"Mark Klein"

Mark Klein is a comedy hero of Dr. Kuhn's. Cliff has known him for about as long as he's been hanging around humor, trying to learn how it works and how to channel it. Mark is one of his mentors and he was very honored to interview him.

Mark has performed in comedy clubs throughout the United States, in big rooms and small rooms. Labeled by GQ Magazine as the “King of the One-Night Stand Ups”; nobody does it better than Mark.

Dr. Kuhn: Who taught you when and how to laugh?

Mark Klein: I don’t know that anyone has to be taught to laugh, they could be trained out of laughing by being negatively reinforced for what they are laughing at.

I was blessed to grow up in a very funny family. If you come to Thanksgiving at my

When I meet people that their experience does not include that in their childhood, to me it’s completely foreign to not have that around me all the time. It’s the way I grew up and I try to create that kind of home for my child as well.

Dr. Kuhn: Do you remember how you made the decision to choose making people laugh as your career?

Mark Klein: I lost my wrestling scholarship in the Northeast and I started telling jokes in strip joints in Syracuse and Utica , New York for the mafia, and my real name is Geno Rebeda. I am a leg breaker for the Bambino family and I’ve been in comedy witness protection for 24 years now and it’s been a great thing.

I was in college and a comedy show came through and Robert Klein and Lily Tomilin are performing a college tour. To tell you how long ago - it was 1973 or 74. I went to

Dr. Kuhn: Can you share anything from your experience now or over the years that would illustrate humor’s power to heal or help you personally or anybody that is close to you?

Mark Klein: From a performers standpoint I can tell you that when your on stage nothing that is wrong with you is wrong with you when you are up there.

When I am doing my stand up show, whether it is a corporate event or a comedy night club, if I have a cold, if I have an arthritic knee, or whatever it is, a receding hairline we cannot help you with and I am sorry about that, but whatever it is that is bothering me in terms of illness I don’t feel it when I am performing. I am not aware of it on stage. The flu from hell may snap back on me 30 seconds after I get off stage, but when I am up there my sinuses are clear, my throat feels good and I can do my show. It has tremendous therapeutic affects as a performer on me. Forget what it does to the audience.

I have had people come up to me after the show and the most gratifying thing someone can say to me as a comedian is, “I really needed this show tonight.” And there is someone like that out there, you don’t know what table they are at, but almost every show you do there is someone that was there not because they are comedy fans, not because they have heard you on the radio - they are there because they really do need that.

If you are living a life that is not trauma ridden, or with crises, or going from one personal disaster from the next, you forget that there are people out here who desperately need the gift of laughter in their lives. Since I don’t feel poorly on stage while they are laughing for 45 minutes to an hour, all of their problems are gone. It’s not much but it’s an hour of their life that I can make trouble free if I am doing my job correctly.

Dr. Kuhn: I think it’s a lot, and you’re not the first performer whose experienced that freedom from symptomatology - I guess you can call it -while performing.

You know it has been said that America has lost her sense of humor and by that I think

Mark Klein: There are more people making their living as professional comedians than ever before, there are more stand up comedy venues now than ever before. No way, shape, or form is America losing it’s sense of humor because the ability to put comedy in front of people is a hallmark of the Western democracies - of which we are the leaders in the world.

Not to be jingoistic about it or overly flag waving, but I am telling you there are no comedy clubs in Colombia, Katar, Algeria, Morocco or Syria. None of the Arab countries, none of the Pacific Rim countries, none of these people, even the ones with democracies, have what we have in the Western democracies. Which is a tradition of expression of ideas, thought and, notions to the use of humor and laughter.

No way by my observations is America losing its sense of humor. What has happened, which makes us want to see that or want to believe that is that we live in such an age where media is omnipresent and the more divisive an issue is the more the chance it has of getting in our media.

We are bombarded constantly with extreme issue driven, agonizing arguments, pro or con, on every little issue that comes down the road. An endangered species, poison air, prejudice - real or imagined - and it just wears on you, it grinds you down to think, “Gosh, where’s our sense of humor?”

Well that area expands too, but because bad news is better than good news in terms of selling newspapers and TV, because Fox News and CNN cover Lacy Peterson and Gary Condit more than they cover the person who got off the plane safely. Yes, bad news is always in your face so it feels as though we are becoming more humorless, but no way we are.

