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I went to see the comedian, Lois Black, perform at a performing arts center near me. Mr. Black, famous for his angry rants on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, had some things to say about a local Rosedale Police Benevolent Association. He thought it was absurdly funny that the association had planned to raffle off an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. Somehow a police department raising money by putting another semiautomatic rifle into circulation didn’t make sense. Black related that he would have liked to be at the meeting where this choice of raffle prize had been made. He agreed that canceling the raffle following the Parkland, Florida High School shootings was the thing to do.
Black mused that he had been questioning what it was that he was now doing for a living. The ridiculous nature of items easily found in the daily news was taking the work out of being a political satirist.
Part of Mr. Black’s routine is reading rants submitted by email from audience members. At the show, I saw his reading of complaints about a tailgater, a neighbor delinquent in taking down Christmas decorations and tactics used by individuals to save face when declining door-to-door Girl Scout Cookie solicitation, got me laughing. It appears there is no shortage of material on rudeness in everyday life.
What Black can do live, that he can’t do on television, is use profanity and use it he does. On the way to the theater, a gentleman apparently frustrated over how people like me were affecting the flow of traffic, yelled from his truck, that someone should eat a part of his anatomy. I impulsively yelled out, “Now, be nice,” in response. I then quickened my step to move into the safer confines of the theater, where I could be entertained by profanity for the reasonable price of $56, rather than feel threatened by it.
One of Louis Black’s taglines is “You got to be f*cking sh*ting me.” Let’s say,“YGTBFSM,” for short and so you are less exposed to the vulgarity. All Black has to do to get yucks is read portions of a coverage of a current news event and then say “YGTBFSM.”
Available for purchase at the theatre was a bobblehead statue in Black’s likeness with a microchip that allows the doll to say “YGTBFKM,” to the news story of your choice.
At one point in the show a heckler in the audience, didn’t appreciate one of Black’s remarks and yelled out in a mocking, “So what is your job?” Black turned towards the heckler like a hungry lion to the offer of raw meat.
Black referred the heckler back to his earlier remarks questioning if the comedian really did anything in the way of work anymore, given the abundance of instantly laughable news items. Then he said that what he thought what he did do that was worth getting paid was attract audiences to share together their utter dismay regarding current events, to affirm that they were not crazy. What was crazy was the news.
Black, in all seriousness, valorized the efforts of Parkland High School students for speaking up in a way that transcended the typical party political positions of adults on the guns issue. Since the show, Walmart and Dick’s Sports have followed the lead of the Rosendale Police Benevolent Association and made it more difficult for semiautomatic weapons to find their way into the hands of high school students.
There is much “YGTBFSM” in allegations that some Parkland students were paid for delivering scripted remarks to help sell television commercials, both on the side of those who believe and those who don’t believe such a thing could happen.
There are few who can make money giving profane voice to political dismay and many seeking comic relief from the news of the day, to pay for it.
I, however, think if we just laugh we do so at our peril. It is not funny that nearly all problems with guns are problems with men. It is not funny that men swear much more than women.
Guns in America is a complex problem. One that men should be able to do more than yuck and say f*ck over.
It used to be women didn’t swear at all, wrote longer more nuanced letters and held their ears in response to gunfire. Women have made great progress in joining the military, handling weapons and swearing like sailors to the point that a phrase like, “swearing like a sailor,” is painfully obsolete. Evidence of men feeling freer to abstain from the simplification of profanity when expressing themselves hasn’t changed as much. Men expressing their differences with civility and mutual respect and understanding? “YGTBFSM.”
There are no easy answers here. No cause for liberals to dance in the aisles of Walmart and Dick’s Sports. Cause for more men to look within at their propensity for violence, yes. Cause to take inventory of conflict resolution skills, yes indeed. Reason to pray for forgiveness for the mess we men have made of conflict resolution? Now, more than ever.
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Photo: Getty Images