Thanks Reason you’ve shown me the April Fools Spirit is alive in me after all! And you did it all in the space of one little nap!

Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes Of All Time

Also, see the Gizmodo Mid-Afternoon April Fool’s Roundup

And I was worried that I’d never find anything good to write about on April Fool’s Day. Thanks be to As the Apple Turns for including a link to Pythonland – Keeping the World Silly Since 2002. The site has all the words from each Monty Python episode, plus links to other cool Python sites. For a Python geek like me, it’s heaven on earth. Er, in cyberspace, anyways.

Just in time! I was wondering when the New Political Thought was going to start popping up. Courtesy of Cruel Site of the Day, we find a link to the Project for the New American Empire. From their Statement of Principles…

Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

• We need to kill or enslave everybody who isn’t American (and quite a few who are) if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
• We need to strengthen our ties to corporate allies and to challenge unincorporated entities hostile to our interests and values;
• We need to promote the cause of political and economic obedience abroad;

• We need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in having all the best shit.

  Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

Nice.

Boing Boing: Send-up of ‘Respect Copyright’ PSAs

Another bit of brilliance from The Poor Man: New Bush Ad

Brilliant.

The Poor Man: New Bush Ad

Remember when momma told you that you could grow up and be President some day? Well, we all know now that that was a crock, but at least you can make speeches like the President. Courtesy of The Poor Man (The Poor Man: Some Stuff) comes this link to Make Your Own Bush Speech. Like those ubiquitous magnetic poetry kits that are all the rage with the kids these days, simply drag and drop words and phrases onto the rows at the bottom of the page. Press play and then it’s Hail to the Virtual Chief.

Hours of fun! Not sold in stores.

From the Probably-Nobody-Cares Department, which is right next door to the Nobody’s-Reading-This-Anyways department…

My roommate says it’s good to make lists as you get older. I assume he means for the purpose of reflection and self-examination, and not just for remembering, say, the names of one’s children. I hope he’s right. I wanted to make a simple list of comedy links to post on my blog, and mission creep has turned it into the following: a list of the most important comedy influences in my life.

Big deal, right? To the general public, I’m just another faceless link whore who’s left his diary on the kitchen counter for everyone to read. However, in my former life, I was something of a comic actor and improvisor. Like many others, I found comedy because it made me acceptable. I was an odd, smart kid with a bowl cut, buck teeth, velour shirts, and thick-rimmed glasses. My manners and sensibilities were incomprehensible to my teachers and to my peers. I would not have survived those early years without a sense of humor.

What makes humor such a social lubricant? For one thing, humor is a way to weep with each other in full view of each other and of the ones who are causing us pain. So many oppressed groups – Irish, Jews, Russians, and African-Americans to name a few – have a long, proud humor tradition. Humor can say, “I recognize my place and yours. I recognize what we are to each other. I know this is a game and it’s a bit silly, but it is what we have.” Humor is a signal of respect and, simultaneously, of defiance.

Humor can also be a warning, like the stinkbug’s stink or the rattlesnake’s rattle. Humor is truth, and someone who can really tell the truth to you is not someone you want to fuck with; rather, you want them to be on your side. At the least, you want them to look the other way and not tell on you.

True humor starts with a common understanding of life the way it really is. Fat people really do sit around the house. 100 lawers at the bottom of the ocean would be a good start. It really does take just one psychologist to change a lightbulb (though the lightbulb has to really want to change.) Humor finds a way to say out loud the truth that we would otherwise only secretly suspect.

Humor is collegial and friendly. Humor puts its arm around you like a buddy and tells you you’re being an idiot. And if you don’t stop being an idiot, humor can pull your pants down and embarrass you in front of your family.

So much humor is based on the unexpected twist, a truth impossible to comprehend without acknowledging the fundamental duality of the universe. Think of the people you know who don’t have a sense of humor. Notice how they’re pretty linear thinkers? Is there room in their worldview for alternatives? Humor is the fork in the road, and humorless people can’t abide crooked roads or serendipitous destinations.

Humor is popular art. It’s not a coincidence that the best comedians can sell out a rock and roll concert venue. Comedy is music. It has rhythm, timing, it is in tune or out of tune. It’s also a war. Comedy kills. Or it bombs.

Humor is revolutionary, subversive. It is the mass’s way of telling the powerful, “We can seeeeeee yooou! We know what your doooo-ing!”

Humor is philosophical in a very personal way. Your sense of humor is dependent on your particular way of looking at the world. Like myth, humor hints at the vital, fundamental, immutable truths of the universe. And, like myth, humor is never as good or as effective when it’s explained to you.

I offer here a list of the humorists and comedians who have influenced me in a profound or formative way. My list leaves out a lot of comics I love, or who were groundbreaking in their time. Jack Benny, Steve Allen, The Marx Brothers, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce… back to Cole Porter, Will Rogers, Moliere, Aristophanes, and Og the Neanderthal Parodist… These are the giants upon whose jiggling bellies and forked tongues we stand even today. Modern comics like David Cross, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Hicks (RIP), Eddie Izzard, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are defining comedy for a whole new generation. They don’t make my list because they were over here when I was over there, if you will; we missed each other. I offer you a very personal and imperfect list. I’d love to read yours.

I start with The Big Three, the comedians who continue to influence why I laugh, how I joke, and how I see the world. The rest of the folks on this list have contributed elements of humor or perception that I consciously recognize in my words and thoughts from time to time.

Ready? Cue the “It’s” Man. And….

It’s…..........

The Big Three

Monty Python
These five Brits and one Amer were probably the most important comedy influences in my life. Watching their show was like watching an Escher drawing come to life; it made your brain flip from reality to reality quite involuntarily. It was perfectly logical, yet it couldn’t exist in real life… could it? If I had a nickel for every Pythonism I’ve quipped to a blank, uncomprehending stare, I’d be as rich as Triple-Suicide-Death-by-Chocolate Cake. For me, though, I laugh at their routines even today. At 30 years old, Python comedy is still fresh, clever, edgy and surprising. They are, quite simply, the best.

George Carlin
I saw him in concert for the first time when I was in high school, but I had been listening to his tapes for years, even performing his routines in class and at camp. His “fuck all a’ ya’s” attitude, his crafstman-like mastery of the common man’s English, and his unerring bullshit-divining rod make him my comedy hero. Like few artists can in this fickle world, Carlin has been able to appeal to successive generations of audiences – from the prudish 50s to the coarse 2Ks – while maintaining his essential Carlin-ness.

David Letterman
The modern generation probably can’t imagine this, but back in the day, David Letterman was a breakthrough. Long before smirky-funny became de rigeur, back when late-night television was still pretty establishment (no disrespect to Johnny Carson, whom I miss terribly), David Letterman blew our minds. He was hip, self-deprecating, funny, and was willing to mock the television conventions of his era. Johnny Carson got huge mileage out of being the straight man to whom funny things happened. David Letterman jumped in a giant bowl of milk while wearing a suit of Rice Krispies. Carson kept himself at arms distance; Letterman got in and got his hands dirty. (By the way, am I the only one who remembers that Letterman had a morning show? Remember Coffee Cup Theatre, anyone?)

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