The milking phase

I've recently developed an even bigger love for milk. I've always been a big milk drinker but recently, I've found the need to start and end my day with a nice (read big) glass of milk.

Milk, it's one of those things that has a very healthy image attached to it. We see smart kids drinking it, we see strong people drinking it, we even have sayings with it ("Crying over spilt milk"). I wonder how it managed to earn so much respect and influence over mankind. Perhaps because it's one of the first things we drink when we're born? Or simply because of proper marketing on our part? Really makes you wonder about a lot of good things in life and how they got to be considered as good in the first place.

I mean, with my comedy, I have material that I personally thought was average, yet when I delivered it, it turned out to be hilarious! Was it because I was so de-sensitized by being over-exposed to that humor or was it that people just have a different sense of humor compared to me? I guess it's always good to have some sort of difference, after all, if we were all the same, there really wouldn't be much to make fun of or laugh about in my stand-up comedy routine in the first place.

The question is, how far do you milk your difference and try to use it to your advantage? What I'm saying is, at what point is it no longer good to point out people's differences? It's a rather odd way of thinking but I was just considering this this morning (yes I know I'm 1 day late for my Day 10 entry....) because I was recalling a very, very funny man called Dave Chappelle who (from my understanding) stopped his hit TV show Chappelle's Show because he felt he was no longer simply making fun of people's racial differences, but in a way was contributing towards racist thinking by pointing out people's racial differences. Sometimes I feel the same way. To me, I always believed that laughing about our differences is the best way to kind of bring it out into the open. Like instead of seeing these differences as taboo, bring them out proudly and boldly and let people know we all know about them! I mean, for my Cantonese stand-up, I very often do this since I pretty much know what Hong Kong people are thinking when they see an Indian person, so I literally bring up these points and kind of "answer" them. Stuff like "You're Indian right? Can you make snakes dance?" Ahahah no!!!! No I can't damnit! But I bring it up and people have a hearty laugh because of the fact that I took the higher ground of not only waiting for them to ask, but to give them an answer to a question they never thought I'd even know they were thinking about :). But at times, I feel bad, when I make fun of how sometimes Indian people are cheap-thinkers. I mean, I don't want people to get the idea that I'm ashamed to be Indian, if anything, I'm very proud to be Indian! I don't care what people associate Indians with, I'm happy to take the good with the bad any day!

I suppose as long as I know what my intentions are, then that's all that matters. So what is my point. That's a good point. I've been watching a lot of Curb Your Enthusiasm lately and it's really made me question everything and in some ways is a really good thing because now I'm noticing even more about what's going on around me! After doing stand-up comedy, I'd notice the funny things around me, but after watching this show, I've started noticing the potentially funny things around me which has really helped me a lot in my comedy writing abilities. So I guess there are so many things you can milk that sometimes it's hard to over-milk something, because if it can be milkable, that means you have overdone it. Maybe. Yes, this is an open-ended post. I'll have to think this over for the next 10 days.