As much as I love Seattle, I do enjoy being back on the East Coast. I'll have landed in or passed through some of the greatest cities in the country on this trip - Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, DC - even Mystic, Connecticut! I'm really settling into the trip now. I feel I'm in my element on a train, a welcome break from the off-balance way I've existed for the past few days.
Thanks to a recommendation from my good friend Jodi Chase, I had my first Del's today. Del's is a delicious frozen lemonade concoction, and it just so happens that I lo-o-ove frozen lemonade concoctions (or frolemcocs, as I call 'em). The fella at the store showed me how to drink like a native Rhode Islander (hint: throw away the straw and squeeze the cup). When he claimed that a true native also dunks the SuperPretzels, I got a little suspicious, but he kept a straight face so I tried it and.
Best line of the day on Reagan, overheard on the "O'Franken Factor":www.ofrankenfactor.com (this is not a direct quote, but pretty close)... Al Franken: Rush Limbaugh once said that this country owes Ronald Reagan a debt we will never be able to repay. For once, I agree with him.
I haven't talked about the Stanley Cup Playoffs yet, 'cause I don't want to jinx anything. John will know what I'm talking about. But I gotta say something about the Flames and Red Wings. Watching this game, it's tied at 0-0 in the third period, going into overtime, and it's been one of the most exciting games of the playoffs so far. Anyone who complains that there isn't enough scoring in hockey just hasn't watched a game like this.
The Recording Industry Association of America's shrill crusade to end music piracy is making in-roads in Congress. But is the industry's war of lawsuits and intimidation destined to become a quagmire? Despite Wired magazine's "report":[www.wired.com/news/digi...](http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,63026,00.html) that CD and album sales were up 10% in the first three months of 2004, and in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, the recording industry continues to call file sharing the biggest extant threat to its existence.
I've been getting lost in research for "The Louverture Project":www.stumax.com/tlp for a lot of the past couple of weeks. I think 'lost' is the appropriate word. Not having attempted anything like a historical study before, I'm feeling a bit swamped by the task. In the past I've written sketches, plays, that kind of thing, where it's all come out of my own imagination. Or I've written corporate events, where my job was to research and synthesize material of a relatively limited scope and create a unique work.
'We ugly! But we here!' - JAMAICAOBSERVER.COM bq. The so-called new prime minister of Haiti is one monsieur Latortue, who has a lot of chat for someone without a mandate from anyone except the US ambassador and his bosses. He is, he says, going to unite Haiti, so he has begun by boldly leaving out of his 'government' any representative of the people of Haiti. I give him three weeks.
In the PBS television series Cosmos, "Carl Sagan":www.carlsagan.com attempted to describe how humans are trapped into the way we think about our three-plus-one-dimensional universe. He used the analogy of a two-dimensional creature, a being who exists only in height and width, and has no concept of depth. Tootie, let's call her, lives very happily in her two dimensions, gliding gracefully along the X and Y axes, until one day a creature from a three-dimensional world picks her up about a foot above her plane of existence and lets her fall gently back.
Now, Tootie experiences this sensation, but has no mechanism to understand what is happening to her. She experiences falling through the third dimension, but once she's back safely at home, she can't point to where she was, she can't describe it to her friends, and she can't mentally process her adventure. She is built to understand the world in two dimensions only.
If Tootie's race of two-dimensional beings is anything like our own, they've probably developed storytelling, myth, and philosophy to try to make sense of their existence. While someone from our world could look at a 2D world and explain it easily, Tootie and her kind can only hope to approximate such a description.
I think of this example in relation to our own attempts to make sense of the world. "Heinrich Zimmer":[www.alibris.com/search/bo...](http://www.alibris.com/search/books/author/Zimmer,%20Heinrich) said, "The best truths cannot be spoken, and the second best are misunderstood." And, as "Joseph Campbell":[www.jcf.org](http://www.jcf.org/) says, the third best are the things we talk about every day - science, sociology, history, and so on. Philosophy, mythology and storytelling try to point the way to that dimension that is beyond our reach and understanding.
h4. Dreams
A couple of items have put me on this track this morning. For one thing, I just finished watching "Richard Linklater":[www.theonionavclub.com/avclub373...](http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub3737/avfeature_3737.html's) "Waking Life":[www.foxhome.com/wakinglif...](http://www.foxhome.com/wakinglife/index_frames.html.) Linklater's films are often packed with philosophical musings, and Waking Life is no exception. In fact, this movie reminds me a lot of Linklater's first film, "Slacker":[us.imdb.com/title/tt0...](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0102943/,) with its meandering style and "real people" casting. The difference in this film is the juxtaposition of objective and subjective camera styles, and the focus on existential themes.
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.............
h3. The Big Three
"Monty Python":[www.pythonline.com](http://www.pythonline.com/) 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":[www.theavclub.com/avclub354...](http://www.theavclub.com/avclub3541/avfeature3541.html) 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":[www.cbs.com/latenight...](http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/) 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?)
I have now created a separate blog for the Haiti- Toussaint-related posts and discussion. I feel that this will give me the opportunity to open up the Toussaint discussion to others, and at the same time give me a chance to broaden the discussion on my own Stumax site. I would like the freedom to explore ideas from the mundane to the silly, and I would like to preserve the integrity and seriousness of the Toussaint project.