A Review of Lost at Sea

December 18, 2014May 26, 2024 RilalyLeave a comment

Journalists are not your friend

Let me start off by saying, I am not a fan of the music of rap duo Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, otherwise known as Insane Clown Posse (ICP), and other than the occasional, “This is the type of music they play … ” cuts I’ve heard in news clips, I’ve never listened to them. I have no alliance to them, in other words, but I harbor no ill will for them either. I know that they exist in the universe, they make music, they wear makeup, and their rap songs are violent. Other than that, I don’t care about the theme of their material, I don’t care that they “outed” themselves as evangelical spiritualists, and I don’t care that their fans (Juggalos and Juggalettes) stated that “They felt deeply betrayed and outraged” by the revelation of the rap duo’s spiritual nature. I am not overtly religious, but I do not condemn organized religion in the manner I once did … in my youth. I also don’t have any particular allegiance to fellow writer, Jon Ronson, either. I say this to let you know that I do not have a dog in this fight. I don’t have an ideological stake in one side appearing better at the end of this article, and I don’t see my side being represented by either party involved in this interview.

What bothers me most about Mr. Jon Ronson’s interview of the ICP, presented in the form of an Have You Ever Stood Next to an Elephant essay, in Mr. Ronson’s Lost at Sea collection of essays, is the sense of trust the rap duo ICP display with Mr. Ronson. I don’t care that that level of trust Jon Ronson attained from these two produced an entertaining article. All the power to him for doing so, but I am not a member of the Jerry Springer contingent that enjoys watching people make fools of themselves. Had I been present at this interview, I may have laughed a little, but at some point I would’ve said, “All right, all right! Enough!” I would’ve then turned to one of these two rappers and said, “This man is not your friend. He is a journalist devoted to exposing the truth, your version of the truth, or the truth, as he sees it.”

I see this level of trust, displayed by religious people, in a number of journalistic enterprises, and I always want to ask the subjects of these interviews if they’ve read a newspaper in the last twenty years; if they’ve listened to the radio; and if they have cable. If you have, I would say, why would you think this man is going to give you a fair shake? Why wouldn’t you walk into the interview with less than a healthy dose of skepticism? Why would you, after witnessing the last twenty years of journalists ripping and tearing at the heart of religion like starved hyena, not approach every question the ask you as if it were a trap? I understand that you appreciate the opportunity this journalist is offering you to “get your message out”, but if you were paying attention you’d know that 9.8357 times out of 10 the only reason a journalist is going to agree to sit down with you, or seek you out for an interview, is that you said something stupid, dumb, or just plain wacky that feeds into their narrative that all religious people are stupid, dumb, or just plain wacky. The latter may be hard for you to swallow, and it may be untrue as far as you’re concerned, but you should approach this interview with that mindset.

I don’t know what Mr. Ronson did to gain the level of trust he attained with the rap duo ICP. I don’t know if he is blessed with such a pleasant demeanor that he disarms the subjects of his interviews, if he was in any way duplicitous with the ICP, or if the rap duo was so excited about getting their message out, in The Guardian, that they didn’t pay enough attention to how they were being presented. I do suspect, however, that the rap duo may have fallen prey to the very human conceit of believing that they have such a command of the issue that they could control the debate that they would be having with a journalist, even if that journalist may be approaching the subject matter from an adversarial position.

