Furry Snarks All About

Senses of humor: what are they? How many are there? Where do they come from? Why do some people seem not to have them? Why do Germans like toilet jokes so much? Why is George Bush so snarky? How did snarky get to be a word? Why did the expression "elephant that sticks to the roof of your mouth" make me squirt Pepsi out my nose, once?

Those are just some of the questions I have no answer for. I wanted to devote today's column to things I don't know. But that's such a big subject I've had to narrow it down to just the things I don't know that have recently come to my attention.

In particular, as I was telling my life story to a captive audience last week, it dawned on me that although I was talking about dreadful, horrible, catastrophes that had befallen me in my innocent childhood, I was breaking out into giggles. I was talking about disaster after disaster happening to a poor defenseless child, the sort of stories that can make grown men cry. But since it all happened to me over fifty years ago I was on the verge of giggling like any three teenage girls in the same room.

Another odd sense of humor is the Seinfeld sense. I'm not speaking of the Seinfeld stand-up sense of humor, but the Seinfeld sit-com sense of humor. I watch reruns of Seinfeld, the sit-com, all the time. While I watch, Anitra "Netmama" Freeman, Upon Whose Kitchen Floor I Have Sometimes Slept, is almost always trying to surf the internet while at the same time holding her hands over her ears and making "la-la" noises to block out the Seinfeld dialog. To sweet caring sensitive Anitra, the Seinfeld dialog is mean and Seinfeld characters are the dregs of human society and she finds nothing funny about them

Whereas, to me, the Seinfeld dialog is mean and Seinfeld characters are the dregs of human society, and I laugh and laugh no matter how often I see them.

Perhaps what got me thinking about this is the latest issue of Time Magazine, which has a set of short stories that all amuse me.

First, there's the PETA fur coat story. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has organized boycotts of stores selling fur coats, even stores selling only vintage fur coats. But they also give fur coats away to the homeless. Now they are giving fur coats to homeless people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, speaking of things I do not know, "eccentric former basketball star" Dennis Rodman has something called the Dennis Rodman Foundation, which helps the homeless. I did not know that. But I guess I know it now, because Dennis heard about how PETA was helping the homeless stay warm by giving them clothes made from tortured animals, and thought "I'm down with that," or something to that effect, so he agreed to participate in PETA's "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign.

Meanwhile, homeless men in Amsterdam are voluntarily wearing winter jackets that advertise Ben & Jerry's, in return for money from Ben and Jerry going to local nuns who in turn help the needy.

But that's not all! The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department is now giving away confiscated meat from illegally killed moose and deer. Moose jerky, anyone? "Say, what are you going to do with that moose-hide, Mister Fish and Game man? That'd make a fine pair of pants for a homeless guy…" "Oh, rats, there's a bullet hole in mine."

Allow me to summarize.

I don't know everything. I know that I have a weird sense of humor, but I don't know why. I know that Dennis Rodman would rather be naked than wear fur, but homeless people would rather wear furs than freeze to death. I know that PETA and Dennis are OK with that. I know that Anitra would wear a jacket with a Ben & Jerry's ad on it, just to promote ice-cream. I know that I will never see a squirrel ice-skating on the Potomac in July.

But I might wear him for a hat some winter if I were homeless again. I'd get a pass from PETA.

Nailing Stephen Hawking

Every month the same thing: first, I realize that as writers go, I am the functional equivalent of Steven Hawking without his Power Chair. (By the way, my girlfriend says that Steven is my biggest threat. She says that if he were here at this very moment she would nail him, with or without the mobile throne. I say, yeah sure, she would have to. What else could she do?)

Second, I despair.

Third, I wonder, “is it ‘third’, or is it ‘thirdly’?”

Fourth, out of my desperation, I analyze the cause of my inability to get started writing.

Fifth, I write about that cause, since I realize that I have nothing else to write about, apart from bad beer, dead pigeons, and the other gender, and I’ve probably already said all that I should about those, for now.

This month the culprit is the Capital T that is followed by the Capital Gosh Condemned V. To be precise, almost as soon as I became housed I procured an “idiot box”. I am right now on the verge of getting cable. After years of what my therapist had declared a cure I have suffered from what is undeniably a relapse: I have become re-addicted to Letterman and his Stupid Human Tricks. I have started watching Simpson reruns every day. I have to watch 11 at 11 on 7 every night. I no longer have a will of my own. Something has pierced my neck. Something is controlling my cerebrum. I have the urge to scream. I start to bond with paranoid schizophrenics. The stories from the X-files seem reasonable to a guy who has gotten used to watching Jerry Springer. Aliens among us? Heck yeah.

I recently heard an “anchorperson” on a TV news program say something like this -- “And now, Jim has some information that will help you avoid being swept off a mountain by an avalanche.” I wasn’t even able to write my own name for half an hour after that...

I thought I heard “and now Uncle Jim will tell me how even an infantile adult-in-age-only such as myself can avoid ending up like any of a bunch of reckless thrill seekers more than willing to tax the resources of State rescue agencies without bothering to assume the responsibility of paying in advance for the privilege.”

If I were a real adult, I thought, I would climb mountains daily. And people would CARE if I slipped, or if some stinking avalanche disturbed my climb. There would be hundreds of people concerned with every breath I took, for fear that I wasn’t getting enough oxygen and might have to live the rest of my life stupid, as if I was raised in the projects eating lead paint. Hundreds of Mountaineer Club Types would be willing to trek through miles of knee deep snow up 110 degree inclines just to deliver beef-jerky and/or French Cognac to me.

Well, guess what?! I don’t LIKE beef-jerky! Meanwhile, where were any of you heroes any of the four years I was homeless and freezing my ass off sleeping in toxic waste dumps?

I know the answer already. When you weren’t watching television you were climbing mountains or you were rescuing other jocks like yourselves who had tried to climb mountains. You were too busy for me. Just like now, I am watching the Simpsons, and can’t be bothered with news about someone’s failed attempt at literal upward mobility who brought his troubles on himself by taking unnecessary risks.

Ha, ha, just kidding! “Taking unnecessary risks” is another way of saying “being born,” right?

Sixth, when that goes nowhere, I resort to a totally irrational non sequitur:

For example --

Speaking of being born, that reminds me that I am male. And I realize that I haven’t batted people in the head about it recently, whence a poem --

We men don’t need large bladders --

We piss on everything, that’s our job!

-- or something like that. Trouble with that one is, what rhymes with bladders besides ladders, and what do ladders have to do with it? Do I really want to bring Tool Time into the discussion? Of course not. I preferred Seinfeld.

And why did I prefer Seinfeld? Because there were no fathers even trying to know best on Seinfeld. There were no Uncle Jims. Think of it: a sitcom that acted less like a sitcom than the nightly news!

Tonight at eleven -- Uncle Jim tells how you can avoid having your campsite bulldozed by the City of Seattle! The answer just may surprise you!