For years, I've been trying to figure out the success of the Brobdingnagian Bards. What I found was when we were on, we were ON. We blew people away. This usually happened at big venues like DragonCon where we had an audience to work with. Then something incredible happened. It was like magic.

Yet, I've never been able to pinpoint what it was that was so awesome. Yes. Andrew and I have great chemistry on stage. But that never explained the flops. “If I Had a Million Ducats” was the perfect example. It's by far one of our most-popular songs. It relies on audience interaction and our own creativity with their interaction. However, it is one of the songs that has yielded the most-dismal… and the most-exulted response from our audiences.

But why? I think I finally figured it out thanks to reading Steve Martin's biography Born Standing Up.

I loved Steve Martin growing up. He has my sense of humor. I like to joke that I am one of the funniest people in the world… to my dad and my sister. We all share the same bizarre sense of humor. I think Steve Martin would probably enjoy my humor too. It's a bit off the wall, very non-conventional.

You see, I'm not big into the big laughs. I don't do that. Nor does my dad. We laugh quietly to ourselves. For that matter, I don't want a big laugh. It's exhausting. I like laughing to myself.

I think of the number of times we've performed “Ducats”. I love taking the two things least likely to make sense and put them together. It doesn't always work… Maybe, it often doesn't work. Who knows. But that was the kind of comedy Martin had.

Steve Martin was a philosophy major. He got the cool comedy idea to create climax… and never release it. Or to combine two things that just don't make sense and mash them together.

Admittedly, I've never been comfortable with that. Which may be the reason I always cringed when “Ducats” flopped. It's possible it was just as funny, but just hung there, climaxed with no release… What do you do with that?

Hmm. As I think on it more, I remember other songs that are similarly bizarre. They're not, as I remember a scene from a high school play, “Ha ha” funny. They're just weird funny.

Classic examples of Marc Gunn comedy: “Monkeys Over Mongolia” or “If I Were a Horse”. They're not funny. They're bizarre.

It's kinda reassuring to know that we aren't alone in our wackiness. It's also nice to see one of the reasons why we developed such a rabid fan base over the years, and why I can't wait for another Bards Reunion at DragonCon in 2014.