News You Can't Use: Comedy Is Not Pretty, and Nowadays It Isn’t Even Funny

We are facing a humor famine. After many comfortable decades of braying like a buffoon while tears stream down your fat greasy face at dat funny doe, we're suddenly finding the knee-slapper harvest devoured by a dust bowl of thin skin, sanctimony and Right Think. Everything that might even generate a smile is offensive, if not Room 101 material, and acting as a jester for wealthy oligarchs is not the ticket to happy-town you might expect it to be. What's the solution, then? Well, there isn't any, but here's some more words bemoaning the sad state of affairs.

I found myself seated at my computer last month, watching on YouTube  

Wow, what a glamorous and exciting life you lead, Wall Street Journal columnist.

the comedian Bill Maher talk about Donald Trump’s marriage. If you don’t share Mr. Maher’s politics, you are likely to find him an odious, even loathsome character, for he doesn’t really exist outside politics. 

I would like to think we can all unite as one people in finding this guy to be loathsome. If we can't agree on something as self-evident as that, where else are we going to find common ground?

His standard tone is mockery, his modus operandi to lacerate his targets with obscenities, flash a nervous smile, and then bask in applause from his audience.

That Drumpf, he's an idiot! Fudge! Bushel baskets! *nervous smile* *wild applause*

I was watching Mr. Maher on YouTube to see how far he would go on the subject of the Trump marriage. Would he attack the Trumps’ 11-year-old son, or perhaps attack the family for not having a dog?

...and what's the deal with not having a dog? Every healthy home is also an amateur kennel, right?

His final punch line was that Melania Trump hadn’t accompanied her husband to Davos, Switzerland, because she had spent the day having to “lay a wreath on the tomb of the unknown trophy wife.”

Why would the trophy wife of a celebrity be "unknown" and why would his next wife be expected to mourn her? I may have found a logical problem, here.

Yet to have taken what I think of as the Trumpian option in their comedy has rendered these comedians charmless while strikingly limiting their audiences to those who share their politics.

Meanwhile, jokes about t.v. dinners, airline food, toilet seats and why 24 hour gyms have locking doors are going unmade.

I recently wrote a book on the subject of charm, in preparation for which I asked a great many people to name five persons in public life they thought charming.

I just want to mention I wrote a book and am something of a big shot. Stop with the lame promotion, buddy. No one wants to hear it. 

Yet these insufficiently funny comedians, with their crude political humor, do little more than add to the sad divisiveness that is rending the country.

We need more "getting along" jokes.

Right, looks like the bloody Labour Party has done it again...

Something, surely, has been lost if one can no longer turn to comedy as a relief from the general woes of life and the greater farce that has for some years now been playing out in our everyday politics. 

After all of that, you commit the same crime you were condemning.

Full Article.

Komment Korner    

We should be more diligent before taking a hardened position, let alone accepting someone else's.

I think what we need is some bubble wrap made for conservatives

I wished Samantha Bee would run for Congress.

Pieces like this erode the credibility of the organization.

want to really laugh?  look at a mirror.

Take a close look at your TV Remote device and you'll see a button saying, "ON." Don't press it (I don't).

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Clinton Goes after Laugh Factory Comedians for Making Fun of Her

I've got this highly unique eccentricity where I like to laugh and "have fun" as it's called by some of the others with this rare (and special!) disease. The search for ways of satisfying this endless lust for braying like some sort of animal at the wonky hilarity is starting to become more and more difficult, however. Comedy in general, and especially actual satire or parody that requires a modicum of effort, is now something of an enemy, a retrograde force that's hurting our progress. If it's not offending or "othering" someone you can bet that you'll find out my brother died that way and it ain't funny. Failing that, how about the goon squad deployed by the worst Secretary of State in America's history (other than Robert Lansing, of course) and future Presidential runner-up and historical footnote.

In what appears to be a first for a serious presidential contender, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is going after five comedians who made fun of the former Secretary of State in standup skits at a popular Hollywood comedy club.

It's also a bit of a first for a so-called "free and open society" but get used to those, you've got one more year packed full of them.

A video of the short performance, which is less than three minutes, is posted on the website of the renowned club, Laugh Factory, and the Clinton campaign has tried to censor it.

Not content to destroy more conventional heavy industry we now must declare war on our Laugh Factories. The guffaw machines are being moved to China, creation of Mountain Dew spitting on keyboard material will be outsourced to the usual suspects. Thanks for all you've done, a security guard will be along to treat you like a criminal and show you out momentarily.

Besides demanding that the video be taken down, the Clinton campaign has demanded the personal contact information of the performers that appear in the recording.

Just gonna stop by your house for a "friendly" visit, no unpersoning, we promise.

This is no laughing matter for club owner Jamie Masada, a comedy guru who opened Laugh Factory more than three decades ago and has been instrumental in launching the careers of many famous comics.  

These horrible puns are mandatory and will become more common as we send jesting and buffoonery to foreign shores to cut costs.

“They threatened me,” Masada told Judicial Watch. “I have received complains before but never a call like this, threatening to put me out of business if I don’t cut the video.”

Good thing this happened in the middle of the week when there was no hand bladder games or no one would care.

The five short performances that Clinton wants eliminated include some profanity and portions could be considered crass, but some of the lines are funny and that’s what the Laugh Factory is all about.

I mean, I'm an unbelievably sophisticated cultural aficionado with the highest possible standards for my video games and Red Box comedies, but I could see the lumpenproles enjoying this, crude as it may be.

 Yeah, really.

The skits make fun of Clinton’s wardrobe, her age, sexual orientation, the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the former First Lady’s relationship with her famous husband. 

The humor of 1994 is back and better than ever with this classic compilation featuring all your favorites including "I didn't inhale" zingers and the inherent comedic value of adulterous fellatio.

The Laugh Factory has appropriately titled it “Hillary vs. The First Amendment.”

I thought she was still fighting her own e-mail account. 

He insists that the comedy stage is a sanctuary for freedom of speech no matter who is offended. 

The boot kicking down your door and stomping on your face politely disagrees.

Full Story.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.