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Every week represents a new wave of opportunities to want to quit comedy for so many people.  “Oh he has an hour special!” or “How the fu*k did she get on Late Night TV?” or “Why does my bank balance have a negative in front of it – does that mean the bank owes me money?”  Twitter is a constant stream of “93 retweets? You have to be kidding me!” and Facebook is an overflow of good comics spending too much time having to (or not having to really) defend themselves and bad comics claiming they are above having to defend themselves.  I saw a “comedian” drop what I will call crude statements about the Cleveland rescue in succession, basically daring someone to say “you are not funny” so he could start yelling from the mountaintops “I am a comedian and I go to places you are afraid of!”  And you just want to say in a calm and rational voice, “No – you are just not funny.  Now you are offensive, but just because some people who are funny are offensive, does not mean it is a causal relationship.  Funny can be offensive, but offensive does not mean funny.”  But instead I just debated unfriending the person for 5 minutes for constantly flooding my Timeline with bad comedy.  But because I am glutton for punishment I did not.  But this inspired me to give you my top reasons why you should quit comedy this week (possible recurring theme)

1) Because a middle aged dude minding his business in Cleveland is funnier off the cuff and is way more charismatic than you are.  There are a lot of unfunny human beings doing comedy and I like to imagine that Charles Ramsey, the hero from Cleveland, was probably a great up and coming comedian who did not test well with millennials or middle aged white people and was turned away from the industry.  The bad news is, with these metrics guiding stand up comedy, comedy may suffer, but the good news is the world may have a lot of very funny and toothless heroes in the coming decades.

Now of course if you want other reasons to be annoyed – the video has 125 dislikes as of this typing – can we not find these people and eliminate them from society?  A lot of people like the death penalty for murder.  Not me.  Those people are outliers who cannot be deterred usually.  Prison is enough to deter the normal person.  I am for the death penalty for things like littering.  Because the average asshole who litters with a garbage can near him or the guy who gives a dislike to a video like this is probably making everyday life worse for more people.

And just like good comedy, don’t skip to the two minute mark like half the assholes on the web encourage you too – see the story and enjoy the buildup to some classic comedy!

2) Because the web is constantly looking for villains to put on cyber trial.  This week there have already been two “controversies” regarding humor throughout my Internet circles.  One is the article today from Slate about the response to Charles Ramsey.  I cannot say I disagree with the general premise of the article, but I also think it ignores the fact that unlike some other situations, Charles Ramsey was actually a poised, confident and funny dude.  I appreciate sensitivity to issues like this, but I also think it is part of the Internet’s 100% rate of finding a villainous angle to things.  I am sure there are pockets of the population enjoying the Ramsey video for the wrong reasons – like if you are more obsessed with him saying ribs and “MacDonald’s”, than his great “Deeead Giveaway” tag line then you, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, might be an asshole.

But the real story occupying many in the comedy world is the recent back and forth between a blogger and comedian Sam Morril.  Here is the blog that started all of it.  Sam wrote a fine response on Facebook and the blogger replied with this.  I think Sam is funny and all of the jokes she cited have made me laugh in person.  The only problem is that it is getting tiring and annoying to keep defending comedy.  If Sam was not good at comedy then I would have a problem with his jokes.  But they are funny and clearly intended as humor so the discussion ends there for me. But in a world where every slight and every incident and every thought has the potential to become viral or widespread this blow up is going to become the norm.  Every person who is offended or unamused or somewhere in between has a bullhorn known as the Internet.  And that would be reason enough to quit comedy this week, if not for number 3.

3) Because Comedians and the Internet always turn these issues into overly thoughtful circle jerks.  At some point between hours 12 and 36 of a “comedy controversy” it becomes an irritating circle jerk of thought and debate.  First comes the rallies to Sam’s defense, then come the attacks on the bloggers, then come the tweets and posts about “debate” and “respect” and “art” and then comes the congratulating each other even if on the opposite sides of this thorny “issue.” I actually saw two comedians have a semi-debate on Twitter and then have the equivalent of a social media hug it out and agree to disagree.  One day, philosophers and school children will ask, “Which came first, the blogger who took comedians too seriously or the comedians who took themselves too seriously and made themselves relevant to bloggers?”

