Go Know!

By Lydia Hope Wilen / New York City

Hello Insider readers. It’s been a while. Hopefully you’ve all survived the 2020 Toilet Paper Shortage and are thinking up ways to enjoy life and maybe to do what you always wanted to do.

I always wanted to do stand-up. Making people laugh was thrilling. But, growing up, I was told it was a lot more practical for women to earn a living. Decades later, having earned a living, I can now afford to get those laughs by doing stand-up.

It’s hard for me to believe that I’m in my so-called golden years. That being the case, I’m tired of all the old-folks jokes. Enough making fun of seniors walking into a room and forgetting why, or dropping something and before bending down to pick it up, thinking ‘Do I really need that?’ Then again, I can’t ignore the fact that the audience is going to see that I’m no spring chicken. (When was the last time you heard that expression?) Enough with the foreplay. Let’s go on with the show.

Stand-up Act Starter

I started noticing fine lines under my eyes. Nothing fine about them. And the deepening smile lines around my mouth were nothing to smile at. While wondering what to do about it, I was seduced into watching a seemingly-endless online infomercial, promising to repair and reduce the appearance of deep lines and wrinkles. Taking advantage of their six-jar offer, I ordered and received the advanced action, anti-aging, micro-sculpting, wrinkle repair cream.

Of course, I followed their suggested use by putting a nickel-size dab of cream on my finger and, using an upward motion, gently massaged it on the right side of my face until it was completely absorbed. Then I repeated the process on the left side of my face. As advised, I did this in the morning and at bedtime.

For 90 days I did: finger, dab, massage, absorbed; finger, dab, massage, absorbed. After three months, the lines on my face were as prominent as ever. However, my finger looked ten years younger.

Did you just fall on the floor laughing? Oh no! You’ve fallen and you can’t get up?

Any comedian will tell you how important it is to test out her material. And so, I enlisted my assistant Viv to listen to me do my wrinkle-remover bit. She laughed. I didn’t. Not because my punchline didn’t work, but because my voice changed. I didn’t realize the years-long gradual change in my voice, until I performed the finger bit for Viv. I’m starting to sound like Bill Clinton. That realization put an end to my stand-up career.

So now what?

I’ll write about people I know who are doing fun and funny things. For instance, there’s Arnie Levin, an on-in-years cartoonist for New Yorker magazine. He and a group of his elderly contemporaries, had a motorcycle gang. Hell’s Angels? Hell no! Arnie’s group called themselves, ‘Schlemiels on Wheels’. Funny, right?

Oh no! I can’t think of anyone else doing a fun or funny thing. What now?

Attention Span

Studies suggest that the average attention span has dramatically decreased since we moved into the age of digital devices. We’re talking about an average of way under 30 seconds. Are you still with me?

That being the case, I’ll do the rest of this essay with quickies – all kinds of “I didn’t know that” information and nothing longer than the average attention span.

Irony

The word for the fear of long words is (I dare you to pronounce it) hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

Cutting-Edge Safety Tip

Take the danger out of cutting a bagel in half by using a dull serrated knife, allowing you to have control as you saw through the dough.

Remember Riddles?

Here’s one that didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t come from my childhood:

I have keys but no locks. I have space but no room.

You can enter but you can’t go outside. What am I?

(Scroll all the way down for the answer . . . if you need it.)

No Laughing Matter

You can’t tickle yourself because your brain predicts the sensation and cancels it out.

Fact Followed By Fiction

Mount Rushmore

It took 14 years for sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his team to complete this South Dakota granite masterpiece featuring American presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Stamp of Approval

On July 13th, the price of a Forever stamp went from 73 cents to 78 cents. At the post office, one hundred stamps cost $78. Go to foreverstampsshop.com and you will have your choice of 100 Forever stamps starting at $19.99 – a 74% saving. You’re welcome

And Finally, Don't Forget. . .

• Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.

• Don’t look back and ask why. Look forward and ask why not.

• A way to be happy is to make others happy.

• If you learn from a mistake, it’s not one.

• Don’t always act your age.

• Have an attitude of gratitude.

• Try and fail, but don’t fail to try.

• Know that you’re unique

Thank you for spanning your attention my way!

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Riddle Solution: A computer. It has a keyboard, a space bar and an enter key.

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Lydia Hope Wilen began her professional career as a comedy writer on Personality, a celebrity-driven game show.  Her greatest gig was her extremely successful collaboration with her late sister Joany as nonfiction bestselling authors (18 books), which led to the sisters becoming  popular TV personalities. They continued as journalists (NY Daily News Sunday full-page feature, Celebrity Surveys for Cosmopolitan Magazine, cover stories for Parade Magazine) and got the opportunity to write and talent coordinate a Nickelodeon series hosted by Leonard Nimoy. The Wilens had an unusually versatile writing range from Reading Rainbow episodes, to off-color comedy skits for Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s TV show, Sexually Speaking, plus three optioned screenplays. And that's just for starters . . .