Dad, King of Comedy…

Growing up in a highly opinionated, and comedic laden, Latin household you would think that new jokes would present themselves often and we would all, in a sense, “TEST” our new material out on each other in the house but then sometimes you get caught up with your “big hit.”

My dad…he’s the classic “greatest hits” joke teller–you know what I mean by greatest hits joke teller, the joke your pop tells you EVERY-TIME he sees you and laughs like it was just crafted? My pop seems to think it always works because we all laugh but the fact of the matter is…no, it’s not at all funny anymore. The joke has lost it’s luster but nobody wants to hurt a dad’s feelings by telling him, “Dude, you need new jokes.” So us sons and daughters let it slide and just chuckle with him…all the while deep inside we’re cringing and goosebumps are running up and down our body.

The “Oath”

As a new dad myself, I vowed to NEVER catch myself in this dad cycle of stale jokedom. I have made a solemn oath to myself to NEVER recycle the stale and consistently exercise the noodle to come up with new and cutting edge zingers. The last thing I need, for my ego, is my daughter looking at me like she would rather watch grass grow or tell her friends (or me for that matter) how embarrassed I make her because my jokes NEVER change.

Think Change Or Else…

So, how do I plan to change this? I don’t really know yet but I would think that I should strip it down to the bare essentials. Here’s what I came up with to start:

1. I can’t over think it, I need to explore the joke-o-sphere.
2. Bomb, but bomb with grace or fail big all together and laugh at myself. A new idea may present itself just in that. Failure equals success right? Can’t have hits without misses.
3. Limit myself when I get a reaction to the “Hit” joke and learn from it, build and file away mentally why it worked.

Let’s be honest, we’re all going to be jokesters with our families but it’s up to us to be the cool cutting edge joke dad so our kids will think to themselves, “How does this guy think of this stuff?” A dad’s mission is to keep the family on their toes and alert. Got any additional ideas dads?

This is today’s Trials of Being Dad!

PS: Dad, please don’t be mad, I DO love your jokes! Kisses & Hugs.

Michael J. Carrasquillo is a NYC musician, filmmaker, speaker, organizer of NYC Media Makers & new father. He blogs at Issue De ‘Quillo and produces a podcast called “The Trials of Being Mike” and an upcoming podcast called “moments”. You can follow him on Twitter @mjcarrasquillo.