And Now, Here's The 11 O'Clock Jokes

The humiliating failure of The Half Hour News Hour told me two things: 1) Comedy should only be left in the hands of professionals. 2) If comedy is based on a lie, it's not funny.

And comedians make a living being honest, especially when it comes to talking about politics. For example, during the promotional tour for I Think I Love My Wife, a reporter asked Chris Rock if he thought the United states was ready for an African-American president.

“Why not?” Chris replied. “We already got a retarded president, so a black one shouldn’t be a big deal.”

Boom.

Move along folks, nothing to see here. Just step over the chalk outline.

It says something about our current political system that it doesn't allow a political candidate to speak his mind until he's not a political candidate anymore. Whistle blowers are fired from their jobs when they try to do their jobs. And most of the talking heads supposedly reporting on the news simply read whatever is put in front of them.

But it’s different if you tell jokes. It’s amazing what those guys get away with. As the late Richard Jeni said, "Comedians are the only people given permission to tell the truth."

Isn’t it a shame when you have to go to The Daily Show to hear Jon Stewart and his crew of Merry Pranksters for the "real" news? Bill Maher will say things about Bush that would make Anderson Cooper dirty his Armani diapers. Lewis Black loves kicking Republican ass.

These smiling assassins don't lie.

Comedians have to speak in clear language when they talk about what they see going on around them, otherwise their audience doesn’t know they’re trying to say and the jokes don’t work. Politicians, on the other hand, are isolated from the real world so they use a slippery gobbledygook that nobody can understand. Bigots like Ann Coulter spew "jokes" based on racial and gender stereotypes. But comedians are insightful, pissed-off, card-carrying members of the reality-based community. They can make you think and laugh at the same time.

Still, it bothers me that most people look for truth in a comedy monologue because we can’t take the pre-fabricated news in papers, magazines and television seriously. But as long as the corporate mainstream media continues to treat the public like brain-damaged children and spoon-feed us artificially-sweetened bullshit, we’ll go to Chris, Jay, David, Conan, and “Weekend Update” for a reality check when the bad craziness is everywhere.

Sometimes it ain't funny--even when it is.