July 23, 2008
Lost a cardio rehab teammate. Bob J. passed away recently and they had his photo posted at the desk where we all get our blood pressure taken. The photo of Bob was taken at the desk where we were standing so that made it even more of a wake up call moment.

Yikes!

Like most Americans I like to think of myself as having a well developed sense of humor (me and my zany friends call each other Humor Masters), but I realized on the treadmill today that the one thing I don't have a sense of humor about is people who don't have a sense of humor.

The recent flap over the New Yorker-Obama cover really grinds me. I have to agree with the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, who feels that Jon Stewart had the best critique of the media craze over the Obama cover, which aired live on The Daily Show: "Here's what Obamas' camp's response to the cover should've been: 'Obama is not upset about a cartoon which depicts him as a Muslim extremist. You know why? Because the only people who get that upset about cartoons are Muslim Extremists, which Obama clearly is not!'". Stewart went on to say with some precision, "It's just a F___ing cartoon, people!"

Or, as Robert Crumb put it thirty years ago, “It’s just lines on paper, folks.”

A good friend of mine questioned whether I should have posted my remarks about the lesbian in Flagstaff. First of all, I thought it was funny and not mean-spirited, just an observation by a guy. However, I'm sure some would think it's not funny at all and that I should be punished for spouting such "hateful" speech.

We each have our own idea of where the line is that shouldn't be stepped across. I have always leaned toward the taboo side of humor. When the teachers said "Sit down!" I stood up, which is how Bruce Springsteen phrased it in a song. I resemble that remark, or song lyric.

We are doing a stagecoach and saloon issue and Meghan Saar jokingly called it the "Drinking & Driving Issue." I thought that was hilarious and even did a cover sketch:



Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed.

Thanks Bob Brink.

Meanwhile, Charlie Waters' big piece on the Exits Exit (our ill-fated band gig in Kingman) will run this Sunday in the Las Vegas Review Journal. Here is the rack ads they have created for the piece:



I'll give more details as it gets closer. You will be able to access Charlie's masterpiece at Review Journal.

Kant said that the essence of humor is a strained expectation dissolving into nothing.

Here's a funny, as in hmmmmm funny, 142,000,000 people watched 12,000,000,000 videos in May 2008. Where the hell is this all going?

"The young man who has not wept is a savage. The old man who will not laugh is a fool."
—George Santayana