When you’ve experienced trauma, anxiety or upset, laughter can be an effective way to distract from the issues you are facing.
And with US ventriloquist/entertainer/comedian David Strassman’s home town of Ojai, California, devastated by storms in mid-January, causing widespread flooding, slips and several deaths, with homes destroyed and people displaced, he has full empathy for what New Zealand is going through after its own recent foul weather.
It’s led him to offer free tickets to his upcoming shows - The Chocolate Diet - for those areas he is performing in that have been hit badly by our recent weather events. There are two Whangārei performances on Saturday .
Strassman said he knows just what the country is going through after some people in Ojai lost everything in the town’s devastation. So he’s putting up 100 free tickets for the second Whangārei show on Saturday, and all people who have been effected by the recent foul weather have to do is go to his website - www.davidstrassman.com - to register and it’s first in first served.
Strassman said at times of stress and upset laughter is a good distraction and he hoped that giving away free tickets for the recently-announced second show - the first one on Saturday was sold out weeks ago - would provide some light relief for those hit hard by the weather.