old vaudeville guy. He said, if the show is not working, be a gentleman and get off stage as quick as you can, but be nice. He said, because if you walk off stage and you're a nice guy, they'll say, you know, he seems like a nice guy. He probably is just having a bad night. That happens. He said, but if you're a jerk, and this is exactly the word he used, he said, they're going to walk off stage and you go, not only is that guy not funny, he's an a**. He said, you don't want that. I never forgot that. I learned that a long time ago. I learned that a long time ago. It depends if you want to stay in the business or not. I mean, this is what I do for a living. So I don't want to get a bad reputation or something that doesn't work. I want the audience to walk away from his show going, man, I never thought I could use humor that way. I never thought that's possible. That's, you know, George Carlin said this. I mean, you know, he was, oh, why my nose itches? I'm not lying. People say when your nose itches, you lie. I'm not lying about anything. But I think it's this mustache I'm trying to grow. It starts to itch you right in here, the hair, I guess. But George Carlin said that. He said, when you do comedy, you want to take your audience's hand, take their hand and walk them across a line. They don't really want to walk across. But after you walked them across, they're glad they went with you. That's why I do You Just Have To Laugh. And I talk about these things, because people are glad they cross the line. I had a guy one time on a cruise ship. I told that story about the little boy dying, that guy. And I was walking to do my You Just Have To Laugh presentation. And this guy's walking, and he goes, not cool, man, not cool. You don't talk about dead babies on a cruise ship. And I go, brother, you ought to come to the show because you missed the point of what I was talking about. And by God, if that guy wasn't in the back of the room at that show. And I explained it. And I didn't call him out. But I said, a guy just stopped me doing that. And I said, I'm not here to call him out. I'm saying, I want you all to get the point of this story. I know you're on a cruise ship, but if you're on a cruise ship, doesn't mean your problems go away. I'm going to give you a vacation from the emotions of paralyzing. I got you. So that's what I do, man. That's what I've done. It's a metamorphosis. Now I'm having a blast writing a suspense novel because I get to use all of my comedy knowledge to write this. Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:So just kind of to round things out here, where can people learn about you and You Just Have To Laugh?
David Naster:Well, I have the same website. If you take You Just Have To Laugh, it's yjhtl.com. And my last name is Naster, N-A-S-T-E-R. And on there is naster.com. And that goes to the website. And the website will also lead you to the podcast. But I have something very unique we haven't even talked about. And that is on YouTube, I've created what's called a Naster class. Not a master class, a Naster class. And I have 62 classes. And they're six to eight minutes long, if. And I'm talking to a camera like we're talking. And sometimes I'll put videos on the screen and go, like the first day classes on why you have to laugh through difficult times. The second day classes are just on bullying. How do you get through people bullying doing that? The next classes are healthcare workers. The next classes are on grief. And I have these classes, they're free. And people were talking to me and they said, so why don't you go on, what's that, different things. And why don't you get a subscription and let them pay you and make money off of this and do it? And I went, no, wait, wait, no, I can't make money off stories. People gave me to help other people, off of this. Now a book's different because I'm putting my stuff in with the stories. But I said, no, I have to give this away. I gotta give it away. You give it to people, say, hey, I've learned this. This is how you get through grief. This is how you get through fear. And take it. I don't want to make money off of that. I just want you to use it. You know, if we all take that with each other to help people what we've learned and help other people, it'd be a pretty nice world, wouldn't it?
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah.
David Naster:If we just helped each other to do that, I don't have to make... Now, if somebody, there's a guy that wants to hire me to help write a book, okay, you can hire me and I'll help you because I know how to write books. And I know how to self-publish. I have a skill set for that. But this is just everything I've learned to give away. Plus, it keeps me sharp in my brain to do this. And I just thought of another six classes I want to do and I've got 62 up there now. So and that's on YouTube. You just type David Naster and my picture will come up on, you know, when you type in David Naster on YouTube, just click my name and boob. There's all the classes right up there. All free. Great.
Dylan Carnahan:Right on your YouTube channel.
David Naster:Right on my YouTube channel. All free. I want, you know, I was saying, you just have to laugh, healing the world, one laugh at a time.
Dylan Carnahan:Well said. Well said, David. Thank you for sharing all your experiences and the information you've come across in your time. It was a pleasure. And it seems like a lot of people are going to get something out of this. So I hope so.
