empathy as punishment; the hammer under the desk — "This even though, as the speaker’s…"

The inverted economy of the AA audience: the polished performer who "supplies what he thinks the audience wants" is annihilated by two hundred people dying of embarrassment for him, while the terrified Complaint-Department drunk who confesses hiding under his desk pounding a hammer at every knock brings the house down — precisely because "it was just the truth" and he had no idea it was funny. The room rewards nakedness and punishes calculation; the only way to "go over" is to have no design on going over at all. Comedy and pathos both land only when unintended.