May 1, 2025

Blind Comedy: Breaking Barriers Through Laughter

Blind Comedy: Breaking Barriers Through Laughter

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Ever wondered what it's like to navigate the world without sight? Meet Jean Marckley, a 79-year-old blind comedian who's turning stereotypes upside down one punchline at a time.

"What's it like to be blind?" people often ask Jean. Her response? "Well, everybody close your eyes. Yep, that's it." With disarming wit and wisdom gained from nearly seven decades of blindness, Jean takes us on an enlightening journey through her experiences—from strangers yelling at her (because apparently blindness affects hearing?) to well-meaning friends who insist on opening car doors (inadvertently making it harder for her to navigate).

Through her production company "Three Comics and a Dog," Jean performs at venues across Florida, using humor to educate audiences about visual impairment while proving that blind people are just as capable, independent, and funny as anyone else. "I'm hoping when people walk away from my comedy shows, they'll start to see blind people in a different light," she explains. Beyond the comedy clubs, Jean is developing her speaking career for corporate events, where she can reach decision-makers and influence workplace inclusivity.

Perhaps most fascinating is Jean's insight into the healing power of laughter itself. As a certified laughter yoga leader, she explains how hearty laughter stimulates our lymphatic system, effectively boosting immunity and improving sleep quality. So next time you're feeling down, Jean's prescription is simple: find something that makes you laugh—it might be the best medicine you take all day.

Want to experience Jean's unique blend of humor and education? Reach out to her at jmarckleyhaha@gmail.com and discover how laughter can change perspectives about blindness while healing both body and spirit.

Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600

00:00 - Meet Jean Markley: Comedian and Speaker

04:02 - Life as a Blind Person

08:44 - Comedy About Blindness and Aging

11:42 - Speaking Career and Corporate Goals

15:21 - Three Comics and a Dog

20:51 - The Healing Power of Laughter

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Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball, if you believe you can achieve.

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Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire.

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Where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire.

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This person that I am joined by today is a truly amazing person.

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You know she's done a lot in her life.

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She was a former yoga teacher.

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Now she is a speaker and a comedian.

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So we're going to be talking to her about everything that she's up to and what she's going to be up to in the future.

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Ms Jean Markley, thank you so much for joining me today.

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Well, thank you for having me, Curtis.

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It's a pleasure to be here and it's so nice to see that you're doing this with your life now with the podcast.

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Yeah, it's all about teaching, motivating and inspiring.

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So why don't you start off by telling the listeners a little bit about yourself?

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Well, as you said, my name is Jean Markley.

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I'm originally from Long Island, new York, and I have done many different things in my life.

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I have created workshops to help deal with stress, build self-esteem.

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I owned a futon shop for several years.

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I taught laughter yoga, which is just plain laughter, and one of the things that I always like to do is make people laugh, make people feel better about themselves than they did before they were talking to me.

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And so when I was a little girl there may be some people in your audience that remember Sid Caesar and he used to have Imogene Coca on there and I used to imitate her doing some of her comedy and my father and mother would just be laughing hysterically.

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And I used to imitate her doing some of her comedy and my father and mother would just be laughing hysterically and I loved it.

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A few years ago I think it was actually seven years ago my youngest daughter and I took a class at McCurdy's Comedy Institute here in Sarasota, florida, and when I got up on the stage to do the five minutes they call it class comedy I was hooked.

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I loved being the center of attention.

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I loved making people laugh, center of attention.

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I loved making people laugh and I just I just can't tell you how fulfilling it was for me to do that and but also some corporate talks that I can do at different companies and colleges and things like that, but to help people to understand that blind people are really not any different than anybody else.

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We don't have to be treated differently.

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We have a sense of humor, we understand what's going on in the world at least as much as we want to understand what's going on in the world, and I'm hoping that when people walk away from one of my comedy shows that they will start to see blind people and visually impaired people in a different light.

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I have noticed in my lifetime I've been blind since ten and a half years old.

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I'm now 79, and I've noticed that the general population has an idea of what it's like to be blind and that we're not smart, we're not able to do many things that sighted people can do to take care of themselves.

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I lived by myself for a while and took care of my two-bedroom apartment and my guide dog and the cooking and the cleaning and all that stuff.

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I just used different tools to be able to do that.

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Thank God for all this computer stuff now, because this has definitely made my life easier and I'm sure for many other people too, when I was in college and had to write papers with a typewriter and then somebody would proofread it for me.

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Well, by the time you get done with the proofreading, you can't put the paper back in the typewriter and fix any of the typos.

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So it took a lot more time to get things done back then.

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Now you just find the errors on your computer and just fix it before it even gets printed out.

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So the idea that we need to be talked to louder, I'm sure that's happened to many people.

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Curtis, I'm sure it's happened to you too.

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It just happened to me the other day, as a matter of fact.

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The woman started yelling at me, because I'm sure it's happened to you too.

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It just happened to me the other day.

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As a matter of fact.

