Strong Ending: A Journey from Combat to Comedy
By: Audible Originals / Narrated By: Mary-Louise Parker
Length: 1 hr and 16 mins
If you can get past Mary-Louise-Mumbling? Gosh, this is just plain neat
I listened to Strong Ending right after finishing Charlie Mike. And whereas the latter book had me worried about each veteran and how they’d manage post-crises involvement, I didn’t worry about the veterans in the former. You see, the veterans who deployed to, say, post-earthquake Haiti were in a near constant adrenaline-rush, thinking slowed down for them, and they soooo ROCKED their service. -However- their wartime experiences and traumas were neither addressed nor come to terms with.
Good cow, those veterans neeeeeded, wait for it:
COMEDY!
Seriously
We meet primarily three veterans who signed up for a Veterans Stand-Up Comedy class and who worked to translate their experiences into full-fledged jokes. Starting with the basics, the meat and anatomy of how a joke is structured to go with timing and delivery, each vet starts off calm.
But it turns out that Stand-Up comedy requires its own form of bravery/courage; bravery on the battlefield is one thing; telling a joke in front of an audience who’ll be quite possibly judging? Totally different beast. I appreciated the narrative with veterans like Rob Riggle (Oh Rob, you were awesome as a Senior Correspondent on “The Daily Show”… sigh…) who said physical courage? No problem! Standing in front of an audience, holy cow.
Strong Ending follows the three veterans on their comedy journeys from seasoned professional to newbie going to perform at his first show.
But along with those three braaaaave individuals is the science of humor, expression, the very mechanics of laughter. Add how comedy has helped other people with difficulties such as Anxiety and OCD, and you’ve got one itty bit of an audiobook that has crammed a whole helluva LOT into barely over an hour of Listening time.
And I guaranTEE you’ll be feeling some cold feet yourself as newbie performer Patrick Harth aaaaalmost gives in to the jitters before actually stepping onto the stage and doing the 5-minute set he’s been working on. The Result? Not only does Patrick rock it (Tho’ I swear, and this is cold of me, there was some only polite tittering going on for what was featured of his set… I KNOW: I’m sitting in reeeeally tough Judgment! I’m a harsh room!), but he goes on, all elated, bitten by the Comedy Bug. Performance brings its own adrenaline rush, and airing darkest sorrows and fears and finding them funny, and OTHERS finding it all funny, is such a grand way of externalizing experience.
My favorite joke was seasoned war vet/Stand-Up Michael Garvey’s opener of the government giving him a sweet dog instead of actual medical attention; it was coffee-through-the-nose funny. This is the standard humor fare that you’ll find, along with interviews from various scientists and comedians, jocular music, and recordings of the acts themselves as they valiantly put themselves out there.
It’s a trifle odd that I felt so much more Hope for these guys than I did for the veterans who continue their service to humanity by racing from one adrenaline high in a disaster zone to the next.
I dunno; I didn’t like my childhood all that much, so I know, from having to do a bit of rebuilding, that one has to parse, quantify, reframe, and move on, preferably whilst getting a laugh at some later date. I’m sooo glad for these veterans, so happy for them, and listening to Patrick AFTER his performance?
AWESOME!
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