As pieces of this type go, Jon Ronson was not as adversarial as some have been, but there are moments when Mr. Ronson characterizes this rap duo as … less than fluent. In one particular section, Ronson writes that Violent J says: “Huh?” to a relatively innocuous, leading question that Mr. Ronson asks of him. The author clarifies his question. Violent J comes back with yet another “Huh?” that the author suggests is due to the fact that Violent J is mystified. This is then followed by Ronson writing that: “There’s a silence.” After this presumed “mystified” silence, Violent J proceeds to answer the question. Whether or not, Violent J actually said “Huh?” on those two occasions, or spent a moment in silence gathering his thoughts, is not the point as far as I’m concerned. The point –that should be remembered by those religious people, excited by the prospect of being interviewed in such a prestigious publication– is that Mr. Ronson considered it germane to include those three reactions. The point, as it see is that the writer chose to include those three reactions to help him frame the interview for his readers, and presumably his colleagues and friends, so that they could laugh about it later. The point is, also, that the editors at The Guardian considered them so germane to their writer’s point, and their writer’s framing, that they allowed it to be printed in that manner. The point is that we’ve all read interviews with rock stars, and movie stars, and can all guess –based on the totality of what we’ve read concerning the knowledge base of rock stars and movie stars– that these stats have a loose, half-baked grasp on the geopolitical issues they claim expertise in. We can also guess that some, if not a majority, of those interviews are littered with “Huhs?” and spells of silence that are deleted from the final piece prior to publication. For some reason, and I think those reasons are obvious, ICP were not extended this professional courtesy.

The point is not that Jon Ronson misrepresented the rap duo from ICP. We don’t know what happened in that interview, an interview that occurred backstage at an ICP show. We don’t know how long that interview lasted, or why Ronson decided to include what he did. There are only three people that know exactly how that interview went down (unless there were others in the room of course), and only they know whether or not the rappers Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, of ICP, were properly represented. And if it is the case that this is how these two wanted to be represented, then it appears that Mr. Ronson was more than happy to oblige.

Why would Mr. Ronson allow these two to represent themselves so poorly? If you asked him, I’m sure he would say something along the lines of: “I’m a reporter, and this is what I do …Report the facts and all … I report you decide,” and he might say the latter with tongue firmly planted in cheek. A truer motive might also be that Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope further a narrative that Mr. Ronson has of religious people in general, a point that as I wrote answers the question of why he would decide to participate in this interview in the first place. Would Mr. Ronson enjoy a “Why do you not want to meet (with) scientists? Because (science is a way of) explaining things to people” debate with a C.S. Lewis type of rational advocate for religion? Mr. Ronson very well may enjoy such debates in his private life, but he probably knows that such a heady debate might only find a home in a scholarly journal.

A rational, religious figure, like C.S. Lewis, might argue that while Mr. Ronson may not agree with the explanations religious leaders offer, they are, just like science, “explaining things to people”. Mr. Ronson might then reply with a Richard Dawkins-type reply: “Just because science hasn’t advanced to the degree that it can explain everything, doesn’t mean that we should fill all those gaps with some form of divine intervention.” The C.S. Lewis type thinker could then talk about how the highly regarded physicist Albert Einstein believed in “a supernatural creative intelligence”. To this, Ronson could say that Einstein was dealing with a level of science even less advanced than ours, and he may have had such an ego about his abilities that if he couldn’t explain it, then no one could, and therefore we must fill the gaps of what I, Albert Einstein, cannot explain with the mysteries of a supernatural power. To this, the C.S. Lewis type of rational, religious thinker would remind Ronson that physicist Max Born commented that: “(I do) not think religious belief a sign of stupidity, not unbelief a sign of intelligence.” While I am sure that this debate would be far more intelligent than the one I craft for example, enthusiasts eager for substantial debates of this nature, would view it in the manner sports enthusiasts viewed the epic battles between Michael Jordan’s Bulls versus Patrick Ewing’s Knicks, battles that resulted in blood, sweat and tears being shed before a game seven victor could be declared. For reasons that are endemic to the argument that journalists (and their readers presumably) prefer, we get a preordained pickup game with the Washington Generals in which the journalist is allowed to dazzle the audience with their wordplay, and their Keats quotes, in a debate where the victor is so obvious that it’s an afterthought.

Instead of Michael Jordan skimming the inbound line to throw up a shot that Patrick Ewing barely misses, or John Starks throwing down “The Dunk” on Jordan, we get a Generals’ guard chasing Curly Neal around in a circle:

“Have you ever stood next to an elephant, my friend?” asks Violent J. “A f—— elephant is a miracle. If people can’t see a f—— miracle in a f—— elephant, then life must suck for them, because an elephant is a f—— miracle. So is a giraffe.”

