"WE MUST TELL BETTER STORIES THAN THE TYRANTS Salmon Rushdie

     Many of my friends and acquaintances are by now aware that I am political. For some, too political. That is unfortunate but I subscribe to a political philosophy that politics, like every worthy thing in life, is a struggle. Someone pulls, someone pulls back. Progress is made by keeping up the pressure on those who would pull you through the mud in utter defeat for the shear pleasure of humiliating you. Often in such contests one party or the other will violate any scruples to win. This is particularly true when proximity to power comes into play. It is at this point when the humorist butts in, or becomes a butt. I was born in the year when two notable Senators began serving in the Senate, one from each party. One was Joseph McCarthy who set about investigating the opposite party for commies, fellow traffickers of the Red Chinese, and other people whom he wished to put under a spotlight powerful enough to expose the tiniest blemish of character. This was all happening when I was still discovering my toes, but the stench of Joseph McCarthy and the persecution of Hollywood actors and screenwriters before he got elected has carried through to this day. I could not help but to notice the stain of that era in my early journey through history.

     John F Kennedy became a Senator the same year as Joseph McCarthy. Both were veterans of WWII, McCarthy, known as Tailgunner Joe, Kennedy of the legendary PT 109. One was the first to be fired on by opposing fighter aircraft, the other had his PT Boat blown out of the water and encouraged his crew to swim to a small island, towing one badly burned sailor with a belt strap in his teeth. They both were the butt of much humor. Only one of these people had a book written about him or a movie. As I was becoming curious about politics, JFK was elected President of the United States. The country was intoning his nomination speech, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". Fifty mile hikes were a much talked about activity, if not actively pursued. Vaughn Meeder had great success as a comedian who masterfully mimicked JFK's speech and mannerisms,  Camelot was a frequent description of the Whitehouse, and the attractive young family within. Midway through his 3rd year an assassin brought all of that to a crushing end. But the political intrigues, and happenings in Washington DC remained, growing stronger as I grew to the threshold of adultery. I was not yet adulterous, but desirous of attaining it.

     Concurrently, political humor was rising in popularity. Lenny Bruce blazed the trail but died before I was old enough to watch late night TV. Many years later I had a good friend who idolized Lenny Bruce and I listened to many of his records. Mort Saul was maybe the first comic I gravitated to aside from Bob Hope whom my parents loved. Mort Saul dressed in what was called "collegiate" at the time. White open-collar shirt, slacks, cardigan sweater. His humor was bi-partisan though progressive. That was possible at the time. His 1967 routine on politics can be found on YouTube, as can many of his other routines. It is worth your time. Tom Lehrer was a song parodist. My sons learned of him in science class for his song of the Table of Elements (he became a physics professor). I loved his, "So long mom I'm off to drop the bomb, so don't wait up for me". We were practicing at the time hiding under our desks, not for shooter drills which were not yet known, but for when the nuclear war started. As if Russia was going to bomb Portland, first. Another memorable song was, The Vatican Rag- "first you get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries. Bow your head in deep respect and, Genuflect, Genuflect, Genuflect". As you can tell I was having trouble as an adolescent taking life seriously. In our defense we were not sure we had much future. The Smothers Brothers were introduced to me by my childhood friend David, whose older sister had a record collection. Later, they had a prime time show on CBS, that was canceled for it's anti-war content. That Was The Week That Was introduced us to David Frost who became a serious reporter, Laugh-In, George Carlin, and a host of talented young comedians gave rise to the present-day late-night comics. These short bursts of humor were tucked in between movies by Mel Brooks and a host of others. Laughter was how we learned to survive our tenuous existence in a seemingly hostile world. We laughed at what oppressed us. There was a story about Godfrey Caimbridge, a black Civil Rights comedian of generous girth, who went to a roadside diner in Georgia and ordered a whole baked chicken. As it was being served, two Georgia bubba's sat down across from him and told him that they were gonna do to him, what he was gonna do to the chicken. He picked up the roast chicken, spread its legs, and buried his face in the cavity. Humor is not for the faint of heart. Starting with Richard Nixon, humor became concentrated on one particular party. Society itself was not less intimidating to us in the counter-culture, but Republicans were now the existential threat. There was a fictional character from the early 19th Century writer Finley Peter Dunne named Mr. Dooley. He was fittingly, an Irish bartender who said that, the newspaper must oppress the comfortable and comfort the oppressed. Later Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologian and philosopher used it in an essay. The press stopped oppressing the comfortable, so the stand-up comic took up the banner. They have done a credible job without losing their sense of purpose, though some have tried veering towards the right. Dennis Miller anyone? Jesse waters? One conservative humorist I enjoyed ( one of a tiny few) was P J O'Roarke. One of his oft-quoted sayings is, "Democrats will tell you that they can make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass from your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it". Context is important and we must remember that this was said during the Reagan years. Ronald Reagan told us that the most frightening sentence in the American language is, " I'm from the government and I'm here to help you". It's funny and subversive, but further scrutiny would cause us to ask, how does it work when we say, I'm from a mult-national corporation and I'm here to help you? That's not funny, or a joke, but worth consideration. There must be truth at the foundation of humor,  after all. O'Roarke understood that, Dennis Miller and Jesse Watters failed that lesson. 

     I want to take a moment to pick apart P J O'Roakes joke because of its brilliance. Democrats can make you smarter, because they believe in the benefits of public education, for everyone. They can make you taller because they want people to be nourished and healthy. Richer can be argued, but O'Roarke, as most of us of a certain age saw the economic benefits of the New Deal, before they were eviscerated by trickle-down economics. It is true that Democrats wish to tax us more, but they mostly focus on those who have grown richest, unlike Republicans. As for crabgrass in your lawn, we fall far short of that. We are more likely to want you to use less petro-chemical herbicides. The most extreme of us would like you to supplant your lawns with raised-bed gardens and bee and butterfly habitat. There is wisdom to that which I don't need to go into. This is about humor after all.

     We now find ourselves in an era where some politicians of a certain party are funnier than any jokes that can be made about them. I say funny in the way that Thomas Swift used satire to illustrate the plight of the Irish. The one where he talked about curing the hides of children who died in the potato famine. It was called, A Modest Proposal. It was satire, and not well-accepted. Doctor Oz, who does not know how funny he is, went to a grocery store to illustrate how expensive vegetables are, thanks to inflation, which his party wishes to blame on Democrats. He then purchased prepared salsa and guacamole along with fresh vegetables. A bottle of tequila was on his shopping list but apparently the state he wishes to represent does not sell distilled spirits in a grocery store. He was also not aware that most of us must make our own salsa and guacamole from scratch because we cannot afford a private chef. The vegetables were called crudite, a word unfamiliar to most of us who simply cut up carrots and celery, and stuff. And he got the store name wrong. When confronted by the unintended humor, this man who has no idea what most people experience, did not laugh it off as a joke on himself, he said that he sometimes forgets his children's names, thus not endearing him to his children. It does not appear that he is enduring himself to his adopted state voters, either. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as some of her colleagues is famous for her malaprops, another form of humor. Unfortunately she, and they, do not know that a malaprop is meant to be intentional, for humorous effect, not spoken with serious intent. They also do not know that hyperbole is an intentional overstatement used for humorous intent. Details.

     The much admired writer, Salmon Rusdie, because he is much maligned by Islamic zealots, said, "we must tell better stories than the tyrants".  Jokes are a better format than storytelling and we don't have to work hard to be better than the Republicans, who manage to get that mostly wrong, also.