I’ve always prided myself on being open-minded, on recognizing that there are two sides to every question. Being a competitive high-school debater was great training, since we had to argue, convincingly, the pro and con of each year’s topic (which may partially explain why so many debaters ended up in law school). And it’s certainly a skill one can use raising children, keeping us from instantly snapping, “Are you kidding? You can’t wear your rainboots and your SpongeBob sweatshirt to pre-school, it’s 90 degrees out,” or “I don’t want to hear what the guy on that brainscience site said about the intellectual stimulation of videogames.” (And yes, I’ve had both of those conversations and had to resist those lines!)
Even during contentious elections, I’ve tried hard to see the other side – and it helps that I have some good friends whose politics differ from mine. (Which, in case you hadn’t guess, range from really liberal to extremely liberal.) Plus my Republican friends represent a much more civil alternative to the louder advocates of their views (see Limbaugh: Rush . . . ). Of course, the way they often distinguish themselves reminds me of one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons, where a woman is telling a friend about her date: “He says he’s a fiscal conservative and a social liberal – which means he’s cheap, and he sleeps around.” But cartoons aside, I can see how they can feel liberal about issues like decriminalizing marijuana or gay marriage, and more conservative about financial matters.
However, sometimes the ‘other side’ goes so far that I simply cannot find any way to understand it, no matter how hard I try, and I can only conclude they are either heartless or insane. (Which makes me feel like Elizabeth Bennett in “Pride & Prejudice,” chiding Jane for trying to find a way to side with both Wickham and Darcy . . . but I digress) I used to think of North Carolina as an oasis of moderation in the middle of the south, a place I could actually see living (and where I could buy a house for the cost of a driveway in California). But lately it seems like many southern states have gone off the deep end in their efforts to restrict women’s reproductive choice, to suppress voting, and to shred the social safety net, and North Carolina seems to be one of the loonier ones. There are a couple of bright spots – the attorney general did point out that establishing Christianity as the state religion was a major violation of the US Constitution, and they’ve drawn so much national attention that things may change. But in the meantime I’ll take advantage of my own personal bright spot – realizing that the tune that kept running through my head was in the public domain, so I could do a guilt-free parody . . .
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jul 30, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
We’ve all struggled with trying to stop behaviors we know aren’t good for us, and I imagine most of us have some embarrassing episodes in our past. So far be it from me to cast the first stone against politicians whose foibles are played out in the glare of public awareness. None of us would want to be a candidate for office, trying to defend ourselves against a surreptitious youTube video of us telling an off-color joke (or singing karaoke badly). My younger son claims he has photos of me sneaking Reese’s out of his Halloween candy several years in a row, and let’s just say I’m glad that the internet and cell phone cameras didn’t exist that time my college roommates and I went to Martha’s Vineyard.
However, the subject seems to be different when the bad behavior is sexual, and engaged in by elected leaders. (Which should give you a clue that my Martha’s Vineyard escapade was pretty benign, and didn’t actually involve anyone important or anything worth photographing . . . . ) Part of it is often the hypocrisy factor (see Gingrich, Newt). And part of it is the “you’re kidding, right?” disbelief at how stupid some people can be (see Danger, Carlos, or all the comments about how Bill Clinton could have had just about any gorgeous liberal starlet or international political figure instead of cheating on Hilary with a frumpy, not particularly brilliant intern). But the larger concern is that these are people who are telling us to trust them, with our laws& our tax money. Therefore, when they engage in clandestine activities, it isn’t just between them and their cheated-upon partner.
