Let’s say you know the name of a song by a queer British bloke, a few lines from the chorus, a smattering knowledge of Hindu religious beliefs, and have just read a blog entry written by a comedy writer about an enterprising, if somewhat bleary-eyed and buck-toothed (or, from the hills, if you catch my meaning) student who asks her to write a five page paper about Hinduism. Well, what are you supposed to do, let an obvious pop-culture joke go to waste?
I began weighing the options in my mind. First, the cons. For one, it’s, as I wrote in the preceding paragraph, a pretty obvious joke, even for someone not well-versed in British 80′s queer pop music. I don’t even know what Boy George looks like, though if I googled him I’d find lots of pictures that, for some reason, all look like Billy Idol. Why I imagine Boy George looks like Billy Idol, I really can’t say. And whilst on the subject of British pop, I find that Robbie Williams is getting some play, at least in some cars here in America. I’ve obviously missed out on a cultural phenomenon, but then again, I also missed out on Grease, Sesame Street, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, and Barbara Streisand’s shining moment of glory. There are some things one can only thank God for. If you can’t guess which one of the above to which I’m referring, you’ve obviously not been reading this blog long enough.
More downsides. Surely someone else has thought of the same thing. Cashing in on someone else’s witty, pop-culturally aware remark is like telling Michael Jackson jokes to a group of adoring friends, who think you’re the tastiest piece of spicy sausage to ever get served up on a hoagie roll with mustard. Big flippin’ whoop, you’re telling five year old jokes to a crowd that has to have heard them all at some point in their soft-serve lives. No, this isn’t just about Carrot Top doing a prop routine on The Tonight Show…though it could be.
So you think you’re clever, no? But really, when it comes down to it, you’re just using some raw bits of genius from other whens and wheres, scrabbling them together and making the pieces all fit, like a puzzle. Fantastic work, but a rat in a tin craphouse could piece a puzzle together. And at the end, you’ve got a photograph of the Sierra Nevadas taken by someone else, and a piece is missing because the dog got in. Just your luck.
The pros aren’t looking too good either. First, there’s the illusion of cleverness, which will pass over like a veil as soon as my readers click their way to the next “witty” blog. It’s fueled by reader responses, sometimes in person, that claim you’ve got some kind of “somethin’” in your writing. You don’t tell them that it’s just borrowed material really, but a deeper part of you still swells and justifies it by saying all the greats borrow from time to time. That’s all greatness is, really; just plagiarized rental agreements, unspoken, unmentioned, and in most cases, unacknowledged burlesques of time and mirrors. Smoke on the water, dust in the wind, parsley sage rosemary and thyme.
But come on! Even passing jokes, even pop-culture jokes are good for something. At least a lot of money, as Fox Network well knows. Lord knows I’m not makin’ it on this blog, but at least the readers approve. So what’s it hurt? A quick punchline, a five second laugh. That’s worth the price of admission (aka, reading each day’s post like a scavenging dog, you brutes!).
What the heck. Here goes nothing. Down the hatch, bottom’s up, see ya in the morning!
I can’t do it. I started to write it out, even had the italics up and everything, just to emphasize the point, but I just couldn’t do it. Everything just shouted no! Because by now, the joke’s surely on me, and I at least want to be able to laugh at the punchline, even if it’s myself. You can sound it out yourself–already have, if you’re clever or blessed with a profundity for British pop songs from the 80′s whose titles sound like a universal force of reward and punishment that manages to stay hidden from natural predators using an elaborate system of translucent scales and shifting skin pigments…
Some days, I ache for what to say on this blog. Other days, fate drops stuff into my lap…call it karma for all my hard work.
And if I still have an audience after today, I’ll see you tomorrow.