AS TEA PARTIES GO, IT’S ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS COMICAL THAN THE MAD HATTER’S

 

I like to think of it as Rovemary’s baby.  

The whole Tea Party song and dance, I mean.  The Tea Party is, of course, very little more or less than a canny and calculated play by the GOP to establish itself, by contrast to the TPsters, as the “rational conservative” rightwing option heading into 2012.  If you truly think that Uncle Karl and his ilk are not pulling more strings than a kite flying contest here, all I can say is: please contact me ASAP about your investment and insurance needs.

The Repulsican Party’s  problem, alas, is how to mold the teabaggers into their foils by portraying them as the extremist alternative during the primaries without so alienating them that they fail to return to the fold when general elections come around.  As Baron von Frankenstein or the parent of almost any teenager will tell you, “Be careful about what you choose to give life to.”  

Regional Tea Party conventions have been or shortly will be held in Nashville (who could have guessed?) and at least a couple of other cities (I grow vague about things I have trouble convincing myself are worth thinking about) and it could hardly be more pitiful.  The TP has, without bothering to wait to become some discernible percentage of the electorate,  already begun fragmenting into several factions: the fanatic true believers, the career political hacks looking for paychecks, the compulsive manipulators ever on the lookout for manipulatees, the entrepreneurs who envision a whole new t-shirt market, nutcake obsessives rejected by every other segment of the political spectrum, etc.  

In a way, of course, this fragmentation is fairly impressive.  It took the Republican and Democratic Parties decades to fracture themselves along utterly inane and self-negating internecine lines.  The baggers have accomplished this in a matter of months.  And it couldn’t happen to a nicer movement.

IF THERE IS A GOD, AND THAT GOD APPRECIATES IRONY, OR IF THERE IS NO GOD BUT THE UNIVERSE IS JUST:

Tim Tebow gets drafted by the Raiders.

TEMPEST IN A TAMPOT…UH, IPOT…NO, IPAD

 

“iPAD: Giant iPod or miniature laptop?  One thing’s for sure: it’s a bad name.  Period.”  –  Newsweek, 2/8/2010.

Get it?  Period?  iPad.  Period?  Pad!  Hah?  

If you don’t, you are probably like me, at least when it comes to genitalia, meaning that you are also male.  

In a nutshell: Apple introduces the iPad.  Within 24 hours, a great clamor is heard to arise, expressing displeasure over a name that reminds the clamorers of feminine hygiene products.  The clamor has a distinct soprano tone to it.  This has been reported in more than one serious news medium.  Women are upset that the new Apple wundertoy calls to mind a stancher of bodily fluids.  Specifically, their bodily fluids.

In one sense, this may reflect a fine and good underlying reality, which is that the media is more equitably represented by, and expressive of, a female world view.  In another sense, and not to put to fine a point on it, but what the hell is it with you broads?

Look, we (as in guys) are supposed to be the gender whose brain nestles within its underwear, not you.  And yet, good God.  I promise you that no man worthy of a jockstrap would make the pad-as-vaginal-acoutrement connection.  And with good reason.  Why should he?  Not when he is first confronted with so many more reasonable and obvious takes.  Bachelor pad being the runaway leader.  Followed by the likes of scratch pad, sketch pad, lily pad, knee pad, hip pad, launch pad, helipad, shoulder pad, note pad, heating pad, padlock and pad your expenses.

All very sensible synaptic responses to the “pad” trigger.  But what do women hone in on, like progesterone-fueled intercept missiles?  We are too discreet here at Humor Me II to enunciate it, but come on, ladies, get your heads out of your…um…never mind.

SPEED, DEXTERITY, STRENGTH AND QUICKNESS ARE ALL VERY NICE, BUT WHAT WE’RE REALLY LOOKING FOR HERE IN THE NFL IS RAPID HEALING ABILITY

Gloria, the woman to whom I am wed, is not happy.  She used to love watching the game of football, derived great joy and retreat from the grind world that its excitement and heroism offered, as do entire legions of us.  But now, the game makes her cringe as often as cheer.  It’s as if the fundamental premise now boiled down to:   Let’s take some of the finest physical/athletic specimens on the continent and see how efficiently, quickly, and brutally we can hammer them into a state of incapacity!

