Episode 8 In defense of comedy

Not the Headlines, microplastics, putting boundaries on comedy, kids these days.
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Episode 8
Well, hello there! Welcome to this edition of the Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. In this edition, Georgia’s on my mind, and I don’t mean the one with Atlanta, making women’s lives harder, and easier, the tiny plastic particles inside you, and how I’m glad I’m not a comedian! You’re probably glad about that, too. But first...(not the headlines liner).
According to Economy and Business, corporate profits hit a record high in 2021. Data released by the Commerce Department shows the even though companies complained that labor and raw material costs were increasing, those costs got passed on to you and me, plus a generous tip like the one added on to your bill at a fancy restaurant if you have too many people in your party. The report suggests that even though the price of goods went up by seven percent, the 2021 pre-tax profits rose 25 percent. I’m not sure if I’m comparing apples to apples here, but there’s a lot of speculation right now about whether we’re being gouged by corporate America right now, especially by the fuel industry. But, the report also states that the 4th quarter growth fell sharply, which some see as a sign that the American people are fed up with inflation and are starting to change their spending habits. What this demonstrates is that we, the consumers, do, in a large part, have control over our own environments. What we buy, and what we don’t buy, have a direct effect on the price of what we pay when we do buy. Sure, there are certain things we can’t do without, and sometimes we feel like we’re being held over a barrel by the companies that supply those things. That’s where government needs to step in and protect the people from being abused and taken advantage. In the case today, the Biden administration has decided to release a million barrels of oil a day from the nation’s strategic reserve. The goal is to flood the market with oil to cause the value of it to drop, hopefully leading to lower prices for people who buy gasoline to run their cars and oil to heat their homes. The problem I see is, that those supplies in the strategic reserve will have to be replenished at some point, and if releasing the oil will create artificially lower prices, how will we replenish the reserve without paying what we should anticipate as higher prices in the future?
We don’t hear much about the Taliban since the botched American exit from Afghanistan. Well, just because our media won’t tell you about it, it doesn’t mean news stopped happening in what is probably the most unstable region of the entire world. No, the Taliban has imposed new restrictions on girls and women. Plus, they’ve ended international media broadcasts and foreign drama series. That’s not all! Men and women can visit public parks only on separate days, and using your cell phone while at a university is prohibited. According to a story that quotes the Associated Press, girls will no longer receive more than a sixth-grade education, and women may not board an airplane without a male guardian. I don’t know about you, but I think a lot of us saw this coming. When you take power away from the people, you almost inevitably end up with repression and abuse of power. I think it’s funny how the Taliban can even recognize women under all of those robes and face coverings, while here in America, we can’t even seem to define a woman. Funnier still is that we ended Women’s Month with a Supreme Court nominee who wouldn’t define a woman after she was nominated because she is one. The hypocrisy is almost mind-boggling.
Speaking of mind-boggling, micro and nano are prefixes we use to describe very, very tiny things. Things that are invisible to the naked eye. A lot of our world exists on a microscopic level, and most of it is benign. However, for the first time, micro plastics have been detected in the bloodstream of people. The sample was small, just 17 out of 22 anonymous donors tested positive for micro plastics, but not only did they test positive for microplastics, they tested positive for a variety of types of microplastics. A story written for the Guardian cites new research published in the journal Environment International. It shows that microplastics can travel through our bloodstream and become lodged, or build up in our organs. The good news is, microplastics have also been found in our feces, so it seems like both babies and adults have a way of getting rid of the pollutant. The bad news is we have no idea what long-term effects this intrusion of our ecosystem will have now that we are ingesting plastics through the food we eat and the liquids we drink and the air we breathe. We’ve all heard stories about plastic waste being found in the middle of the ocean and on the seafloor, as well as on the world’s highest peaks, and everywhere in between. It’s disgusting, it’s wasteful, and it’s in many ways symbolic of a culture of wasteful production without regard to the end result. The companies who manufacture plastic bottles, for example, simply sell them to the soft drink manufacturers, who fill them with liquid and sell it to consumers. The consumers drink the liquid, which may contain microplastics, directly ingesting it at that point, then is forced to dispose of the empty bottle, after which the consumer has no control over its fate. It becomes, at some point, a pollutant. It could be in a landfill, or in a recycling center, or in a sewer somewhere. It doesn’t matter where it is anymore, because now we know that these plastics are polluting our blood. The most precious liquid of all. A lot more studies are in the works, and the UK government is considering adding more funding to research already being done on the impact of microplastics on fetuses and babies, and on the immune system. Plastics are a relatively new science, but has infiltrated itself into our lives because of its versatility. It’s also a petroleum product. Imagine how much oil we’d save if we cut back on the plastics that have taken up residence in our very bloodstreams. So, how much oil is used to make plastic?