So when still MORE revelations came out this week about Weiner’s continued sexting after he’d insisted he had turned over a new leaf, the general reaction was “enough already, just go away.” (I don’t know about anyone else, but that famous original grainy shot of his bulging underwear continues to give me nightmares.) But he’s not alone – Bob Filner now acknowledges that as Mayor of San Diego, he engaged in a plethora of unsavory behavior, from the now infamous “Filner headlock” which he used to express sweet nothings to his employees, to groping constituents and telling his staff they’d work better if they weren’t wearing underpants. However, he keeps insisting that these acts were just evidence of a problem he has, not actual sexual harassment. (Which begs the question, what WOULD he consider sexual harassment? I guess it’s okay as long as he didn’t insist on women giving him lap dances as a condition of keeping their jobs?) And on top of everything else, both Weiner and Filner have extremely bright, attractive wives – sort of like our horror that if Halle Berry’s husband cheated on her, the rest of us are screwed. (But I digress . . . .
Honesty is a big factor, but I have to go back to the “how stupid can you be?” question. (Like how Eliot Spitzer claims to be a brilliant fiscal manager, after shelling out thousands of dollars for overpriced hookers, not to mention the weird thing he had about keeping his socks on . . .) These are people who seek public attention, so you’d think they’d be a little more careful about their public behavior. But the unsavory details continue to emerge, and the middle-school-level jokes keep popping up (the NY Daily News is having a field day with headlines about Weiner, as one might imagine from the newspaper which once announced “headless body found in topless bar,” which is the first headline I saw when I moved to New York). Even my teenage son has seen the Weiner memes, with every possible variation on ‘pulling out’ or ‘sticking out’ you could imagine.
As a feminist, a registered Democrat and a former New Yorker, of course I hope Spitzer & Weiner withdraw from the race so voters can refocus on the important issues facing the city, and as a Californian, I hope Filner resigns once he realizes that 2 weeks of rehab may not be sufficient after years of thinking the way to reach out to a constituent is to grab her buttocks. But as a comedian, these guys are the gift that keeps on giving – I thought after last week’s song, the subject would be passe, but I guess they all could still use a little musical advice to “Zip It Up!”
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jul 23, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
This is a particularly hard time to be a political humorist – so many news stories are volatile and disturbing. Topics like the Zimmerman verdict, abortion restrictions, cruel anti-gay legislation in Russia, and horrible heat waves don’t suggest anything funny, and besides, it feels inappropriate to joke about such sensitive topics. What’s an independent writer to do? (lacking the writing staff of The Daily Show)
Fortunately, cheating by prominent figures never goes out of style, and we’re getting a refresher course thanks to the New York City elections, in which Elliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner are actually ahead in their respective races for Comptroller and Mayor. Apparently, the old adage is true, that any press isi good press, because name recognition seems to be more important to voters than the misbehavior which led to each of them resigning not that long ago. Mark Sanford has also returned to public office, after turning The Appalachian Trail into a permanent teenage boy joke. And just to make sure the whole subject stays current, now we have the Mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner, who is accused of harassing women employees with unwanted attention and suggestions that their work would improve if they weren’t wearing undergarments. (Filner vigorously refutes the accusations,insisting he didn’t do anything wrong, he just likes to hug people, but he knows he has a problem and will seek help. One of the odder denial/confession combos I’ve ever heard – but stay tuned, the city has opened a hotline for employees and constituents to make complaints. This could get really fun!)
So while these sex scandals won’t solve global warming or Congressional deadlock, they can help take our minds off of the more upsetting news stories for a few moments; we can chuckle with glee over the more salacious details (like Spitzer’s opponent turning out to be the madame whose employees he patronized; you’d think she’d prove to be a better financial planner, since she got him to pay $4,000 a pop . . . but I digress . . . )
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jul 16, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
Having taken on the challenge of writing a new political comedy song every week, as well as writing songs regularly for children’s music publishers, I am regularly confronted with the question of from whence comes the kernel of inspiration. Or in less high-falutin’ terms, “oh crap, what am I gonna write this week?” But that’s sort of the point of these regular challenges, seeing how we respond to the regularity. (Such as “Julie and Julia,” how a home-chef blogged about cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering French Cooking,” and how it transformed her marriage and made her a media star, or those articles that pop up occasionally in women’s magazines about couples who decide to try having sex every day for a year, only none of them end up getting played by Amy Adams. But I digress . . . )
There are those who say inspiration flows from a higher power, like in the movie “Amadeus” where Salieri envies Mozart, whom he thinks is basically taking dictation from a divine source. And others say there’s no such thing as pure inspiration, it’s mostly persistence and hard work. Most famous writers will advise their audiences to write what they know, and to write regularly. (When I was in middle school, our class got to attend a lecture by Ray Bradbury, who met with us afterwards, and he detailed his writing method, he got up every day, put his rear end in his chair, and made himself write 10 pages. Sometimes the words flowed effortlessly and became the germ of a new novel, and sometimes he took several hours to write 10 pages of “I hate writing.”)
