I wonder where our sense of humour comes from? Why does it pop up when it does, sometimes inappropriately, but most times with exact timing for that last zing of a joke, bringing out peals of laughter and good times. It’s not that joking around is something that can be taken seriously though. Jokes can backfire and sometimes the joker becomes the victim of his own jest.
If this seems confusing, well it is. I am trying to confuse everyone with this column, and I think I’m doing a good job of it. Often, I get asked if what I write is true, then I explain that the truth, if told properly, is ugly. That’s why I tend to spice things up with some humour and a little bit of exaggeration, to put emphasis on the moral of the story.
For instance, once I was asked at a swanky hotel if I wrote the truth and I retorted that most of what I write is made up to protect the innocent (and the guilty) from ever showing their face in public. I was called an outright liar. I shot back that I prefer the term “good storyteller.” The idiot got louder, and I just shook my head, wondering if that person had ever lied before – of course, he did, he’s a politician. If there were any politicians who didn’t lie, they wouldn’t be elected in the first place.
Even though politics isn’t considered to be a funny occupation, why are so many clowns running for office? In a way, when a politician says they are this and that, high up in the stratosphere, floating around with angels and good spirits, it’s most likely that they aren’t who they really say they are. That’s why guys like Rob Ford or Arnold Schwarzenegger are the most honest politicians around.
Arnold stated that he, in his lifetime, consumed all kinds of drugs and did all kinds of party (kinky) things, so much so that it was a walk in the park to run for governor of California. He won the election by a landslide and the Terminator was in politics to clean out the rats and fix up the economy. If Arnold said that he was anything else than who he was, he would have lost the elections big time.
As for Rob Ford, he must have been in politics for quite some time, not a word about his election made it to the national news for more than a day. But when he started getting attention for his wild side, the spotlight became intense. Every person has their personal foibles, but how many politicians do you see hobnobbing with street vendors, bikers and dealers and admitting to their own human failings? Not too many.
For us, it seems that whenever a person runs for politics, their campaigns are so perfect in their promise to deliver that they seem almost magical. This is funny, because the world they promise doesn’t exist in real life. If, however, a political wannabe were to come out and freely express that their social crutches won’t get in the way of their electoral promises, then they got my vote. If someone were to say, for example, their platform was to improve communications amongst entities and then after being elected, was never heard from again, I’d find that pretty strange.
In a way, humour tends surface when we are stressed, underfed, overworked and underpaid. Under the gun of starvation, laughter is the only thing that works. That’s why our people deal with the pressures of life with joking and laughter. Humour also has its place in politics because of the pressure and all the other weird stuff that comes with a political office. Just as long as they don’t act like clowns all the time, then they would earn my respect like I have for Arnold and Rob.
