NOTHIN' LEFT TO DO BUT SMILE, SMILE, SMILE

By Andrew Williams

"There are no jokes. The truth is the funniest joke of all."--Muhammed Ali

Between the 'dirty bomb' perpetrator hoax, the new DoE theme song, and

John Ashcroft's apparent inability to stomach the sight of female

breasts--even unreal ones--it's all I can do sometimes but to laugh at

these clowns who seem to have escaped from a conservative thinktank

disguised as a sanitarium (or vice versa). If the half-witted brain-trust

in the Caucasian Domicile wasn't doing its damndest to make folks feel

freaky, we'd be running them out of town on Metro's third rail. And the

names--a Freudian would have a field day with them. John Ashcroft needs to

get his ashes hauled. Tom Rigid is limp (according to the National Review,

no less). Donald Rumpfeld has his headquarters where his hindquarters

should be, as Lincoln said of one of his generals. And Colon Powell--well,

I'll leave that one alone. The man is a general and a war hero, after all.

(One of these days I'll tell you how I define heroism.)

The one weapon these power-craving fanatics and zealots can't fight is

laughter. "When you laugh...nobody can persuade you at that moment to take

a gun and kill your enemy...If I am against the condition of the

world...it is because I want to laugh more." So said Henry Miller in 1938,

as the world waited to erupt in ignorance of wisdom.

The comedian slays the sacred cows for us (keeping kosher, natch.) S/he

opens up our heads to let in light, space and laughter when all the TV

talk is of bombs, germs, jails and guns. S/he lightens the soul's labors.

The clown is a sacred and profane being, a shaman of the heart, who brings

us out of the ordered fatuity of reality to the realization that life is a

farce--a commedia dell'arte in seven acts--and should be treated (and

enjoyed) as such.

In the 1910s, we had Charlie Chaplin. In the 1920s, Chaplin and Will

Rogers. In the 1930s, Chaplin, Rogers, the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields.

In the 1940s, the Looney Tunes. In the 1950s, "The Goon Show" and "Your

Show of Shows." In the 1960s, Lenny Bruce, Monty Python, the Firesign

Theater and the Conception Corporation. In the 1970s, George Carlin and

Richard Pryor. In the 1980s, Sam Kinison, Robin Williams and Bobcat

Goldthwait. In the 1990s, Bill Hicks and Bill Maher. In the 2000s--the

spotlight's currently up for grabs.

We have a vast and prosaic plethora of pundits, mouthpieces, ghostwriters,

spin doctors (and nurses), heroificators, reporters, rewriters, blue- and

brown-nosers. We need more comedians, clowns of the first water,

iconoclasts and satirists: more Bill Mahers, Bob Odenkirks and David

Crosses.

The Powers That Be command you to Obey All The Laws and Stand For The

Pledge because Life Is Very, Very Serious and We Could All Die Any Day.

The clown ripostes, "Then I'll dance my life away." To sing, to dance, to

be sanguine and riant, only requires letting go of the moment and its

bogeymen with their fanatically twisted punims and zealous trigger

fingers. To laugh in the face of fundamentalism--that is the great

victory, the clownish equivalent of "counting coup." To laugh, dance, sing

and love one's life away--that's God's wish for us all.

If you want to worry, no one can stop you. You can cry and ocean or you

can smile a rainbow. The fanatics will teach you how to do the former. The

comedians will teach you how to do the latter. As Bill Hicks said, it's

only a choice between fear and love. Choose wisely, my dear friends.

Choose well.

"Our function is to amuse the world. We are the (William Jennings) Bryan,

the Henry Ford, among the nations."--H.L. Mencken, "Bring On The Clowns"

"All the futile moralists who try to make life unbearable--laugh at

them...laugh at everything, all their sacred shibboleths." Noel Coward,

Private Lives