Dozo The Clown

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Hello. Today we begin with a conversation with Jeffrey Maurer. Jeff has been a speechwriter for the EPA (boring?) and a comedy writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (not boring! ) and a standup comedian for years. Jeff now writes the outstanding political comedy blog on Substack, I Might Be Wrong. He and I discovered we have an issue we both care about, but (surprise!) with totally different views of it. Here is photo of Jeff, which I have ruthlessly miniaturized because he is a lot better looking than I am. Do not enlarge it.

Here’s how it went.

Jeff: Hey Gene! I'm excited to talk to you, because we both do political comedy, but you manage to do it without using the f-bomb every six words (HOW???). And you were in the game back when Ford was tumbling down the steps of Air Force One and when Bush 41 was touring Asia puking on various heads of state. Maybe I'm viewing political comedy's past through rose-colored Groucho Marx glasses, but those days seem like more fun. 

So: Let's talk about Trump, because that -- unfortunately -- is our job. Trump is a maniac who does something ridiculous every day, which creates an unprecedented content overload. I don't write a lot of stuff riffing off of Trump's latest shenanigans these days because it feels like I've said everything I have to say about the guy. It also feels like everyone has their opinion about Trump, nobody is going to change, and no-one is learning anything new. I find it all very not-fun. How do you feel?

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Me: I disagree, Jeff.  Respectfully! Trump is endlessly funny, and often in engaging new ways, precisely because of his idiocy and mostly his transcendent character flaws and his almost comical evil. He is Snidely Whiplash. He is Ernst Stavro Blofeld. He is Pennywise. He is Voldemort.  How, for example, is being exposed for serial farting oneself to sleep in a courtroom not funny, even if it isn't true?  

Now follow me here, but please don't lecture me on the infantilism of toilet jokes.  As it happens, farting is the ancient paradigm of humor, its Rosetta Stone, its Fertile Crescent.  The first known written joke comes from early Sumerians — roughly 1900 B.C. Here it is: “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: A young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”

Sure, there’s problematic syntax and a daunting double negative, but the humor sustains, even after millennia. It is about pretension: Our pretensions of being civilized and dignified and not beasts of the field. And yet.

The sourcing of the Trump rumor seems solid, and multiple, but even if it is made up, it is a toot — sorry, a hoot — because the absurdity of Trump the person invites Trump the caricature. On social media, people have come up with delightful nicknames: The Nodfather, Don Snoreleone, and of course, the Godfarter. There is an action figure for sale on eBay, possibly a joke: Pull-My-Finger Trump.

There are pitfalls to making fun of Trump, I’ll grant you that. It can be done badly or lazily. Almost every Trump impersonator — most ignobly, Alec Baldwin — resorts to the simplistic smoochie mouth, as though every second of the orange man’s life is spent kissing the air. But good parody is … good.

Some people make the case that there is no humor to be found in someone so malign and so existentially threatening to our country. To that I say, nonsense. Some fine humor arose over Hitler in the early 1940s, and it helped diminish him in the public eye and raise public morale. And was funny. Consider this. And it seems to involve a fart!

To me, a more intriguing question is whether Trump himself has a sense of humor. Whenever I say I think he does, I get aggrieved, righteous blowback from readers who refuse to even entertain the idea. What do you think?

(Oh, and by the way, I applaud your subtle implication that I am as old as a fossilized trilobite skeleton. I am. )

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Jeff: I'm glad we have an area of respectful disagreement! People don't want to read two people agreeing with each other: They want to read two people politely and rationally explaining why the other person is a dangerous idiot who should be fed to crocodiles.

First, about the farting (wow, the level of this dialogue devolved IN A HURRY!). I'm not going to deny that an ex-president farting himself to sleep in a courtroom is funny; that would be the comedy equivalent of denying the heliocentric universe. However, I see the humor as an axiomatic truth, and tales of Sumerian wives shattering their husband's femurs with bouts of ancient flatulence don't play into it. After all: If the ancient Sumerians sacrificed two people to Nabu The God Of Writing on day six of the Akitu Festival, would you do that, too? I'm sure we can agree: Two people is excessive.

