Wednesday, November 14, 2007

A Few Moments

If I described the last few weeks as tough, I would be greatly understating the amount of work and pressure that has been grinding me into dust. Still, now that I have a moment, I thought that I would throw a post in here. I'm not doing this for any readers, since I only have one (Hi, Asia!). I do this for the sake of refreshment for my brain. Sometimes, just writing silliness calms my mind.

So, what should be the silliness for today? Should it be the presidential races? Nah. Too political. How about the fires in Southern California or the droughts in the south? No, too depressing.

So, today I would like to copy one Stephen Colbert and play "Tip of the Hat / Wag of the Finger". In fact, this is a "wag of the finger" to - Stephen Colbert!

Comedy is a strange thing. As humans, we all find different things to be humorous. Personally, I find the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Alton Brown (Good Eats!), and Monty Python to be very funny. I also find Donald Trump and the WWE to be very funny, but in a different way. What I don't find funny is a comedian who feels that humor involves bad language. There are a number of comedians out there who drop "f-bombs" or the like with every other sentence to shock the audience into laughing. Even Jeff Foxworthy gets a little graphic about his love life from time to time.

There are a few comedians, though, who are funny while keeping it clean. I understand that Sinbad refuses to use bad language in his act, and I salute him. Stephen Colbert in his show "The Colbert Report" is very funny. I especially like "The Word", but the show is hilarious for its sarcasm, its tongue-in-cheek jabs at society and its leaders, and Colbert's creation of his alter-ego as a conservative extremist. (I saw him a few times on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", and he isn't like that.

Thus, I was happy to pick up his book, "I Am America (And So Can You!)" That happiness didn't last, as Mr. Colbert felt the need to lob quite a number of "f bombs" and other vulgarities at me as a reader. It stopped being funny very quickly.

Therefore, Mr. Colbert, I send to you a blindfolded "Wag of the Finger" for your strange need to get nasty in your book. You're a funny guy. The character you created claims to value family and clean morals. If only you believed it and proved yourself to be an excellent comedian by not relying on cheap methods to try to get a laugh. Pitiful.