Fool's Day 2016

Happy Fool's Day! This year, I thought I'd link Vulture's feature, "The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy." It's got many classics, but the list is more impressive for its breadth and less obvious choices. Some supplemental pieces delve further into some of the gags, including Airplane's "Don't call me Shirley."

Fool's Day 2015

Happy Fool's Day! This year, here's Eddie Izzard at his witty, silly best:



The 2012 installment covered a study of the most popular jokes by nation.

The Geek Filibuster

See the opening credits scroll for an explanation. This is why the term "nerdgasm" was invented. The actual episode (which only showed about 30 seconds of this tour de force) was also pretty good.

Fool's Day 2013

Happy Fool's Day! This time, in honor of the purity wars, I thought I'd feature an Emo Philips story I referenced last year:

(Given my nom de blog, the Italian subtitles are a nice bonus.)

Here's an animated version.

Valentine's Day (The Death of True Love)

I detest cheap sentiment.

— Margo Channing (Bette Davis) in All About Eve

Ever since I found out in 6th grade that Valentine's Day was largely invented by a greeting card company, I've thought it was complete bullshit, because, well, it is. I mean, Kwanzaa is invented too, and its critics have some good points, but at least it's about honoring your ancestors and stuff. Valentine's Day is about buying a bunch of crap. Red, white and pink crap. But mostly pink. I mean, for chrissake, there are gay rallies in the Castro with less goddam pink.

Sure, I'm a misanthropic bastard, curmudgeony beyond my increasingly untender years. But deep down in your he- *gack* blood-pumper, you know I'm goddam right.

Yeah, sure, buying a goddam Hallmark card is a sign of love, just like wearing a flag lapel pin means you're a goddam patriot, and wearing a cross makes you a Christian, and putting on a Halloween mask makes you a fucking werewolf.

(At least the Japanese Festival of the Steel Phallus encourages costumes, dancing and has a myth behind it.)

Just to be clear, I have nothing against twue wove. Nor against true romance. (Although I'm not a fan of Patricia Arquette.) I rather admire the real thing. But honestly, do you think Hallmark, Madison Avenue and most of Hollywood are going to teach you anything about love? Do you think their cloying, materialistic bullshit with a soft filter close-up on a big hair chick with Celine Dion screeching away in the background brings you anywhere except one step closer to Hell?

The Wiki entry on Valentine's Day reports that the Greeting Card Association, not content with the evil it already sows, has since 2001 given out an "Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary." No offense to Ms. Esther Howland, but there are no goddam "visionaries" in the greeting card business. If Joan of Arc were alive today, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be spending her time designing fucking greeting cards. It's almost as ridiculous as fashion industry wankers sporadically pretending they're doing the Lord's Own Work, which normally entails them talking about how awful things are in the world, and how they give people a much needed distraction, because heaven knows we're all not shallow enough and shouldn't bother our pretty, coiffed little heads over genocide or famine. Don't think about the latest war zone and feel bad — watch this skinny blonde in an ugly trash bag of a frock designed by a heroin-addicted misogynist and feel bad for not being anorexic instead, you damn fatty.

Because that's all about image, kids. I'm still gobsmacked by how many people I run into who really, truly buy into this sappy, saccharine, unrealistic view of love. That includes people who really should know better — although if they're the type terrified to be uncoupled for longer than two weeks, it's a not a big goddam surprise if they're addicted to bad luv and 'but slenderly know themselves.'

I wonder how many couples have broken up over the years just because of all of society's bullshit pressure over an impending Valentine's Day. (It does make for a good sitcom premise.)

Sigh. Well, in any case, here's a valuable piece of advice from one of Gene Weingarten's chats, for a few of the gents out there:

Boston, Mass.: Gene - I have a question which I believe only you are qualified to answer. My girlfriend is telling me "I don't want anything for Valentine's Day." Does that mean I REALLY don't have to get her anything? Or does it actually mean "I'm going to say I don't want anything, but if he doesn't do something, he's a big fat pig?"

Women are so confusing. I stand by your word - if you tell me not to do anything, and I get dumped, it'll be all your fault.

Gene Weingarten: Do something, moron.

Were you born yesterday?

