A reader compliments Matt on his outrageous sense of humor.

Matt responds:

Thank you!

My overriding philosophy is, “If it ain’t fun, the hell with it!”We only have a certain time on this earth.  If we sit in a corner saying, “Woe is me...  I never asked to be born...  Why didn’t I do this or that...” it’s a lot about doing nothing.

I think life is really a comedy.  I think it’s foolish if we take ourselves and the world seriously, because we never know what’s going to happen.

Life is a minefield where any day, we may get blown down to hell or up to heaven.  We may as well be tiptoeing through the tulips rather than lamenting that we might get blown up.

I’ve always been attracted to humorists and storytellers.  It’s probably part of my Irish heritage.  When you’re ruled by people across the waves and you’re always wondering if your land is going to be taken away by somebody with more power, you tend to sit around and make the best of it—especially when you have some good Jameson to keep the tongue flapping!

But the story-telling tradition also goes with the Greeks and Italians and African Americans and the great Jewish sages and so on...  Every culture has its own great comedy.

I think being alive is serious.  I think we have to take our role in this world seriously, but I don’t think we should take ourselves seriously.

The animals that are floating around in my paintings—I tell them they’re the manifestation of the Marx Brothers...  Groucho with his cigar, mouthing, “Don’t worry about it—you’ll never get out of this world alive!”

That quote is great comedy, but it’s also great wisdom.

I’ve been blessed over many decades to sit in many places for numerous hours talking what might be considered jibberish.  But I feel it’s great wisdom.

The stories of real life as told by the great storytellers of the world, become philosophical axioms to me.  I believe they’re a different kind of prayer.

We have the solemn music of most religions, the dirges that take on the occasion of death...  but then there is great joyful and triumphal music...

Conversations are the same way.  I shun the “Woe is me” conversations, the “What the hell are we going to do about this now?” conversations.

I want to tiptoe through the tulips knowing there are bombs there to blow me up, thinking that if I go up, maybe I’m on my way to heaven.

So let’s keep tiptoeing and dancing, and we’ll have a great time.

Matt