Chasing Waterfalls

I once read a reprinted interview with Lenny Bruce, in which the great comedian explained how he would work burning social issues into his standup.

What he would do was talk, perfectly seriously, about said issue for however many minutes, and only then move into the jokes. Say he was doing racial integration of schools (this was back in the 1960s): he would give the audience a brief, well-reasoned explanation of precisely why the whole notion of "separate but equal" schooling on the basis of legally-mandated classification derived from imprecise abstractions generalized from epidermal pigmentation was stuuuuuupid, and only after that would he go into the routine about the governor of Alabama finding out that his daughter was engaged to Harry Belafonte. ("Oh, an Eye-tal-ian boy, Lou-Anne? Hmmm...")

(It struck me at the time that this whole business would likely evoke a sort of reverse Voltairean reaction in its listeners: I agree with what you say, but I will oppose to my death your saying it: where the fuck are the dick jokes?)

I don't know if Lenny Bruce could make this technique work (I kinda doubt it, since his act in the last year of his life consisted almost exclusively of reading out memos sent to him by his lawyers) but OTOH, this works kinda well...

The whole sorry story FBI-vice-squad story is here.

Wandering Thoughts on this story:

-If I had joined the FBI for the purpose of, say, fighting terrorism or catching serial killers or for that matter finding my sister who was abducted by aliens, I'd be pretty pissed off if I were suddenly transferred to the Bureau's Department of Panty Drawer Sniffing. Like, exploring the interesting career opportunities for former Special Agents in the private-sector security industry pissed off. (Renaming the office after that pinhole-sphinctered closet-case J Edgar Hoover was bad enough, but this...)

-Speaking of JEH, I heard somewhere that when his agents burgled the apartment of Angela Davis and stole a number of photos she had taken of her and her boyfriend "doing the wild thing", JEH insisted that they be brought directly to him. (Perhaps that slithering piece of imbecility wanted to see what he was missing?)

+Pornographic websites are typically hosted outside of the US, so in order to enforce a ban on pornography the FBI will need to either:

-Prosecute American consumers while letting foreign producers go free, which is political suicide, or else;

+Force the entire 95% of the world that does not have the (generally) good fortune to live in the US to obey laws passed by the US Congress:

-"Sure, jefe, if you want to let the rest of the world vote in your country, we'll follow your laws, you betcha";

-The following countries are likely to be hosting websites of this nature: the Netherlands, Hungary, the Czech Republic, various nations in Central America/ the Carribbean. The following countries are not likely to be hosting websites of this nature: Syria, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia. Remind me again whether the former, or the latter, are supposed to be America's allies?


In the internet age, a ban on looking at nudie pictures is stupid. Correction: stupid is what this idea aspires to. It is so far beyond stupid that the light from Stupid would take a thousand years to reach it.

Every so often the Bush administration does something that is so bat-shit insane that the only explanation is Karl Rove: "Hey, Mr President, if we slap a bunch of tariffs on steel while arguing for free trade - or, even better, if you make a powerful speech attacking the financiers of terrorism and then let the press corps film you walking hand in hand with a Saudi prince - that will give all the leftists epilepsy for the next six months!"

I'm guessing this is one of those things. Just reading the story made me foam at the mouth. I dare say heads are popping over at the Daily Kos right now...

Let's leave it with a quote from the aforementioned J Edgar Hoover:

"I regret that the FBI is powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless they have in some way impeded inter-state commerce".

Words to live by, G-men...

(Final note: it has just occurred to me that this may, in fact, not be a cruel, repressive policy of the Wicked Dubya and his minion Darth Rove, but may instead be a brilliant scam by the world's most accomplished chutzpenick to allow him and his buddies to download as much hot lesbo action as they want on office time and get paid, and indeed commended, for it... In which case I am speechless in admiration).