I think that everything you say about why Trump is funny was true at one point. I remember the heady days of 2016; I remember writing jokes off of Trump's myriad gaffes, which seemed like manna from comedy heaven after eight years of a president so straight-laced he makes Jimmy Carter look like Iggy Pop. I was one of the writers on John Oliver's "Drumpf" piece, which -- according to entertainment media headlines at the time -- DEMOLISHED and DESTROYED Trump's chance of being president. But Trump became president, and that's the problem: Comedy (though difficult to describe) has something to do with introducing a threat and then removing it. The threat never went away! Trump's still out there, menacing our election integrity and seeking a level of immunity not even held by Anu The Sky God (to bring the Sumerians back into it). I won't say this makes comedy impossible, but it harshes the comedy buzz.

Often, the premise of a Trump joke is "You won't believe what he just did!" To me, this is a faulty premise: I will absolutely believe what he just did. Nothing is beyond the pale. Did he grope a female member of his legal team during cross-examination? Eat a bald eagle? Encounter the ghost of Larry Flynt at a Hooters and promise to make him Secretary of Defense? I'm inventing wacky hypotheticals, but they might be real by the time we publish. And that's the second problem: The only Trump "take" that makes sense to me is "this guy is a weirdo", and how could anyone not know that at this point? I think that everyone knows that, but unfortunately, half of the country is into it.

We agree that Trump has a sense of humor: He likes to put people down. He's like Don Rickles if Rickles had meant everything he said. So, yes, he has a sense of humor, though it's not one that I find particularly funny (except for calling Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" -- I think she earned that one). How would you say Trump's humor compares to past presidents? Nixon crushed on Laugh In, and Reagan once starred in a movie opposite a chimp, so he couldn't have been entirely straight-laced. Where does Trump fit in?

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Me: Of the presidents I have seen in my unconscionably long sentient lifetime (alas, starting late in Eisenhower’s second term), I think Trump is less funny than Obama and Kennedy, but funnier than all the others. It is an admission I am not thrilled to make, but I think it’s true. Even those presidents reputed to be funny — Clinton, Reagan — mostly relied on stiff political fare, and did not seem to have spontaneity.

Trump is better than that. Watch this clip of him at a rally, describing what had happened to him during a trip to West Point. The first 2:20 is pretty damn glib and funny, and — believe it or not — self-deprecating. He can bring it when he wants to.

Just a couple of days ago, Trump got endorsed by Bill Barr, his former lickspittle attorney general who incurred Donald’s lifelong wrath by refusing to pursue groundless investigations into his claims of widespread voter fraud. Trump has vilified Barr ever since. After the endorsement, Trump posted this on his Truth Social site:

“Wow! Former A.G. Bill Barr, who let a lot of great people down by not investigating Voter Fraud in our Country, has just Endorsed me for President despite the fact that I called him “Weak, Slow Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy. … Based on the fact that I greatly appreciate his wholehearted Endorsement, I am removing the word ‘Lethargic’ from my statement. Thank you Bill.”

Callous and cruel and graceless and ungrateful, but undeniably funny.

I get the impression that for all his thin-skinned, blusterous, grievance-filled infantile rants, for all his believable vows of revenge, and his palpable efforts to dismantle democracy — behind it all, he is bootlegging a smile. He knows what he is, and who his audience is, and he finds it a riot. As it were.

I think there is a horizontal effect of the caricature that Trump has made of himself — truly hilarious clueless headlines, like this from the Seattle Times: “Trump respects women, most men say in poll results.”

Aren’t women the only valid judges of this issue? This is like taking a poll of white people only, and asking whether racism still exists in America.

(Just for the record, sixty-nine percent of women said no, he does not respect women.)

How are we gonna wrap this up, Jeff? Ask me something hard.

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Jeff: Trump is definitely good in front of crowds. I’ve always felt that Trump — though the LeBron James of bullshit — is nonetheless authentic. That is: He is actually the guy that he appears to be in public. Probably the only scandal that could dent Trump at this point would be if it turned out that in private, he eats leafy greens and reads Proust.

