Danish singer and entertainer Niels Hausgaard, 82, talked about the principles he has gathered over a long life in the P1 radio program “Brinkmanns Briks,” from red carpets to doubt and the limits of humor.
DR reports that Hausgaard is a guest this week on the P1 program “Brinkmanns Briks.” The conversation covers the principles and life experience he has collected over the years. Hausgaard has performed his satire and songs since the 1970s.
One of those principles concerns red carpets. According to DR, Hausgaard says that when he is asked to walk one, he answers that he will not if everyone is not allowed to. He is not angry about it, but the idea runs against his view that no one should be left out.
He also eats organic food, which he notes is not always a popular position in the parts of North Jutland where he moves. As reported by DR, the argument he meets is that people cannot taste the difference. His reply is that they should not have to, and that he cares about it because he considers it important.
Belief replaced by doubt
Hausgaard tells the program that principles are chosen rather than something a person has in advance. They grow out of experience gathered over the years. As a young man he was sent to a reform institution, away from his family and his upbringing in the Indre Mission movement.
There he began to question the claims that had told him what was right and wrong. He now says he is skeptical toward almost everything and believes in doubt. Per DR, a church recently let him rewrite the creed as a confession of doubt, using the Lord’s Prayer with the word belief exchanged for doubt.
He adds that the older he gets, the less he knows compared with when he was young. In return, he says he has become better at understanding people and at understanding company, which he calls a form of wealth.
Humor as a buffer
Hausgaard insists on being called an entertainer and not an artist, saying time should decide what counts as art. He tells the program he is not a preacher, even if he sometimes feels the urge. The principle he would pass on is humor, not the ability to tell jokes, but humor as a way of being in life.
He describes it as a buffer that absorbs the worst of a defeat, and says those without it break easily. Hausgaard also recounts a phone call from a man who had attended one of his shows, where he had joked about Jehovah’s Witnesses. The man, himself a Jehovah’s Witness, said he would keep coming but had been saddened by the remarks.
Since then, Hausgaard has not joked about Jehovah’s Witnesses, saying he has no mandate to make people sad. DR notes that Hausgaard trained as a ship’s smith and has a particular respect for skilled tradespeople. He argues in the program that far more young people should consider a vocational education.
Hausgaard is among the famous Danish people whose work has spanned decades of stage performance.