4) Because a manager arranged and cancelled two meetings (one by simply not calling back).  OK this one was just for me, but a reminder that after a decade I still ain’t sh*t!

5) Because Funny or Die stole the Huffington post’s mojo and posted a list of funny women you should be following on Twitter.  The only possible good that might come out of this is if the pro women on Twitter HuffPo folks get into an East Coast-West Coast war with Funny or Die’s female tweet fans and then both go down in a hail of bullets.  See that is a murder joke, not  a rape joke.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

It has been a while since I walked audience members, but like donating blood or having a cheat day during a diet, sometimes it is good to purge or shock the system to initiate a healthy replenishment.  That is what happened Sunday night at a show at Beauty Bar in Brooklyn.  First off the show had a huge batch of homemade butterscotch chocolate chip cookies, which were fantastic, but I only had 4, stopping short of my usual cookie limit known as stomach pain.  I then went up after the host and could tell from the fedoras, glasses, beards and beauty salon theme to the bar that this was a hip place.  So with a belly full of cookie confidence I decided to inflame the ironic passions of the room.   Let me say this about the Brooklyn room – for about 30% of the patrons – they acted like I entered a different culture, ignorant of their customs, and should have read my Fodor’s Guide to Brooklyn, which would have informed me that Louis CK, and more importantly Lena Dunham, are holy figures.  For example, a person could be stoned or beheaded  if they drew a likeness of Lena Dunham in Brooklyn.  So because my digital recorder audio cannot be transferred to my computer I will recap the short set in writing, which will be known as “Brooklyn’s 9/11”:

“I had a viral video get 250,000 hits, but don’t worry I am still humble and will not forget where I came from.”

What was the video of?

“I did a parody of Louis CK.  My favorite comment was ‘I hope Louis CK takes a shit in your mouth’ which would probably be more original than the one note of his last 4 specials.  WHAT??? I went there. Who wants some? (clearly kidding around/trolling – hence laughter from the side of the room not taking itself too seriously)”

(multiple grumblings) I like Louis CK!

a few minutes later…

“I enjoy the band Fun. with a period, not to be confused with the band Fun with no punctuation, but I am bothered that one of their band members is dating Lena Dunham.  Who makes it big in music and then decides ‘hey now that I am rich and famous I want to bang that gross looking chick from Girls!?’  Dude, you could have fu*ked her if your band didn’t make it!  Like if you were still working in a cool coffee shop and quit music you could pull that.  But now, thanks to you, there are hot whores with nothing to do on a Friday night because the bass player for Fun. wants to bang a manatee.”

(Lots of grumbling).  Girls is great! (the good news at this point is that the third of the room that was talking stopped, but only to angrily listen to their hero get made fun of)

“Girls sort of sucks.  Every 4 or 5 episodes something interesting happens, but it is very overrated show.”

Girls is great! (about 7-10 people get up and start leaving)

“Oh I am sorry that I attacked your sacred cow!  And I did not mean to call Lena Dunham a cow; it’s just a convenient coincidence in the analogy… and look at the woman with her hand over her mouth like she just witnessed the second tower falling.  Oh my God  5/5 in Brooklyn never forget that time a mean man made some jokes about Lena Dunham.  Never forget. I hate all Dunhams – Lena and Jeff!”

I then did a bit about hating cats and left the stage.