Look that up liner…
It depends on who you ask. I found estimates from as little as 2.7 percent, as claimed by Oil Price dot com, to four percent, as cited by kinetic petro dot com, and up to 10 percent according to one bag at a time dot com. So it’s certainly not a large chunk of our oil production, but it might come in hand about now. I know it’s hard to imagine a world without plastic, but it wasn’t that long ago that we had one. It’s had more than half-a-century to invade us, and it has. Now that we know it has, it’s not too late to change course, and begin to rid our ecosystem of this artificial substance that we created, and cannot control.
The good thing is, no matter how hard we sometimes try to prevent it, life seems to find a way. Even if it’s just a tiny crack in the sidewalk, something will find a way to exploit the grains of dust that accumulate there, leading to a substance similar enough to soil that an organism has something to cling to in its quest to carry on its DNA. That’s why no birth control method is 100 percent effective. But a new male birth control pill has been developed, and human testing of the nonhormonal contraceptive could begin later this year. There is currently nothing like it available. The male birth control pill currently being studied at the University of Minnesota is 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy in mice. This could lead one to believe that men are having sex with mice, but as it turns out, only male mice have taken the pill. So far. Human tests could begin later this year. Other formula are being considered as well in case human trials don’t pan out as expected, but the mice results look good. It doesn’t work overnight, but you can also stop taking it and become a breeder again. I once heard a homosexual refer to heterosexuals as breeders. I guess I’m okay with it, even though he said it in a condescending way. Plus, he was a buddy of mine, so, whatever. I have other buddies who use more disturbing terms to describe groups of people.
Now imagine if you were one of those groups of people who had access to Air Force One. The official plane of the leader of the country. Plus, you could invite all of your friends to come on board with you. Man, you really have to be in the right circle of people to be able to use the most important aircraft in the country for a social gathering. And in this case, the right circle of people to be in would be Mexican! The President of Mexico, Andres Manuael Lopez Obrador, has decided to rent out the presidential jet for weddings and parties. It’s a Boeing 787, and the president says it’s too luxurious and refuses to use it. He flies commercial, and has only flown out of Mexico once. The Mexican government has been trying to sell it to corporations and business executives, but hasn’t found any takers. It’s been modified to the point that it accommodates 80 instead of the 300 it would as a passenger jet. It’s got a Presidential Suite with a private bath, and your party can be held in-flight. “The rental fees will pay for its expenses and maintenance,” said the President of Mexico “It will be open to the public if anyone wants it, because they’re getting married ... and they want to bring their friends and family ... or coming of age parties, birthdays.” It cost 200-million dollars to build and was used by the previous president, but Obrador has no need for it. The President of the United States, on the other hand, has not one, but two planes on standby, plus a helicopter, and probably a boat somewhere, too. Plus a batcave and a portal to another dimension in case his life is in danger. But the President of Mexico has everything so under control that he can just book a flight on-line when he needs to go anywhere that has an airport. I say that with some sarcasm, of course. But it does amplify the difference between being the president of the United States and the leader of not the United States. I don’t know how much it costs to rent the plane, but I would like to be invited to an old-fashioned Mexican party with Mole on the menu and a view from 30-thousand feet.
Let’s go back liner….