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The woman started yelling at me because I'm blind and I said you don't have to raise your voice, I can hear you, and I don't say it in a mean way, I say it so that she understands that she doesn't have to do that, and it's more of an education thing.

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She doesn't have to do that and it's more of an education thing.

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So as part of my humor, I say things about being blind.

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Some of the questions I get are what's it like to be blind?

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And my answer to that is well, let me just think now.

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Oh, I know, I know Everybody.

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I know, I know Everybody.

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Close your eyes, yep, that's it.

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And somebody had to tell you that.

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And how long have you been blind?

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And do blind people's other senses?

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Are they more acute than sighted people's other senses?

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And how did you lose your eyesight?

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And all kinds of questions that when you get right down to it, it's really none of anybody's business, especially when you've just when you haven't even met the person.

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I um.

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I also talk about how frustrating it can be to to uh and my frustration level is usually right around an eight, so it doesn't take too much to get me up to a 10 and put me over the edge.

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And one of the examples I give about that is when I go someplace, like to the clubhouse, where people know me and I know them, and I walk in the clubhouse and they say, oh hi, jean, how are you?

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And I say, oh hi, who is that?

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And they say, don't you recognize my voice?

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And I say no, I don't recognize your voice.

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If I did, I wouldn't say who is that?

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Did?

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I wouldn't say who is that right?

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And then I find myself strangling some little old lady because she put me over the edge with my frustration level, and I also talk about having a dog and some of the things that the dog does for me.

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But it's all done with a great deal of humor.

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And since I am 79 years old, I also talk about some of the aging things.

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Like, my children tell me that as I've gotten older, I have become more.

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I've gotten more mellow.

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As I've gotten older, I've gotten more mellow.

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And I say mellow, no, I just don't give a darn.

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And so I'm hoping that I will be well known enough that I can reach more people and get the word out there that blind people are fun.

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I'll give you an example of something that happened to me when I got my first guide dog.

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I had a little bit more vision well, actually a lot more eyesight then than I do now and we were working at a mall, and so when the trainer is working with another individual, they just have us sit and wait for them to get back and then they'll work with us.

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So I was sitting and my dog was just laying at my feet just like he's supposed to, and this couple came by and said oh how beautiful.

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And so I just reached my hand up and patted my hair and said oh well, thank you.

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Well, they just didn't know what to do with that.

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They didn't laugh.

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I don't know what they thought, like a blind person has a sense of humor.

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This is weird, and I knew they were talking about my dog.

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I knew they weren't talking about me.

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I was just making a joke.

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So, as I said, I am hoping that I can help to make people more comfortable around blind people and get them to understand that we are just like anybody else.

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Absolutely, and it's great that you are doing that and it's great that you have that kind of sense of humor to where you can joke with people and try to educate them on these type of things.

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You're also a speaker, so you know kind of let the listeners know what made you want to become a speaker and what you actually speak about.

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I am grooming.

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I am being groomed right now to be a speaker.

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I haven't had any speaking jobs yet, but I will shortly.

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And the difference between the comedy and the speaking is that it's very obvious that I have a message group.

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I am a blind person telling them what it's like to be blind and that's what they are there for.

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And I just add the humor to it for the purpose of getting people to understand that we are people also and we don't require any different treatment than anybody else.

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One of the things that I find, curtis and I don't know if you find this also, even with some of my best friends when they pick me up to go somewhere and they'll open the car door for me and I'll say you don't have to do that, I can open a car door, and they say, oh, no, no, no, I don't mind, I don't mind.

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And then I tell them you know, when you open up the car door, I no longer know where the door is.

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I can find the car, I can find the door handle, but if you open it for me, I don't know where the door is and I could walk right into the corner of the door and then they start to get it.

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I will be honest with you.

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The reason that I want to do the public speaking is because corporate speaking is where the money is.

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They pay me to speak, they pay my expenses to get there and get back.

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If I need to stay overnight, they pay those expenses.

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Comedy clubs pay practically nothing.

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Comedy clubs pay practically nothing.

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I've done 10 minutes of comedy for $25, and I've done 10 minutes of comedy for $100, so it just depends on where I am, but it's not so much the money as the expense of getting there, because I have to have somebody drive me, obviously, and so I'm paying for their gas or their time or buying them dinner or whatever.

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So it would be nice to at least break even.

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And I think that when speaking at an event, a corporate event, when speaking at an event, a corporate event, the audience is more receptive to what I am telling them.

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And they're not eating and drinking at the same time, especially the drinking.

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That makes an audience not as receptive laugh at a joke but they're not going to get the underlying message that I am trying to put out there, Absolutely.

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And you just kind of answered my next question.

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I was going to ask where you do your comedy and stuff like that.

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So you actually go to comedy clubs and do your comedy.

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Yes, and I did start a production company of my own.

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It's called Three Comics and a Dog, because I have a guide dog.

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Well, up until today, I just retired her today.

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Today, and there's here in Florida you know, this is God's waiting room, right and there's lots of RV parks and mobile home parks here where people come for the winter and they have club houses and they want to have shows, and sometimes it's music, sometimes it's dancing and sometimes it's comedy.

