The Jokes, Section 2: These Are The Jokes

The world, that big thingamajig on which we are forced to live, is currently divided into 3 zones of influence. In the absence of governments, both state and cooperative, and financial markets, capitalist or otherwise, the world has fallen within the long fingered reach of comedic domination. It's the charisma, you could never understand how powerfully it grasps an unmoored humanity. Just, just go with me on this. In the absence of stable meaning irony has run train on communication, morality and identity. Humor and style are commodities. I know that I said there were no markets. Trust me on this. Humor and style are widely traded but only in the marketplace of the battlefield and only by trained practitioners. Elsewhere the world is devoid of laughter in any concentrated form. So long as the war is underway and all quality comics and gag artists are on the frontlines the bulk of humanity must suffer through a physical unrest, a dissatisfaction with existence. These are these the stakes. For real. I'm pretty committed to this scenario.

In a hut of iron sheeting, in a dusty old European city drained of color a battalion of fever-addled, hopped up Observationalists conspire to take the village across the Seine. The commander speaks:

"Our time is short. That means our days are longer. For life is an infinity. To each of us, life is our infinity. The word has no meaning beyond the scope of our consciousness. [from the background, here here. Hurrah! Scattered applause] Do you ever notice how some people, they'll repeat the mantra about how [cue booming voice] Tomorrow Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life. [polite scattered chuckles] I'm thinking, holy cow does that mean I have to go through puberty again. [dead silence] Or like, take Murphy's Law and Peter's Principle into account. I've been going around thinking I've gotten I've done my fucking up, completed the process of, ya know, matriculating to my level of incompetence as that last joke offers proof...and now it's like...shoot, man I finally self-actualized" [a quick & quiet coup; the commander is reassigned. Enter new commander]

"You know, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted [wink; hoots and hollers; knowing applause] you ever notice how they also like to say, these cornercurb philosophers, not a single one of them having lived an honest to god life...in, uh, their life [honest to god giggles] They like to say [cue screeching, effeminate voice]Live Each Day Like It's Your Last. Holy shitberries, what the hell kind of maxim is that? [Laughter] What, do they want me to murder my wife and rape my dog, because [gasps] I've already [hushed silence] written my bucket list [boos] Oh fuck you all [BOO!] Sorry, I misspoke, I meant fuck all your moms!" [Coup; Reassign; Enter]

"Wow. So....anyway. Yeah. Heh heh. You ever notice how on TV they say, because YOU KNOW I watch a lot of TV. I don't worry about brain rot because I figure the more holes in your head the more room for all the things I'm learning. You dig? Okay so you don't dig. That's cool. It's not that im-port-ant to my thesis statement. So like, I'm watching TV and I'm making connections. I'm seeing the guy on the TV station [someone yells "What's TV?"] Oh...oh man. Alright well then let me talk about ducks. Are You All Familiar With Ducks [laughter; raucous atmosphere].."

MEANWHILE

The storied Shaggy Dogs live by one rule. They trace their storied history to No Soap Radio, a storied joke that goes something like this. A couple of chaps are conversing. Preferably they're wearing vests with a time pieces dangling from the chest pocket. They have stylish walking canes maybe, not unlike that of Bill McNeal on Newsradio, and most likely they have bowler hats. Moustaches. And the film is black and white and scratched all over. That could make for a joke in itself but it is most definitively not. The two chaps are conversating and over comes chap no. 3 with a joke to tell. One of the original two chaps is what is called a confederate, or accomplice, of the joke-spinner. And the joke can take just about any form.

It could go something like this. 'Say, have you heard the one about the priest and the snowman? See, the priest and the snowman are the best of buddies and decide to spend the winter at Aspen. They have a blast but the priest, a catholic, is discomfited by the cold climate. So the next winter he invites the snowman to Italy. On the boat ride through the Atlantic the snowman starts to drip. He doesn't say anything, not wanting to be rude to the Padre and in recognition of the fact that the Padre swallowed his tongue, so to speak, the winter prior when he was feel chilly. But the priest sees the dripping and asks the snowman if he's alright. Oh, sure, of course. I needed a good sweat you know, been packing on the pounds. The priest chortles and slaps his buddy on his back. All is well. Then the ship reaches the Strait of Iberia. Now a puddle is forming at the snowman's ass. The snowman, he's feeling sick to his stomach. The sun is SEARING. His skin is peeling, plopping and pooling. Lens Flare! The priest notices, asks his buddy if he wants to turn back, or perhaps turn 90 degrees to the nearest pole. No, no, no the snowman says, although it sounds more like nooo, nohoooo. The priest thanks God for such a cool friend, smiles and slaps him on his back. He digs a pretty deep crevice into said back. A gusher of crushed ice squirts like a malfunctioning slushee machine out his chest. All is well! Soon the ship is burning rubber through the Mediterranean. The sun is sitting on the snowman's god-be-damned carrot. Melty is three feet high. He's kneeling down praying. NOT to a catholic god. They have no god as far as he can tell. What isn't melting off of him is sublimating. The priest is sloshing around the deck looking for a leak, finally he wades over to his increasingly diminutive buddy. Are you all right? he asks anguishedly. The snowman's response is hardly intelligible but the priest knows god wouldn't let them come this far if He didn't have everything under control. The priest thanks the good lord, smiles and slaps the snowman, demolishing what is left of him. The ship mascot dog is lapping the snowman up within seconds.

