Truman? More like False-man!
If all else fails pull the old switcheroo and:
Consume everything! Totally immerse yourself in the filth of pop culture to build a callus on your soul. It’s like when my Dad caught me with cigarettes when I was twelve and forced me to finish an entire carton of Kools. Worked like a charm. Haven’t smoked a menthol since.
* * *
CANARY IN A COAL MINE
If you don’t think Hollywood has tricks up its sleeve, maybe you should get out of the sleeve-checking business.
The problem with Hollywood, as if there weren’t enough problems already, is that the minute you’ve whacked that weed in one place, up it sprouts somewhere else.5 Well, the latest rock it’s crawled out from under is a doozy.
Not content to pour their poison across the silver screen, the LA studio heavyweights who run Broadway are now evidently shipping it directly to the Heartland.
Need proof? Just look at this headline out of Wisconsin from the Appleton News-Leader:
Disney’s “The Lion King” is about to hit town The staff of the Sommers Center for the Performing Arts is preparing for the arrival of the Broadway hit. “Everybody is very excited,” said town manager of the Broadway hit.
Sadly these milk-fed innocents clearly don’t know what they’re in for.
But I’ve been there, so let me warn you. The effects of live theater are way harder to shake off than movies. It’s frighteningly intimate and, worst of all, you’ve got no control. It’s like breaking up with a girl in person.
When I watch The Lion King at home, I can safely end the movie before Mufasa’s untimely death. But when I bring my remote control to the live performance, it doesn’t work.6 All I can do is watch helplessly as the hyenas execute their perfect crime.
“Slow down, you wildebeests! That lion is your king!”
Apparently yelling at the stage is verboten, even if to challenge Scar to pistols at dawn.
Because I am always ushered out at this point, but not soon enough to spare me a harsh dose of reality. You see, a movie you can dismiss when the lights come up.
But a play? Those animals were real people.
Makeup Wizardry!
* * *
* * *
STEPHEN SPEAKS FOR ME
A CHANCE FOR AVERAGE AMERICANS TO AGREE WITH WHAT I THINK
Mort Sinclair, Former TV Comedy Writer, Communist
Here’s a joke for you:
A man walks into a bar. The bartender says, “What will it be, Mac?” The man looks at the drink menu and says, “How ’bout a revolution of the proletariat?”
Zing! I wrote that one for Dinah Shore back in 1954.
You see, I used to be a comedy writer, and like many comedians during the ’50s, there was nothing I wanted more than to use my jokes to overthrow the government and replace it with a classless Communist society.
It all started when I was a kid. I remember sitting in the movie house watching The Three Stooges, hearing everyone laugh, and thinking to myself, “I know what I want to do. Undermine the capitalist system and replace it with collective farms.”
Quick! A man and his wife are lying in bed. The wife says, “Honey, why don’t you roll over here and kiss me?” The man says, “I would, but I’m shackled by my capitalist oppressors!” Hot-cha!
The first job interview I had was with Milton Berle. I’ll never forget what he said to me after reading my joke packet: “Good material, kid, but I think you can inject more references to the industrial class structure.”
And he was right. Only three of my jokes mentioned the evils of private ownership. That’s comedy gold! To me the perfect joke didn’t end with a laugh, but with an agonizing reappraisal of the worker’s suppression by the entrenched plutocrats.
It’s funny because it’s true.
Of course, my career as a TV comedy writer wasn’t always easy. But whenever things got rough, I’d remind myself that if my jokes got just one person to sell nuclear secrets to the Russians, then it was all worth it.
I’ll leave you with this joke I wrote for Sid Caesar:
“President Truman is like Communist ideology. No class.”
Za-bang!
* * *
* * *
Match the Celebrity with Their Pet Cause
“End the war in the Middle East!”
“Equal rights for homosexuals!”
“Stop global warming!”
“Hey! Look at me!”
* * *
Part Three
MY AMERICAN MATURITY
In 1997, I was made the anchor of the Channel 7 News on WPTS Patterson Springs, North Carolina. I got promoted after I narced out the previous anchor, Wayne Colt, for his coke addiction and won a local Emmy for my investigative report, “Anchor Away: The Tragic Downward Spiral of Wayne Colt.”
I was getting too big for Patterson Springs (Pop. 620), so that fall I sent out a reel of my best reports: “From Wayne to Worse: The Continuing Struggles of Wayne Colt,” “Wayne Damage: The Hidden-Camera Footage Wayne Colt Begged Me Not to Show You,” “Wayne, Wayne Go Away: Living in Fear of a Former Colleague,” and “Never the Wayne Shall Meet: My Restraining Order Against Wayne Colt, Coke Fiend.”
