Morning Tea with Bharat Express: A Lyons Persona of Humor

Being a class clown in high school who knew one day would be a career option.

The people who once in their schooling days used to be the fun factor of their class were said to be the notorious ones and the teachers used to tell them to “get serious else how are you planning to make it”.

They even used to Plant fear in the minds of the kids that keeping this kind of behavior won’t take them anywhere.

Anyways, those are the bygone days and there is a proverb “let bygone be bygone” as now things have changed the world has moved on a lot.

Standup comedy now is also a career option and not only the class clowns but all the class toppers and study freaks are also trying their hand in it.

So now the question is ‘were you the class clown in high school? Always the life of any party?’

As Paul Lyons is a professional comedian for more than 30 years. He’s taught countless other working comics, most notably Jim Gaffigan, who has been a regular in clubs and on TV talk shows for three decades.

“If someone isn’t naturally funny, he gets them to work with that, to use their seriousness or drollness as their persona”. “As long as you know your limitations and play with that, you can be funny,” don’t ever worry about looking silly, said Lyons.

Lyons told about his early life in a very humorous way in one of his stand ups he says,

“When I was 26 years old, my wife and I were in marriage counseling. She was annoyed that the therapist was more intrigued about my being a stand-up comic than about our problems,” he said. “On the day she asked me to move out, I was scheduled to emcee at Catch a Rising Star that night, a very prestigious club. I was devastated, and who was in the first row? Our marriage counselor!!”

Lyons, who said he grew up in “a blue collar section of Bryn Mawr, a small town in Pennsylvania, USA” kept the jokes running when asked about education.

“I am proud to say I was valedictorian,” he said. “But I was home-schooled.”

“Well, back then they called it ‘suspended’,” he continued. “OK, seriously, folks, I went to Radnor High School.”

His career wasn’t always the same he faced many challenges many ups and downs but still he didn’t give up. He took cleaning jobs, car waxing jobs even became a teacher and there were days when he used to get dressed up in Cupid gear with a loin cloth and wings with a bow and arrow, and he would show up in office buildings and sing original, personal songs to office workers.

During all this the one thing that never changed was his passion towards standup comedy. After three years of that, he decided to give stand-up another try.

“This time he really didn’t care about getting the big break, he just wanted it to be fun and somewhat lucrative,” “for 22 years now, it has been a wonderful journey. I do a lot of cruise ships, and visit Alaska, Hawaii, Cozumel and Europe. Lyons loves it.”

Stand-up comedy is not really a career for a rational person; right?

“I’ll tell you the secret to comedy; it is knowing that no one is rational.”

Do you have to be a masochist to be a stand-up comic?

“You certainly need to handle disappointment and embarrassment, being humble really helps.”

Today the world is moving towards Humor industry as after a long day’s work, an all nighters or even businessmen tend towards humor as its relifs all the stress to an extent.

People like Paul Lyons make it possible to forget about things everything for a short while and enjoy their life.