The White House Correspondent’s Dinner was this past weekend (check local listings for the weekend in your area), and from what I’ve heard, it was boring and lame. You know, like the current “Saturday Night Live”? Considering this year’s “Nerd Prom” was hosted by current SNL cast member Colin Jost, it’s not surprising.
Although I’ve never been invited to the WHCD (my invites keep getting lost in the mail, I suspect), I want to help make them better. The most obvious, yet less funny solution is to nuke the site from orbit because it’s the only way to be sure. (20 points if you get that reference.) However, I’m not just looking for the easy way out. I want to give it an honest go. But just know I haven’t taken the nuclear option of the table.
The problem with the current WHCD is it’s toothless when Democrats are in power and ruthless when Republicans are in power. There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which being many modern comedians are Left-leaning, while many actual comedians are neutral or slightly Right-leaning. This is because actual comedians don’t feel the need to be a cheerleader for one side or the other since…now take notes, kids…it eliminates a good chunk of the audience and the material. No matter how dim-witted and oafish one side’s political leaders are, it’s almost a guarantee you will find similar dim-witted and oafish types on the other.
Why, it’s almost as if politicians aren’t the best and brightest people in our midst!
Anyway, the best way to add some spice to the WHCD is to find hosts who can skillfully filet both sides with a rapier wit. That excludes most current comedians and all current SNL members, but it opens up the door for actual entertainment for a change. Imagine if Donald Trump gets reelected (a realistic possibility given the current economy is a tire fire without the smell) and someone like Frank Caliendo hosts the WHCD with the best Trump impression ever. (Sorry, Alec Baldwin, but your Trump sucks more than Stormy Daniels working a champagne room for extra money.)
Or, on the other side, let’s say Kamala Harris wins in 2028 (regrettably, just as realistic a possibility given the current Left is obsessed with race and gender more than, you know, actual competency). Someone like Dennis Miller would be the perfect host in that situation, although someone might have to explain his jokes to the current Vice President. Maybe she would need a Venn Diagram.
Typically, I’m not the type to lay down hard and fast rules, but I do think there should be some quality control standards in place to choose future WHCD hosts. Here’s what the boys and girls in the Research Department came up with.
– If your sense of humor can be described as intelligent knock-knock jokes, you’re out.
– If your comedy hero is Hannah Gadsby, hard pass.
– If you have more cats than jokes, noooooope.
– If you’re more worried about safe spaces than punchlines, hit the bricks!
– If all your WHCD jokes sound like they’re from an open mic night at the Chuckle Hut, thank you, but we are going in a different direction.
– If you don’t mind whose oxen you gore (or whose gore you oxen), we might just have a place for you.
Personally, I would like to see the WHCD be more like a Dean Martin Comedy Roast, but with more alcohol. Back then, roasters could be much more relaxed and really lay into each other with good humor. And, most importantly, no hurt fee-fees. You have to be able to take a joke as well as you can tell one.
And that includes the politicians and the reporters. One of my biggest gripes with the WHCD is how seriously everyone takes themselves. Look, you’re a couple of steps below used car salesmen, the IRS, and a proctologist with big, cold fingers. Your self-importance isn’t earned and is actually worthy of more mockery than praise. I mean, you guys have Brian Stelter in your ranks. And, no, that’s not a good thing. Heck, you could do a set on MSNBC and not run out of jokes.
But enough about the hosts.
There are some of you out there who might think the White House Correspondent’s Dinner is beyond repair, and you’re not wrong. But, I think if it could be tweaked here and there, it might be salvageable.
If not, there’s always the nuke.
Tag: humor
Fear of Germs
I was trying to write this article about how our society has become sterlized with a paranoid level of fear when it comes to germs over past several decades. But instead of writing it myself I’m just going to give credit to guest author and let him tell the story himself.
So here is the transcript of the late George Carlin from his You Are All Diseased, the 16th album and 11th HBO live broadcast stand-up special, recorded on February 6, 1999 at the Beacon Theater in New York City. Thank you Mr Carlin.
Please note that this transcript contains adult language. You are warned.
