Crazytown

A humorist breaks through the finger-pointing, and gets to the truth of the matter...
By Bob Simpson (Writer)

With the Republican National Convention now only a bloated memory in our already politcally overly-saturated minds, we can look forward to another three months (though it feels like twelve years) of spin, bombastic political ads, and Joe Biden debates.

Though we call ourselves The United States of America, during this short period every four years, we become less like the United States, and more like the Petulant Children Between Canada and Mexico of America. We have to weather the endless name-calling and eye-rolling personal stories (apparently everyone who has ever held office grew up in abject poverty...including Mitt "Dollah Dollah Bills Y'all" Romney).

We have to witness the incessant and contextually-skewed rallying cries (i.e. "You Didn't Build That" or "Corporations Are People"), and it is during this time that people like me realize that the Democratic and Republican parties are both inherently stupid. It's during times like these when I have to echo Troy Barnes and ask, "What's up with politics?"

Thank goodness for Dave Barry. Mr. Barry is a Pulitzer prize-winning humorist formerly with the Miami Herald, whom I've been reading since I was just a young boy. Dave's work stems from a refreshing philosphy, of which I am a member, that politics are hilarious, and no one is free from lampooning. He doesn't lean to the right or the left - he just occasionally punts the right and left in their collective weiners.

His latest article on the RNC was particularly refreshing and funny. The full article is here, but I've quoted his "All-Purpose Republican Convention Speech" below.

"Good evening. I stand before you tonight as the lieutenant governor of a critical swing state, as well as a member of a minority group and CEO of the nation's third-largest manufacturer of curtain rods.

"Yes, I am living the American Dream. But let me tell you about my childhood. My family was dirt poor. In fact, we didn't even have enough dirt to go around. We all had to share one small dirt clod. At bath time, you would smear the clod onto yourself and sit in the bathtub; then, when you were done, you would smear the clod onto the next family member. The dirt didn't get washed away, because we also had no water. For that matter, we didn't have a real bathtub. We had to sit in an imaginary bathtub. And not a fancy imaginary bathtub, either: It was a nasty old used imaginary bathtub.

"But we did not complain. We did not ask the government for a handout. And do you know why? Because we also could not afford vocal chords.

"No, seriously, we did not complain because we believed in hard work. Everyone pitched in with the family business, even us kids. My father woke us up every morning before dawn and put us to work. It wasn't easy: You try selling curtain rods door-to-door at 4:30 a.m. People would throw rocks at us. We collected these and ground them up to make dirt.

"So it was a struggle, but we did not give up, and you know why? Because we believed in America, and freedom, and opportunity. Those are not just words, my fellow delegates: Those are key convention buzzwords, along with 'leadership' and 'jobs,' that will be repeated 19 million times before we finally get out of Tampa.

"And that is why I am proud to support Mitt Romney for president of the United States (pause here for applause). Thank you. Mitt Romney will bring us the leadership that we need to create jobs through freedom and opportunity and the creation of jobs in an America that is free and has leadership resulting in opportunity and jobs out the wazoo. In closing, God bless America, and we also do custom installations."

Thank you, Dave, and here's hoping you do another article for the DNC. I'll be reading this repeatedly over the next several months, if only to drown out the uber-patriotic TV ads that will be crammed down my throat.

BOB SIMPSON is a writer and lives in Los Angeles, where he works for an entertainment company that he'd prefer to keep anonymous, should he accidentally diss something they made. www.bobsimpsonblog.blogspot.com
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