So when it comes to political comedy songs, of course I start with perusing current events, but usually I still have to do the plant-the-tush-and-force-myself. Sometimes a meme or topic is trending too strongly to ignore, like the 2012 election’s “Binders Full of Women” or the recent flap about Paula Deen (so I at least have a subject matter). But every now and then, a line or a tune will simply pop into my head – not that I claim to be Mozartian with some sort of direct line to divine inspiration, but I do sometimes wonder where that comes from. And this started when I was a kid – in 6th grade, I accompanied Amy Wood and Lori D’Itri in the school talent show, singing the recent hit song “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.” (Yeah, it was that long ago. Altho I skipped a grade so I was only 10. So I’m not that old.) Anyway, the sheet music listed other titles available from the publisher, including a title that cracked us all up, “I Left My Heart In San Francisco.” We thought that was really weird, and all of a sudden a tune and a lyric popped into my head:
(sung to a jaunty ragtime tune)
“I left my heart in San Francisco,
I left my lungs in Waikiki,
I left my legs in old New Mexico,
And now there’s nothing left of me!” That was the moment I decided to become a songwriter. (And someday it will make a terrific anecdote for a t.v. interview . . . )
I don’t have those moments very often, when a whole section of a song just materializes, but it’s wonderful when it happens. And this week, after reading a slew of articles about the combination of failed attempts at reasonable gun legislation, and the recent spate of state restrictions on abortion, the title and first few lines of this week’s song popped into my head. I imagine the combination of these two sensitive issues will prompt some pretty vehement responses (although so far, the angriest youTube comments I’ve gotten have also been the worst in terms of spelling and grammar, which makes them a little less ominous . . . )
Like most people from my generation (late-baby-boomers or early whatever-is-in-between-that-and-Gen-X?), I was taught to respect my elders, my teachers, or anyone in a position of authority, even if I disagreed with them. This apparently outdated training gave us very good manners and some real difficulty in calling our parents’ friends by their first names even when we were parents ourselves. It also meant that we behaved respectfully toward bosses or elected officials even if we couldn’t stand them or their politics, so that up until recently, political discourse always at least had the veneer of politeness.
These days, of course, it’s easy to point to the collapse of civility everywhere from Congress to preschool. (And yes, there’s a joke in there somewhere about how I just insulted preschoolers.) Some of this informality is welcome – for example, since between my husband, my kids and myself we have three different last names at my house, it’s just easier to go by my first name; and I certainly don’t long for those days when my mother put on a girdle, stockings, a dress, heels, and even gloves to go to the grocery store. But as many writers on this site have pointed out, not holding back our opinions is part of why there’s such partisan gridlock in government. Can’t we manage to be polite and courteous even to people with whom we disagree? (And how many of you had the equivalently old-fashioned education to notice that correct grammar?)