Football, at least the NFL version, may now be second only to jousting for serious, career-jeopardizing injuries.  Looked at it in those terms, you wonder why Budweiser is the primary, nine-figure sponsor of the games, and not Aetna or Blue Cross.  But hey.  Football of both the college and pro variety has become a dreary pageant of quarterbacks concussed into incoherence, tailbacks and receivers afflicted with lifelong knee/hip/shoulder injuries, and linemen so obese as to preordain lifespans foreshortened by stroke or cardiovascular disease.  

Worst of all, for both the players and the game, is a current vogue defensive strategy which, alas, makes perfect sense: to neutralize the most valuable player on the other team.  By hammering the poor bastard into the topsoil, or even better, the ER, if need be.   

As a consequence of this harsh logic, both the NFL and NCAA are staring down the barrel of a nasty reality, which is that those who are the best at the game are increasingly the most imperiled by it.  

The problem is fundamental: the most effective defense boils down to taking out the opposing player who is the single greatest scoring threat, but that is also the guy who sells the most tickets on game day.  We’re talking your Breeses and Mannings and Favres and flashy running backs, and they are the golden egg geese of football at both the college and pro levels, and if you have them carried off the field in a stretcher, you may have carried off a hefty source of revenue as well.  But more to the point, football is being degraded from something that America’s parents enjoyed watching their kids play to something that frankly scares the hell out of them. 

I have no solution to this problem, nor any particular reason to find one.  I just like to see an obscenely profitable, intolerably arrogant and increasingly imbecilic sporting combine have to deal with is own rapacity.

An eternal question, sort of

A sudden thought that occurred just now as I found myself washing the dishes and listening to the Grammys on the kitchen TV:  “Kill me!  Jesus God, just kill me now!”

Follow-up thought, once I got over the first one, and realized I didn’t need to scour the broiler pan after all:  “Could there be some fundamental, formative connection between one’s fear of death and one’s position on the political spectrum?”  

Of these two thoughts, the first one is clearly the most attractive in terms of dramatic impact and plot potential.  On the other hand, fuck you, my work on your world is not yet finished.   

But about that second thought.  What if the human race is divided into (1) those who can handle the factual inevitability of their annihilation by death and thus the end of their existence, and who tend to be of your let’s-aim-for-heaven-or-at-least-something-a-damn-sight-better-than-Bakersfield-on-earth progressive secular humanist do-gooder types, versus (2) those who cannot abide or psychologically survive the ultimate death sentence and eternal nonexistence of mortality and therefore embrace  such conservative principles as everlasting life through obedience (to scripture) and a conviction that our existence can be maintained indefinitely through magic and superstition (i.e. religion)?   

Whew.  Sure, it’s an annoying and damn near incomprehensible question, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t need to be asked.  Especially it you’re a graduate sociologist desperate for a hook for a grant application to buy your ass another semester in grad school, one of the last havens from the tar pit known as the job market.  There: you have been tipped.

Sorry I’ve been gone so long, but as the following indicates, it probably should have been even longer

Will Durst, the noted, S.F.-based political comedian, was on a local radio talker the other day flogging the Xmas/New Years comedy shows that he four-walls annually at a series of Bay Area venues this time each year, and he was recounting his Ten Funniest News Stories of 2009, and with all due respect, which I don’t even have to accord him, given that I’ve known the guy since he got off the bus from Milwaukee in 1979 or so, I truly didn’t fine anything genuinely funny (as opposed to ironically or snidely or darkly funny) about 2009.

Depending on where you lived, your year may have been somewhat salvaged by a mammoth government construction project or a major sports championship or an incredibly killer crop of Colombo bango, but for the most part and for the most of us, it was just one 365-day case of intestinal flu.

Nonetheless — I was jogging as I listened to Will, which meant I had absolutely nothing better to do with my thoughts than distract them from the inherent tedium of my workout by coming up with some amusing take on the newly extinguished year.  The best I could do was a play on an earlier blog, about the fact that we lost several personages to death this year who were so significant to us that we had given them culturally official titles, as it were.

And my jogging take was that as bleak and foul and wretched as 2009 was, what we are left with in and for 2010 hardly makes one want to click one’s heels.  Especially when one look at things in terms of the nicknames and labels and, ahem, culturally official titles (as it were) that we stamp our culturally significant figures with.