I am a left of center thinker, but I am not as conformist as many people might think.  I am more socially conservative than many of my friends, but still believe in more liberal fiscal policies (known in America as “virtually unelectable.”  I am all for free speech in comedy and I never criticize comedians for taking chances and attacking things I like as long as the take is an attempt at originality and funny.  But it bothers me sometimes that the most liberal folks (check out the comments section on my Louis CK video for confirmation) can abandon their attitude when it comes to one of their heroes.  Trash religion, religious figures or any notion of conservatism on stage and you are cool with these people, but get at one of their new high priests or priestesses of authenticity and all bets are off.  Like their celebrities get a pass that others don’t.  And in fact, I would argue what made the CK video successful and made me enjoy the Dunham quips is the very fact that many of their fans treat them like the higher beings so many of them have written off.  So I am glad I pissed those folks off.  I feel like liberals are the new conservatives when it comes to entertainment.  And no this is not a defense for a bunch of d-bag comics to start dropping nig*er, cu*t and f*g on stage for the sake of saying it, while trying to cloak themselves in the overused defense of being just “too edgy” for liberals.  Comedy can have dignity and that is a good thing, but I am not sure anything should be sacred.  Especially celebrities that rose to fame challenging and defeating previously held assumptions and sacred cows.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

I already wrote humorously on Jason Collins and the black jockey in the Kentucky Derby this week, as well as a humble-braggish post yesterday about the week I am having, but after listening and reading to a ton of coverage of the Jason Collins story (the pro basketball player who came out as gay this week, if you have been living under a rock or camping out for good seats to Iron Man 3) I realized that I have not heard a question/answer that I am curious about: what would be wrong with a heterosexual athlete not wanting to shower and be naked with a gay man?  Now on its face this might seem like a bigoted question, but in the same context I would ask why is that men and women have different locker rooms?

I raise that because the argument always goes to the extreme right away after a question like that, like by suggesting a heterosexual man might be uncomfortable with a gay man seeing him naked you are suggesting that the gay man is some sort of uncontrolled beast who will begin getting aroused or will initiate sexual contact.  Is this why women and men have separate locker rooms at gyms and at colleges?  Because there is an implicit understanding that without that barrier men will simply begin to masturbate, flirt and perhaps sexually assault nude women in their presence?  I don’t think so.  I think there is just a desire for a sexuality-free zone in what is otherwise a very intimate setting and I am not sure why it would be wrong, even if impossible to implement, for a heterosexual athlete to want the same feeling around same-sex teammates.

And put this in the context of pro sports.  These are men who are physical specimens – the most well built and physically fit humans on the planet in American professional sports.  They are exaggerations of masculinity when compared to the general population.  So it is no shame that a gay man would find this appealing.  This, in no way, is suggesting some lack of control on the part of Jason Collins or other gay athletes.  But from the perspective of the heterosexual athlete, why is automatically a hateful point to be raised that someone does not want to shower with people that are sexually attracted to them (or could conceivably be), for whom they do not reciprocate?  I am not endorsing this point of view, but I am endorsing it as a somewhat reasonable feeling that some athletes might have and it should not immediately render them a pariah in the enlightened avenues of modern society.

Now, unfortunately, many professional athletes are not articulate or intelligent enough to convey what might be a more nuanced discomfort with having a gay teammate.  And some are outright homophobes and bigots (or uncomfortable with their own sexuality).  And on the other side of the spectrum are erudite athletes who either have no problem with it or are too smart to say that they have any issue with it.  But there is no doubt in my mind that if an athlete tweeted “I have no problem with a gay teammate, but I don’t feel like being naked around him.”  he would be bashed, criticized and called ignorant, stupid, a homophobe and a lot of other things while  his team and league would have to apologize for him.  But why is that a completely unreasonable position or feeling?