I like to pride myself on that ability to rise above petty differences. It’s worked with my ex-husband, to the point where we can sit together at our kids’ events, and only my closest friends know all the mean-spirited little digs I was tempted to throw out there but didn’t. It’s worked with my friends who have different political views – yes, some of my best friends are Republicans. (Of course I live in the San Francisco area, so Republicans here tend to have liberal social views along with being more fiscally conservative; on the other hand, one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons showed one woman describing her latest date to a friend, “He says he’s a social liberal and a fiscal conservative – which just means he sleeps around and he’s cheap.” But I digress . . . )
However, sometimes it’s just too hard to stay polite and respectful, particularly when someone says or does something too egregious to ignore. (Or in kids’ parlance, “He started it!”) And this can be true even for Supreme Court justices. I had my first taste of head-scratching behavior by one of these lofty figures when I spent a semester in college as a DC intern. (This was back when being an intern had nothing to do with jokes about Presidential infidelity.) Our group got to meet with Potter Stewart, who had just made headlines with his statement that while he couldn’t define pornography, he knew it when he saw it. Not only did he reiterate that view to us, he elaborated by explaining he’d had to view quite a bit of the material in question to come up with his conclusion. Somehow, the idea of a fairly elderly man in a black robe rationalizing his porn consumption knocked the Supreme Court off the pedestal in my mind – I realized they were just people like anyone else, extremely influential, and presumably more intelligent than most of us, but not necessarily. (Not to mention the fact that a Supreme Court justice discussing pornography with sophomoric college juniors was already pretty surreal, as well as giving us all bad cases of supressed snickers.)
So speaking of ludicrous statements by Supreme Court justices, I had planned to resist the temptation to write about Antonin Scalia’s ranting opinions, dissents, and other tirades in recent months, but the combination of his “argle-bargle” comment and his son now claiming that homosexuality simply doesn’t exist was just impossible to ignore – and impossible for me to remain civil and completely respectful. (Although I will give the man credit – he makes the nation’s highest court both colorful and great material for comedians!)
Since I committed to writing and posting a song at the beginning of every week about current events, it’s been an interesting experiment in creativity and inspiration. There are hundreds of books, courses, websites and experts who purport to know the secret to writing, but it seems like the advice usually boils down to two things: Write about what you care about, and write regularly whether or not you feel inspired. Which all sounds great, until you’re staring at a blank screen (or blank piece of paper, in the pre-computer days) and thinking, “What now?”
By Friday or Saturday, I’m usually poking around various political websites (particularly this one!) and watching Daily Show monologues to see what topic has caught people’s attention. This was really easy during the election, with a surfeit of fabulous memes like killing Big Bird, ‘Binders of Women,’ or ’47 Percent.’ But current events don’t always skew so colorfully, and frequently I feel like I’m scrambling to find anything to write – anyone who’s ever coped with a deadline knows that feeling of, Oh well, even Dorothy Parker wasn’t brilliant every time. (Or Ellen DeGeneres, or Weird Al Yankovic, or Michele Bachmann, or whoever your favorite humorist is . . . )
However, this past week was chock full of big news stories, so much so that I had a hard time deciding. Scalia’s dissent in the DOMA case was tempting – his rant about the rationale being “legalistic argle-bargle” sounded like a temper tantrum in a Dr. Seuss book. And living in the San Francisco area, I loved the fun, colorful way the city celebrated – literally so, with City Hall bathed in rainbow lighting. (My suburban girlfriend met her GBF – gay best friend, just in case – in the Castro the night after the decision. She couldn’t figure out why there were so many Ikea signs and flags around, til someone pointed out that the blue & yellow signs were actually Equal Rights emblems, not Ikea logos.)
But there was something so irresistable about the news from the Texas Legislature last week, which had all the elements of a great story: Noisy crowds, valiant efforts by an outnumbered heroine, iconic pink sneakers, and even a few idiotic rape comments thrown in for good measure. (See Texas Rep. Jodie Laubenberg’s curious explanation that a rape exception to her abortion ban wasn’t necessary because rape kits ‘clean everything out.) Plus I love Wendy Davis’ backstory, a teenage single mom from a trailer park, working her way up to Harvard Law School and a state Senate seat, while still maintaining the proud Texas tradition of big hair.