We also read:

“Nobody can explain magnets,” “Gravity’s cool, but not as cool as magnets,” and “Fog, to me, is awesome.”

Finally, we receive the culmination of why Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope prefer the idea of describing natural events as miracles, as opposed to the science explanations:

“Well,” Violent J says, “science is… we don’t really… that’s like…” He pauses. Then he waves his hands as if to say, “OK, an analogy”: “If you’re trying to f— a girl, but her mom’s home, f— her mom! You understand? You want to f— the girl, but her mom’s home? F— the mom. See? Now, you don’t really feel that way,” Violent J says. “You don’t really hate her mom. But for this moment when you’re trying to f— this girl, f— her! And that’s what we mean when we say f— scientists. Sometimes they kill all the cool mysteries away. When I was a kid, they couldn’t tell you how pyramids were made…”

“Like Stonehenge and Easter Island,” says Shaggy. “Nobody knows how that s— got there. But since then, scientists go, ‘I’ve got an explanation for that.’ It’s like, f— you! I like to believe it was something out of this world.”

It makes for great theater, as I said, for those the love bearded ladies, wolf boys, and illustrated men, but if any of you laughers are religious, you should know that Jon Ronson, and his colleagues in journalism, are not laughing with you in such pieces. They’re laughing at you. You, the religious person, may deem these explanations, and this summation on science, as ridiculous as anyone else, but journalists don’t know that. They may consider the ICP a bit of an outlier, but they know that for something to be truly funny it has to have a germ of truth in it, and I’m guessing that most of them find Jon Ronson’s piece hilarious. They are not your friends.

If you are, by and large a religious person, and you are open about it, so open that you hope to encourage others to be religious, you will be considered “the other side” by most journalists, and they will do whatever they have to to characterize you as “that side” for their readers. And you will learn, no matter how nice that interviewer appears to be on the surface, that most modern journalists are on that side, and they will do whatever they have to do to score points on you.

“There are myths and miracles at the core of every belief system that, if held up to the harsh light of a scholar or an investigative reporter, could easily be passed off as lies,” Lawrence Wright writes in the epilogue of his book Going Clear.

They could also be passed off as ridiculous, as this essay proves, and while most religious people may agree that Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope’s version of the Christian belief system is ridiculous, the greater import of Jon Ronson’s narrative appears to be that all religion is this ridiculous, but that the ICP version of it is just a slight exaggeration.

As I wrote, I don’t care that ICP were skewered by Mr. Ronson, and I don’t care that he took a few hours out of his day to attempt to skewer religion, insofar as I’m getting used to it. What bothers me is the confusion that the members of ICP felt when the members of the music media pounced on them after their announcement. This confusion is, as I see it, an exaggeration of the fact that most religious people are shocked to find out how anti-religious the media, as a whole, have become. Soon after the announcement, Blender magazine listed them as the worst band in music history; and that “the worst musical moment from the worst band ever, is The Wraith: Shangri-La, the album that climaxes with Thy Unveiling” (the song where they reveal that they have been Christians all along). They received negative responses to Thy Unveiling that spanned from science bloggers, college professors, and even Saturday Night Live.

When Mr. Ronson asked ICP if they anticipated such a reaction, Violent J said:

“No, I figured most people would say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know Insane Clown Posse could be deep like that.”

Deep is, of course, a relative measure, and I’m going to guess that most that read the lyrics to this song are going to agree that depth is a relative measure, but I still can’t get over Violent J’s surprise. When my religious friends express similar surprise, I ask them if they’re paying attention. I ask them if they have cable, if they’ve ever read the newspaper, and when they say they do, I ask them how they can still shocked by it all. If you had been paying any attention at all, I reply, you would know know that even mainstream religious views have been the subject to public scorn, and while I’m sure you regard your views as mainstream, you should know what all religious people paying attention to the current climate of the society should know: journalists are not your friend.