Weingarten's right, here. There are exceptions. But generally speaking, gents, if a woman tells you Valentine's Day doesn't matter to her, or that she doesn't want anything, she is lying. Even if she swears it on a stack of Bibles or flag lapel pins or werewolf masks, she's lying. She may be lying to herself also about how much it means to her, but that factor will be irrelevant in the carnage to follow. And even if she's not (since again, there are some exceptions out there), you'd best play it like Pascal's Wager on this one.

(I'm not certain to what degree gay and lesbian couples ignore all this bullshit, but if they do, it's one more reason to legalize gay marriage everywhere posthaste.)

There's a saying that a second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. Or there's what Pete (Paul Rudd) says in Knocked Up: "Marriage is like a tense, unfunny version of Everybody Loves Raymond, only it doesn't last 22 minutes. It lasts forever." Hey, I can keep dishing 'em out. Sure, I've got some touching, inspirational, romantic prose I could quote to ya. But why string you along?

Oh, all right. Here's something.

Much Ado about Nothing is probably my favorite Shakespeare comedy. It's got all the wit of Taming of the Shew with much less sexism. (Keep in mind that "nothing" was pronounced "noting" in Elizabethan England and the play's about misperceptions, and that "nothing" was also slang for female genitalia, and you've got a triple entendre). Here's the great wisdom of the play.

Shakespeare presents us with a pair of young lovers, Claudio and Hero, for whom it's love at first sight, who swoon, get jealous and spout flowery sentiments about love. They're supposedly our ideal.

(And let's face it, if they're pretty like Kate Beckinsale and Robert Sean Leonard, a little swooning is understandable.)

But Shakespeare also gives us Benedick and Beatrice, an older couple with the wit, banter and sexual tension of a screwball comedy. They constantly undercut the sappiness of Claudio and Hero. And they're just much more fun to watch.

(Not that Emma Thompson or Kenneth Branagh are hard to look at, either.)

So Shakespeare gives us what we think we want, but also what we really want. Add in a few brilliantly written comedy scenes, and that's true genius.

Shakespeare also pokes gentle fun at all the characters, most of all the proud Benedick and Beatrice, but laughs with rather than at them. He wryly mocks their vanities, but ultimately celebrates their foibles. As in The Marriage of Figaro (or even Cosi Fan Tutti, or The Master and Margarita, Crime and Punishment and Gawain and the Green Knight, for that matter), it's a very forgiving, wise work.

So if you must celebrate Valentine's Day, keep that in mind.

You can also do it in a slightly subversive, sincere style, like Gene Weingarten, who adores his wife:

I like any day that affords us another chance to buy presents for our women. Because our women are SO grateful for SO minor a fact. Because they are SO certain we will forget. Yes, it was invented by the chocolate and florist industry, which is why I never gives chocolates and flowers for Valentine's Day.

So that's one route. If you're going the film-and-cooking-dinner route, I'd keep in mind that with the exception of a few films like Casablanca, Hollywood doesn't do romance that well — or at least, treat love honestly. Maybe watch Annie Hall, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, possibly the B story in Knocked Up, maybe even There's Something About Mary, The Fisher King, The Apartment or The Graduate. And for god's sake, see Scenes From a Marriage before you stop shacking up together, living in sin, and finally get married, you filthy heathens. But if you need a more romantic flick, there's Sense and Sensibilty with the aforementioned Ms. Thompson (plus the divine Kate Winslet), the Colin Firth-Jennifer Ehle miniseries of Pride and Prejudice, and A Room with a View. Hell, there's even Mann's Last of the Mohicans and Rob Roy if you want some action and drama with a dash of period romance. There's Much Ado... and other good Shakespeare films, of course. But you may do still better with the 1990 Rappeneau-Depardieu version of Cyrano, Amélie or The Princess Bride.

So take that, Hallmark. Beyond the reach of you and your bourgeois, unimaginative compulsion to reduce everything truly beautiful, wild, erotic, wonderful, spiritual, passionate, and transcendent to some trite little homily or cliché you can comfortably handle lies the real thing.

Of course, Shakespeare said it all better, many times, and in many ways. But that's why he was Shakespeare.

And if he were alive today, the Immortal Bard wouldn't be writing fucking greeting cards, either.

(This is a rerun from 2008, marginally rewritten to remove slightly dated political references.)

Fool's Day 2012

Happy (April) Fool's Day! This year, I thought I'd feature the findings of a 2001–2002 study conducted by Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire (UK) to find "the world's funniest joke." There's more at his site, Laugh Lab. The top joke, selected from over 40,000 submissions (and apparently, adapted from a Spike Milligan sketch), was:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?”. The operator says “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says “OK, now what?”