Okay, here’s what I’m getting at

In politics, we’ve gone from “the Lion of the Senate” to “Caribou Barbie.”  (See the GOP/Dem and lion/caribou juxtapositioning there?  Pretty deft, eh?)

In music, we’ve gone from “the King of Pop” to “Lady Gaga.”  (Although, when you think about it, “Lord Gaga” would have been a fairly apt handle to tack onto Jacko.  What the hell, they’re both unabashed and flagrant poseurs, so what difference does it make who died and who didn’t?)  (P.S., I thought briefly about using Queen Latifa in place of Gaga, but that might require giving some actual serious thought to this post, and come on, are you kidding?)

In the media, we’ve gone from “the most trusted man in America” to…  And then I just stalled.  Not that there aren’t a plethora of possibilities (and speaking of plethora, God forbid you should come down with it, my shins are fucking killing me), but none of them were satisfying.  Oh sure, “The craziest sack of shit to ever sit in front of a microphone” comes immediately to mind, but that’s more dispiriting than clever.  Because, of course, of all the vast multitudes out there in talk radio who fill the bill.

Maybe that’s the most telling symbolism involved here: Our descent from “most trusted in America” to, well, nothing.  There is no longer anything or anyone that could accurately be described by “most Americans,” or “Americans in general,” or any other majority of us, as truly and widely trusted.

There, my friends, is an ideologically itchy little thought to begin the 2010s with.  Walter Cronkite wasn’t just the most trusted man in America, he was in fact the last trusted man in America.

And now look, here comes a whole new decade!  

Whoopie!  

(Cough.)

Sweet God, first it’s Christmas decorations in all the Target stores already, and now this

 

For somewhat more than a decade, I wrote Holiday Humor pieces for Playboy for the December and January issues, and for 6 or 7 years, the December piece took the form of Celebrity Christmas Carols, meaning classic carols as they might have been written by various public figures.  I recently had occasion to pull these out of the files for use in a Salon, an occasional gathering of people to read or perform written works, as part of a “Music”-themed evening.  They seemed to go over fairly well, so I’m posting a few that I’m particularly fond of.  Nader and Knight are rather dated, having been written circa 2000, but Palin and Obama were knocked out just for the Salon.  And then there’s a bonus, which you’ll find out about when you get there.  Let every heart fill joyously with song.  Or perhaps bile.  Your call.

 

 

 

“Here Comes Santa Claus.”

as performed by Ralph Nader

 

 

There’s no Santa Claus!

I must say it, ‘cause

I believe the truth,

Though it hurts, is

Best for you,

Like pulling some bad tooth.

Big fast cars and fine cigars and self-indulgent waste:

Everything you like’s a ripoff, toxic, or bad taste.

 

Join us, friend!

Help bring an end

To government by greed.

Tax the rich and

Force big biz

To sell just what we need.

I disclose how bad we’re hosed each day, don’t mince a word.

I won’t shit you!  That’s why I

Came in a distant third.

 

 

 

“What Child is This?”

as performed by Nike CEO Phil Knight

 

 

What child is this, who begs to rest

After just ten hours at our factory?

For what we pay (seven bucks a day),

Such an attitude’s not satisfactory.

 

World…wide, kids have learned to say,

“A hundred bucks for a shoe? No way!”

Swoosh, Swoosh, Nike stock’s gone down.

Jordan’s no longer worth all that money.

 

What child is this, who wants time off

On Christmas Day, to make merry?

We took a dump from the Asian slump

And our bottom line’s looking quite scary

 

Work…work, kid, and just be glad

That you’re not at our plant in Islamabad.

Christmas doesn’t come for free,  

So “Just do it” or lose your job, sonny.

 

 

 

“Oh Come All Ye Faithful”

as performed by Sarah Palin

 

 

Oh come, all ye faithful,

Loyal right-wing loonies,

I’m leaving the boonies

For the campaign trail.

My pitch is simple:

I’m Cheney with a dimple.

This government’s a drag, it’s

All Jews and blacks and faggots.

We’ll take the country back:

Me and Rush, without fail.

 

We’ve got it locked up 

(Unless my kids get knocked up),

The public is sick and tired of

Fairness and hope.

I want the moon, so

Goodbye Nome and Juneau.

Please buy my book and heed it.

(I just can’t wait to read it.)

There’s just two things I need:

First a clue, then a plan.