If a journalist asks you if you’d like to be interviewed for a major publication, go ahead and assume that they’re not going on a fact-finding mission that will help their readers learn the essence of your religion. They want kooky ideas, medieval practices, a Svengali-like leader to herd the sheep, racist tendencies, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and any vestige of hatred that you may harbor to entertain their readers in a manner that characterizes your ideas and practices as those of the “other side”. Even if you don’t harbor such hatred for your fellow man, and you haven’t said anything stupid that you know of, you should wonder why this journalist is so eager to interview you, and why they’re being so nice to you. You should be skeptical of every question they ask you; treat every “friendly” story they share with you as a way of making you talk; and you should regard every smile as a duplicitous method of disarming you, even if it’s simply a pleasant smile from a relatively pleasant man. You should wonder why a journalist, from a major publication, appears to be on the border of being your friend. You should wonder why he just wants you to tell your side, why he just wants you to talk, and why he thinks the things you say are so funny. I know you think you’re funny, but everyone does, and everyone enjoys making other people laugh, but in this particular case you’re probably not half as funny as he’s leading you to believe. And he’s probably not laughing with you, he’s laughing at you, because he’s not your friend.

A Personal St. Vincent

November 20, 2014September 8, 2017 RilalyLeave a comment

Everyone has had an experience with a Vincent McKenna (played by Bill Murray), a St. Vincent, and very few of them involve any form of redemption. St. Vincents are St. Vincents as a result of the demons that chase them into being the people they are, and those demons are, often, so powerful that they cannot be thwarted.

Anyone that has read my personal experiences with Ellis Reddick, knows that I’ve had my own experience with a St. Vincent, and that I’ve been affected by his sociopathic tendencies in a subtle manner that I may never entirely shake. Ellis Reddicks, and St. Vincents, are considered ideal characters for horror movies and coming-of-age style redemptive movies. They are often nice people (in the coming-of-age movies) that require a viewing from a non-traditional lens, and it’s in that scope that they often find the redemption that no one ever afforded them before. Having said all that, St. Vincent is a really good movie for its honesty, and it’s all too realistic (for some of us) portrayal of a demon-ridden, lout that tries to take advantage of everyone around him, but as anyone that has watched a movie made in this century (the 21st century) knows, he’s not going to be such a bad guy at the end of this production, and in the version of reality depicted in this particular movie no one really is.

The demons that chased Ellis Reddick are the same that presumably drove Vincent throughout his life, except for the alcohol and the stripper. The demeanor, the overall outlook, and the need for vices are all the same. Vincent McKenna is an alcoholic that frequents the track, and spends some of his day and most of his nights with a stripper in a seemingly asexual relationship. He tries to take advantage of everyone around him, including a banker, and a recently divorced single mother to fund his loutish behavior. With the banker, Vincent finds out that the money he’s received thus far from the bank, as a result of a reverse mortgage, has been completely tapped. The banker tries to explain the process of a reverse mortgage, and the idea that as far as the process is concerned, the bank can no longer afford to finance Vincent McKenna’s lifestyle. Anyone that understands this process, understands what the banker is saying, but Vincent (and thus the audience) believes that the banker could find a way to continue to fund Vincent’s lifestyle, and the fact that he doesn’t makes the banker a tool. The banker then becomes, in a limited manner that only characterizes Vincent’s current plight further, a bad guy. There is some struggle at this point, however, in totally believing that the banker is a bad guy. He looks at Vincent with confusion in a manner that suggests that his hands are tied, but the sympathy for the main character cannot be shaken. There is no struggle with the story of Vincent taking advantage of the single mother’s situation however. That is more blatant and –in an odd way that makes the audience uncomfortable– kind of funny.

The John Nolte, November 14, 1014 review for Breitbart.com, suggests that the movie, St. Vincent, is basically trope-less, or as he describes it, “It isn’t a tropey-trope.” I’m guessing that Nolte is stating that this movie isn’t so loaded with tropes that it’s totally derivative, and thus unwatchable. If this is what he’s saying, he’s right, but it’s still loaded with so many tropes that any serious review would probably have to mention the word to be taken seriously, even when they are attempting to dismiss the adjective. The primary reason to watch this movie, as with any movie Bill Murray is involved in is Bill Murray.