David Naster:I hope so. And I did not tell you when we started, I said, you asked me one question, I'll talk. You don't have to ask me more than three questions. Didn't I tell you that?
Dylan Carnahan:That was stated. That was stated.
David Naster:Do that, and so and I would encourage anybody, if you are an entertainer, and you want to be an entertainer, you just so you know, a couple quick things, we have a couple more minutes. If you're an entertainer, and a great friend taught me this, you have to marry it and take it where it takes you. If you want to be an entertainer, don't think you're going to be married and have kids and go out and travel and be an entertainer. It's very, very difficult. It's almost like if you're a doctor. If you want to be a doctor, then you got to be a doctor. Because when you come home and do anything, when you first start off to do it, you got to learn it and you got to give it your all. And once you got it down, then your significant other has to get what you do. And you have to get what they do and you have to make sure, okay, we're in both of these together. And I've had people that I married, they go, oh, it was cool that they're married to a comedian entertainer. And yeah, they got to go on cruises and do that. But that was fun. But they don't realize when I'm out, when I'm out on a cruise ship, you know, for two weeks doing that, it's a pretty lonely existence, because I'm not a partier. I never wanted to go party and do that. So that's why I wrote nine books, because I use that time. But give yourself the time to learn the skill. And if you want to have a family and be married, then find a job. You can go nine to five and do it and be with your significant other and your kids and give them the time they need. But as an entertainer, man, you got to jump in and take it where it takes you, if you want to learn how to do it. And then you'll see after then if it goes and, you know, that's the reality because I've had guys come up to me and go, I'm a comedian. I go, really? Well, how much you make last year? What? Well, I don't do it full time and go, well, then you're not a comedian. You're just playing around. When you're a comedian is when you fill out a tax form at the end of the year and all the money you made is a comedian. That's when you're a comedian. When your life depends, your livelihood depends on you making a living. That's when you become a comedian, because then you have to figure out the art of performing, the science of performing, and the other part of why they call it show business. You have to learn the business part of it, because if you don't, you'll find yourself in a whole lot of trouble down the road. COVID hits, I can't work, you know, because I can't perform. But I would learn a long time ago to save money, to put stuff away to do and that happens. So I never got hurt. Never got hurt. So, for the people that want to be in entertainment, please learn the business side of it. It is a business. And if you start making money, when you really start going, put it away and save it. You probably never expected in this conversation to hear that, that type of thing, because that's the other side of it. Dylan, if you don't know the business of it, you're going to be 35, 40 years old, and you're going to party all your money away, you know, whether you smoke it away, up your nose, you know, buy things, whatever, and you're going to be 45 years old, but now what do I do? You're going to be, you know, if you're going to make it and show business, because people are going to keep hiring you, they're going to hear about you, and they're going to keep hiring you. If they don't hear about you, something's not working. Whatever it's worth, whatever it's worth, man.
Dylan Carnahan:Good little last last tips there.
David Naster:That ought to bring you down being a new trainer, but you better get that reality, man. Because, you know, the fun part is, you know, that's the thing, I mean, in doing that, you know, I'm going to bring out in this novel, the suspense novel, right? It's a blast being a comedian. You're on stage making 2,000 people laugh and boom, boom, boom, you're back in your room and your room on a cruise ship, and there you are sitting by yourself. You by yourself. Now you can go out and party, you can go out and drink and meet all these women or men, whatever you prefer. I'm not here to speak about anybody's personal taste, what they do. You go do that, and then you find out what that means, which is nothing. These people that come on a cruise ship, they want to do that with you. They just want a story to tell the people back home. They don't care about you. They don't care about you. We have words for that, but I won't say it here. This is a decent podcast, but they do that. So after a while, you have to get the show business part of it.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah.
David Naster:Anyway, now I'm bringing them down. I don't want to bring them down, but just got to teach them how to do it.
Dylan Carnahan:That's good information, good information, worth knowing for sure.