I immediately got a call from The Daily Show. I had made it to the Big Time, so I moved to the Big City and bought the Big House.
Now I had real responsibilities. If something goes wrong with your house, it’s your problem. And boy, can things go haywire. There’s electricity and fuse boxes and three-prong outlets. It’s like living in the Space Station. No one warned me that life would involve science, except my science teacher. But, of course, he’s going to say that. He’s got a job to protect.
Four months after moving in, I noticed that the yard looked terrible. When we did the final walk-through, the lawn was beautiful. Now the grass was waist high and shaggy. Had I been sold a bill of goods? I faced the problem like a man and I called my lawyer.
He called a landscaper.
Now I knew a lot of yard guys were illegal immigrants—Blue-Collar Banditos stealing manual labor jobs away from Americans who had moved onto something less strenuous. So I let them do the lawn, then asked to see their green cards. They didn’t have any, so I went inside and called INS. When Los Federales rolled up, I shouted from the window, “Enjoy mowing Mexico!”
It was an ugly scene. Turns out, they didn’t have green cards because they were all Americans. In fact, African-Americans. I explained that I don’t see Race. On that subject, I am very enlightened—and equally endarkened. Eventually, everything was smoothed over with some sizeable tips to the landscapers, and to the cops.
I tell this story to illustrate the issues we all face as American Adults. I call them the four Ss and one M of Maturity: Socioeconomics, Segregation, Science, Sombreros, and the Media.
fig 12. STEPHEN COLBERT
CHAPTER 10
THE MEDIA
“I read the news today. Oh boy.”
–John Lennon, Liverpudlian flash-in-the-pan
MY FIRST JOB IN THE NEWS GAME WAS WRITING THE POLICE BLOTTER FOR THE DORCHESTER COUNTY PENNYSAVER IN MY HOME STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. I WAS 17, AND I WAS HUNGRY. I’D HANG OUT AT THE LOCAL PRECINCT, PORING OVER POLICE REPORTS AND SWAPPING WAR STORIES WITH THE BOYS IN BLUE.
Great bunch of guys—Seamus, Mickey, Potato Bill, Old Whiskey Pat, New Whiskey Pat, Paddy, and “Irish” (the black guy). It was a great way to hone my journalistic chops while learning about Law and Order. I took the job seriously, and I did it well. Recently, I unearthed my first column from its frame on my wall:
* * *
Police Blotter by Stephen “Tater” Colbert
* * *
Feel free to cut this out and frame it on your wall.
My editor, Mr. Salinas, let me go after one column. This was my first cold, hard lesson in how “telling it like it is” isn’t always “appreciated like it is.” And I’d say not much has changed in the news game since then. I’ve fac
ed the same prejudices against my in-your-face, take-no-prisoners style at every job along the way.1
No American editors wanted that job?
The Bad News: The greatest threat facing America today—next to voter fraud, the Western Pinebark Beetle, and the memory foam mattress—is the national news media.
That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, iodized salt.
Simple Question with a “Yes” answer: Is the mainstream press too liberal?
The answer is Yes.
Hint: Yes
Need proof? Just look at some of the headlines I’m able to imagine.
The Good News: There are a few journalists who aren’t registered sex offenders. These people work for Fox News. Now, I have a well-cured beef with Fox. “Fair and Balanced?” Which is it? Make up your mind! I’m sure guys like Brit Hume and Sean Hannity are well-intentioned, but by trying to present both sides of each story, they’re suggesting that the truth exists somewhere in the middle. You know what’s really in the middle?
A cream filling?
The Gray Area.
Shades of gray are for brain tissue and the weak. Neither one has a place in the News Business.
I like my Truth like my coffee: Black or White.
Wake Up Call: If I die, I know that I’m either going to Heaven or to Hell. There’s no gray area there.
Heaven, just to be clear
THE TOP MAINSTREAM MEDIA NEWS OUTFITS THAT ARE KILLING OUR CHILDREN
NPR: What’s wrong with NPR? Just listen to Morning Edition. This is by far the least zany “Morning Zoo” ever to hit the airwaves. Instead of the get-up-and-go-larity provided by your local Scott and Tom, or Ted and Zeke, or Denise and Santana, or Coyote Mike and The Beemer, Morning Edition presents NPR’s measured barbiturate vibe.2
“Count your Chickens! Coyote’s on the Prowl!”–Z 98.6 Body Temperature Rock!
It’s a wonder the lefties who wake up to it are able to get out of bed.