Bill Murray pulls his role off with the inexplicable, characteristic ease he pulls off every role. As Steve Martin once said of Bill Murray: “It can’t be that easy for him. It just can’t!” Inherent in Martin’s consternation is the consternation that Hollywood, the critics’, and most Americans display with their inability to understand why he is popular, and why they love him too. The consternation also suggests that there has to be some underlying philosophy, or effort to it all, that no one can see. If it were any other actor, most people would accuse Bill Murray of sleepwalking through most of the movies he’s done. He doesn’t appear to care about all that, and we love him for it. I love him for it. It may have something to do with what Bill Murray said, “I knew from the moment I finished reading the script for Ghostbusters that we would all be able to be late for the rest of our lives.” It may have something to do with, as Truman Capote once said, “All an author needs is one truly great book.” It may have been his years on Saturday Night Live, the movies What about Bob? or Groundhog Day, or the stories of “citizen” Bill Murray that have made their way into the zeitgeist, but one gets the feeling that if St. Vincent were his first movie, we would all love his performance without knowing why.

If it’s true, as political philosopher Hannah Arendt says that “To think critically is always to be hostile,” then the reader could regard this review as hostile. Most critical thinkers prefer to think of a critical review as an honest review. Some critical thinkers rip apart commercials and cartoons. They may enjoy these vehicles, but they can’t shut that critical portion of their brain off, no matter how much they enjoy the presentation before them. Some may view critical thinking as negative thinking, or cynical thinking, and some may take critical thinking a step too far. The latter tend to think that the audience of that criticism can’t help but think that they are striving for the cachet that critical thinking can gain a person.

Having said all that, Theodore Melfi’s directorial debut of his screenplay is very good. The primary reason for this, as I’ve stated, is that Melfi and Murray combined to characterize this Vincent McKenna character in a manner that recalled the Vincent McKennas I’ve known throughout my life. That alone, in my opinion, makes the movie worthwhile. As the movie moves through this methodical characterization, we only love to hate Vincent McKenna more. Prior to the redemptive phase of the movie, the trope that we all have to suspect in a modern well-rounded movie, I was reminded of all of the St. Vincents I’ve known, as I worked my way through the confusing aspects of youth –looking for a hero to imitate or emulate– I found them all falling so far short that the St. Vincent redemption eventuality seemed both inevitable and incorrect to my experience with this type of person.

Other than the fact that this curmudgeon, this Vincent McKenna, doesn’t have a tropey-trope-like, Scrooge-style redemption at the end, but all the surrounding characters do, I would point out that just about everything else in this movie has been done, ad nauseum, before. The most pervasive trope in this movie, and that which seems so pervasive in modern cinema, is that “there are no good guys, there are no bad guys. There’s only you and me babe, and we just can’t agree”. And if there are bad guys, they may be bad guys to traditional thinkers, but once viewed through a non-traditional lens, they can be something more, something better. The lens of this movie is, of course, provided by a child, the neighbor’s son, named Oliver. Another “bad guy” Oliver’s bully becomes a good guy after a more traditionally-minded style of beating. The audience’s focus then shifts to the villainous divorced Dad of Oliver. As the movie plays out, the audience realize he’s not such a bad guy after all either.

The St. Vincent’s I’ve known were not Vietnam Veterans, and they weren’t retirees that had already lived a life when I knew them. When I knew them, they were fully immersed in the depths of their failure, so it may be unfair to equate St. Vincent with the curmudgeons and louts I’ve known throughout my life, but (again to the credit of the movie) they reminded me so much of some of the awful characters that have littered my life that I couldn’t help but feel cheated by the happy, redemptive ending. When it involves Bull Murray though, it’s impossible to leave angry.

Poking the Televised Frog

November 3, 2014September 14, 2015 RilalyLeave a comment

If it’s true, as the Chinese proverb states, “A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark” could the same principle be applied to TV shows and our sense of humor?