It was this week in 1866 the US Congress rejects the veto of Democratic President Andrew Johnson, giving all equal rights. Oddly enough, Johnson was the Democratic Vice-President to the Republican Abraham Lincoln. Johnson became President when Lincoln was assassinated, but Johnson didn’t hold all of the same values as Lincoln. According to Wikipedia, Johnson’s presidency was a constant battle between Republicans advancing legislation to overrule southern actions designed to impede the progress of former slaves, and him vetoing said legislation, only to be overridden by Congress. He opposed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which gave citizenship to former slaves, and was impeached by the House of Representatives, only avoiding conviction by the Senate by one vote. Lincoln chose Johnson as a running mate as a show of unity, only to have Johnson turn his back on Lincoln’s efforts to change the culture of American life.
This week in 1917 The Danish West Indies are officially ceded to the US for $25 million and renamed it the Virgin Islands. That reminds me of an old joke. One that might be referred to as a “dad joke” today, but I’ve always though of as a “white guy” joke: The first guy says, “Hey, Joe, my wife went to the West Indies.” and the second guy says, “Oh, yea? Jamaica?” and the first guy says, “No, she wanted to go!”
Speaking of wives, it was this week in 1889 that the first dishwashing machine was marketed. I know that sounds sexist today, but in 1889, husbands rarely if ever washed dishes, and the dishwashing machine was developed, built and marketed for women. Yay progress.
In 1933 Nazi Germany begins persecution of Jews by boycotting Jewish businesses. To me, this is the definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face. If a person is willing to learn a trade or the ability to perform a service and is willing to provide a product or service to you for a fair wage in return, then it shouldn’t matter what their personal beliefs are. Right? So using economic boycott to punish an ethnic group, to isolate a segment of society was a tactic used by the Nazi’s long before WWII started. Today, Vladimir Putin predicated his invasion of Ukraine with the claim that it was being run by Nazi’s.
Well, that can’t be right liner
Now the west is using economic boycott to isolate Russia. And if that isn’t enough boycott for you, many are calling for boycotts of American companies like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Pepsi because they haven’t stopped doing business in Russia. Ukrainian supermarket chains have stopped doing business with Coke because they haven’t pulled out of Russia. According to a story from the Independent, the New York State Comptroller sent a letter to several major companies in the US, including Estee Lauder, Coty, both cosmetic companies, and Mondeleza and Kimberly-Clark warning them that they face significant and growing legal, compliance, operational, human rights and personnel, and reputational risks by not pulling out of Russia. So that means we have a State government telling global companies that they may be penalized for practicing legal, free enterprise in the same way they were two months ago.
But seriously, folks, it was this week in 1954 that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, which Vladimir Putin now owns the largest chunk since its breakup, offers to join NATO. Now, you might be thinking, “wait a second, Bob. Wasn’t NATO formed to keep the Soviet Union in check? Well, yes. And that’s why about a month later, the western powers rejected the Soviet proposal on the grounds that the the USSR’s joining the alliance wouldn’t be in line with the geopolitical and military objectives of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The collective security of Europe has been in question since the end of the second world war. Most of the countries were either members of NATO or the Warsaw Pact. Now, there is no Warsaw Pact, and that left Ukraine vulnerable to subjugation.
This week in 1955 West Indies cricket all-rounder Collie Smith scores 104 in his Test debut in a 9 wicket 1st Test defeat to Australia in Kingston, Jamaica. I have no idea what that means, but it sounded impressive enough for me to include it in this historical segment. Besides, not much of interest happened during this week in history until things really heated up in 1967 when Jimi Hendrix first caught his guitar on fire at a show in London, and then the strange saga of the American Leagues Seattle Pilots began. Oddly, it seems every significant event in the team’s short history happened during this week in history, but in different years. Allow me to be your guide. This week in 1968, the new Seattle baseball team of the American League of Major League Baseball is named the Pilots. One year later, the Pilots trade little-known minor-leaguer Lou Pinella to the Kansas City Royals for two prospects. Lou Pinella goes on to win AL Rookie of the Year, and eventually becomes a legendary skipper for a variety of teams. One year after that, the Seattle Pilots are declared bankrupt, and car dealer Bud Selig buys the team and moves the club to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is all in the same week of consecutive years; 1968, 1969, and 1970. The meteoric rise and fall of a professional baseball team in Seattle. Seattle got another team in 1977, and still has it. The Seattle Mariners went to four post season appearances and set a record for most wins in a regular season between 1993 and 2002 under former Pilots trade fodder Lou Pinella, who also coached the 1990 World Series Champion Cincinnati Reds.