Dr. Kuhn: Well said. Hey, when you discover that you personally may be taking yourself too seriously or that you need to laugh, what works for you, what makes you laugh?

Mark Klein: I look at my left hand and on the ring finger on that hand is a wedding ring. Whenever men takes themselves too seriously, if he is in the position of being married, he need to only look at his finger and say to his wife something that gets him out of the corral a little bit and he will be put back with his humility intact.

I try not to take myself too seriously - Mrs. Klein helps in that regard. There are a lot of characteristics of our home that help like humor, and self-deprecation, and being humble enough to know that no one is perfect. But proud enough to be part of that family and that is how we live.

Dr. Kuhn: If you had to give up all of the skills and resources you depend on for humor, keeping only one, which skill would you retain above all others? Just to feed your sense of humor or to expand it.

Mark Klein: I’ve lost about 12 minutes on my circumcision. I think that is what I would keep. Let that be the point of departure, if you will, in which all the rest could spring.

That is a hell of a question doc. The one thing I would keep would be the fountain head of my humor since I was a child, which are my family and my family stories about my relationship with my father and the relationship with my son. Just that well of familial good feeling. That’s where it comes from, that’s the part of my show that means the most to me, that’s the part I would keep.

Dr. Kuhn: Mark, if someone tells you that you can’t laugh because of pain, fear, or stress in their life, what steps would you recommend for them to revive their sense of humor?

Mark Klein: You’ve got to stop being such a big sissy. We are all in pain, get over it.

Would I presume to tell anyone to move beyond their pain or their personal crises? There are some things you can teach, there are some things you can learn, and there are some areas each of us has that nobody can get inside, our corner where no one is going to shed any light unless it comes from inside us - and you know that much better with your psychiatric background than I ever will with my comedy background.

When a person is at that point in their life, the changes that have to be made to bring them around are inner and profound and I don’t think these are changes that you can make by telling them the right joke at the right time or by putting on a red spongy nose and doing a tap dance and trying to fake their way through it.

I think when people are at that point the problems run to a depth that’s beyond my limited ability to reach. I hope not, but you never know. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking of the therapeutics of humor because I don’t want to kill it with analyses. I don’t want to agonize over why something is funny to someone or why it helps him or her. If I begin to think to much about that then I think you lose part of what makes it funny and that I can’t let go of.

Dr. Kuhn: I think it was Mark Twain, or maybe it was E.B. White, anyway it was one of those that said that analyzing humor

In reference to what you last said, I have a psychiatric background and you have a humor background. I don’t ever pretend to be as good as you are at what you do. You already said that you would defer to me or certain issues such as psychiatric, but as someone interested in advocating humor for health purposes what can I do to help you be the most affective and successful in your work. What could I do to help?

Mark Klein: This is something that I have thought about in a different sense, but it is really the same question.

I know a lot of comedians out there struggle very hard to make a living; some of them don’t make a living at it. All of them want to be stars, they want to be comedians, and they want to make people laugh for a living. A very privileged few have the fortune and the opportunities to actually turn that into reality.

I want to tell the guys that are busting their butt to make a living at it, “You have a rarer talent than heart surgery.” There are more licensed cardiologists in this country than there are working professional comedians. What you do is a rarer talent and gift than open heart surgery and on the days that you are doing a one nighter in Decanter, Illinois for a low dough and an agent you cant stand, that’s what you have to hold on to for that 8 hour drive - that you do have something special and worthwhile.

In the same sense I think its very good for people who bring humor to others to know you can’t see it and you can’t touch it and sometimes you can’t even stack it up in the bank. But it has value; it has worth and means more to some people than you will ever know. Because not all of them get the chance to tell you what it meant to them. It is like any other business you will hear the complaints, but what you don’t hear as many times are the things you really did right and what you hold on to in that regard is - this has meaning and value to people, it is worth an awful lot, it’s not tangible in a lot of ways. But the most important things about it that are meaningful and worthwhile are the things that you are never going to see and touch - and that makes it harder to hang on to, but it also makes it a more special gift.

Dr. Kuhn: It sounds like what you are saying is that I could be useful as an advocate of live comedy performances.

Mark Klein: I don’t manage your portfolio Cliff, but I’m probably not the guy to address that. I think anyone who tries to bring joy to others certainly is useful in the world.

Dr. Kuhn: I want to thank you. You certainly do bring joy to others and, speaking professionally, I hope you keep doing it for a long time.

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