The runner-up was:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night, and go to sleep.

Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

"I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes," replies Watson.

"And what do you deduce from that?"

Watson ponders for a minute.

"Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe... What does it tell you, Holmes?"

Holmes is silent for a moment. "Watson, you idiot!" he says. "Someone has stolen our tent!"

One of the interesting parts of the study is how different cultures tend to favor certain forms of comedy. From the study:

People from The Republic of Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand expressed a strong preference for jokes involving word plays, such as:

Patient: “Doctor, I've got a strawberry stuck up my bum.”

Doctor: “I've got some cream for that.”

Americans and Canadians much preferred gags where there was a sense of superiority – either because a person looked stupid, or was made to look stupid by another person, such as:

Texan: “Where are you from?”

Harvard grad: “I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions.”

Texan: “Okay – where are you from, jackass?”

Finally, many European countries, such as France, Denmark and Belgium, liked jokes that were somewhat surreal, such as:

An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”

The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.”

“But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”

These European countries also enjoyed jokes that involved making light of topics that often make us feel anxious, such as death, illness, and marriage. For example:

A patient says: “Doctor, last night I made a Freudian slip, I was having dinner with my mother-in-law and wanted to say: “Could you please pass the butter.” But instead I said: “You silly cow, you have completely ruined my life”.”

Interestingly, Germany was the exception. Germans did not express a strong preference for any type of joke - this may well explain why they came first in our league table of funniness – they do not have any strong preferences and so tend to find a wide spectrum of jokes funny.

Dr Richard Wiseman commented:

These results are really interesting – it suggests that people from different parts of the world have fundamentally different senses of humour. Humour is vital to communication and the more we understand about how people’s culture and background affect their sense of humour, the more we will be able to communicate effectively.

In my own experience, I'd say that physical comedy travels the best across cultures, while word play is the toughest (not that either should be surprising). And supposedly, if you show a mixed audience of Americans and Brits A Fish Called Wanda, they will laugh at different parts. Obviously, though, these are generalizations, since some individuals have much broader senses of humor than others, regardless of their "home" culture.

Wiseman considers both the superiority and incongruity theories of comedy. There's truth to both, but I remember being annoyed when I read a comedy book insisting that all comedy is based on superiority and someone else's pain or humiliation. It's clearly not true, and refuted by many forms of comedy, from sheer silliness to the reflective "ah, I recognize myself" humor of Garrison Keillor and others. There's truth to the self-regard in Mel Brooks' great line (one of the rotating quotations in the left column) that "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." But comedy is often self-referential, "meta," provocative, or breaks the fourth wall. I'd say Brooks' line – in addition to being funny – tweaks us on our own self-absorption. To quote an earlier post:

Comedians take many forms. There’s the crass insult comic, the observational humourist, the reflective raconteur, and the incisive satirist. Perhaps the most sublime is the Shakespearean fool, who can tell truth to power in the form of a joke, imparting wisdom while still avoiding a beating (most of the time)...

Or, to quote a more recent post, and a line attributed to Billy Wilder (and others), "If you're going to tell people the truth, make them laugh, or they'll kill you."

The Onion on the Debt Ceiling

It's sad that satirical site The Onion is so much more incisive and honest than most of the national press corps on the ridiculous debt ceiling hostage situation:

"It is a question that, I think, is worthy of serious consideration: Should we take steps to avoid a crippling, decades-long depression that would lead to disastrous consequences on a worldwide scale? Or should we not do that?" asked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), adding that arguments could be made for both sides, and that the debate over ensuring America’s financial solvency versus allowing the nation to default on its debt—which would torpedo stock markets, cause mortgage and interests rates to skyrocket, and decimate the value of the U.S. dollar—is “certainly a conversation worth having.”

Yes, both sides have valid points, and both sides are equally to blame, regardless of the facts. It's a very short piece, but do go over and read the rest. It's got a great last line.

Killer Sheep

Did you hear the one about the Beltway's killer sheep? Well:

The Gingrich camp thinks the punditocracy’s got it all wrong. When asked by The Huffington Post about media coverage this past week, Gingrich press secretary Rick Tyler fired off a response blasting the political and media elite.

“The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding,” Tyler wrote. “Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.”