 

 

 

“The Little Drummer Boy”

as performed by Barak Obama

 

 

Said the pros to me, “Barak Obama

It’s sheer insanity, Barak Obama,

To seek the presidency, Barak Obama,

So young, so ebony Barak Obama,      

Barak Obama, Barak Obama…

 

When I won, some said, “Barak Obama,

Glenn Beck swears you’re a Red, Barak Obama.

Your health care hopes seem dead Barak Obama.

You should have stayed in bed Barak Obama,

Barak Obama, Barak Obama…”

 

Then there’s those who say, “Barak Obama,

We’re with you come what may, Barak Obama.

Let’s shut down Fox today, Barak Obama,

And kill Glenn Beck, okay? Barak Obama,

Barak Obama, Barak Obama…

 

Peace on Earth to those who smile when they say,

Barak Obama

 

 

 

And finally, a twisted little bonus, a take that I wrote before he went on trial, which the Playboy editors absolutely loved, but couldn’t overcome the “Are you fucking nuts?” panicky stonewalling by the mag’s legal department.

 

 

 

“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”

as performed by Robert Blake

 

 

I shot Bonny like I’d planned because

No one else would kill the bitch for me.

That’s what the cops contend,

But I’m innocent, my friend.

(I’d say she had it coming, but

I don’t want to offend.)

 

Hope your Christmas joy’s as great as mine,

Even though the state wants me to fry.

Just because you do the crime,

Don’t mean you’ll do the time.

Hell, if O.J. walked then so can I.

 

 

 

Understand, I’m implicitly assuming that you have absolutely nothing, I mean NOTHING better to do with your time than indulge this frivolity

 

 

Today’s Utterly Pointless Concept came to me, well, I’m not sure when.  It just manifested itself, like a weed through a crack in the patio concrete.  

 

The essential premise is:  Vocal duets that feature not only two singularly unlikely partners in song, but singing something thoroughly inappropriate for either of them individually, let alone together.  

Got it?  Swell!  Here are some ideas that occurred to me.  I’m sure you’ll be inspired to come up with just scads of your own!  So let’s go!!!!!

 

Fred Astaire and Willie Nelson; “(Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

 

Janis Joplin and Josh Groban; “Alley Oop”

 

Frank Zappa and Ethel Merman; “Born On The Bayou”

 

Mel Torme and Helen Traubel; “Blue Suede Shoes”

 

Gene Autry and Otis Redding; “Pinball Wizard”

 

Billie Holliday and Johnny Cash; “Yellow Submarine”

 

Tom Waits and Tiny Tim; “Good Vibrations”

 

…well, as you can see, I’m rapidly running out of gas on this premise.  Time for us to get on with our lives.  Unless you care to add to the list.  Please, be my guest.  Without actually coming to stay in my home, that is. 

IF YOU THOUGHT THE CUBS WERE A DISASTER…

 

I’m sure you saw or heard about this: When the news came down that Chicago had been eliminated from consideration for the 2016 Olympics, a great cheer broke out among the staffers at the righty-whitey National Review, and was caught on videocam or iPhone or some other of the several billion ways you can film shit these days, and a great chorus of harrumphing and tsk-tsking ensued, but the fact is, the NR crowd was absolutely right, albeit for the wrong reason.  The wrong reason being that in some insignificant way it might briefly diminish the stature of Barak Obama which, by their standards, would render it downright patriotic. 

 

Then again, by NR standards,  even if the entire US population west of Terre Haute, Indiana had to die writhing with plague, their loss would be worth it if it meant the return of the House to the GOP.  But the fact is that had Chicago been chosen to host the 2016 Games, we would have borne witness to a cavalcade of news items so horrendous as to make the rest of America deny any knowledge of the Land o’ Lincoln.  

 

For openers, consider the Walk of Penance that non-citizens must endure at airport customs stations just to get into the US.  This was certainly on the minds of the folks on the IOC board that questioned the various reps of the various cities.  In case you hadn’t noticed, the Land of the Free has become the biggest pain in the ass to get into this side of Heaven itself.  

 

The TSA would make entry such hell for half the world’s athletes and their families and supporters that al Qaeda would probably collapse just trying to handle the tide of applicants.  Indeed, on any given day, several thousand native born American citizens, some of them second or more generation, give serious thought to becoming terrorists as a result of their experience at the hands of Homeland Security.  America would have emerged from the ordeal with an international black eye the size of Saturn’s third ring.  

