Captain Digital

Random musings on politics, society, and pop culture from the Internet's marketing curmudgeon.

Humor

See Obama. See Obama Run. And Run. And Run…

I cut my teeth on books like the McGuffy Reader. The Adventures of Dick and Jane were for the slow kids. But while I kind of leapfrogged most of the really little kids’ books, I made it a point to read to my daughter from the time she was born until the time she grew too old for me to entertain her with a bedtime story.

Today, kids’ books are increasingly politically-correct. And because so much of the publishing world leans left, increasingly politicized and polarized. Today, a trending topic on Twitter was #obamakidsbooks. Here are a selection of the better titles – ones that I hope and pray will never make it into print:

  • One Fish, Two Fish, Your Fish is My Fish
  • Fast and Furious George
  • The Indian in the Cupbord is Elizabeth Warren
  • Little Barack Scambo
  • The Little Engine That Couldn’t Without Federal Assistance.
  • My Little Crony
  • Heather Has Two Mommies Without Jobs
  • Solynderella
  • Green Jobs and Scams
  • Obama and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Presidency
  • OH, The Debt You’ll Owe!
  • The Bain Mutiny
  • Oh, The Places Michelle Obama Will Go!
  • Green Lies and Scams
  • The Sisterhood of the Traveling Mom-Jeans
  • Are You There, Marx? It’s Me, Barack
  • Cloudy With a Chance of Foodstamps
  • The Taking Tree
  • Fun WIth Dick and Jane Living Under a Bridge
  • Harry Potter and the President’s Stoned
  • False Expectations
  • Where In the World are the Obamas
  • Goodnight, Democracy
  • LIttle Underwater House on the Prairie
  • Where the Taxing Things Are
  • Where the Red Ink Grows
  • Are You My Big Brother?
  • The Lying, The Witch and the War Chest
  • War on Little Women
  • Charlie and the Solar Panel Factory
  • SEIU and the Purple Crayon
  • Where the Sidewalk Ends (and other shovel-ready projects)
Now THAT’S Comedy

 

 


Are Progressives Schizophrenic?

I’m at an age where I value consistency. I view it as the opposite of hypocrisy. Now keep in mind, hypocrisy is an Equal Opportunity Destroyer – it strikes both Liberal and Conservative alike, with an equanimity only dreamt of by the EEOC. For every political scandal on the Left, I can cite you chapter and verse of one on the Right. But there’s one huge difference between the Left and the Right, when dealing with hypocrisy. Those on the Right tend to vilify those on the Left AND the Right, when they are caught, red-handed. Those on the Left seem to excuse the behavior of those on Team Lefty, while excoriating those on the Right. This requires some fairly impressive mental gymnastics on their part, with some contortions that would put Nadia Comaneci in traction. To wit… [Read more…] about Are Progressives Schizophrenic?

There’s humor in all things. (Unless you’re a Liberal.)

So I’m innocently blogging along over on Facebook (http://facebook.com/captaindigital and http://facebook.com/captaindigitalspeaks) when I happen to post a funny story I heard from a fellow Conservative. Six or so friends of generally right-leaning viewpoints thought it was a howl. But one, ultra-left wing person of my acquaintance unloaded on me like a B-17 Flying Fortress over Dresden – with about as much tact. He resorted to the typical Liberal tactics (name-calling, Judas-goats, hyperbole, and other assorted nonsense) and ranted about how Conservatives are all wingnuts and idiots. (Somebody get this guy a mirror. Please.) But it occurred to me that there’s a fundamental inequality here – Conservatives can find the humor in a Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert (most of the time), even when they poke fun at Conservatives. But Liberals seem uniformly incapable of reciprocity. Why is that?  [Read more…] about There’s humor in all things. (Unless you’re a Liberal.)

Scattershootin’ Fridays…

NEWS ITEM: Keith Olbermann was fired today from his gig with CurrentTV. Yep. AlGore fired the Keithanator. Never heard of CurrentTV? Neither has anybody else other than the half-dozen left-wingnuts that watch it. But don’t feel too badly for them. Gore’s hired Former N.Y. Gov. Elliot Spitzer as his replacement. Rumored first guest: Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Lord knows what they’ll talk about…

NEWS ITEM: This week, the Little Rock Airport Authority announced plans to rename their airport to “The Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.” The media immediately nicknamed the airport the “Hill-Billy National.” In other news, the airport announced plans for a walk-in humidor, which is curious, since the airport is a designated no-smoking area.

NEWS ITEM: Vice President Joe Biden today called for a “Global Tax,” since he believes the world just doesn’t pay enough in taxes. In a related item, the stock price of pharmaceutical companies that manufacture anti-psychotic drugs fell today, on reports of lower earnings.

 

Parliament Bunk-adelic.