Yes, the awkward grammar and casting Gingrich as Rambo are both impressive, but damn, there's a metaphor for ya: Gun-toting, cocktail-swigging sheep.

It's hard to improve on Paul Krugman's take, "The Fascist Octopus, Having Sung Its Swan Song, Needs to Retire":

Orwell wept. His famous examples of careless writing — the fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot has been thrown into the melting pot — must exit the stage in the face of Newt Gingrich’s press secretary.

As Krugman goes on to note, Gingrich has always been a clown, but the media hasn't bothered to notice. If there's any doubt, read through the Mother Jones article, "Newt in His Own Words: 33 Years of Bomb-Throwing." It's because of people like Newt that there's a Godwin's Law. He can't go more than a few months without attacking his latest target with an inaccurate, irresponsible Nazi analogy.

Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber asks, "What is it that the right has against sheep?" and I share the same question. He compiles a few anti-sheep links (including Carly Fiorina's infamous, Pythonesque Demon Sheep ad), and updates the post with a commenter's villanelle. If there's one thing fascist octopi and killer sheep fear, it's whimsical poetry.

Update: John Lithgow gives a dramatic reading of the press release on The Colbert Report:

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

 

Sheen, Beck, or Qaddafi?

Who said that crazy thing, Charlie Sheen, Glenn Beck or Muammar Qaddafi? This New York magazine quiz is just wrong - inspired - and scary. (Via Digby.)

I got 10/15, which isn't bad, I suppose, for not following any of their statements that closely. And I clearly underestimated the craziness of Charlie Sheen.

Bonus! "Charlie Sheen Quotes As New Yorker Cartoons." Yikes.

(Here's to less craziness of the destructive variety in the world.)

 

Right-Wing Radio Duck

Wow. This is an extremely impressive remix by Jonathan McIntosh, as "Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck in "Right Wing Radio Duck"":



Very well done. My only criticism is that it could use a slight filter on the Beck audio to make it sound like it was coming from the radio, especially to better match cartoons of that era. Just a touch would do, because Beck needs to be recognizable as Beck. Still, tremendous and creative work went into this. Bravo!

On the YouTube page, McIntosh is claiming fair use of the Disney material and gives more detail for that. I hope that holds up, because Disney is notoriously litigious about such things. If nothing else, enjoy this while you can. (Hat tip to Rick Perlstein.)

Terror Babies Comin' for White Wimmin!

There's no bigoted paranoia on the right, no sirree! Certainly not down in Texas! Via HuffPo:

Texas Republican state legislator Rep. Debbie Riddle was not prepared for Anderson Cooper Tuesday night.

Riddle appeared on "Anderson Cooper 360" to discuss the threat of "terror babies" — a supposed threat in which terrorist organizations send pregnant women to the United States to have their children, who would be US citizens but trained and raised abroad to be terrorists and could enter and leave the US without raising suspicion.

Watch it:



Anderson Cooper gets the big bucks because he doesn't break out laughing and asks Riddle for her evidence. My favorite part is probably when Riddle says this:

Actually, when your folks called me in the preliminary, that was part of the conversation. They did not tell me that you were going to grill me for this specific information that I was not ready to give to you tonight. They did not tell me that, sir.

In other words, It's terribly uncivil of you to challenge any of my unsupported, batshit crazy claims..

My second favorite part is when Cooper asks her why current FBI agents aren’t concerned about this Terror Babies plot. Riddle leaps on this, not as reason to doubt her paranoid fantasy scare tales, but as further reason why we should all be trembling. Your modern GOP, ladies and gentlemen.

This doesn't seem like it's just an act. Riddle might be a bit nuttier – or a bit more open about it – than some of her fellow right-wingers, but not by that much. If you've caught any of ridiculous furor on the "Ground Zero Mosque," you know what I'm talking about.

Riddle's statements about her secret information remind me of claims about 57 card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the Department of Defense and the like. They also remind me of this video, which serves as a rebuttal, of sorts (NSFW):



(Via.)

 

The GOP's Pitch for November

As Dave Johnson and many other liberal bloggers have noted, the Republican plan is to "block everything Congress does, then run against Democrats as ineffective." It'd be nice if the press at least reported that accurately, so that voters could make an informed decision, but that wouldn't be "fair and balanced." It really does bear mentioning that in a functioning democracy, this pitch wouldn't have a chance in hell. We screwed you over by blocking them - so vote for us! or Why bother picking the lesser of two evils? Go with the pros! As Paul Krugman points out, "The truth... is that the only problem Republicans ever had with George W. Bush was his low approval rating. They always loved his policies and his governing style — and they want them back." Some of us still remember the devastation from the last time, and it's no way to run an empire.