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So I have booked us at several venues Locally.

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I've also been booked at the Villages, which is a pretty famous place down here in Florida for senior living, and when I was still out in Arizona I did some comedy at the VFW and the American Legion and I haven't done that here because they just don't do that here.

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Okay, well, let the listeners know about any upcoming projects that you and Three Comics and a dog are up to right now we don't have anything booked because this is the end of the season and most of the venues are booking things for high season, which is january through march, and I'm working on next year I will be at the Encore RV Resort in Bradenton, florida.

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I don't have the exact date yet.

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It'll be in January and I will be at another resort, but that's closed.

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So a lot of the things that I do are closed to the general public.

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I did do a show the other night at my church.

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Two or three times a year we have a show it's called Clean Comedy for a Cause and it's to raise money for a specific purpose.

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This past Sunday we were raising money for Celebrate Recovery and I was not the headliner.

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I did 10 minutes of comedy and there were three other comics and then the headliner, who was Dale Jones, who was phenomenal, and that is, of course, open to the general public, but most of the shows that I do are not, because it's just for the residents of the resort.

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Got any plans of taking your act around the country or the world, or you just want to kind of stay?

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local.

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I would do the act other places, but I don't want to be a traveling entertainer because the travel is just so daunting to me anymore.

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It might be my age, it might be being blind, it might be all of the above, but getting to an airport and getting to the hotel and so on and so forth, and then finding my way around the room in the hotel and I think I'm just getting old and cranky.

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Curtis, if I'm going to be in Connecticut, for example, I have a daughter that lives in Westbrook, connecticut I would look for something to do there.

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And if I'm going to be out in Arizona area, near Phoenix, well then I could look for something to do there.

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But it's not my desire to be traveling all over the place.

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If they pay me enough, then I can have an assistant with me.

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It's like I said.

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It's not that I want to make a lot of money, I just want to make enough to cover expenses, and some of those and part of those expenses is the transportation.

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Most definitely, and so listeners can keep up with everything that you're up to or going to be up to in the future.

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Throw out your contact info.

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I no longer have a website.

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I found it so daunting to keep the website up to date.

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Keep the website up to date, and so I have my email address, which is jmarkleyhaha at gmailcom.

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I can spell that out it is j-m-a-r-c-l-e-y-h-a-H-A at gmailcom and I will answer anybody's inquiries into about my comedy, whether it's corporate or doing a comedy show.

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I'll close this out with some final thoughts.

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Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about, that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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Well, yes, actually Laughter is so beneficial and I don't think people really understand how that works.

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When I was certified as a laughter yoga leader, I learned that the process of laughing moves muscles in your belly, that helps to move around the fluid in your lymphatic system and that's your immune system.

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And so when doctors say, or when you hear the expression, laughter is the best medicine, they are not kidding.

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It is excellent medicine.

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If you laugh heartily for 30, 40, 50 minutes an hour, you will sleep better and you're boosting your immune system.

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And so, people who are feeling kind of down maybe you have low energy just go on YouTube or someplace like that they have so so many comedians and just start listening many comedians and just start listening, watching them and just laugh Right.

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Ladies and gentlemen, one final question.

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Have you ever thought about doing a live stream with your comedy stuff?

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I'm not sure that I would know exactly how to do that.

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Curtis, that's kind of techie for me.

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How would I do that?

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Well, do you have social media, Facebook, YouTube, anything like?

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that.

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Yeah, I do have Facebook.

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Well, there's a go live button on there whenever you want to do a post.

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You could go live and just do little shows there.

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Oh well, that's interesting.

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I don't know if I would be able to do that because I, like, I need the feedback from the audience.

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You know I need to hear the laughter, but I guess I could probably do.

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You know, two or three minutes of things maybe.

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Yeah, I will let you, maybe I will let you know.

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I will let you know if I do that.

00:22:03.903 --> 00:22:11.020
Yeah, it doesn't have to be nothing too crazy, just a little thing and you could increase your reach and people get to know more about you.

00:22:11.682 --> 00:22:12.284
That's true.

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That's true.

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Well, thank you for that suggestion.

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I appreciate it.

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I am taking a workshop right now, a comedy workshop, and that is one of the things that they will be touching on.

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It's all on Zoom, which is so nice.

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Absolutely yes.

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Well, ladies and gentlemen, check out Jean Markley and everything that she's up to.

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If you're in her location you know down in Florida please go check her out.

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Jump on your favorite podcast app, follow the show.

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Share this episode to as many people as possible.

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For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, visit wwwcurveball337.com.

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Thank you for listening and supporting the show, jean.

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Thank you for all that you're doing to make us all laugh and make the world a better place.

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Thank you for joining me the show, jean.

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Thank you for all that you're doing to make us all laugh and make the world a better place, and thank you for joining me.

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Thank you so much, Curtis.

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For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, visit wwwcurveball337.com.

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Until next time, keep living the dream.