Recently, a friend of mine (who usually exhibits a much higher degree of common sense) proposed that we stage a Constitutional Convention for the purposes of throwing out our current form of government and replacing it with a Parliamentary system, much as they have in the UK.

Pause with me for a nanosecond, whilst we ponder just how screamingly bad an idea this would be.

For those of you that slept through 8th grade Civics or Freshman History class, let me provide you with a soupcon of background on the way things evolved over the pond, and you’ll see why I hold this idea with the same esteem that I usually reserve for things I scrape off the bottom of my shoe, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi… [Read more…] about Parliament Bunk-adelic.

I’m still here. Um…there.

If you’d asked me three months ago if I’d still be in Shreveport, taking care of my dad, I would have said something like “hie thee to an asylum…you must be mad.” Yet, here I sit.

Taking care of an aging parent is a lot of things – a responsibility. A challenge. A privilege. But a burden it is not. I love my dad, and he needs my help. Unfortunately, It’s played havoc with my family, and for circumstances beyond my control, there’s little I can do about that, at least for now.

If you’re reading this blog, thanks for stopping by. I don’t really have time to post right now – soon, I hope. but let me encourage you to follow me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/captaindigital, natch). Since it’s just 140 characters at a time, and I can do it from my iPhone, I do seem to be able to fit that into my day.

Thanks, and talk to you soon.

– The Captain

[BLEEP] This.

I was surfing around my Dad’s satellite service last night, and stumbled on a rebroadcast of Blazing Saddles on AMC. Several years ago, I made a list of what I thought were the ten funniest movies ever made (in no particular order). As I recall, the list went something like this, give or take:

  • Blazing Saddles (Brooks/Little/Wilder)
  • Young Frankenstein (Brooks/Wilder/Feldman)
  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Monty Python)
  • Arsenic & Old Lace (Cary Grant)
  • The Producers (Brooks/Mostel/Wilder)
  • Animal House (Landis/Belushi)
  • A Night at the Opera (Marx Brothers)
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Stoppard/Oldman/Roth)
  • Airplane! (Abrams/Zucker/Abrams)
  • Duck Soup (Marx Brothers)

When you watch a great movie, you’re watching a collaborative effort, but one that SOMEbody (usually the director) oversees and marks with his or her creative stamp. In comedies, more so that any other art form, timing is essential. Just one frame (a 24th of a second) can make a recognizable difference in the timing of a joke.

That brings me to the hatchet job AMC did on Blazing Saddles. [Read more…] about [BLEEP] This.

A Guide to Making Apologies.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you might have heard about the current troubles of David Letterman, and his serial apologies he’s made regarding the “joke”(s) he told regarding Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin and her daughters. Last night, Letterman made yet again another attempt at contrition. Color me “unimpressed.” You see, when you apologize, there are a couple of things you must do – and at least one that you must not do:

  1. Say “I’m sorry.”
  2. Say “I was wrong.”
  3. Say “It’s my fault…I accept responsibility for the mistake.”
  4. Say “I beg your forgiveness.”
  5. Say “I will do my best to do better, and not make the same mistake again.”
  6. Do NOT say “I’m sorry, but…” and then go on to offer any excuse.

When you offer an excuse, you’re essentially saying “what I did wasn’t that bad,” “it wasn’t really my fault,” or other weasel-words that attempt to deflect responsibility. [Read more…] about A Guide to Making Apologies.

Hey, Letterman…didn’t you used to be funny?

The (only) funny thing about the jokes made by David Letterman at the expense of Governor Sarah Palin is that they make laughable the claims of those on the left, that the media – both the news media and the entertainment business – is unbiased. Imagine the outcry if, say some “comedian” made some similarly tasteless remark about one of Obama’s daughters. I don’t think anybody on the right would be laughing. And I know the reaction of those on the left – outrage, anger, and a call for the guilty party to be imprisoned or shot.

That’s the way life goes in the ObamaNation. Understand, I’m NOT blaming Obama for Letterman’s behavior. (He has plenty to atone for on his own.) Sarah Palin is a public figure. While I believe the “jokes” Letterman regaled his audience with were disgusting, Gov. Palin is well able to defend herself. Her daughter, however, is NOT a public figure, nor should she be subjected to the kind of vile crap that Letterman spews. [Read more…] about Hey, Letterman…didn’t you used to be funny?

On humor.

Believe it or not, I get a lot of questions about humor – more specifically, “how do you come up with funny stuff when you write?” Funny you should ask.  Interesting question. Like many people that work creatively, I don’t think a lot about how I do what I do. But since I get this question so often, I think it’s high time to start thinking about it.

What is funny? Experts have argued over that question for as long as there have been jokes. (The oldest known joke is – naturally – a fart joke that dates back to Etruscan times.) I’m not going to deal with the question of the nature of humor here. I’ll limit myself to a discussion of how I inject humor into my writing. [Read more…] about On humor.