I do think, though, that some of what you’re identifying as Trump being funny is actually the Republican Party being funny about Trump. It’s (darkly) funny how servile they are; they keep propping him up even though he’s obviously never going to give anything back. Except for probably a tax cut. I guess the deal is that Trump can do whatever he wants to the Republican Party in exchange for a reduction in the top marginal rate – I wonder if they at least have a “no kissing on the mouth” rule.

I guess my corker of a wrap-up question is this: Why do we exist? Not, like, as beings (though if you know the answer to that, please share), but as political comedians? Why are these two things blended together? One could argue that there should just be politics, which in its ideal form is a rational discussion of issues, and in its actual form is a way for everyone to act out their worst impulses. And then comedy would be an entirely separate thing, since it is essentially just an exercise-free way to release endorphins, and is – as you point out – inherently fart-based. Is it perhaps time for politics and comedy to go their separate ways?

Me: Your first question first. We exist as beings for the same reason dung beetles and the naked mole rat (which looks like a penis with teeth) exist: To perpetuate the species. That’s it. Nature is no more benevolent or compassionate than that. In the meantime, we follow religions, join social clubs, fall in love, root for our favorite sports team, have hobbies, watch porn, all as a means of distracting ourselves from the potentially paralyzing knowledge that we will someday die. (See Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, Simon and Schuster, 1974).

And that’s why comedy and politics must still belong together, Jeff. One of the most effective ways we distract ourselves from the fear of death is through laughter. Humor lets us giggle past the graveyard. And there is no subject more deserving of knifing satire than is politics, a field steeped in affectation and hypocrisy and prevarication — three of the big four most fecund areas for mirth. (The fourth is farting.) After 9/11 I wrote that “when people are filled with grief, they need to cry. When people are filled with fear, they need to laugh.” Still true. And I, for one, am currently petrified.

Jeff: I clicked on that naked mole rat link, and you're right: penis with teeth. No other way to describe it. Since you're right about that, I'll assume that you're also right about everything else. Good talking to you!

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Jeff Maurer’s blog is I Might Be Wrong. You would be wrong if you didn’t subscribe to it. It’s terrific.

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Did you find this discussion interesting? Maddening? Inane? Please send in your thoughts here, on that or any other topic and I will be answering them later in the chat, and beyond. It’s this Trump-orange button.

You are now entering the real-time Questions and Observations part of The Gene Pool. Much of it — the response was prodigious — comes in answer to my Weekend Gene Pool challenge for you to describe, or send images, of things as ugly as the horrendous porcelain clock I pictured. If you are reading it in real time, please remember to keep refreshing your page to get the new stuff.

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Q: I found this piece of horror in a dollar store (but it cost more than a dollar), I call it "Time to kill."

A: Nice. First, the price tag shows this monstrosity costs $16.99. Second, why is Jesus crucified under the sea? Why does he have womanly sexylegs, in a coquettish pose? Also, Jesus shaved his armpits?

You win this round.

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Q: Actually, Geno, your clock isn't that bad, if you place it next to Trump's tennis shoes, which cost more than you paid for the clock. — Roger Dalrymple

A: I KNEW someone would streeetch this thing to somehow get at Trump. I don’t disrespect the urge. But, honestly, I’m not sure they’re that ugly, if you can separate your judgment of them from your judgment of the man. They are bold, in a way, I think. But I have terrible judgment about fashion.

Here they are:

Today’s first Gene Pool Gene Poll:

And today’s second Gene Pool Gene Poll is based on a disagreement Rachel and I had, every bit as contentious and that between Jeff and me: Referring to the Hitler sketch from above, this one, Rachel contends that when the pianist starts to bend over the top of the piano, that is not a fart, as I contend, but a car horn from the street or something. I say she is tragically deluded. (It happens shortly after 2:30)

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TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: JUST CLICK ON THE HEADLINE IN THE EMAIL AND IT WILL DELIVER YOU TO THE FULL COLUMN ONLINE. If you are reading the Gene Pool in real time, keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

And you might wish to upgrade your subscription to “paid” because Donald Trump will hate you for it.

Hey, the judge today declared Trump in contempt of court for violating his gag order, and fined him $9,000.

