"My wife's name is Janet. And when you say Janet yellin', I'm very familiar with what you mean."

Ugh. Did Mike Huckabee make a bad and really out of place joke at last night's debate.

That's the type of joke you used to hear all the time in the 1950s and 60s. In TV sitcoms and "The Ed Sullivan Show."

"Change in sense of humour 'a sign of impending dementia.'"

"The University College London study involved patients with frontotemporal dementia, with the results appearing in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease."

Nearly all of the [friends or relatives of the patients] said, with hindsight, that they had noticed a shift in the nine years before the dementia had been diagnosed. Many of the patients had developed a dark sense of humour — for example, laughing at tragic events in the news or in their personal lives. The dementia patients also tended to prefer slapstick to satirical humour, when compared with 21 healthy people of a similar age.

Dr [Camilla] Clark said: "These were marked changes - completely inappropriate humour well beyond the realms of even distasteful humour. For example, one man laughed when his wife badly scalded herself."

What does this say about people who begin with a "dark" sense of humor and laugh at the pain of others?

"I’m glad that after 22 years you still laugh about it..."

Said Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband's penis 22 years ago. She appeared recently on a TV show. It makes you wonder — doesn't it? — why we ever laughed at it.

Karl Rove's gratuitous and erroneous shot at Calvin Coolidge.

I don't know why this irks me so much. Something about an attack on an entirely undefended person. Something about propagating a factoid. Somehow it's my job to keep history straight and defend Calvin Coolidge.

It was "Fox News Sunday" this morning, and "GOP strategist" Karl Rove was asked whether Donald Trump's appearance on "Saturday Night Live" helped or hurt him. Rove says:

It helped. Everybody got their moment last night. He got to be marked by the Saturday Night Live crowd, and he got a chance to say he's a good sport and could take it in stride. I think we ought to go back and blame this, however, all on Calvin Coolidge, who was after all, the first president to appear on the White House lawn in an Indian headdress. And since then presidents have felt compelled to go out and occasionally mock themselves, and now presidential candidates have gotten in the habit of mocking themselves. It was, however, I have to say, not very funny.

There's laughter, and the moderator Chris Wallace says "Are you talking about Calvin Coolidge?" and Rove says, "No, I'm talking about last night."

Now, maybe some home viewers said: "The first president to appear on the White House lawn in an Indian headdress — were there others?" But I said: "That wasn't on the White House lawn! That was in South Dakota!"

Calvin Coolidge famously posed in a headdress:



This happened on June 23, 1927:

Coolidge, who was celebrated for signing the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, spent the summer of 1927 in the Black Hills region of South Dakota, working out of an office in Rapid City High School. When Sioux Chieftain Chauncey Yellow Robe, a descendant of Sitting Bull, learned the President would be there, he suggested he be adopted into the tribe. The Sioux County Pioneer, a weekly publication that came out every Thursday, reported that Yellow Robe... said: “The Indians are like anybody else, they are also anxious to see him come. Our population of more than 20,000 Sioux Indians, the first people of the Hills, will also open their hearts with most sincere and hearty welcome of President Coolidge to the land of the Dakotas and if the occasion should permit, President Coolidge will be adopted into the Sioux tribe. We hope he will find in these beautiful Pahasapas (Black Hills) rest, peace, quiet and friendship among us.”

Why, exactly, is it supposed to be funny for him to wear that headdress? In any case, this did not take place at the White House and it has nothing to do with present-day appearances in pop culture settings like "Saturday Night Live."

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry... WaPo is soooo so so so sorry Donald Trump was on "Saturday Night Live."

I went over to The Washington Post to read "Trump’s sorry night on ‘SNL’: An overhyped bummer for us all" and I couldn't help noticing the sidebar:



Nothing like showing us how you really feel. I get it. You hate Trump and you're irked that he got the platform of "Saturday Night Live" to pose on — just like Hillary Clinton a few weeks ago and all the many other politicians who've had a shot at hosting over the years. What was so bad about the episode?

Hank Stuever, the WaPo TV critic calls the episode "an anemic and halfhearted dud" and a "boring and misspent episode," but based on what? He says that the cast members seemed to lack the "desire to participate" or "play with him." There was one sketch that was about the cast doing a sketch while Trump was tweeting about them and feeling bad about that, and maybe that signaled how they really felt about him, but that doesn't make the show halfhearted and dull. That showed them going meta with whatever distance they felt they needed, which isn't necessarily dull.

