Monday, July 17, 2006

Darn You. Darn You All Real Good.

My old buddy who every few years maxes out his credit cards, dyes his hair, rotates his facial moles and starts life anew elsewhere is for the moment in a little lakeside development in Haute Spryngs, Arkansas, the motto of which is "It ain't enough just to be white, you got to be light."

He says this blog is a drug on the market because I am not controversial enough.

Well, it depends on what you mean by controversy. Controversy is just disagreement, with the connotation that the disagreement is heated and current.

Looked at that way almost every statement is controversial. No, I think he means I need to either:

1) Be a contrarian and adopt a position that contrasts with the common attitude, particularly if that attitude is so common that the very idea of the existence of an opposing point of view is novel and disturbing. I suppose saying, "Slay the whales and turn them into lampshades" might be an example.

2) Geek it up. Eat the live chicken and vomit. I would put Ann Coulter in this category. Some smart blogger, whom I would credit were my memory more supple, noted that Coulter is not really dealing in fact statements. If she suggests the 9/11 widows were about to be divorced by their husbands, no one thinks she has any knowledge of such. She's just found a particularly disgusting way to indicate disapproval of the women.

But it's fresh, nice fresh offal. No one has said it before. Some are appalled, and others are entertained. A long-limbed horse-faced woman rolling in her own filth with her dress hiked up so high you can see her topiary! I wouldn't buy a ticket to see, but then again I'm not "controversial."

I was going to say that something like "Nuke the Whales" would fall into this second category, but that's rather too good-natured and, as we all know, self-satirizing because we all grasp the extent of the overstatement and don't believe it means what it says. That's not controversy, that's irony.

But I will try to be more controversial from now on. White socks with dress shoes! Dessert first! Nothing but dessert! Paris Hilton is a virgin!!

I step back and take a deep breath and look in the mirror for signs of moral decay. I wonder if this is how the antiChrist will get started?

Of course! Connect the dots. Andy Rooney is the antiChrist!

You heard it here first, and if you like it you'll hear it again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It still needs work, but not bad for an out-of-town performance. Buffalo, say. Forget Andy Rooney, think Al Franken. Remarks about appearance are pure gold. Coulter's horse face, Limbaugh's fat man's tits, Bush's simian looks. Nobody's buying restraint these days. Give us meat, the redder the better. People are tired of lips pursed in timid disapproval. What is this, the 50s? Show us fangs, not worn-down china clippers. You learned plenty at the Iron John weekends, stripped to the waist and drumming away the hurt. Now is the time to show it.

....J.Michael Robertson said...

Sorry. Time to bathe another leper.