And Now the Fun Begins

Sometimes I look at Memeorandum, and I see all of Greater Wingnuttia is posting away furiously about something, and I try to figure out what the hell they're on about now, what with the whooping and the giggling and the spitting and the stomping and the whining and the hollering, and I open a link, and within three words of the first Corner post on whatever the fuck it is, I'm drowsy as hell and I have a headache and things go allll blurrrry ahnd I fweel, .  lem 'er q'qvkm 'qleq' .mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm//////

The impact of my skull on my keyboard usually jars me awake, and for two hours or so I have a dent in my forehead roughly the shape of the space bar. 

In other words there's a price to be paid for Wingnuttia-Gazing. Usually they're just being annoying, but often enough they're simply loudly caring about something impenetrable and boring to people who aren't totally insane. Take for instance this thing they're on about now with Limbaugh and Harry Reid. See, like, there's this letter or something, and Rush went like all blarghle and K-Lo is like boooberuhl and then Ace (yawn) ummm...waiit no Gateway..  punditt,ms like snerg glort k'ck'ack' ohh shit WAKE UPp,.. cant doooo it ,;pdw tell wife I love her,... snorrrrrl,./,. telll herrr I think the milk inn the friddge is bad but the kidds prolly wonm.nttt noticeee so donntt worrry... shargle..c.c,.v.v . ////////////...    bbnmnb ................................mn,,,,,,,,,

mb,nmbn .,,,,,,,,,,,,, (Bonk.)

Oy, it's like a vodka and Nyquil smoothie reading that shit.

But even that's not as bad as the orthographic symbols they sporadically emanate which, when properly decoded, are apparently intended to resemble some exotic sub-class of "jokes." That stuff is not so much soporific as just plain... embarrassing. Like this specimen, which is, chortle, snort, squawk, fart, guffaw, purportedly the NY Times new employee exam. Yee hah. Put on the knee-pads, Gladys, because you're a-gonna be doin' some mirthful slappin' tonight!

Comrade:

This is a simple test we use at The New York Times to ensure that our employees reflect a variety of social, political, and economic beliefs. Please read each question thoroughly, and then select your answer with a number 2 pencil. When you complete the exam, please place it in the box marked “Politburo” at the front of the room.

Remember, there are no wrong answers (except on questions 2,5,7,8,13 and 17).

If at any time you feel that you are being pressured in absentia by George Bush and his cronies, please notify a test monitor immediately.

1. Which of the following statements best describes your political leanings:

a. I consider myself a far more progressive Nancy Pelosi.
b. Bush lied, people died!
c. I have George Soros on speed dial.
d. I feel Stalin never really took it to that “next level.”

Omigod because the NY Times is teh commie. Which it, uh, isn't. But this little skit sure would have a fighting chance of being mildly amusing if it were! Why, you could open for Yakov with shit like that!

Like most wingnut comedy, this is horribly overwritten in the manner of Dennis Miller -- or wretched Saturday Night Live disjecta, for that matter. Stretch that premise as far as you can (Stalin! Ha!), and try to hide the fact that there's nothing there by pushing the hyperbole. It looks like satire, but it isn't -- because comparing the NYT to Stalin would only ever be funny to wingnuts, and even there it's hard to see what would be humorous about this to them, since they really do seem to believe that the NYT -- not to mention the Democratic Party -- is an organ of the Hard Left.

It's cult humor. Literally. I imagine that Scientologists have their own comedians who work in this vein: "hey, what about the food they serve on airplanes! It'd make Xenu green! Thanks! Try the V-meter -- the V stands for Veal! Ha ha!"

Ideological obsessives make lousy comedy, and lousy art in general. So actually I guess we're lucky that we're never exposed to their love poems ("Thy limpid lips bloom like two carrots/ And thy boobs swell proud like Dagny Taggart's").

Comments

[Lou Reed]

ALL ART MUST SERVE THE MOVEMENT !!!

if you get me some horse i'll suck your cock.

[Warren Terra]

Don't you think their love poetry would more closely resemble this:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!

... or are there too many genuine long words there (I count one real one, but more might be real, especially in context)?

[DrDick]

Oh dear. This is why we are ever so happy to have you vet this stuff for us. I really am afraid my head would explode if I had to read more than two or three sentences of it at a time. My freshmen stoner students can construct a more coherent and rigorous argument at the end of a three day binge. And they write better (which certainly isn't saying much).

[Andy Warhol]

ALL SLUT FUCKING, I MEAN, MODERN ART, MUST SERVICE MY WALLET !!!

awww ... just do it out there ... i'm tired.