What we have now is a completely neurotic population obsessed with security and safety and crime and drugs and cleanliness and hygiene and germs… there’s another thing… germs. Where did this sudden fear of germs come from in this country? Have you noticed this?
The media, constantly running stories about all the latest infections – salmonella, e-coli, hanta virus, bird flu – and Americans, they panic easily so now everybody’s running around, scrubbing this and spraying that and overcooking their food and repeatedly washing their hands, trying to avoid all contact with germs. It’s ridiculous and it goes to ridiculous lengths.
In prisons, before they give you a lethal injection, they swab your arm with alcohol! It’s true! Yeah! Well, they don’t want you to get an infection! And you could see their point; wouldn’t want some guy to go to hell and be sick! It would take a lot of the sportsmanship out of the whole execution.
Fear of germs… why these fucking pussies! You can’t even get a decent hamburger anymore! They cook the shit out of everything now cause everybody’s afraid of food poisoning! Hey, where’s your sense of adventure? Take a fucking chance will you? You know how many people die in this country from food poisoning every year? 9000… that’s all; it’s a minor risk! Take a fucking chance… bunch of goddamn pussies!
Besides, what do you think you have an immune system for? It’s for killing germs! But it needs practice… it needs germs to practice on. So listen! If you kill all the germs around you, and live a completely sterile life, then when germs do come along, you’re not gonna be prepared. And never mind ordinary germs, what are you gonna do when some super virus comes along that turns your vital organs into liquid shit? I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do… you’re gonna get sick, you’re gonna die, and you’re gonna deserve it cause you’re fucking weak and you got a fucking weak immune system!
Let me tell you a true story about immunization okay? When I was a little boy in New York City in the 1940s, we swam in the Hudson River and it was filled with raw sewage okay? We swam in raw sewage! You know… to cool off! And at that time, the big fear was polio; thousands of kids died from polio every year but you know something? In my neighborhood, no one ever got polio! No one! Ever! You know why? Cause we swam in raw sewage! It strengthened our immune systems! The polio never had a prayer; we were tempered in raw shit!
So personally, I never take any special precautions against germs. I don’t shy away from people that sneeze and cough, I don’t wipe off the telephone, I don’t cover the toilet seat, and if I drop food on the floor, I pick it up and eat it! Yes I do. Even if I’m at a sidewalk café! In Calcutta! The poor section! On New Year’s morning during a soccer riot! And you know something? In spite of all that so-called risky behavior, I never get infections, I don’t get them, I don’t get colds, I don’t get flu, I don’t get headaches, I don’t get upset stomach, you know why? Cause I got a good strong immune system and it gets a lot of practice.
My immune system is equipped with the biological equivalent of fully automatic military assault rifles with night vision and laser scopes, and we have recently acquired phosphorous grenades, cluster bombs, and anti-personnel fragmentation mines. So when my white blood cells are on patrol recon ordering my blood stream seeking out strangers and other undesirables, if they see any, ANY suspicious looking germs of any kind, they don’t fuck around! They whip out their weapons; they wax the motherfucker and deposit the unlucky fellow directly into my colon! Into my colon! There’s no nonsense, there’s no Miranda warning, there’s none of that “three strikes and you’re out” shit, first defense, BAM… into the colon you go!
And speaking of my colon, I want you to know I don’t automatically wash my hands every time I go to the bathroom okay? Can you deal with that? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. You know when I wash my hands? When I shit on them! That’s the only time. And you know how often that happens? Tops, TOPS, 2-3 times a week tops! Maybe a little more frequently over the holidays, you know what I mean?
And I’ll tell you something else my well-scrubbed friends… you don’t need to always need to shower every day, did you know that? It’s overkill, unless you work out or work outdoors, or for some reason come in intimate contact with huge amounts of filth and garbage every day, you don’t always need to shower. All you really need to do is to wash the four key areas; armpits, asshole, crotch, and teeth. Got that? Armpits, asshole, crotch, and teeth. In fact, you can save yourself a whole lot of time if you simply use the same brush on all four areas!