I'm not thrilled with the Democratic Party, and by no means should liberals cease the pressure on Dem leaders to do the right things, adopt effective policies, and uphold the rule of law. (Dark Lord Cheney, I'm looking at you.) However, "compromised" is still a helluva lot better than "nihilistic." At least the Democrats occasionally do things to benefit their average constituents, whereas the GOP wants to repeal the Estate Tax entirely, push the most conservative, regressive judiciary in living memory even further to the right, and just generally piss on America when they're not dousing it with gasoline and setting it on fire with their latest fart about how anyone who doesn't have a job is just lazy.

 

Geeks 1, Homophobes 0

Actually, "homophobes" is too tame a word for Fred Phelps and the hate-filled gang of the Westboro Baptist Church. But when they showed up to protest at Comic-Con, they were met by some counter-protesters:

Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist Church, the good folks of San Diego's Comic-Con were prepared for their arrival with their own special brand of superhuman counter protesting chanting "WHAT DO WE WANT" "GAY SEX" "WHEN DO WE WANT IT" "NOW!" while brandishing ironic (and some sincere) signs.

The Phelps crowd might think they have God on their side, but do they really want to get into a stamina war with folks who can wait hours in line for a sneak peek at The Green Hornet or an autograph from Stan Lee or Ray Bradbury? Mess with fanboys and fangirls on Star Wars Day and the Force will not be with you.

Major style points to the counter-protesters on this one. There's a short video and more photos at the first link. (Via.)


Fox News immediately announced an investigation – where is the liberal media on robot-on-human violence? Why the double-standard?

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo.)

 

Andrew Breitbart Owes Skippy $100,000

skippy pens the very funny "andrew breitbart owes skippy $100,000." This is sorta inside blogger baseball stuff; if you didn't catch the Dave Weigel "scandal" and don't know who Breitbart is, you can get some background here.

Easter 2010

skippy reminded me of this one (slightly NSFW):

Fool's Day 2010

Happy Fool's Day! As usual, the Guardian has a good roundup of gags, although my favorite may be this one:

London Underground is in talks with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) about the possibility of using the 23km tunnel of the Circle Line to house a new type of particle accelerator similar to the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

Inverse Square posted a wry video on "New Frontiers in Computer Security," and I may update this post with some other gags.

In the meantime, here's Robin Williams and George Carlin on golf - definitely NSFW:

Summit Fever

Not safe for work, but funny:



Via.

I caught most of the summit. Obama was genuinely impressive. The Republicans mainly trotted out the same old BS. A few Republicans made some decent suggestions, but they're either a) already in the bill, or b) too small to make a difference on their own. If this gives the Dems some cover to pass health care reform via reconciliation, great.

Also.

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

Because life is too short to go without muppets.

Singing Protest by Billionaires for Wealthcare

I've seen this several places. Billionaires for Wealthcare got creative in raising issues at a America's Health Insurance Plan (AHIP) conference:



From Sam Stein's piece on the event:

Republican pollster Bill McInturff was the keynote speaker on the final day of the America's Health Insurance Plans's state issues conference on Friday morning.

But his speech on how the health care reform debate was playing among the public was interrupted before it even began. A group of protesters began aggressively cheering McInturff for the work he has done for AHIP (he's a hired pollster for the private insurance lobby and, most infamously, was the force behind the 'Harry and Louise' ads in 1994)

McInturff, initially thinking that the cheering was legitimate, thanked the "AHIP officials" in the back of the room for giving him mental encouragement for his speech. He was not being paid for his appearance, he noted...

McInturff, who remarked earlier that he didn't have a joke to lead off with, pointed to the exiting protesters and said "there's my joke." But while his speech had been interrupted, the pollster actually admitted to being mildly impressed.

Stein also has the full lyrics. From the group's site, here's Rachel Maddow's coverage of the event:



This stunt gets major style points - all the more so because of the positive reactions from those not in on the gag. Most conferences get pretty dull, and this group performed very well. Watch out, corporate stooges! Guerilla theater is coming after ya!

There's a Rep for That

(Via.)