Also in 1970, John Lennon and Yoko Ono claim they’re going to have dual sex-change operations. So, more than 50 years ago, one of most famous men on the planet and his also famous but also hated wife use a hoax that they’re going to have dual sex-change operations to get attention from the public. Look, I’m a Beatles fan from way back, and I like all of their solo stuff, too, after the Beatles. You gotta admit, though, that John Lennon was not only a free thinker, he was good at getting attention when he wanted. To prove my point, it was this week, just three years later in 1973, John Lennon and his wife Yoko form a new country with no laws or borders called Nutopia, and its national anthem is silence. Great idea, John. I guess when you write as many great songs as he did, you could probably sell 45’s with a minute and a half of silence on each side.
This week in 1986, oil prices dip below ten dollars a barrel. I don’t think I need to point out the historical significance of that. But if I finish the program and I discover I’ve come up short on time, I’ll use the opportunity to fill in by pointing out the obvious. If you’re not hearing anything more about it right here, it means I rambled on long enough.
Here’s the part in more recent history where it gets weird with the former Soviet Union. This week in 1991, the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic votes to leave the Soviet Union by endorsing its own independence, and the Warsaw Pact is dissolved. That left NATO as the only real coalition of countries united over the same ideals. This week, one year later, in 1992, the world’s seven wealthiest nations agree to 24 billion dollars of aid for the former Soviet Union. Yea. We gave Russia billions of dollars in aid after the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet system. Our hopes were to lift up the people who had been depressed by the communist regime that held power for so long. We were convinced that once they saw the light, once they realized they could be free to choose their own destinies, they would transform their society into one like our own. It looked like it was working at first. Mikhail Gorbachev handed over the reigns of the new Russia to Boris Yeltsin, who seemed to be leaning to democracy at times, but then Vladimir Putin took control in 2000. This week in 2014, NATO suspends all practical civilian and military cooperation with Russia. So NATO was cooperating with Russia until 2014. Things changed quickly didn’t they? This is one wacky week of history when it comes to the former Soviet Union, baseball and catching guitars on fire. One other note in relation to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine: It was this week in 2000 that American boxer Chris Byrd won the WBO Heavyweight title after Ukrainian Champion Vitali Klitchko suffers a shoulder injury during the ninth round of their fight in Berlin, Germany. Today, Vitali Klitchko is the fourth man to hold the Heavyweight boxing crown three times, and the only one with a Ph.D. He’s also the Mayor of the Capital of Ukraine, Kiev. He is easily one of the smartest and toughest men on the planet. You definitely don’t want him to hit you in the face.
Having said that, you probably don’t want anyone to hit you in the face. Neither did Chris Rock. When Will Smith walked up on that stage and slapped Chris Rock for telling a joke, he crossed a sacred line between the stage and the audience that can only be crossed with the permission of the person on the stage. Will Smith crossed that boundary in a way that equates him with a drunk person who thinks they can sing a song with the band. The only reason he got close enough to Chris Rock to slap him is because he’s a celebrity, sitting in the front row of an awards show in anticipation of an award. When his wife rolled her eyes at a joke about her, that he initially laughed at, he must have felt powerless for a moment, unable to defend his wife’s honor. But suddenly, he realized that he could demonstrate to the world and his wife that he does have power, and that power went to his head, and he crossed a line that he thought he could cross without consequence. As it turns out, he couldn’t. He’s resigned from the Academy, and may still face further punishment. Chris Rock still has the right to press charges within the statute of limitations. But to me, this isn’t about Will Smith or Chris Rock or if the joke was a good joke or a bad joke or if Will Smith is justified because he was defending his wife. To me, this is about comedy, and what could be the end of it as we know it. It’s getting harder and harder to be a comedian. The art of telling jokes and poking fun at ourselves is increasingly in peril. More and more, subjects of comedic fodder are becoming off-limits because of social pressure, triggers, and other muzzles of fringe groups that are offended by everything. The origins of comedy aren’t to make people laugh, but to point out the foibles of life. Nothing should be off-limits to comedy. Somebody once said that comedy is tragedy plus time. I wonder who it was….