My basic question is why does fully accepting people of different sexual orientations have to mean that you must be 100% comfortable with their orientation in the most personal moments of your own life?  I only raise this because I would be much more interested in hearing a debate on this more specific question than the usual “are you okay with a gay teammate” or “do you have a problem with gay people” generic questions.  Now it already appears that many teammates of Collins (and other closeted gay athletes) have no issue with this.  And that is great.  But I don’t think a different viewpoint on this somewhat specific question is as pernicious as I am sure social media would treat it.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

So my name and Internet exposure continue to grow after the initial burst from the Louis CK parody video I did.  I got a spirit lifting message on Facebook last night as I shuffled from west village open mic to lightly attended Brooklyn bar show.   To paraphrase the message: “Hey Amy Schumer just mentioned your CK video on Joe Rogan’s podcast and they are loving it.”  This was refreshing in many ways.  One, it was good to know the video would get a little bit more exposure. Two, it was good to see Amy Schumer had not forgotten about the metaphorically little people who were doing bringers and open mics with her for a couple of years before she made an ever so slight move ahead of us in the comedy world (between the two of us we have grossed hundreds of thousands of dollars in comedy).  And three, I liked seeing Joe Rogan and Ari Shaffir laugh at the video, especially since Shaffir seemed to know more about me than Schumer remembered, despite the fact that I only was in the same room as Shaffir and Rogan once, when I got bumped off of a Father’s Day show in Atlanta at The Punchline because Rogan only does two person shows (but no hard feelings – I crushed some nearby IHOP during their show, so no harm no foul (or money).

Click Here for My “Appearance” on The Joe Rogan Experience

If that was not a good enough way to keep my name going strong, my podcast episode cleared 3300 downloads/listens this week, making it my most popular episode to date.  I was discussing Summer movies, but also riffing and discussing the Jason Collins story and apparently that triggered some hiccup or spasm on the Internet that led to a major uptick in downloads.  If you want to listen to it check it here.  Or maybe because it was episode 69 it just received a lot of lost porn fans.

But in case anyone was afraid this might have a happy ending it does not.  The Google loot has not started to roll in yet (220,000 views puts me only many months from the first Google penny being minted) and the podcast is free, which are two reasons why I write these  from an office in Manhattan, until that glorious day when Louis CK punches me in the face and I sue him for $1 million, which will lead to a wave of inspired lawsuits (when comedy websites and social media experts begin reporting me as a trailblazer in new ways to make money in comedy – “the old way of getting famous and rich without getting your ass kicked is a thing of the past!”).

But the good news is my new album recording is fast approaching (which will put some money in my pocket temporarily) and tickets can be bough HERE for the May 18th 9pm recording at NYC’s Triad Theater. Please buy the rest of the seats up now and get friends to join you or buy their own.

Lastly, in a hopeful epilogue the script for my new sketch for release in mid-to-late May will be done tonight.  So catch up on my YouTube channel and get ready for more fun.  If the May video is even close to the success of the CK video I will have to start a Kickstarter for my July video because it is going to be big (hence no June video), and actually much more daring and impressive than the CK one (by a lot), so it iwill require money that I don’t have.  Speaking of which, back to the spreadsheets.

I thought today the sports media would have been exhausted after the 489 hours of NFL Draft coverage and Carmelo Anthony needing his right arm surgically repaired yesterday after the worst shooting performance in America since Newtown, but Monday provided some major historic milestones, if you are willing to stretch. First, the New York Times reported that jockey Kevin Kligger will be the first black jockey to race in the Kentucky Derby since 2000 and will have a chance to be the first African-American jockey to win the race since 1901! The 5’6″, 110 pound Kilgger, or as he is known to his friends as “Bigger Kevin Hart,” seemed like this week’s biggest piece of “let’s try to make a historical story out of sports” until Jason Collins came out of the Big and Tall Dressing Room closet and announced that he was gay.

Before moving on to Collins, there are some things I have to say about the Kligger matter (his name might still be a major problem (or taunting blessing) to many residents of Kentucky today). Shouldn’t history be something we care about at this point? To Kligger’s credit he says he does not care about being a role model or trailblazer, but his color should be irrelevant. Not because we have moved beyond race, but because we are largely moved beyond horse racing! The popularity of the sport is dwindling and no one gives a crap who is riding the horses. Now in the New York Times story there is some fascinating history about black jockeys at the turn of the 20th century, but I would rather read a book about that then the imaginary torch that Kligger is carrying.