Since Rick Perry immediately convened another emergency session, the ultimate outcome is up in the air, but last week’s filibuster is one moment in Texas politics the whole country won’t forget very soon – so to commemorate it, here’s The Ballad Of Wendy (‘She Shut That Whole Thing Down’)
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jun 25, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
More and more, public figures seem to be unable to extricate themselves from scandal gracefully, so much so that often the apology gets them in more trouble than the original misbehavior. Think about Bill Clinton parsing words about what ‘is’ means, Mark Sanford permanently making ‘hiking the Appalachian Trail’ into a joke, or anything relating to Anthony Weiner. In this day and age, it’s impossible to say or do anything without some sort of permanent online recording of it, and we are all human and likely to make mistakes, so it’s high time celebrities and politicians learn how to say “I’m sorry” without digging themselves an even deeper hole.
And the first lesson should be, say you’re sorry, you did something wrong, and then stop – don’t try to defend your actions, don’t explain it’s because your spouse didn’t understand you or your parents raised you that way. (This is a corollary of the advice my mother gave me when I became an instant step-parent of an 8-year-old through my first marriage. Mom said that when a kid asks a question, only answer the question, don’t volunteer additional details until asked. So if a toddler says, “Where did I come from?,” perhaps she only wants to know the city in which she was born, not how she was actually conceived. My first solo outing with my new stepdaughter was the week after we’d all seen the movie Look Who’s Talking, and sure enough she piped up, “You know those things swimming around in the very beginning of the movie? What were they?” Recollecting Mom’s words of wisdom, I answered, “Those are called sperm,” and held my breath. Nope, she was satisfied, she just wanted to know the word. Whew.)
Last week Paula Deen could’ve used my mother’s advice – the celebrity chef faced a growing storm over remarks she’d made in a recent deposition, acknowledging she’d used a racially offensive term, as well as rhapsodizing over the charms of a ‘plantation wedding’ with polite dark-skinned waiters in nice uniforms (and commenting about how many jokes there also were about Jews, gays, and rednecks, thereby managing to offend everyone else). Ms. Deen rushed out a series of rather odd videos, in which she apologized, but then continued to explain that she grew up in the south, that’s just how they all talk, she wasn’t a racist, lots of people use the ‘n’ word all the time, and some of her best friends, etc. On top of her appearances strangely resembling hostage videos, she compounded the damage by attempting to explain herself, then no-showing a much-hyped Today Show appearance (and Matt Lauer didn’t hesitate to tell his audience what happened). As the controversy continued to build (and more former employees came forward with claims of discrimination and hostile work environment), Food Network abruptly announced they were not renewing her contract.
People rushed to comment, with strong feelings on both sides. Her die-hard fans swore never to watch Food Network again and claimed that she was being punished for using language everyone else used, while plenty of older southern ladies chimed in that they’d NEVER used the word in question and resented Deen for claiming that everyone in her generation did. Pretty soon the online comments veered off into condemning rap music, accusing Deen of hypocricy for hiding her own diabetes until she got a lucrative pharmaceutical contract, and claiming that peole who didn’t cook with butter were unAmerican. Meanwhile it’s not like Deen is going to be impoverished, between her cookbooks, her restaurants, and various product lines – she’s carved out a unique niche for herself as the former inventor of a bacon-cheeseburger with a donut bun, who now offers slightly more healthy variations on down-home southern fare, and there are multiple websites devoted to her ‘Deenisms’ (such as “The more cheese, the better,” “I’m not your doctor, I’m your cook!,” and “If y’all will excuse me, I’m gonna make love to this here potato”).