Gonna look that up liner…
Many sources attribute the phrase, “Comedy is tragedy plus time” to Mark Twain, who according to some sources may have said, “Humor is tragedy plus time.” Quote Investigator attributes it to a 1957 Cosmopolitan interview with comedy writer Steve Allen. Steve said, “When I explained to a friend recently that the subject matter of most comedy is tragic (drunkenness, overweight, financial problems, accidents, etc.) he said, “Do you mean to tell me that the dreadful events of the day are a fit subject for humorous comment? The answer is “No, but they will be pretty soon.” Man jokes about the things that depress him, but he usually waits till a certain amount of time has passed. I guess you can make a mathematical formula out of it. Tragedy plus time equals comedy.
The tragedy that becomes comedy over time are all the awful things that are happening to us everyday. If you drop the birthday cake on the ground while putting into your car, that’s a tragic thing! Now what are you gonna do?! Whatever you do, you’ll eventually look back at it and laugh. There are thousands of examples of comedians making jokes about subjects that make people uncomfortable. When a joke makes you feel uncomfortable, it’s giving you the opportunity to laugh at yourself! Take that opportunity! Take it! And laugh! It’s one fleeting moment in time that wasn’t designed to hurt anyone, so if you’re hurt by it, maybe you should examine yourself. Making certain subjects off-limits to comedy is the worst kind of censorship we could impose upon ourselves. For starters, many of us who think we’re being funny aren’t being funny, and many of us who aren’t trying to be funny are making the rest of us laugh uncontrollably. You can’t legislate humor! Defining a joke is harder than defining a woman! That was supposed to be funny. Being a comedian today is a lot trickier than it used to be. There weren’t restrictions on the subject matter like there are now. If Sam Kinissen were to try to start his career today, he’d be boo’d off of every college campus like he was some type of right-wing conspiracy theorist. But he also made fun of religion, and was a pastor before becoming a comedian. He was able to bring a point of view to comedy that hadn’t been heard before, and it made him famous. You’d have to ask homosexuals and preachers if they thought he was funny, but I saw him bring the house down at the Comedy Store in Hollywood one night during the height of his fame, and if you had put limits on him, the world would’ve missed out on some of the most insightful and eye-opening comedy I’ve ever witnessed. I’ve done stand-up comedy myself in southern California at places like the LA Cabaret on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley and Lamp Post Pizza in West Covina and Jalapeno Joe’s in Oxnard. It’s hard to come up with stuff to say that will make people laugh. It’s even harder when the person writing the jokes has to second-guess everything they write. We can’t create a world where comedians are afraid to push boundaries and make us look at ourselves, and then laugh at ourselves. You can’t know pure joy and confidence without the ability to laugh at yourself. Comedians bring that ability to us. If we limit the subject matter of comedy, we limit how happy we can be. People who look at our day to day lives and then find a way to describe it to us in a way that we never would have thought of, in a way that brings a new awareness, or a new way to appreciate a mundane task, are often the modern-day philosophers best equipped to help us deal with our shortcomings and unsatisfied expectations. Comedy helps us put things into perspective. It gives us a way to find the bright side of an unfortunate situation or loss. Comedy is what you make it. It can be the savior you need in the time of sorrow or distress, or it can be the trigger that makes you angry because certain words were used. If you’re going to let a comedian make you angry, then you have bigger problems than what you think is funny. I can hear a comedian tell a joke that I don’t think is funny, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a comedian say anything that actually made me angry. Making people angry is not what comedians do for a living! How many comedians would there be if they just walked around making people angry all the time?! That’s like, “If you keep banging on your pots, pretty soon you won’t have any pots left!”