It may not be a win for the anti-Trumpers, I think.   First, $9,000 to Trump is like $7 to you and me.   And it gives him a self-righteous political talking point: I’m willing to pay for the privilege of telling you the truth.  It also may be part of his martyr plan.  The judge also said that if Trump continues to blithely defy the gag order, he might incarcerate him.   That might REALLY be playing into the martyr’s hands.

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Q: I inherited this beauty of a lamp from my father in law:

Q:  Wow.  It throws red light!  Looks like a lamp from an 1890s San Francisco bordello.  And is it made of old plumbing parts and bedknobs?  Did FIL make it hisself?

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This is Gene.   I need to mention that in the NFL draft, the Denver Broncos picked up quarterback Bo Nix.  He will arrive as the man with the shortest name currently in the NFL.   Even more spectacularly, as near as I can tell – if I’m wrong please alert me – it is the shortest name EVER in the NFL.  I notice these things, and you are welcome. 

It also raises the question, how can it be that “as near as I can tell” and “as far as I can tell” mean the same thing?  

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Q: Excellent aptonym.   – Sean Clinchy. 

A: I agree.  Pretty sophisticated and not instantly gettable.  You have to say it with the right accent. 

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This is Gene.  Now that Kristi Noem has destroyed her political career by admitting that she shot her fourteen month old dog in the head because she didn’t like her, and the dog ruined her hunt by being to exuberant — the question remains: Why the hell did the governor tell this story in a book?

I think the answer is simple: Because she was doing anything she could to become Donald Trump’s running mate, and she calculated that Trump would be impressed by her coldness and resolve and cruelty.  After all, Trump is the guy who has on several occasions said that someone he didn’t like was “fired like a dog,” a nonsensical simile.  He apparently feels dogs get fired all the time.  Like Kristi did to her dog. 

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Q:I adore the "ugly" cars of the 1970s. Hood ornaments, badges that look like heraldic jewelry, color-matched wheelcovers; give it to me. I would love to own a Mercury Bobcat Villager - a Ford Pinto with an incongruous ornate grille and slathered in faux wood paneling. The front of a 1970 Pontiac Bonneville looks like a baroque biplane and I think it's terrific. Houndstooth upholstery in a Chrysler Cordoba. I would fill a warehouse with them if I had money and space enough. 

A:  At your service:

The Villager;

And the Bonneville Grille:

Q: As a long-time observer and chronicler of life in these United States, have you ever come across a case where a mistrial was caused because of tear-inducing flatulence ? Asking for an enemy.

A: Heh.  Not a mistrial, but there have been numerous lawsuits over farting.  Like this one.  And even better, this one.  The headline for the second is delightful:  “Farting lawyer wins $170k over being refused permission to work from home.”

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Q: The most transcendently awful thing I’ve ever seen was an embroidery in a weird old hotel in deepest Virginia. I’ll send the photo by email. It says, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years. 

—Abraham Lincoln”

I laugh every time I think about this monstrosity. Just the THOUGHT of it has brought joy to my life for years. If it had been for sale, I would have bought it and proudly displayed it in my home forever.

A: Well, the worst thing about it is that Lincoln never said that, or even anything like that.  It’s modern, and shallow, and facile and glib.  AND ugly.

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Q: This Barney & Clyde anagrammed "The Washington Post" to form "wet hogs in hot pants", which seems unnecessarily wordy. For terser surrealism, I would have preferred "Spaghetti Not Shown". Of the other hand, if you really wanted to risk a hidden truth (and guaranteed censorship), you could have gone with "Shit Town's Pathogen", and credited it to TFG.

A: Both are excellent.

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Q: A few more entrants in the figural clock "Thank goodness it chimes" sweepstakes:

https://i.etsystatic.com/7808254/c/499/499/228/0/il/b97875/1688915990/il_600x600.1688915990_67v1.jpg

https://i.etsystatic.com/11282715/c/660/660/0/202/il/d33aa5/4543351305/il_600x600.4543351305_1cex.jpg

https://i.etsystatic.com/30564166/r/il/294d4a/3550733226/il_600x600.3550733226_c282.jpg  

– Dale of Green Gables.