Has anyone ever informed you that they have something of a twisted, dark, and “some would say” sadistic sense of humor? Have the two of you entered into an unspoken agreement that no one has a sense of humor as unusual as theirs? Have they tried to leave the impression that they sat in some dark room and gestated into the character that stands before you? If you press this person, they will walk you through all the dark caverns of their sense of humor and point out all the bearded ladies, wolf boys, and evil dwarfs that have informed their sense of humor. No matter how common you may find the material that has informed their “twisted, bizarre, and some would say sadistic sense of humor”, these people will insist their sense of humor is more advanced, more sadistic, and more quirky than yours.

How many of us loved The Simpsons for over a decade? How many of us still watch the show? The Simpsons seemed groundbreaking at one point in our definition of comedy, until we we were provided other, “more groundbreaking” humor from the likes of Family Guy and South Park. After seeing those shows break new ground, The Simpsons no longer seemed as cutting edge as it once had. Our sense of humor evolved somehow, and those at the water cooler that continue to mimic the humor from The Simpsons no longer seem as funny as they once were.

The question that some of us have regarding TV comedies, in particular, is are these comedies popular because they broke new ground, or does it have more to do with the manner in which they tap into the spirit of the age, or the zeitgeist? Family Guy and South Park have both paid homage to The Simpsons, and it could be stated that they both operated from the template that The Simpsons created, but at some point they may began to expound upon it. If that’s true, could it be said that these two shows created something that moved us past The Simpsons, or did The Simpsons become such an obvious staple in the culture that it lost its provocative edge in the zeitgeist? Put another way, if The Simpsons somehow managed to outdo both of these shows in the next couple of years in a provocative manner, could it recapture the audience, or is it impossible to recapture that perceived edge once it’s gone?

Those looking to be cutting edge, among their friends, are constantly updating their sense of humor. Whereas The Simpsons used to be perceived as “on the cutting edge” of all forms of groundbreaking humor, it reached a point that TV people call a “Jump the Shark” moment where it was no longer. The same thing has happened to cutting edge TV comedies going to back to Sanford and Son, All in the Family, The Lucy Show, and The Honeymooners.

A number of books have been written on the psychological study of humor, and how it progresses, and they have attempted to capture this phenomenon. The question is, is this progression the greater curiosity, or should the greater story of the study of humor, as it pertains to television, focus on the the fact that even though we’ve moved past The Simpsons, it has left a mark on our sense of humor we may never be able to escape.

Poking a Dead Frog

Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the purely scientific mind … [Humor] won’t stand much poking. It has a certain fragility, an evasiveness, which one had best respect,” –E.B. White writing in The New Yorker.

As a play on this E.B. White quote, author Mike Sacks titled his book Poking a Dead Frog to provide a thesis for a book that attempts to investigate the art of comedy by interviewing a group of TV and movie writers that may have influenced the core of what modern-day Americans define as funny more than any others.

In Sacks’ first interview, we meet a writer from the television shows Saturday Night Live (SNL) and Late Night with David Letterman named James Downey.

Working for SNL for as many years as he has, Downey has written numerous sketches with other writers, and SNL’s performers. He offers an assessment of the difference between the two approaches to comedic presentations that he qualifies may be a broad generalization, but one he believes to be true:

Writers tend to write ordinary people in weird situations. Performers tend to write weird people in ordinary situations.

“The primary critique that most writers have with performer-written sketches is that writers are obsessed with writing original and cutting edge material. Performers don’t mind writing material that may resemble material that the audience may have seen a million times before, and it bothers the writer that the audience doesn’t seem to mind.

“Writers treat comedy as a science where advances are made, and we must always move forward, never backward. Once something is done, no matter how groundbreaking it is, it perhaps should be built upon, but never repeated. For performers, the fact that something has been done before is neither here nor there. Writers get themselves all tied up in knots worrying if their current material is too similar to other things.

“As for me, I wish originality were prized by audiences, but it doesn’t seem to be that important to them. Figuring out the right balance is everything.”

