By Ryszard Krasowski
According to generic research, there are no two people who are alike. Even identical twins, although they are called identical, are different.
But a comedian and a politician seem to contradict this theory. Maybe they don’t look alike, but striking similarities in their way of behaving and expressing themselves are indisputable and shouldn’t surprise anyone who is looking for identicality.
Both of them are convinced that they are stars, admired by whoever listens or wants to listen to them. They perform their acts on a stage because they want to be seen by everybody from any angle of the room. If they are young, they walk from the back of the stage to the front and center of it, but if they are older, they run, trying to convince everyone that they are still in a good physical shape.
Both of them approach a microphone and immediately they correct its height. They move it up or down, although it is placed at the right height from the floor to their mouth. Sometimes they take it off the stand and walk the stage with it, and then put it back as if it was too heavy to carry.
They are greeted by the audience with clapping, whistling, yelling, calling their name, and they return the favor by pointing their index finger at randomly chosen participants of the event and whisper “thank you” to them.
Both performers make speeches that are prepared by somebody else earlier and they learned them by heart. From time to time, they improvise, but it depends on how the audience reacts to what they say and how they say it. In order to not to make their speeches boring, there are jokes, with a punch line included in them.
The comedian usually makes fun of his friends, mother-in-law, wife and people who make key decisions that concern our everyday life. His mocking of others is to show that he sees things that other people don’t notice or don’t want to see.
That’s why those who go to see the comedian are amused by the cleverness of the performer who points out obvious things that they come across every day but somehow these things escape their attention.
The politician seems to be clever, too. His speech is prepared in a way that’s supposed to convince his constituencies how to live their lives. He uses a lot of flowery words that not everybody understands, but he gets a lot of clapping and yelling in return, which makes him very proud of his performance.
People admire him even if he doesn’t make any sense, but if he notices any confusion he quickly changes his scripted speech into jokes, mocking, calling names — and that way he lets the audience know that he is all the way with them, that he understands their feelings, that he doesn’t think only about himself as the one who is admired but admires everybody who listens to him. He is leveling with his supporters.
The comedian and the politician use hand gestures to make their speeches more convincing and to make the audience feel that they care about what they are talking about, because each gesture is supposed to underline importance of their words. They point a finger at you — which means they are talking directly to you. They are slicing the air with one or two hands, what looks like conducting an orchestra, and that you should take their speech as a music for your ears.
They want you to use your brain when touching their temple with an index finger, or they want to convince you of someone else’s stupidity.
From time to time, the comedian doesn’t mince his words, which makes some of his listeners flabbergasted and confused, but they laugh because their neighbors laugh. After all, they are at a comedy show.
The politician restrains himself from using foul words, but the ones he uses are very close to making your hair stand on end.
There is a little difference in these two individuals. While the comedian performs on the stage in his shirt and he sweats a lot, the politician wears a suit and a tie, which is supposed to make him to look above the average.
But, at the end, they talk through their hats.
Ryszard Krasowski is a resident of Hampton Bays.
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