But just when Kevin Kligger (seriously does his middle name start with K also? KKKligger might be the most racist thing I ahve ever seen if it is!) was getting his 15 minutes of fame, NBA scrub Jason Collins comes out as a gay athlete (while also announcing that he is black). Now I say scrub because he and his brother were pretty bad as far as NBA basketball players go. His twin brother Jarron, who is straight, but equally bad at hoops, responded with shock at the announcement, “Oh wow – well I hope that stuff that happened to the evil twins in GI Joe doesn’t happen to us.” (Seriously my resentment of the Collins twis stems from my years as a Jazz fan watching Jarron be terrible)

I think it took courage for Jason Collins to come out, though technically he is a free agent and his season is over, so if he is not signed by a team he technically is not an active athlete in one of the four major American sports leagues. But that is besides the point. What is happening is already a revising of Collins’ career. See unlike Jackie Robinson (the sports media has been calling for a “gay Jackie Robinson” over the last few months, hopefully not to produce an overly sentimental film called “69” in a few decades – sorry I really couldn’t help myself), Collins is not that good at his sport. He is less Jackie Robinson and more John “Wait, I thought he was just British” Amechi 2.0. But as I read captions and descriptions, Collins is now being described as a “tough, gritty defensive player,” “a “great teammate,” “known for shutting down Dwight Howard (huh?)” and “savvy veteran.” Are we in that big a hurry to validate this moment by making him better than he is? Doesn’t that de-value Collins’ moment, as well as the moment when a player we actually care about announces he is gay? Like when a player who averaged 6 points per game and is under contract comes out? That should be earth shaking compared to this announcement.

And let’s not ignore the benefits – ever since the announcement has been made Jason has been crushing Jarron in twitter followers (though Jarron quickly wrote something begging for more attention with the misleading title “I’m proud of my brother” or something like that. And endorsements are sure to follow. Is Ben Gay too obvious? How about Jason’s “Grindr” tough play of the game?

I know we are a cynical culture and I am a cynic, but I still recognize how tough it must be to be a skinny, black, near-midget riding a horse or being gay and bad at basketball. But let’s not make everything bigger than it is. The good news is that one day we will not care about all of this (but of course we will as long as sites like Deadspin can get web traffic from athlete dick pics). But I look forward to more groundbreaking announcements from NFL punters, 3rd base coaches in baseball and pretzel vendors in hockey. I am just impressed that Collins’ twin brother had no idea. You’d think at some point some girlfriend/boyfriend would have had a mix up and outed the whole thing! At least if life were a 1980s sitcom it would have happened.

But congrats to Kevin Kligger and especially Jason Collins – you are courageous and you are part of history, even if it is Snapple Facts level of history.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

Yesterday I posted a video to the Internet.  It is over 100,000 views as of today. It took less than 24 hours for it to double my total YouTube views of four years.  So needless to say it was pretty cool to see it getting shared everywhere.  And thanks to the comedians who seemed to wholeheartedly embrace it and more importantly, understand it.  But if all the praise were universal that would be no fun, especially for me.  I like to stay humbled and I like to hear what the average Internet viewer thinks about content and about content providers. And thanks to YouTube, Laughspin, and Huffington Post I have a wealth of positive and thoughtful comments to keep me encouraged as I develop my next video (which may be another comedy video or involve an impression of Biggie, The Rock or President Obama). So before sharing with you my favorite ten comments from the last 24 hours, please enjoy (and share) the video:

So without further adieu here are my favorite unedited comments (thanks to all the people who posted nice compliments, but you did not make the cut):

HUFFINGTON POST:

1. Unfunny. I suppose that was the point, but many people like Louis CK. Had this been about Dane Cook, it’d be hilarious.