In the Downey scenario, the performer can be excused for writing a less-than-groundbreaking sketch, because they’re the ones on stage. They’re the ones that get the laugh for being funny, or the arrows for the material that isn’t. Few audience members would excuse a performer for attempting a complicated sketch that didn’t play well on stage, on the basis that it was written by a writer that tried too hard to be groundbreaking. Likewise, they don’t give the writer plaudits for a groundbreaking sketch that hits the mark. Most audience members, and critics, give all of the credit and blame for a performance to the performer. Thus, the performer can be excused for preferring the laugh over the groundbreaking provocation that may not go over as well as it appears to on paper, or in theory. It’s their career that’s on the line here, their reputation on the national stage. While the insiders may know the responsible party for the sketch, it’s the performer left with his performance hanging out for all to see that will define him from that point forward.

Once something is done, no matter how groundbreaking it is, it perhaps should be built upon, but never repeated.”

A performer could also be excused for wanting to repeat, or build upon, a sketch that works on the basis that it’s so hard to find one. A writer, on the other hand, doesn’t think that their groundbreaking sketch can be built upon. They look at what they’ve done as a concise, “one off” work of brilliance, and any attempts to repeat it would be perceived as forced by the audience. The performer says nonsense, and applies a far too subtle tweak for the repeat performance. Assigning their creative brains to the audience, the writer thinks that the audience will see through this far too subtle tweak and recognize the repeat performance for what it is. They don’t, complains Downey, they enjoy it in a manner they did the first time through, and this confounds writers.

Writers tend to make certain demands of themselves, and the material they release. The audience, however, is far less demanding. They just want to laugh, or in all other ways, be entertained. The easiest way to entertain is to seek the patterns of entertainment that we’ve all seen a million times. This answer does not count on the people (be they writers or performers) that do it better than us, but on the idea that most humans are more comfortable with the comfort of “getting it” than they are being challenged on some epistemological level. This was thoroughly covered in the Exit Strategy of Sitcoms blog, and in the What’s So Funny? blog.

Many writers fume over the mundane forms of entertainment that others enjoy. In my own struggles to find provocative material, I’ve surfed though other blogs to read their “Ruminations on a day in my life”. Most of these blogs are ten times as popular as the one you’re reading right now, and it’s obvious that most people find the 101 reasons a cat moves across a room at the sound of a can opener more entertaining than a blog on why we fear, or a researched, and original, dissertation on the electromagnetic path between our brain and God.

As a writer of a number of the political sketches done on SNL, James Downey made some assessments of comedian Bill Maher’s brand of political humor:

Bill is a funny guy, but he seems to prefer what (Downey’s former SNL alum Seth Meyers calls) clapter (that is some laughter combined with clapping) instead of actual laughs. A lot of his (Maher’s) material runs to the “White people are lame and stupid and racist” trope. It congratulates itself on its edginess, but it’s just the ass-kissiest kind of comedy going, reassuring his status-anxious audience that there are some people they’re smarter than.”

Whether it’s the “ass-kissiest kind of comedy going” from performers giving their audience what they want, or the thought-provoking, groundbreaking comedy that writers try to produce, we all make determinations on comedy. We all judge what is funny, and what is not, without making conscious decisions about it, and we’re all affected by it in one form or another.

The “Once something is done, no matter how groundbreaking it is, it perhaps should be built upon, but never repeated,” line Downey uses to explain the difference between writers, performers, and what the audience demands defines the difference between writers and their audience on another level. All writers have received the compliment from an audience member that suggests that you should do a sequel of the story they’ve written, or that they should expound on the theme in one way or another. This compliment is a double-edged sword in many ways, for while the writer has to love the compliment, the idea of repeating it feels like the idea of repeating it. The first question a writer has is “How? How would you have me repeat it?” which of course is not the audience member’s responsibility, but the writer’s. The point the writer would then make is that they poured their heart out in the story, and while they love you for saying that you thought it was so good that I should just do it again, they also hate you for suggesting that it looked so easy that you should be able to just enter that world again, and do it again, but … different. Just flip that “on” switch is what they’re saying. It’s a very writer-esk, artistic thing to say that they can’t just do it again, but as most writers know there is no such “on” switch, unless you’re writing a “ruminations on life” blog that involves cats running to can openers. Those sequels seem to write themselves, because no one cares, yet everyone cares, and they love them, so writers just pound them out.