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OK, maybe
that joke wasn't quite politically correct but I've had it up to here
with this PC shit. Why can not we laugh at ourselves? Why when a
comedian does a joke on anything even vaguely controversial do
certain people moan like somebody let one rip during an audience with
the Pope? I mean, come on. Who actually moans at a joke? Who is
responsible for that? Well, quite frankly, I'm pinning it on the
gays, OK ? Now, I know there's some reflexively irate homosexual in
the crowd thinking "How DARE you, Miss Thing" and what I'm
saying to you is this: I think so little of the variations in human
sexuality that I refuse to treat you like a Faberge egg; you are part
of the human collective; come, join in our reindeer games, you too
can be poked fun at .
And you know
something, that goes for the whole spectrum of special interest
groups out there wandering the Freakazoid Serenghetti plain, all
right? I don't want to get off on a rant here...but trying to
negotiate the narrow straits of what's acceptably funny nowadays is
like trying to navigate through the Sargasso Sea of plastic toad
stools in the middle of a bumper pool table.
I understand
where political correctness comes from; a scant forty years ago we
were doing Amos and Andy jokes on the airwaves, for Christ's sakes;
we were barbaric louts. But now, suddenly we find ourselves in a
classic overcorrection where we're all supposed to zip through life
like some huge societal squadron of Blue Angels flying six inches off
each other's taste wing; never, ever deviating even one angstrom.
Well, folks, there are a lot of different aircraft careening through
the social stratosphere and we better start working out some
respectively independent glide paths right now or it's gonna start
getting real messy.
Why don't we
start by letting humor serve as our guide? You know, laughter is one
of the great beacons in life because we don't detract it by gunning
it through our intellectual prism. What makes us laugh is a mystery,
an involuntary response. If I could explain to you why Jerry Lewis
makes me laugh when he's trying to be serious and why he makes me
straight-faced when he's trying to get me to laugh, I'd have the
answer; but I DON'T. But, dammit, I'm telling you the key lies
somewhere in Lewis! Jerry is the Stargate on this and I'm pretty sure
the comedic Rosetta Stone lies somewhere in his catching the
cigarette in the mouth bit and I think Charlie Callus will back me up that.
The point is
people who are threatened by jokes are the same people who tend to
refer to actors on soap operas by their characters name; listen
there's the real world and then there's the joke world, OK? The joke
world can get tough; wear a cup. You know, when I watch Dana Carvey
tee up his impression of me and how I run my hand through my hair, it
momentarily irks me; but only for a second because I realize its a
JOKE; and I don't want to waste one more moment being angry when I
can get back to my true avocation which is completely idolizing
myself. You know something folks, it wouldn't hurt if everybody held
their cards a little closer to their vest.
Don't let
them know they've rattled you if it hits close to home. You should be
able to take a joke right in the solar plexus; get up! Get that
two-cycle weedwacker engine of a brain humming and give as good as
you got. And if you get bested, go home, sharpen your verbal machete
and get right back and get ready for the next thicken. DON'T call
Gloria Alred; DON'T go to court; DON'T steal a machine gun and shoot
everybody at the party who made fun of your Jiffy Pop rag hat . Relax!
The truth is
the human sense of humor tends to be barbaric and it has been that
way all along. I'm sure on the eve of the nativity when the tall Magi
smacked his forehead on the crossbeam while entering the stable,
Joseph took a second away from pondering who impregnated his wife and
laughed his little carpenter ass off. A sense of humor is exactly
that: a sense. Not a fact, not etched in stone, not an empirical math
equation but just what the word intones: a sense of what you find
funny. And obviously, everybody has a different sense of what's
funny. If you need confirmation on that I would remind you that Saved
by the Bell recently celebrated the taping of their 100th episode .
Oh well, one mans Molier is another mans Screech and you know
something that's the way it should be. But there are those who feel
the need to enlist you in a cult whose core doctrine consists solely
of their personal beliefs.
Well, I
subscribe to the theory of the cult of one, the cult of the
individual. That way, if I lemming of the cliff I'm only following my
own nose and not the ass of another lemming. That's what America is
all about; a great nation that guarantees you the right to lead
whatever sort of whacked-out jag-off existence you want to lead and
guarantees me the right to ridicule it mercilessly.
Come on; am I
the only one who absolutely delights in the fact that somewhere out
there near the pillars of Hercules there's a crazy old bitch like
Marge Schott? There is nothing wrong with a culture where everybody
has a different idea of what's humorous. The last time I can remember
an entire nation being on the same page was Germany in the late 30s
and it didn't really turn out that funny. Remember, in it's time and
place what Hitler said was considered politically correct. And it's
that blind adherence to what is situationally palatable that is truly dangerous.
We should
question it all; poke fun at it all; piss off on it all; rail against
it all; and most importantly, for Christ's sake, laugh at it all.
Because the only thing separating holy wit from complete bullshit is
your perspective. Its your only weapon. Keep the safety off. Don't
take yourself too seriously.
And remember
that at the end of the day this is just an ant farm with beepers and
most importantly it takes zero politically correct assholes to screw
in a lightbulb because they are perpetually in the fucking dark.
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