Stuever seems to demand that the show do sharper political mockery, but the failure to insult and abuse a guest host doesn't mean there won't be stronger satire on other occasions or that the comedy we did get wasn't good. So what was such a "sorry" "bummer"? Well, Stuever didn't like the "You're a racist" yell from Larry David in the cold open. But that was great! And:

From there it was one dud after another — some of it featuring Trump, much of it not, the minutes slowing to a crawl. A sketch set in 2018, in a wildly successful Trump White House, fell apart quickly. “Weekend Update” did a fair job of playing a little offense.... The “Update” segment also made good use of Bobby Moynihan’s “Drunk Uncle” character — turns out he’s the ideal demographic for the Trump message...

I'm sorry, Stuever, you have not marshaled the evidence that this was a sorry, boring, dud bummer. You're just pissed that Trump was showcased.

ADDED: Here's my earlier post on what I thought of the show.

David Brooks made what might be the stupidest joke I have ever heard a serious person make publicly.

On "Meet the Press" today, there was a panel discussion of President Obama's decision to put "boots on the ground" in Syria, a change from what Obama had been saying. We see tape of Obama on 3 separate occasions: 1. "In no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground," 2. "I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria," 3. "The notion that the United States should be putting boots on the ground I think would be a profound mistake. And I want to be very clear and very explicit about that."

When it was Brooks's turn to speak, he began: "Yeah, first of all they should wear sneakers so we can get out of the boots thing."

That is so poor, given the context of death and despair for the Syrian people and Obama's dire predicament. Maybe somewhere behind the scenes — where gallows humor is needed — that joke might be okay, worded less awkwardly. I could imagine political comedian saying something like: Obama said he wanted to very clear and very explicit that he would not put boots on the ground in Syria. Absolutely no boots on the ground. How do you get around that? Sneakers! They're going to be wearing sneakers. Sneakers on the ground!

I'm hearing the comedian in my head and I'm ready to boo him. But David Brooks on "Meet the Press"? How could he possibly have believed that joke was appropriate?

ALSO: Brooks had this advice for Jeb:

If I were him I'd lead with his strengths. And just say, "I'm boring. I'm boring. Is our problem in Washington we don't have enough boringness? No. We've got too much craziness. And so I'm going to be a sedative. I'm going to be a laxative, I guess. You know, I'm going to calm you down."

That's sort of good advice — I, myself, want boring politicians — and Jeb pretty much already is doing this. But laxative? Something is very wrong with the mind of Brooks. Maybe he worked on his material when he had more time to drag out the image. "I'm going to be a sedative... I'm going to calm you down" — that makes sense. But why stop in the middle of saying that to bring in "laxative"? Washington is full of shit? The legislative process is constipated?

Will a giant pumpkin play in Peoria?

"Giant, inflatable pumpkin terrorizes Peoria."

***

"Will it play in Peoria?" is an old expression, important enough to have a Wikipedia entry.

The question derives from a theme repeated by characters in Horatio Alger, Jr.'s novel Five Hundred Dollars; or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret, which was first published in 1890... In the book, a group of actors play in Peoria, occasioning utterances such as "We shall be playing in Peoria" and "We shall play at Peoria"....

The phrase originated during the vaudeville era and was popularized in movies by Groucho Marx. The belief was that if a new show was successful in Peoria, a main Midwestern stop for vaudeville acts, it would be successful anywhere...

The phrase subsequently was adopted by politicians, pollsters, and promoters to question the potential mainstream acceptance of anything new. Currently, the stereotype of non-humorous people has been around for many decades. Although vaudeville left Peoria many years ago, the slogan was revived in 1969 when John D. Ehrlichman said to a newsman, "Don't worry, it'll play in Peoria," in reference to a decision by President Richard M. Nixon that seemed calculated to upset Easterners.

A little relief from the GOP debate — Bad Lip Reading does the Democratic debate.

Comedian wins the presidential election by a landslide...

... in Guatemala.

Cue the ready-made jokes about American elections won by comedians. 

ADDED: My son's take:

A celebrity who's a "household name" in Guatemala and used to have a TV show, but has never held office, and was initially considered a long-shot contender who didn't offer enough policy specifics to back up his conservative platform, went on to shock many people by winning the presidential election in the face of "widespread discontent with Guatemala's political class." Fortunately, that could never happen here . . .

