A year or two ago I heard an NPR story about a woman comedian who tells the raunchiest stories imaginable and about her great popularity. A couple months ago I watched her hour long stage performance during my flight to Israel. Holy xxxxxx! Was it ever funny! Holy XXXXX! Was it ever raunchy!
So, the answer to the question posed in the title is. No. I’m not that smart and I’m not that funny. But I am trying to be that honest. And honesty is often the key to good comedy as is the surprise its telling can bring to a listener. Truth can be gut bustingly funny. Here’s her story in the Trib.
Amy Shumer is drop dead honest even if she embellishes her stories. Her shtick roils her audiences, both men and women, with laughter. If her visceral honesty showed bloodshed I would no more watch it than one of the ISIS decapitations on Youtube. I’m insulted that comic book criminals think they can scare me into fearing them. They are ten-fold more fearful of the comics in Kurdistan or the cartoonists in Europe who mock and expose them for the dim wits they are.
I learned about such a man when I visited Israel. He was a Palestinian and his name was Naji al-Ali. He was assassinated in London, where he had moved to be safe from the people his cartoons skewered back in Israel and Palestine. A good guess is that Yasir Arafat had him executed.
Thank God that in Duluth the people who find criticism painful only resort to character assassination. I’m so glad I live in a nation where an Amy Shumer can embarrass the hell out of me. Its a fine example of truth telling that goes back long before Mark Twain who’s quote I have placed on this blog and quoted many times in the past.