I don’t know if a sparser apology would have changed Food Network’s decision, but Deen didn’t do herself any favors by her awkward explanations, including insisting that she just adored all her African-American employees (one of whom she jokingly accused of blending in with a blackboard because he was so dark), and claiming that most plantation-owners treated their slaves like valued members of the family. I do hope she recovers from this debacle – partly because she’s just too darned entertaining to disappear (is there anyone else you can imagine teaching us how to make deep-fried stuffing-on-a-stick?), and partly because I think she sincerely regrets her mistake. (And also because thanks to her, news outlets didn’t have room to revel in details about the Kim Kardashian/Kanye West baby, other than the fact that they have probably topped Gwyneth Paltrow and Frank Zappa in the you-did-WHAT-to-your-kid? baby naming insanity contest.) (The baby’s name is North, by the way – seems way better than Apple or Moon Unit at first, but just think about it for a bit.)
Anyway, it’s been a very entertaining few days, so here’s a song commemorating the whole story:
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Jun 18, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
I thought the GOP hit bottom with women voters in 2012, thanks to “legitimate rape,” “binders of women,” etc., and I was looking forward to the ‘new and improved’ party after its public autopsy and rebranding. But apparently several holdouts haven’t gotten the memo – and it’s not just bothering us leftist liberals. Several republican strategists and senior leaders (including Bob Dole) have been critical, college-age republicans say the party is out of touch, and Rep Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania said the party was ‘stupid’ to focus on abortion and parsing words about rape instead of on jobs and infrastructure.
But there are still plenty of state legislatures, talk-radio hosts, and US Congressmen who seem to be obsessed with reproductive functions – they remind me less of responsible leaders and more of my teenage sons, but even they’ve outgrown that phase (although they still enjoy rating each other’s burps). And of course I understand that a few idiotic comments don’t represent an entire party, but it’s hard not to see a pattern, between all the mandatory transvaginal ultrasound laws, the Governor of Iowa signing a law that makes him personally responsible for deciding which women in his state can have a federally-funded abortion, or Saxby Chambliss claiming that sexual assault in the military was just a result of all those young people’s hormones. Critics were quick to point out that many of the accused assailants were well past puberty (although I’ll cut the man some slack, given that my 47-year-old husband still frequently behaves like a teenager), but what I want to know is whether Chambliss realizes that by his logic, we should expect (and forgive) sexual assault every other place where hormonally-charged young people live together (like college dorms).
And don’t get me started on the insane illogic of opposing both abortion and family planning. (We’ve already seen how poorly that works from religious leaders – My former mother-in-law was a devout Catholic who nevertheless used birth control, like almost American Catholics, because as she put it in her beautiful Italian accent, “How can-a the Pope tell-a me how to have-a sex if he no-a have sex?”) Or the incredibly tone-deaf misogyny of people like the Governor of Mississippi, who attributed the decline in American education to the fact that mothers have entered the work force. (However, I’m getting a good laugh out of the attempts in some states to limit abortion by calculating based on the date of woman’s last period, which means that she was pregnant 2 weeks before she actually conceived.)
Fortunately, this trend is making life incredibly easy for comedians, particularly those of us who miss Todd Akin et al., as well as a great climate for ’60s-type protest songs. So here’s my contribution:
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jun 11, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
Anyone familiar with 12-step programs or various philosophical guides to serene living will tell you that the key to happiness is to surrender to the moment, to change what you can, to accept what you cannot change, and to know the difference. And anyone familiar with air travel in recent years will tell you that even the Dalai Lama would struggle with staying serene when you’re confronted with cancelled flights, long lines, inedible overpriced food, and cramped uncomfortable seats.
But we do our best to cope – for me, that means loading my Kindle with a wide assortment of reading material and bringing socks along so I don’t have to think about what I might be getting on my feet in the security line. For others, it may mean scoping out the best chair massages amd cheapest bars. And for everyone, it means trying our hardest to surrender, to remind ourselves ‘this too shall pass’ and we will, despite all appearances, eventually get to our destination.