 

Face it, if Chicago had won, so would the terrorists.  

 

Moreover, can you even begin to imagine the citywide spree of graft and embezzlement and corruption that would bloom in the legendarily loose-moraled Windy City given the Great Huge Tide Of Money that would flow within the reach of all manner of weasel life?

And the whipsong frolic that rightwing radio would have with this epic malfeasance?  And how long it their ranting would go on, even well after we were sick to the point of retching from it?  

 

 Not to mention the internecine firefights that would erupt during the planning and development of the Entire Chicago Olympic Infrastructure between, just to name one cage match, the environmentalists and the unions.  And wouldn’t that be a tonic for Demo Party unity?  And of course, Chicago is Barak’s home town, meaning its ineptitudes and excesses and extralegal activities would be by GOP extension his.  

 

And finally — although this may get the TSA somewhat off the hook —  what with the whole world watching, and all, every Islamist (or other) zealot and sociopath and religious fanatic and jihad wannabe with a death wish and a grudge would be drawn to Chicagoland like flies to a divorce lawyer, to the point that some tragically lethal occurrence would become damn near inevitable.  

 

 All in all, Chi town, you bettah awf.  

AND PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T THROW ME IN THAT BRIAR PATCH!

The news was, quite frankly, gut-wrenching.  (Oddly, and purely by coincidence, Orchard Supply Hardware is having a sale on gut wrenches this week, the deluxe 16-piece set from Xi Xang Tools [Slogan: "Good enough for post-collectivist work."] going for just $139.95.  Get a discount coupon at www.bobwiederwouldshillforgraverobbersifthemoneywasright.com/coupons/goodluckgummo.

 

What left me dank with dread and concern were the news reports that on the computers of suspected (but let’s face it, almost certainly guilty as freaking sin) terrorist Najibullah Zazi and his merry band of civilization destroyers were the layouts of major sports complexes, stadiums, arenas, and other such.  Clearly, these bloodthirsty thugs have their sights set on America’s most precious cultural target: our sports heroes.  

 

And let’s face it, can  you imagine how DEVASTATING it would be to AMERICAN MORALE if what we all know as AMERICA’S TEAM, that of course being the DALLAS COWBOYS, were to somehow fall victim to some unconscionable SUICIDE BOMBING that would target and UTTERLY CRIPPLE THE DALLAS TEAM?  

 

 Well, of course you can.  

 

 As patriotic Americans, we can only hope the terrorists never discover how EMOTIONALLY DEVASTATING it would be for any harm whatsoever to befall OUR BELOVED COWBOYS.  If, for example, when they flew to San Francisco for their annual game with their arch rivals the 49ers, let’s say that terrorists were somehow to learn of the Cowboys’ unvarying devotion to an exact travel schedule that would have their charter flights ARRIVING AT GATE 145E AT PRECISELY 4:45 P.M. ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH.

 

 One can only imagine the HORRIFIC DESTRUCTION that would be wreaked on the COWBOYS if, say, a panel truck or large van or one of those Starving Students trucks filled with C-4 PLASTIC EXPLOSIVE were to pull alongside the COWBOYS BUS, as it reliably LEAVES SFO AT 5:30 on the dot, filled with AMERICA’S FAVORITE ATHLETES, whose death or injury would  CRIPPLE AMERICAN MORALE.  

 

 Failing such a roadside bombing, of course, there would be ample opportunity to ANNIHILATE AMERICA’S BELOVED TEAM when the team bus made its routine stop at ANIMAL PHARM, a secluded and marginally legitimate source of team medication on the outskirts of Colma.  

 

Were a used school bus packed with NITRATE FERTILIZER AND DETONATING JELLY to slide into the stall next to that of the COWBOYS IN THE PHARMACY PARKING LOT and be set off, the result would be a veritable DREAM COME TRUE FOR THE TERRORISTS, as Americans everywhere were reduced to WEEPING AND MOANING WITH GRIEF.  

 

 The horror.  The horror.

 

 One can only hope that those who wish our country ill will never discover how PAINFUL the TOTAL DESTRUCTION of the DALLAS COWBOYS would be to all Americans, or how SIMPLE it would be to WREAK HAVOC on the Texas team.  And how crucial it would be for the ‘BOYS ANNIHILATION to take place BEFORE they play the Niners.