Lefties get up on the wrong side of the bed. The left side.
I guarantee that if Morning Edition had to compete in the free market, you’d hear a lot more prank phone calls to the Supreme Court asking if that’s a gavel “in their docket.”
* * *
WHAT DOES NPR REALLY STAND FOR? Toss a few of these out at the next East Coast Ivy League Cocktail party you get roped into, and watch Billy Bleeding Heart choke on his brie.3
Nancy Pelosi Radio, Nader Presidential Radio,
Nazi Palestinian Radio, No Penis Radio, Natalie Portman Radio
N ________ P ______ Radio (Let your imagination soar!)
* * *
Try “Nasty Panda Radio” (It fits.)
THE “BIG THREE” NETWORKS
CBS: The Tiffany network is responsible for the perennial Sunday Night Post-Game buzzkill, 60 Minutes. Morley Safer and his team of aged jackals present what I believe is the worst kind of investigative journalism—the kind with investigations. On the other hand, I like the innovations that Katie Couric has brought to The CBS Evening News, especially the innovation of having viewers turn elsewhere for news.
Katie Couric
NBC: A lot of people make the mistake of getting their nightly newscast from Brian Williams, when the real star of the “Peacock” news division is the Law and Order franchise. All the plots are “ripped from today’s headlines.”
Brian Williams
ABC: When Charlie Gibson took the evening news anchor chair, I doubted he had the heft for the job. But those fears were put at ease once I learned he had changed his name to “Charles Gibson.” As far as liberal bias is concerned, jury’s still out.
Charlie Charles
Jury’s back in: Guilty!
CSPAN: CSPAN’s liberal bias is severely underestimated. With its unvarnished gavel-to-gavel coverage of our elected leaders, CSPAN glamorizes big government by showing not only how it works, but that it sometimes does work. CSPAN 2 may be just as dangerous, but has never been watched.
Catch me on BookTV! Oct. 3rd!
THE DORCHESTER COUNTY PENNYSAVER: Peaked for one week in 1981.
THE NEW YORK TIMES: One of the few downsides to my job is that I have to read The New York Times every day. Why? To quote my old friend Wesley “Irish” Snipes, “Know thine enemy.” I do this dirty work as a service to my viewers, as the Times’ cornucopia of bias and lies provide an endless source of things for me to be outraged about. And outrage is what makes me go. I call it “The Juice” because like steroids, The New York Times fills you with rage and shrinks your genitalia.
Or so I’ve heard
And—get this—there isn’t even a comics page in The New York Times. I think that says all anyone needs to know about The Somber Gray Lady. Evidently, the Ochs and the Sulzburgers and the Dowds and the Krugmans think they’re above it all. They look down on regular folk like you and me who delight at Garfield’s lasagna-fueled “Cat-itude.” So I’m forced to fashion my own Grin Bin by making up funny captions to photos in the International section. Here’s one to tape to your cubicle!
THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL VISION
Over the last few years, the Internet has grown from a haven for pornography and pet anecdotes into a haven for pornography and pet anecdotes where people go for news. The source-checking, story-verifying, reality-worshipping dinosaurs of the mainstream media are being pushed aside by the emergent tree shrews of the blogosphere.
Evolution is a farce, but Evolution metaphors come in handy.
Do I have any hard data to back these claims up?
No, but I posted this on the Internet:
The beauty of new media is that no evidence is necessary. The brave blog-troopers have stormed the cockpit of news, and wrested the joystick of authority away from the seasoned pilots of the press who would land our country at Facts International Airport. Now there’s fresh blood at the controls, without any of the preconceived notions of the rudder-and-flaps crowd.
With their Pro-Landing-Gear Agenda
This is the age of the open-source encyclopedia. Words like “research” and “corroborated” now mean whatever the majority says they mean. Personally, I’m voting for “research” to mean “speculation” and “corroborated” to mean “a zesty sour cream-based dip.”
Example:
Recent research indicates that Barack Obama’s ties to Al Qaeda have been corroborated. And they are delicious on baby carrots.
But if you ask me, and you implicitly did ask me by buying this book, the digital bloom may soon be off the virtual rose. These days even Wolf Blitzer covers blogs on his show, and the first thing every journalist learns is the five “W’s” of journalism:
Who, What, When, Where, and
Wolf-Blitzer-is-for-hospital-patients-and-old-people.
* * *
STEPHEN SPEAKS FOR ME
A CHANCE FOR AVERAGE AMERICANS TO AGREE WITH WHAT I THINK
Amy Anatoly Canton, Ohio
I am America (and so can You!) Page 14