Comedians only care about comedy.
Somebody who writes jokes for a living I've always had a professional interest in what makes things funny. So I will probably buy ‘Comedy Book’, by Jesse David Fox, who is, apparently, a comedy critic at New York magazine.
Hell of a job, really.
I just saw it written up at The Atlantic, with this lede that pushed all my buttons.
We are in a moment, comedy-wise. On the one hand, there’s never been more of it—more specials, podcasts, comedy-generated discussions and debate and cultural flare-ups. There’s a rhythm and an expertise about comedy criticism right now (Fox’s very much included) that reminds me of good jazz writing from the ’50s and ’60s: savvy, insidery, immersed, excited, with its own developing vocabulary.
On the other hand, comedy, like everything else, is in bits. Online, it has shattered into memes and trolls and culture warlords and goats singing Bon Jovi. Laughter itself has fragmented. Just listen to it: You’ve got your gurgling, impotent The Late Show With Stephen Colbert laughter over here; you’ve got your harsh and barkingly energized Trumpist laughter over there; you’ve got your free-floating Joe Rogan–podcast yuks; and then you’ve got the private snuffling and seizurelike sounds that you yourself make when you’re watching Jay Jurden Instagram clips alone, on your phone, with your earbuds in. And for most of us, behind all of this, the feeling that we’re whistling past the graveyard: that the sludge is rising, politically; that the bullyboys are cracking their knuckles; that we’re “just kind of half-waiting,” as Marc Maron put it in a recent HBO special, “for the stupids to choose a uniform.”
What really caught my interest though was this bit about Donald Trump as a wouldbe stand-up - a theory I’ve long held.
Donald Trump, the stand-up at the gates of hell, is obviously a massive problem for comedy. Clinically humorless, destitute of jokes, too strange to be hacky, and with the comic precision of a broken bicycle chain, he still—as the comedians say—destroys. He kills, night after night. He gives people, by God, that comedy feeling, or his version of it: gaseous, loopy, sneering, idolatrous, incipiently violent. Fascist levity. He’s almost a prop comic, but his prop is human weakness. Is he, in his dark-side-of-the-moon way, teaching us something about comedy? What if the breakthrough comedy event of the past five years was not Nanette or Rothaniel but the Trump rally where he said, “I can be more presidential than any candidate that ever ran, than any president, other than maybe Abraham Lincoln when he is wearing his hat”?
I haven’t even seen him do his Abe Lincoln hat bit, but honestly, it does kill.
Yes. This. What motivates people to seriously consider a convicted "sex abuser," among many other sins, to be the leader of the United States? It must be entertainment, the hellish endpoint of an unending flood of internet memes and bullshit that doesn't withstand the slightest critical analysis. Leadership matters, and I ask myself daily how we get leaders who aren't held to the same standards routinely applied to Second Lieutenants fresh out of OCS. For 1/100 of these politicians' actions, I would have been relieved for cause and cashiered. How does this make sense?
Ah, my old friend, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A list of the shit I would have been charged with as a company grade officer if I had followed the example of certain politicians. Article 81, Conspiracy. Article 88, Contempt toward officials. Article 92, Failure to obey order or regulation. Article 94, Mutiny or Sedition. Article 104, Public records offenses. Article 107, False official statements; false swearing. Article 108, Military property of the United States—Loss, damage, destruction, or wrongful disposition. Article 115, Communicating threats. Article 116, Riot or breach of peace. Article 117, Provoking speeches or gestures. Article 120, Rape and sexual assault generally. Article 120c, Other sexual misconduct. Article 121b, False pretenses to obtain services. Article 124, Frauds against the United States. Article 128, Assault. Article 131, Perjury. Article 131a, Subornation of perjury. Article 131b, Obstructing justice. Article 131d, Wrongful refusal to testify. Article 131e, Prevention of authorized seizure of property. Article 131f, Noncompliance with procedural rules. Article 131g, Wrongful interference with adverse administrative proceeding. Article 132, Retaliation. Article 133, Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. Article 134, General article. Not a day goes by that members of the United States Armed Forces are not tried and fried by this code. A single article in this list can send an ordinary Joe or Jane on a cost-free vacation trip to Leavenworth. Why are our "leaders" not held to the basic standard we apply to eighteen-year-old kids, fresh off the street? On Day One of entering military service, you learn in a real hurry that these laws apply to you. Why should things be different for those we trust to sustain the republic? Well, they indisputably are not, and look at where we are. Fantasic.