What In the World Happened To the George Carlins?

by Bill Formby

I have not gone off on anyone in a while but I think it is time for me to relieve myself, so to speak. I was searching both Amazon and Netflix the other night for something light-hearted and humorous to watch as I went to bed, but as I was searching it became almost impossible.

Now, most of you know me by now. I like good humor as much as anyone. It is something that we need more of, like my 3 legged pig joke (you know, a pig as good as the one in that joke,. Well, you just don’t eat him all at once.) But, it seems that comedians can find anything funny unless it is about race or sex. Well, I guess I would also throw in politics but politics are just one big joke without the humor.

If the comedian is a minority the topic will be about their race or ethnicity, or about sex. Female comedians of a minority give you both; jokes about their race, religion, and sexuality. I guess there is not much else to find humorous. Not like the old days when comedians could make one chuckle about life in general.

There are a few, like Jim Gaffigan, that can still make me laugh about life. And I still at least smile at Jeff Foxworthy’s red-neck jokes. “If the place you call home has wheels attached to it … you might be a red-neck.” And others on the “Blue Collar Comedy Tour” are humorous at times, especially Bill Engvall. But Larry “The Cable Guy” has a serious problem with his bathroom jokes and Ron White does get in one once in a while, “You can’t fix stupid”.

I really like White’s joke about deer hunters and their problems finding enough deer with which they can mow down with their high-tech equipment. As White mentions, “Hell, anyone driving down any road in the South at night finds deer all the time. You don’t have to hunt them with a rifle or shotgun. Just get behind the wheel of any truck or car and they find you.”

As much as I dislike the typical deer hunter, I find that funny as hell and I know that he is right. I slowed down one night on a four-lane highway so that I could safely weave around 5 or 6 deer strolling across the road. When I got clear of them and started to go a little faster, damned if there wasn’t another one hiding in the bushes, and jumped right into the middle of the hood of my BMW.

The problem is, apparently, we are seriously deprived of comedy topics within the profession of trying to make people laugh. I just don’t find ethnic jokes that funny even when they are joking about themselves or others of their persuasion. I would say much the same about female comedians.

If you hear the material from one you pretty much have heard the material from most of them. Again, I think more about female comedians like Carol Burnett or Vicki Lawrence. But, it seems that I know more about formal anatomy than I have a right to know, and I know I have heard every bad thing that any man has done wrong.

I would believe that my problem may be that I am getting too old to really laugh anymore except I know better than that. I crack myself up with some of the stupid stuff I do. For example, a few years back I had a problem falling. I was really worried about that since it was occurring far often than I thought I should, and that was after I stop drinking a bottle of Johnnie Walker every day.

I finally figure out one day [when I looked into the mirror] and realized, shit! Somehow an old man crept into my body with me realizing it. Then, I started moving a bit slower, and the falling seemed to happen less often. Now, if you have happened to have ever seen Tim Conway do his old man interpretations of an old man then you know what I look like walking around the house.

I guess as we get older things just don’t seem as funny as they used to. I used to roll with laughter at Tim Conway but now I am the old man. Maybe somewhere along the way I lost my sense of humor and, it’s a little like my keys. The damn things just pick up and walk away and hide, which is something I do not understand. I know exactly where I laid them, and they have no little legs with which to walk away. I always find them, eventually. They are always in the last place I look.

That’s why I sitting here writing this, I found my keys right next to my computer but then I could not remember why I was looking for them. I think I was going to get some food somewhere. Now if I can just remember why I was going to get the food.

Wait! I got it. Rivers, my dog is looking at me hungrily as if I have a pork chop hanging around my neck. I think I was going to play with him. I think that is why my grandmother used to tie a bone around my neck when I was a kid. The dog always followed me around.

In case you missed it: Saturday Morning Smile: The Golfing Nun

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