Occasionally I try to go one step further and look for the silver lining – can anything good come out of this experience? I know of one couple who met in line to get re-routed after their flight was cancelled, and I have one friend who travels frequently for work and wrote a book while she was waiting at airports. Up until recently, the only unexpected benefit of air travel hassles I’d ever experienced was on the third leg of a rescheduled flight that was originally nonstop – I was so sick of sitting, I had walked back to the galley, started chatting with the flight attendant, and found out we had a friend in common. When she heard I’d been on the canceled flight, she poured me a double scotch and didn’t charge me. I immediately felt better – sure, the scotch helped, but it was more the unexpected generosity.
And lest you think that my only silver linings involve alcohol, this past weekend provided another. I had yet another delayed flight and long wait at a small airport, and I was also panicking since I’d been away, hadn’t kept up with the news and thus hadn’t figured out what this week’s song would be about. As I was combing through the newspaper looking for an idea, I heard the announcement about my delayed flight and a lightbulb went off – I could write a song about air travel, instead of just complaining about it! Suddenly, what was once a huge annoyance became a source of inspiration, or as my ‘woo-woo’ friends say, I reframed the experience. (Of course, it’ll only work this way once, but I’ll take what I can get!)
So have faith – next time you have a cancelled or delayed flight, look for something fun and unexpected to happen (or at least look for the nearest good chair massage place), and if you aren’t lucky enough to travel much, you can hum this song to get the general idea.
Michele Bachmann recently told us she was not going to run for re-election in 2014. While some people greeted her announcement with either relief (no more being confused by Minnesota having both legal gay marriage and Bachmann as a representative) or snickers (instead of a press conference, she posted a gauzy, underscored video that bore an eerie resemblance to those short films airplanes use to show you how to buckle a seatbelt.) But there were also many people who were distraught that she would be leaving public life, especially since Fox News is denying rumors that she would simply be moving there.
Of course her loyal followers are upset, but probably not nearly as much as comedians. One basic tenet of good comedy is to say outrageous things as though they were perfectly normal. (A great example of this is George Carlin’s segment in “The Aristocrats,” the cult movie about the world’s dirtiest joke. Carlin’s advice was to deliver off-color content as though one was describing how a carburetor works – the movie is worth watching just for that part!) Ms. Bachmann was a textbook illustration of this principle, maintaining her composure while expounding vehemently, and seriously, about everything from the IRS’s conspiracy to deny Tea Party members any health care, to “The Lion King” serving as a homosexual recruiting tool (convincing kids that they should be gay because a gay composer wrote the music). And facts be damned – when she was criticized for stating that Lexington & Concord were in New Hampshire, she simply explained that New Hampshire had as much right to be proud of “the shot heard round the world” as the actual location. My personal favorite was her claim that there was a suspicious coincidence in flu surges occuring during Democratic presidencies, like an outbreak under Obama and then the big swine flu epidemic in 1976 (which was under Gerald Ford’s watch, not Jimmy Carter’s, but whatever?). Frankly, at times I wondered if she were some sort of giant humor project, like Stephen Colbert’s brief run for president, and the whole thing would be revealed like Joaquin Phoenix’s odd ‘performance art’ on The David Letterman show.
But now she’s leaving – and while there will still be plenty of loony conspiracy theorists around, none of them will make writing comedy as easy as Ms. Bachmann has, because what she actually said needs no embroidering to be funny. (I discovered the truth of the axiom that real life is funnier than anything I can write when my kids started asking me about the facts of life . . . when I explained the whole thing to my younger son and asked if he had any questions, he said with great concern, “What if it gets stuck?” I told him that wouldn’t happen, not as long as he was 18 and she was Jewish . . . . Sadly, now that they’re older teenagers with cars, they’re not home enough to provide me with material. But I digress . . . )
I’d actually planned on doing a song for Ms. Bachmann during the 2012 election, but she dropped out before I got to her, so I’m grabbing this opportunity just in case she vanishes from public life and devotes her life to combating the scourge of gay liberal Disney-movie propaganda . . .
