All About Me! -- by Mel Brooks

 

This might be just the time to rediscover Mel Brooks and his kind. That kind that can always make you laugh. 

Mel Brooks and his 456 pages made me keep on reading and forget to turn on the TV. Even an old joke, or those that could be a bit corny certainly beat seeing a maternity ward blasted to kingdom come. Mel Brooks easily outguns Vladimir Putin, anytime. 

Reading through, I discovered that I had missed some of his work. Somehow I had missed seeing The Twelve Chairs, which I found on YouTube before going to bed. Some of his efforts were, of course, better than others, but this EGOT winner was consistent anywhere he went. His multi-media work netted him an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. You can look him up on IMDb, or read the book. Your choice.

 He was also married to and had four children with the alluring Anne Bancroft. Her passing in 2005 was naturally tough, but he found recovery through work on a Broadway version of The Producers. Mel Brooks is still with us, and I think we need more humorists of his worth, less or more, in this world hell-bent on destruction.

"Comedy is a weird but beautiful thing," Brooks said in closing. "Even though it seems foolish and silly and crazy, comedy has the most to say about the human condition. Because if you can laugh, you can get by. You can survive when things are bad if you have a sense of humor."

Brooks is up in his mid-90s, and he's likely noticed the war news coming from Kyiv, his mother's birthplace. I keep thinking it might help cheer up a lot of people if the original, uncut, Blazing Saddles found its way to the public, again.

We all know humor is good medicine.