Hi. I'm a Comic

Hi, I'm a Comic

[Dedicated to Robert Lopez and his talented and funny wife. Compassionate? Hmmm... I would hope so. Special mention to the inspiration of Matt Parker and Tre Stone. Men of vision and grandeur, humanitarians of great possibility for the world.]

The following is not exactly prose, but more poetical, and even musically pitched. Please sing along to one of the many tunes in your head.

Hi. I'm a comic.

Hello! I'm American! I'm wealthy! And somewhat spoiled.

I like music, and theatre, and making fun of things-- er, people.

With music, it's so funny and cute. 

To show how things should be lampooned to arrive at our greater epiphanies, modern theophanies.

Like how the West realized that the Thai people, the Siamese of yore, who were offended by the  

King and I;

these third world grovelers found that seminal work disrespectful and taboo: even blasphemous!

Nevertheless, Rodgers and Hammerstein knew better: 

Slavery and polygamy were not laughing issues, and the king (a king!) learned his lessons till it 

broke his heart.  

Bravo!

It was drama-- in the end, not funny.

Great theatre, great pathos, not to laugh at --Western people not so funny.

Ha! Ha!

BUT, come 21st century, decades beyond the backward, stilted,

 

repressive 1950s (so conservative and traditional)

Humanity is more progressive and aware : ha ha ha, organized faiths!

This is humorous! This is the subject of satire in the post modern age.

Particularly Latter-day Saints, derisively known as Mormons, in sum: your ideas and practices are 

foolish. Balderdash. Hogwash. Hooey. Laugh we must at its simplistic unfounded tomfoolery.

Sad misguided ones, for sure. Mormons. With a Book, a third testament of divinity.

Not to mention the poor, the dirty, the lost Africans. Are they really Ugandan? Is their language 

really Luganda? Or Cholo?  What culturally sensitive and profoundly educational lessons contained 

therein, within the bounds of the gilded stage...

Both sides-- white and black if you will---are mock worthy, there's no question of that.

Hi! I'm a comic! I make fun of what I see.

I see believers. I see poverty! I see the muddled masses

who live these accursed courses. 

There must be something there to explore. 

And make jest. 

It's how we can approach understanding, after all. Present it on the stage, like Annie or

I have never lived with them or lived like them, but I make light of them.

The whimsically sickening Three Stooges and masterful Charlie Chaplin lampooned the terribly evil 

Fuhrer, why not us now?  

Let us roast the tyrants of our age! The autocrats of the current century.

To these stoogish Mormons. They call their youth "elders". What buffoonery!

Stable Americans, who go to lands of woe, for two years at a time.

Or more.

Like the Peace Corps suffragettes. Only wishy washier! Sallow minded saps!

Oh, no, the American, tres western artiste has more high minded tastes and fancies than these low 

living mongrels of mindlessness. 

These Mormons and the Ugandans are the shallow ones, certainly.

Does not the comic genius belie that message in every song and note?

Simplicity of thought, such simpletons, these caricatures of existence.

So funny, ha ha ha!

I have never lived with people who go to bed hungry.

I have never spent hours with families with children that have a cleft pallet or split lip and it is not 

fixable at birth.

I don't know the communities who only drink dirty water, who regularly suffer from diarrhea and 

other common "poor" health issues.

But hey! I'm a comic! I joke to make things seem okay

Or not. 

Really we are solving the issues by mocking these folks! Right?

The sophisticated mind and audience knows the difference, this is not prejudice or bigotry.

Right? Ethnic biases were so last century.

We are better than that. 

We as artists go lower to achieve the higher aims! Yes!

So lest we forget:

Down with piety! Up with vulgarity!

Down with accuracy! Up with exagerativity! Hyperbole!

Fanciful theatricity!

Bravo, o thou stage!

No, these themes and causes that we mock are not okay.

So I write, I compose

I order my musical lines in order to battle the ignorance and naivete.

Oh, those silly missionaries, with their fantastic dreams and sermons!

"They know not what they do", to quote a source.

(A dubious one who lived long before now.)

And now, the present, is what counts. Right? We know all now. 

We know so much more than even 5 years ago... Let alone 100.

Alas, those silly missionaries with their tired and boring message!

The people suffer long, they look for hope in such odd places, such impractical avenues of alleged 

redemption  and glory... 

a fool's errand, so we make fun of this phenomenon, this spectacle...

Fantastic tales of people and heavenly beings in ancient days!

From other lands!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !

Hello, I'm a comic. 

And a playwright.

And composer. 

Do not forget, I am an award winner, the best of the best.

More clever than most all the rest.

I am funny! And creative! Innovative! Oh, so witty!

And so jestful, mocking people.

Tee hee hee.

Not like the Sound of Music, escaping Germans.

Not as the venerable Les Miserables, evading oppression or sin.

Not like Shakespeare, questioning everything.

Not as great as Fiddler on the Roof, revering (yet spoofing) tradition and change.

Not to mention the treatment of the Jewish. Jews! 

Worthy of scorn, this queer religious minority...

This hiss and byword, these peculiar people with their books and commandments and non-secular 

ways... 

But, at least misinterpreting beliefs, printed and spoken, are par for the play.

There is a consistent inconsistence in the work of the lampoon.

The opening lines of the opening song has misrepresentations and twisted facts.

(Yes, that's you Robert Lopez!)

But that makes it funnier! Ha ha! Hilarious!

The inaccuracies portrayed only augment the utter preposterousness--

Bravo! Hurrah! Celebrate the art!

The love! The aplomb! The fame!

Why, hello, yes!!!

I'm a comic.

I spread the truth and lies, and wistful humanity to the world!

Pay your fees! 

Celebrate the light! 

Go home content and jovial, with a stomach full of pabulum. 

A heart is content with such wisdom and pure filth.

Vulgarity ! Hilarity! 

Crudity! Erudity!

Because this comical truth has set us all free.

And yes, I'm still a comic.

The joke might be on me.

This joke might be on me.

Let the people choose and be free.

Based on jocularity.

No more laughter I hear through the strain of tear and fear.

Sorrow and horror no more, 

because I am a comic. 

I pronounce my verdicts with smiles

I settle scores.