Maybe. If things settle down, I’d like to go back to an irregular schedule of politics some days and comedy others, rather than staking out Friday for a break in the tension.
So I guess we’ll see.
While we wait, Candorville (WPWG) offers social commentary that verges on the political, and if one party had a corner on racism and the other party had a corner on virtue, it would be political.
But we’re not there yet. Best we can say is that we’ve got one group that denies what anyone could see if they bothered to look, and another group that doesn’t bother to look.
Still, here’s Darrin Bell demanding we look, and suggesting that perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on Clyde if he makes his point without being all that polite about it.
Meanwhile, down at the other end of the world, Madam & Eve is also social commentary that often verges on the political, and this almost makes you feel sorry for . . . okay, no, it doesn’t.
Not even “almost.”
And if you truly think “Big Tech” is stifling conservative voices, ignore this Edison Lee (KFS), because certainly nobody on Facebook or Twitter ever, ever complains that the mainstream media can’t be trusted.
Saw one yesterday in which someone said that you can’t trust the media and, if you wanted the truth, you had to watch OANN, Newsmax and Fox. But she specified “Fox News at night,” which is when it switches from semi-straight news reporting to partisan opinions.
I thought that was kind of funny, but the kind of funny that makes your stomach hurt.
Fortunately, my righteous anger gets regularly punctured by people like Kieran Meehan over at Pros & Cons (KFS).
This one falls under Swift’s observation:
Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for the kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.
But enough politics, eh?
Bizarro (KFS) makes a pun without making much of a point, so I’ll make one in wondering aloud whatever happened to cowboys as the American archetype?
There are still dude ranches, though there won’t be if we don’t figure out a way to control wild fires, since they seem to cluster in the same places.
The cowboy of our consciousness was an archetype built from dime novel fiction, not the actual West.
Real cowboys, though mostly white, worked in a multiracial setting at a craft which was invented by the vaqueros, which is why so many of the tools and techniques have Spanish names.
The cowboys invented by Buffalo Bill and Ned Buntline were as fictional as the knights of Thomas Malory and Sir Walter Scott, and, boy, I wish we had video of the stage show Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill did for a single season.
Wild Bill really hated being on stage and they both really liked whiskey and apparently one tour was enough for everyone involved.
Anyway, Dennis the Menace doted on Cowboy Bob, and we watched Hoppy and Wild Bill, but, then again, we were more apt to play at World War II than cowboys and Indians, so I suppose the symbol was already fading.
Hollywood still makes Westerns, but they’ve become so violent and mean-spirited that they don’t have much in common with the clean-cut, heroic role models of the old TV shows and Randolph Scott movies.
Well, wotthehell, neither do we.
Speaking of changing times, Judge Parker (NAS) has young Sophie breaking free and heading out, and this particular episode is part of the week’s theme, which is that heading out doesn’t involve a whole lot of separation anymore.
Back in the 19th Century, there was a thing called an “American Wake” in Ireland, because someone headed off for America would never been seen again, though letters might arrive every few months. But good-bye meant good-bye in those days.
Going back to Westerns, and the granddaddy of them all, I was surprised in reading “The Virginian” that the characters did get on a train and go back to the East Coast to visit family more than once, but it likely happened: Wister was realistic in his portrayal and, after all, we did have the Transcontinental Railroad by then.
And I started freshman year in 1967 with firm resolutions to write home weekly and call often, but I got caught up in a new life and my messages home petered out by the end of the first semester. The same was true for most of us who went off to Vietnam or into the Peace Corps.
Well, it’s not like that anymore, and I don’t have a moral to attach to it.
But there it is anyway.
I also don’t have a moral to attach to this Macanudo (KFS), only the twin observations that (A) it took me a minute, and (B) I didn’t know the Sphinx had an uncle.
The morals for today’s Wallace the Brave (AMS) are that it’s still possible to gross me out, that Sterling is just the man to do it, and that I will never grow old as long as my response to being grossed out is to giggle.
And kudos to my main man from Memphis, Greg Cravens, for standing up on behalf of “Hee Haw” in this Buckets.
Sneering at Hee Haw is a sign of not getting it. There are people who don’t get the Three Stooges, too. Their problem is that they think the people who do laugh are somehow taking it seriously and that doesn’t even make sense as I type it.
The only cure for them is a pantload of seltzer and a faceful of pie.
So here’s a song by Buck Owens that proves you don’t have to take life all that seriously in order to make damn good music.
All you gotta do is act naturally, and assemble the right band.
Lead guitar Don Rich usually gets the musicians’ applause on Buckaroos tunes, but check out Tom Brumley‘s steel guitar work on this one:
Okay, this is a bridge too far. First you tell me I can’t look with contempt on the seven-eights of the population that are abnormal because they enjoy various forms of sportsball and now I can’t look down my nose at “Hee Haw?” Unpossible.
I grew up when it was on the air and I *think* I didn’t like it back then, but there is no argument—some of those people sure could play. Well, like the Greeks said, “with nostalgia there ain’t no arguing,” or something like that.
Speaking of Hee Haw (which I’ve never seen), I used to work with Don Harron, who performed on the show as Charlie Farquarson. (Did I get that right?) He was Canadian, like me, and used to commute down to the U.S, to do the TV show. His “day job” in the late 70s and early 80s, was as the 5-mornings-a-week host of a 3-hour radio show called Morningside, on the national CBC network, broadcast across Canada. I used to come on the show approximately three times a month, to talk about comics. I always had two or three little “radio comedy” skits, especially adapted for the show from famous classic strips. Don and I and a few other people would act out the parts. (And we had excellent sound FX!) I did this for about six years. And (!!) I learned just recently that the now “late” Don Harron had been an aspiring cartoonist early in his life. He never told me that! But his love of comic strips was evident by the enthusiasm (gusto, even!) he brought to my little show segments.
I just thought that if there are any Hee Haw fans still roaming the earth, they might like to know this. You’re welcome.
Apparently, because of the busy touring schedules of all those stars — and Minnie, Stringbean, Grandpa Jones et all were big stars on the Grand Ole Opry circuit — the whole season of one-hour shows was taped in two one-week marathon sessions.
That worked with all the fast-cut Laugh-In style jokes but must have been grueling with the live music segments, though I’d assume the musical guests. But all the tech set-ups for one or two songs from each in front of a live audience must have been crazy.
Yes, there are still some living fans of HeeHaw. :BR 5-249