A: Yeah.  For a time in the late 70s, when I was quite young and investigating writing a book, I moonlighted as an itinerant clock repair guy in NYC.   About half the clocks I repaired were variants of these monstrosities. 

Q: Something similar to the whole “ugly” idea: “Awful taste but great execution “ on Reddit.

A: Wow.  It’s a ring made from the initial of the baby, wrought from the baby’s hair, embedded in breast milk. 

Q: Regarding your recipe for matzoh brei / monster pie: I've had plenty of matzoh  brei, but never thought much of it.  I preferred PB&J or butter and salt on matzohs and I could eat those endlessly.  Why ruin it with water, add egg, and still end up with a meal that lacked flavor, excitingness, vegetables, sweetness etc.  it's like saying basmati rice is a recipe in relation to just regular rice.  (reference intended).

A: Did you read the recipe?  A key serving ingredient is strawberry or cherry preserves.  It delivers ample sweetness.

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Q: I was the oldest (girl, younger brother and sister).  My otherwise sterling reputation as the responsible oldest kid is slightly tarnished by an episode in which I tied a jump rope to the dining room table and went rapelling out the window.  This was a second floor window of a split level, so by the time I was fully out the window and dangling, I was only maybe a foot off the ground.  That was less of an issue than the fact I could have kicked out the basement window and really hurt myself.  My partners in crime were no partners -- they were way too eager to rat me out when our parents got home.

A; Holy crap. Rapelling out a window.

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Q: Tummy clock! 

A: As another reader noted, this is a famous line of ugly clocks, spanning centuries.

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Q: The ugliest thing I’ve experienced is the Brutalist Hubert H. Humphrey building, home of the Department of Health and Human Services. In the time I was there it was home to multitudes of roaches, mice and rats and a myriad of germs that grew because of the poor ventilation. Also, it is home to James Rosati's Heroic Shore Points I, a cubic aluminum piece painted bright red that appears to be a giant penis. -Peter Ashkenaz 

A: It’s not just a giant penis!  It is a giant cubist blood-engorged penis!  Well done.  And why is it lying on its side?

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Q:  You must have heard of these, right? I’m on a Facebook group called Weird and Wonderful Things, and these vomit clocks pop up a lot.

A: This I had not seen. I am trying to figure out what it is supposed to be.

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Q: I am sending a photo of the gift my darling first grandchild made me when she was a preschooler.  We have a dachshund I love and she wanted to make me a pottery dog in similar coat color, and,  for whatever reason, she decided to cover it in eyeballs.i will never part with this!!  Leslie Franson, Ellicott City, Md

A:Your first grandchild is obviously talent and adorable and weird.

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Q: Good discussion on whether Trump is funny (or whether satirizing Trump is funny). Two points. I don't see why all criticism of Trump doesn't refer him by his own onetime description of himself: The Stable Genius thinks illegal acts can be official acts; the Stable Genius only he can fix immigration, so he kills an immigration bill reflecting a lot of his own views, and so on. As for Trump's own possible sense of humor, I hold, contrary to Bergson ("engraftment of the mechanical on the organic") and everyone else, that humor always depends on some kind of shift between different perspectives. ("I was talking to the duck;" "Well, how did I [the purportedly talking dog] know the bartender was a Willie Mays fan?") The crudest form of humor simply ridicules the other perspective as different from one's own (HE slipped on the banana peel, NOT ME). How this theory applies to the Stable Genius I'm not sure. — Rick Beth.

A: His sense of humor is cruel; it doesn’t mean he doesn’t HAVE one.

Q: Really enjoyed your conversation with Jeff - this should be a recurring feature of the Gene Pool!

A: I think it is going to be.

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This is Gene. I am calling us down. See you on Thursday, with the results of the Great American Horse Foal Contest.

AND PLEASE keep sending in Questions and Observations here:

This is Donald Trump, your favorite president. I am breaking in here to say that I do indeed have a good sense of humor, the finest sense of humor in the world, unlike Sleepy Jean Weingarten, and I urge you not to upgrade your subscription. Truth Social is where you want to go.