The point is, for Will Smith to violate the divide between the audience and performer was unforgivable. Especially because it was him. He should know more than most about that barrier. He’s a comedian, too, and for him to walk up onto that stage and strike a fellow comedian for telling a joke, regardless of how offensive it might be to anyone, is the ultimate display of disrespect, not only for the performer, in this case, Chris Rock, for also for the entire profession of comedian and all comics. For every David Chapell you have out there, you have two or more Hank Azaria’s who will fold under popular pressure and be happy they made their millions before being funny became offensive. Here’s the bottom line: We cannot take subject matter away from comedy. If the media is the fourth estate, then comedy is the fifth. Comedians tell us the truth about who we are and what we can expect from each other and why we shouldn’t always trust each other, and how our lives are so much better or perhaps worse than everybody else’s. Comedians give us the ability to look at ourselves and see how we’re just like everybody else, even though we may look different, or be from different places, or be from different social strata. Regardless of our variables, we have even more in common, and our humorists are the gifts who make us all relatable. If we take that away, we’ll continue to divide ourselves into ever-smaller groups who can’t appreciate our common interests and assets. Here’s what I’ll suggest: Find a comedy club near you. Go. Pay the cover charge, be okay with the two-drink minimum, and sit quietly and listen to the people on the stage. Enjoy your drinks, laugh at the parts you think are funny, and don’t heckle the comedians. They’re nervous enough as it is, and they’re second-guessing everything they wrote for the sole purpose of entertaining you. They just want to bring a little joy into your life, and they’re greatful that you’re there to hear what they have to say. If they say something that offends you, just keep in mind that it’s a fleeting moment in time and the next joke may be the funniest thing you ever heard. Whether you laugh or not is up to you, but any comedian just wants your honest feedback so they can hone their craft and be funnier the next time. Just as an aside, there are some comedians who like to be heckled, and spend a lot of time thinking of ways to insult hecklers, so heckle at your own risk. And while I’m on the subject, you don’t become a comedian because you have thin skin. You think it’s easy to get up in front of an audience and tell jokes nobody ever heard before because you made them up? Sometimes I’m a little bit disappointed by comedians who don’t stand up for their right to say what they want to say. For example, Chris Rock, after being slapped by Will Smith. When told by Smith to not use his wife’s name, Rock capitulated. What Chris Rock should have said to Will Smith was, “I’ll say whatever I want to say, and you can’t control that.” I understand that Chris Rock wanted to lower the temperature of the situation at that moment, but that was also an opportunity for a comedian to stand up for the right to free speech. The fact that Will Smith was later able to get up on that stage and accept and Academy Award and receive a standing ovation from the crowd in attendance is a testament to the confusion Americans have about what is right and what is wrong with our society today…
Before I close this episode of the program, I’d like to reach into the Listening Tube grab bag. Ah, here’s one. A meme I saw on social media said, “Kids are different today.” Well, they’re not born different, so if kids are different today, what would be the cause? Oh, yea. How we raise them is different today. You can’t blame the kids for that! Kids of all eras and generations are different from the ones that came before. They’re working with different tools, they’re being taught different things, and most importantly, their being raised differently. The phrase, “Kids are different today” also isn’t specific enough to determine whether or not the writer is sad or happy about it. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? If it’s a good thing, then who should get the credit? If it’s a bad thing, then who should get the blame? It really doesn’t matter. Every-other generation has complained about “kids these days.” The truth is, today’s kids are exposed to much more than older generations were. They have the internet, and are well versed in how to use it. There’s a good chance, depending upon their age, of course, that your children are smarter than you. What they lack is the experience that turns knowledge into wisdom. So when someone says, “Kids are different today,” they’re right, and everyone who’s ever said it for the last thousand years was also right. Kids are different today. Maybe they don’t have the work ethic past generations have had. Maybe they’ve learned to work smarter, not harder. Maybe they weren’t brought up with the same focus on social behavior as earlier generations because they live in a different social world. When somebody says kids are different today, yes, they’re right, but the kids are only learning to live in the world we’ve created for them.
The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Copyright 2022. Thank you for being a part of the Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.