[Gentlewoman]

Why, you could open for Yakov with shit like that!

Uh, no. No, you couldn't open for Yakov with shit like that.

Not even if you were Japanese, played bluegrass fiddle and were dressed in complete TokyoWesternWear including a blue sequinned ten-gallon Stetson and dyed-to-match ostrichskin boots.

Trust me. And rejoice with me, for I no longer live in SW Missouri! And I feel confident that, given time, my nightmares of Branson will recur less often, eventually to dwindle away to the occasional, involuntary panic start at the phrase, 'the Baldknobbers'. People here in Connecticut hardly ever mention the Baldknobbers, you know, so I am sanguine that full mental health will be mine, and soon!

If you wish not to be upset or put to sleep by these Pus Sucking Warthogs of the Right, imagine them among 'their people.' Their 'Base.' In Branson. Waiting in the line for the Shoji Tabuchi show with a busload of blue-haired ladies from Tulsa who know where 'all the good buffets are!' And have seen the show seven times, so they can tell you 'when all the really beautifully touching stuff is coming up.'

Then you can laugh and laugh.

[Me]

When I think of the very funny friends I've had who became rightwing later in life, I think of one thing: I always knew when they'd turned conservative because they stopped being funny. And, you know, by extension, not fun to be around anymore.

[Douglas Watts]

That's not funny.

[Rufus]

I've got a much better joke. What do you call a gaggle of intellectually arrogant potters and college professors?

[Warren Terra]

OK, Rufus, I'll ask: what do you call a gaggle of intellectually arrogant potters and college professors?

(I realize jokes and especially wordplay can require set-ups that seem forced, but intellectually arrogant potters? This had better be good ...)

[¡El Gato Negro!]

¿A potter who beetches about Warhol supposedly saying art should be monetized?

Thees ees like a cobbler griping to a houseframer about hees misuse of nails.

Wonders unceasing.

[Molly Ivors]

And they write better (which certainly isn't saying much).

Ouch.

[Molly Ivors]

What do you call a gaggle of intellectually arrogant potters and college professors?

People who failed your stupid ass?

[Ripley]

First they came for the intellectually arrogant potters, and I did nothing...

[Rufus]

I've long looked for a blog that neatly captured the self-loathing left in all its disenfranchised beauty. I've found it, here. This is a veritable circle jerk of anger and loneliness, stagnant people railing against the unfairness of the world, finding solace in witty word play that screams, "I'm intellectually superior! So why is it no one listens to me? Why am I so insignificant in any meaningful debate?"

[SteveB]

Potters?! Is there now some right-wing fatwa against potters?

Who knew? Personally, I've never cared much for pottery, being a weave-your-own-hempen-clothing kind of guy.

Oh, and the yurts made of organic goatskins, of course.

[Thers]

Rufus is just mad that he can't think of a punchline. Also, he's jealous of our ceramics.

You haven't seen unfunny until you're on the receiving end of endless Hitlery jokes from TX oilmen. Try a punchline like "That's what you get for $5." Now imagine the contortions they went thru to get to that so it will mean Hitlery.

[PR]

Why didn't Stalin take it to the next level?

[low-tech cyclist]

Potters?! Is there now some right-wing fatwa against potters?

And Grangers, and Weasleys, and Dumbledores too!

After all, the wingnuts have long believed the Potter books are pro-witchcraft. And now Rowling tells us they're pro-gay, too!

No wonder poor Rufus' mind is in a muddle.

[Warren Terra]

I'm just irritated that I actually responded to Rufus and asked for the punchline in perfectly good faith, and got nothing. Well, not nothing, I did get his little screed, above. Surely that's something.

[Righteous Bubba]

What do you call a gaggle of intellectually arrogant potters and college professors?

Sage urners?

[Ron]

So what should we do to fix it, Rufus? Be as stupid as you and then we'll be happy?

[Gozer]

Shoji Tabuchi

I googled that and...oh my fucking god...just...oh my fucking god!

That shit scared the bejebus out of me.

[coozledad]

I've been in a few of those 'meaningful debates' with some of Rufus's intellectually honest fellow travelers. After their fifth tumbler of Scotch they'll tell you how the holocaust was a sham, the blacks want to peel off their daughter's tube top, and Roosevelt sold us out at Yalta, leading inevitably to the stabbing in the back of William Calley, who should've been president, goddam.

[Captain Goto]

Also, he's jealous of our ceramics.

Good God, you mean he's serious?

[snerk]

[Auguste]

Shoji Tabuchi has testimonials!

"Now I know what everyone in Hollywood is talking about!" - Art Linkletter

Damn straight they are!