Make 'em laugh

Last night I saw The Aristocrats. As with so many movies, I was late to this party, but I did arrive.

The subject of the documentary, as you doubtless have heard, is how professional comedians amuse one another by swapping versions of a joke about a family of entertainers who, in their act, engage in coprophilia, necrophila, incest, rape, devil worship, Republicanism and every other depravity under the sun. The name of the troupe, and the punchline of the joke: the Aristocrats. In the film, 200 or so comedians -- including Jon Stewart, Robin Williams and Phyllis Diller -- deliver the joke in arias so startlingly obscene that near me in the almost empty cinema, a trio of otherwise nonchalant men in their early 20s, feet propped up on the seats in front of them, kept gasping loudly.

To me, the most compelling performance of the joke is by Bob Saget, the comedian familiar from family-friendly television shows like "Full House" and "America's Funniest Home Videos." There is unhappiness in Saget's eyes as he delivers, seemingly against his will, what is arguably the film's most disturbing version of the joke.

The effect is jarring -- especially for me, because I have had Saget on the brain. That is thanks to my recent rediscovery of one of basic cable's simple pleasures: reruns of "America's Funniest Home Videos." I disdained the show when it was new, but now I laugh helplessly as, again and again, the pier collapses, the guy walks into the tree, the dog does something surprising.

But most mesmerizing is host Saget, who frequently registers that same unhappiness -- even exhaustion -- as he banters with the crowd, delivers lame but tame gags and introduces themed segments. It must be hard to be so wholesome for the cameras, and his version of the Aristocrats joke surely is some kind of catharsis. But perhaps he might more productively deliver it to a member of the clergy.

Juicy

Nicole Kidman and country singer (and fellow Aussie) Keith Urban were spotted getting cozy in a Nashville-area eatery. The Nashville Tennessean quoted the restaurant's owner thusly: "He was talking to her, rubbing on her, too. They was real close."

Ah, Nashville. My hometown. They really do talk that way. Read all about it here.

To thine own self, etc.

Happy National Coming Out Day, everybody. Coming Out Day 2000 proved fateful for me. I was grad student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the time, and I recall wandering morosely around some Coming Out Day displays on Library Mall. Finally I said: what the hell am I waiting for? And that fall, I came out.

So I say to you, my gay brothers and sisters in your respective closets: if I can do it, so can you. Git out here!

Rant

On the isthmus bike path, someone has defaced the zebra crossings at the streets with a pro-bike slogan: "MORE BIKES / LESS CARS."

A few comments to the agitator: First, I agree with the sentiment, obviously, which is why I bike to work every day. But is vandalism necessary? Why should we pay to clean up your mess?

Secondly, it's dumb to make the scrawl readable from bikes on the path but not from cars on the streets, which cross the path at right angles. Hey genius: us on the bike path -- we're the bike people! We get it already! Moron.

Finally: The word you're searching for is fewer. Fewer cars.

Good word

According to our new arrival
Life is more than mere survival
We just might live the good life yet

-- Gary Portnoy, Judy Hart-Angelo

Brrring

As I was walking out of the record store yesterday, the phone rang. Not my phone, the wireless doohickey, but a real phone, somewhere, with a bell. Then I realized: it was the pay phone outside the shop.

When I was a child I leapt to answer any pay phone that rang, for the sheer unpredictability of it. Like the man used to sing, who can it be now? I also used to write down the numbers of pay phones and then, at home, call them. The reason was the same: something weird might happen. As I recall, what generally happened, no matter what end of the pay phone I was on, was a brief moment of shared confusion, sometimes followed by an even briefer moment of shared amusement. And that was about it.

Those memories raced through my mind in an instant when the phone rang yesterday. I dithered over whether I should pick it up, but it looked nasty, even by pay phone standards. So I kept moving. Pay phones aren't guaranteed to be clean.

Flip flip

Every several months I confront the gigantic pile of magazines. I subscribe to a few -- The New Yorker, Fortune, PC Magazine -- and I'm always mildly excited when one arrives: more reading material! But inevitably I leaf through it, set it aside and forget about it. What eventually results is the gigantic pile of magazines. Something like panic sets in, and for days I spend most of my leisure time plowing through them. Once the pile is gone, the cycle starts anew.

What is this about? Isn't reading magazines supposed to be a leisure activity? So why does it feel like graduate school? A while back I spent evening after evening at a UW-Madison library, simply so I could get caught up on magazines. But I'll be good: I hereby promise to be more discplined about reading magazines. So much for leisure.

And then, the Gibbon.