It's Only Castles Burning

I've lost my sense of humor. I'm pretty sure it's been covered in oil. Destroyed by an exploding methane fireball.

As it happens, I feel better by simply admitting before the world that my sense humor has left the building, although there's nothing funny about poor old fat Elvis surrounded by sycophants and overdosing on prescription drugs.

There wasn't a whole hell of a lot to laugh about after the World Trade Centers imploded, either, but I cracked up the minute I saw this photo back in late September, 2001.

Some people were totally outraged by this example of photoshop wizardry. I expect that was because America had been attacked by someone - and I still don't rule out the possibility that the Bushes and Bin Ladens hatched that plot by their own damn selves at the urging of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove - or maybe it was Mossad, what do I know? Sabers started rattling and we charged off to stop the Taliban. We're still there; so are the Taliban - and now we even have our own Taliban in Texas rewriting history.

Nope, nothing funny about that at all, but I regained my sense of humor almost as soon as my mother-in-law, Vagina Dentata, went back to her own apartment. She was too nervous to sleep there for a couple of nights. She was over here for the Black Out, too.

My mother says I'm moving through the grieving process over the Deepwater Disaster, and that we should all be grieving for the Gulf. True enough, and so much has been written and said about BP, the government in general, Obama in particular, the oil industry, Republicans, and everything remotely related to the whole enchilada that I've got nothing to add. No matter which way you look at it, The Deepwater Disaster points to everything that is inherently wrong with our society. Let's not even look at Nigeria where oil "spills" have been a way of life for fifty years (John Vidal, Guardian, May 30, 2010). We get a lot of our oil from Nigeria. Namaste.

In the face of all this tumultuous bullshit, it's no wonder I've lost my sense of humor. I wouldn't worry about it except that I've got to read at KGB in less than two weeks in the humor series, Drunken! Careening! Writers! with Jaffe Cohen, who did stand-up on HBO. I've read with Jaffe before and can hold my own - it's just that I can't get it up to write the story of The Preacher and The Pagan, which I know is funny, on account of it doesn't seem a bit funny anymore.

Nothing seems funny anymore - and that's just wrong. Like they said back at 9 - 11, when you stop living a normal life, the terrorists win - and that's true even if the terrorists are in your own government and/or selling gasoline and beer on the corner. My mother also said that holding the bastards up to public ridicule is a proven, time honored tactic of resistance and revolution. There were the pamphlets back in 1776, and we've had Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin in more recent years. My mother is right, of course. She nearly always is, but that's because she tries to keep her mouth shut if she suspects she's wrong.

I have no illusion about sparking any revolutions over here at Menopausal Stoners. I just want to get that story written before I have to stand up in front of a room full of people at KGB, and frankly, my lively spirit resists being bummed out for weeks at a time.

The Deepwater Disaster sucks, no doubt about it. I still hope a hurricane blows toxic tar babies onto the house Sarah Palin had built by her companions in corruption at Spenard Building Supplies (Think Progress, July 3, 2009). Life goes on, and there is much work to do to further La Resistance. At the moment, I've got to share what I learned about the relevance of Mainstream American Protestantism to Social Change. Some people might have done the reading - I fucked a preacher.