The priest is stunned. Over and over his mind replays the buckling of his former friend. You are a murderer, he tells himself. No. No! Yes. Yes! He shakes, trembles, sobs. Following in his friends for lack of a better word footsteps his faith in God melts, pools in to a puddle to be swept to sea but the deckhand. No god would allow such absurd cruelty. No god could be so sick. No God. End of sentence. No God. Mamma Mia! So the priest arrives in Sicily. He intends to visit his township,to meet with the head of the order that trained him all those years back when he was but a child, an innocent child. He travels by donkey. At every stop along the way he encounters devout worshippers thankful for his presence. They are generous to a fault. There is so much love in this land. His childhood was the color of wine and roses and sunlight....sunlight! And he looks on the devout with pity. Some of them with scorn. Not for anything they do but for the loudness of their voices and the heat of their homes. He comes upon a fire in the bushes and jerks his donkey away from it. The heat infuriates him. Finally he reaches his village. The church that once looked to him to stretch to the Heavens is a ramshackle jenga tower 5 or 6 blocks high and badly stacked at that. He finds the head of the order kneeling down to a pond and sipping. He tells the head of the order the story. You already know the story. The head of the order looks at his former pupil with a kindness in his eyes but a sternness in his brow. And he says to the pupil NO SOAP RADIO'

At this point the confederate laughs uproariously. The yarn-spinner cracks a smiles and the pffsssss HA HA HA. At this point No Soap Radio is as much social science experiment as it is joke because the other chap, the one to whom the joke was told or on whom the joke was told, depending on your perspective, is lost. The script has been shredded and the shreds have been set aflame. The chap has no idea what the joke means. What does No Soap Radio mean? But there is a context after all. A joke was told. An independent source has verified that it is a joke, that it is in fact an uproariously funny joke. The chap knows how to react in this situation. So it's entertaining to see how the chap will react.

And this brings us to the heart of the Shaggy Dogs. They don't find humor in a punchline. They find humor in a scenario, in a social setting, in the deflation of expectations. Shaggy Dogs don't have the command structure that the Observationalists run under for this simple fact. The Shaggy Dogs are a cooperative of various subsets of Anti-Humorists. The term Anti-Humor is controversial these days. It is un-PC so this is usually how a Shaggy Dog will refer to himself to civilians. Within their ranks, though, they refer to themselves by their regiment. There are the Straight Anti-Humorists, who follow the example of Andy Kaufman in playing anti-humor straight. It is dry. It is very untraditional. It is painful when done badly and is thus a dangerous tactic for the novice. There are the Awkwardists. They're self-explanatory. There are the Hamburgerers who are profoundly unfunny, hilariously so. There are Dead Baby Shot The Dogs. Their parlance is gallows humor. They specialize in the taboo.

Examples of Dead Baby Humor: How do you make a Dead Baby Float? You need 3 scoops of ice cream, 3 cups of root beer and a dead baby. What did the little girl with no legs and no arms get for Christmas? Cancer. You get the picture. It brings us back to the one rule of the Shaggy Dogs. There are no rules.

MEANWHILE

In a deserted factory in a pleasant spring-time villa the Banana Peels perform. They are a fierce group spastic for action. They intend to take the Observations to a very dark place and pummel them with entirely unintentional punches and kicks trying to find the light switch. They plan on striking the Shaggy Dogs where they hurt, the groin. The Banana Peels are a tight force made up of tough sons of the guns, each man, woman and child a well-oiled pratfall machine. They've taken their lumps, their bruises, their black-eyes, their red asses. They've got a lot more to give. The war isn't over until they say it's over. Good God. Armageddon is coming. Time is slipping.

TO BE CONTINUED...