Stephen Colbert mocks the Democrats' debate.

I laughed out loud 4 or 5 times. He's especially funny mocking Bernie Sanders, but there's also plenty of material against Hillary, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chaffee. Only O'Malley seems to evade mockery (unless I'm forgetting something).

"Donald Trump & Ben Carson Watch Democratic Debate."

"All I hear and see all day are men speaking their opinions, and I give mine in the same exact manner, and you would have thought I had said something offensive."

Said Jennifer Lawrence, who only "spoke my mind and gave my opinion in a clear and no-[BS] way; no aggression, just blunt" and was met with the response (from a male co-worker): "'Whoa! We’re all on the same team here!' As if I was yelling at him."

Yes, I know, you're going to doubt whether the way she spoke was really "in the same exact manner" that she'd heard from males. We weren't there. We don't know. But it does seem that woman are expected to pad their statements for the comfort of others and when we don't, it can be disconcerting. You can leverage that power, you know! You don't have to take care of others. And of course, by talking about it, Lawrence is declining to serve in the role of caring nurturer.

At the link, a WaPo columnist named Alexandra Petri attempts some humor by translating famous lines into the form of speech supposedly expected of a woman in a meeting. E.g.:

“Give me liberty, or give me death.”
Woman in a Meeting: “Dave, if I could, I could just — I just really feel like if we had liberty it would be terrific, and the alternative would just be awful, you know? That’s just how it strikes me. I don’t know.”

It's not like men can just say “Give me liberty, or give me death” at a meeting, and, in fact, Patrick Henry had a lot of verbiage padding the remembered line. And even that sentence had a blabby intro clause easing the bluntness: "I know not what course others may take; but as for me..." That's not that different from Petri's "That’s just how it strikes me...."

How objective are we, really, about the bluntness of other people's speech in comparison to our own? Of course, we are subjective, but that brings us back to Jennifer Lawrence's point: Part of our subjectivity in how we hear others is our response to their gender. That's the texture and energy of human life. It will not be eradicated. But we can be more aware and make better music.

"Having a prefabricated laugh at the expense of my own dear mother without provocation of cause is not my idea of gratitude for the interview..."

"... which took up 10 of more pages in your puerile smokescreen periodical masquerading as a songwriting litany! My mother is not a public figure to be satirized and ridiculed with silliness and malicious nonsense by some scurrilous little wretch with a hard-on for comedy!"

Wrote Bob Dylan in a letter — which he never sent — to Song Talk magazine.

What's so stupid about the Politico piece titled "Clinton gag gifts her GOP rivals with copies of her memoir."

1. You're obviously trying to help Hillary with her effort to come across as "fun," but you have absolutely nothing to report. Candidates have books, and they're always trying to get these books out. It's the essence of nonnews.

2. Hillary sends out a lot of copies of a book about herself. What is the "gag"? Why are you saying "gag"... other than to make it more obvious that you're propagating the message that Hillary is such a fun, fun lady.

3. "Gag" is not a good word to use when talking about the woman whose husband got the most famous blow job in the history of the world.

Anyway... the word "gag" does not appear in Hillary's "Hard Choices," but the memoir does contain some discussion of jokes. She writes:

In politics a sense of humor is essential. There are countless reasons why you have to be able to laugh at yourself.... In diplomacy, with its carefully scripted conversations across language and cultural divides, there’s less room for humor. But occasionally it comes in handy. This felt like one of those times.

In a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, Vice President Biden had said, “It is time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia.” I liked the idea of a “reset”... Why not present [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey]Lavrov with an actual reset button? It might get people laughing— including Lavrov— and ensure that our commitment to a fresh start, not our disagreements, made the headlines. A little unconventional, maybe, but worth a try. Lavrov and I met in the InterContinental Hotel’s Salon Panorama, named for its panoramic view of Geneva. Before we sat down, I presented him with a small green box, complete with a ribbon. While the cameras snapped away, I opened it and pulled out a bright red button on a yellow base that had been pulled off the whirlpool in the hotel.

She vandalized the hotel for that button?! Wow. Reminds me of the wreckage in the White House at the end of the Bill Clinton administration, when staffers pried the "W"s off the computer keyboards to spite George W. Bush.