David Naster:And you can't let anybody stop you. When that guy said, when those cops, because this is funny, I'm in white face. I'm doing a mime and clown show on a street corner, and I'm standing in front of, I think it's Restoration Hardware now in the plaza, it used to be, it's right across from where the Cheesecake Factory is. There used to be a theater, I'm standing there, kind of walking, cop pulls up, two cops in a car. And they go, hey, you do mime? And I don't talk because they teach you, you don't talk with your mime. And I'm doing that. And he goes, do you talk? And I nodded my head, he goes, well, then start. That's what the cop said. And he said, if he said, you can't come down here and do this. It's against plaids regulations. If you come down and do a street show again and pass a hat like you did for money, we'll arrest you. We're not taking your money now. Okay, so where else can I go? Well, go to Westport. At that point, Westport isn't like it is now. Westport has so many bars and it was hopping, the place was packed. I knew, the cops knew me there. I would get such a big audience around me, it would stop traffic. And the cop would come up to me and he'd go, Dave, pass your hat, pass your hat, pass your hat and finish the show. That's how cool they were to me, pass your hat and finish the show. And it was, we got to get traffic moving. So I'd finish up, pass the hat and do the show. They never tried to bust my chops, the cops were great to me down there. And again, I was the only guy doing that. That was in 1980, yeah, 1978, 79 and 80. Nobody was doing that. So I was doing it and had a reputation. People would actually come down to Westport to see me do street shows. It was fun.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, just in that little story, right? Overcoming the fear, doing something that other people haven't done, overcoming the obstacle of people trying to prevent you from doing it and finding a way to still do it.
David Naster:Figuring out the way to do it. If I can't do that, what can I do here? So I can't go on cruise ships now because of COVID, what can I do? What I can do is take everything I've learned, put it on YouTube, have 62 classes, and then I wrote another book. That's what I can do. I always concentrate on what I can do, not what I can't do.
Dylan Carnahan:I say control the controllables.
David Naster:Yes, nice one. So what do you want to be when you grow up, Dylan? What do you want to be when you grow up?
Dylan Carnahan:Trying to figure that out.
David Naster:You will, you will. If you're looking for it, you will. And people want to know their purpose in life, and I can tell you real quick what your purpose in life, anybody's purpose in life is all the crap you've been through. And once you've figured out how to get through it, your purpose in life is helping other people do that. That's what your purpose in life is, is what you've been through, all that stuff that you've been through is there for a reason. We got to figure out what the reason is, or it wouldn't have happened. What happened to me in China? I don't know anybody on the planet that's happened to. I'm sure it has. I just haven't heard about it. But people, I tell that story and they go, ah, you're making that up. I go, no, I'm not making up a word of it. I mean, I was over there. Oh, by the way, everybody that I met in China, that wasn't her family. It was all set up. So guess what's coming out in the book? See what I mean? Yeah, you write a book about it, people go, people go, what? Did that really happen? Nah, I'm just making it up. But you figured out, if you know something's not right and you got to follow those, not instincts, those intuitions you have inside.
Dylan Carnahan:Intuition, yeah.
David Naster:Not instinct, intuition, two completely different words and meanings. But what's that intuition going, there's something I want to do here. OK, let's go do it and figure out what it is. And if it doesn't work, that usually leads to something else I want to do almost every time.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, intuition, huge.
David Naster:Huge. So here's how Patch Adams finished our interview and went to his house and interviewed him. He went, OK, I think you have enough. So OK, Dylan, I think you have enough.
Dylan Carnahan:Well, all right, then, we're done.
David Naster:Fine, we're done. Fine, see you later.
Dylan Carnahan:See you later.
David Naster:Get it.
Dylan Carnahan:That wraps up the interview with David Naster. I had a lot of fun talking to David. He draws from a lot of experiences he's had, and he's obviously a very funny individual as well. We talked about a lot of things over the course of our discussion. I'll just highlight a few things. We talked about the healing power of humor, how to battle fear by simply just doing something, finding joke material by hearing and seeing things, being aware of your environment and drawing from that, structuring of jokes in a simple to understand way. That way you can set up your audience for your punchline. We covered a lot in the podcast, but if you want to see additional information about David, I encourage you to go to his website, naster.com, to learn more about him and his You Just Have To Laugh, or YJHTL. David has his You Just Have To Laugh podcast, which you can find on his YouTube channel, as well as all streaming services. Additionally, he has his Naster classes that are available on YouTube, and I encourage you to go check out his material. He's constantly uploading great stuff there. Additionally, go check out Knock Kneed Sally on Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube, or even go to knockkneedsally.com to figure out more about where they're playing at in the area. Lastly, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on your preferred streaming platform, and check out the website at simplequestionspodcast.com for the latest information. With that said, thank you for listening, and remember to keep asking questions.