If you ask me what is the funniest show I have seen all summer, it is Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo at Purist Magazine’s Connect 4 Ideas Festival. The CNN commentators, brothers in arms, told how they got to where they are, even as Cuomo was wrapping up a week of scandal involving an Italian-American putdown turned violent. Without recounting the experience, let us just say, the media star did not shirk the subject, hit it straight on, as he and Lemon went through their bona fides through the lens of loved ones shown onstage behind them in photographs, from the bittersweet loss of Lemon’s sister Lisa to Cuomo’s dad Mario. This deft taming of the elephant in the room at Guild Hall took place in the company of family and friends, and in something unusual in the media, with the support of another kind of bond through CNN.

Both, veterans of Fox News, had worked with the late, disgraced Roger Ailes.

The men had an effortless rapport; the jokes came easy. Cuomo was hilarious about his three children with Cristina Cuomo, Purist’s editor in chief. Raising girls seems particularly daunting, what with his youngest kissing boys at camp. His middle child, a son, is named after Mario, his father, who taught him, if he was going to be in the media, “Find a way to connect with people and help them.”

Lemon says he had a secret growing up, going to prom with girls and worrying that they’d want him to go to second base. He showed a photo of himself with his partner, Tim, and described Tim’s sweet proposal of marriage, getting down on one knee with a ring.

In all, the Purist fest featuring filmmaker TM advocate David Lynch on Skype, meditation with Donna D’Cruz, panels on the future of food with Amanda Little, eating well for health with Tapp Francke and Dr. Frank Lipman, and suicide prevention in Kevin Hines’ heart rending talk. You could say it is all about staying alive.