2. Boy he sucks. Go back to Elvis impersonations you wad.

3. Wow. Embarrassingly unfunny. Who did this guy blow to get this kind of publicity?

LAUGHSPIN (which primed the audience by titling the article “Comedians mocks Louis CK” completely buying in to what I made fun of – the non-judgmental hero worship of the comedy deity CK has been turned into)

1.The ravings of a jealous comedian addicted to the bitter aftertaste of sour grapes. This guy can only mock someone else’s success instead of getting off his lazy ass and creating something original and dare I say, humorous. Not worthy of your publication’s time or space.

And save the best for last… YOUTUBE

1. this is so awful. Impression was well done

2. this is like louis ck at his worst. comedy sucked, impression was good otherwise.

3. this would have been funny if someone as good as louis ck had written it for you

4. the only part missing in your impression was actually being funny

5. this is fucking cringeworthy

6. this is garbage

7. You captured the man’s voice effectively. (Sorry I had to include this – like a polite person got lost in a shitty dive bar known as YouTube)

8. imagine how much less funny this would be if it didn’t refer to Louis C.K

9. I am all about trying to make fun of anyone but this was painfully unfunny. This guy sucks

10. You could literally do this to any comedian, pretty stupid and pointless to hate on C.K.

11. Any time someone no one knows or has ever heard of tries to make a name by talking shit about someone who deserves everything he has because he’s earned it, it comes off as sour grapes.

12. GO SKATE INTO AN AIDS TREE YOU MOTHERFUCKER

So I take it as a badge of honor that the 10-15% of viewers who have responded negatively to the video do not understand satire, parody or the idea of an impression.  But most importantly they have proved the bigger point – that Louis CK has achieved an infallibility in their minds, which is what makes him ripe for parody.  So thanks to everyone else who got it – you are in the 80+ IQ club.  Everyone else – good luck with your lives and thanks for giving me a blog post for the day!

Now I just have to grasp the fact that any success that comes from this will be a result of YouTube, Twitter and Louis CK fans, three things I am always complaining about.

Dont forget to buy tickets to my new stand up album recording May 18th 9pm in New York City HERE

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

 

Today I turn 34 years old, but because I do not own a Bo Jackson or Charles Barkley jersey people will just have to guess my age from the rings of depression underneath my eyes.  So far the birthday plans are pretty strong – cash from the folks (which I would like to use for fun stuff, but which will actually be for bill paying, which is also fun… shotgun blast), steak dinner and NBA hoops on television.  But if you are wondering, “Hey, I want to do something for J-L’s birthday, but want to spend a minimal amount of money and don’t really want to have direct contact with him – what can I do??”  Well, your answer is very simple.  There are two things you can do for me in this major year for me in comedy.  The first option is to watch my new video in which I play Louis CK.  Would love for this to go viral (and for Lorne Michaels, Louis CK and everyone else in comedy to begin a bidding war to sign me to a development deal).  The make-up and video work are brilliant and most importantly I am brilliant.  Enjoy and share – this is the free option for my birthday:

The other option is to buy tickets to my new album recording. It is May 18th at 9pm at NYC’s Triad Theater.  Tickets are only $10 and it is going to be my best work BY FAR.  I am really excited about the new hour I have prepped over the last couple of years and would love to pack the place. Pre-sales are of great benefit to me so if you are going to be in NYC on the 18th please organize friends and family for a great night out of comedy and start buying up tickets now:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/367876

I woke up this morning and opened up my copy of the New York Times.  There were stories about the Boston bombing, an editorial about the dysfunction of my former employer, the Bronx District Attorney’s office, but beyond terrorism and delays in justice there was a story on the cover of the business section of the paper that really caused me to gag.  The article was about Comedy Central’s new comedy festival taking place next week.  The article was reporting on #ComedyFest – a comedy festival that comedy central is “having” next week.  As the article highlights “there will be no smokey comedy clubs… no two drink minimums” because the whole “festival” will take place on Twitter and Vine.  Because what comedy needs is even more conditioning to shorten attention spans.

Comedy Central is really the most significant platform for stand up comedy by a significant margin, but in a strategy that seems to be part-over saturation – in a decade they managed to marginalize the impact of their signature stand up series “Comedy Central Presents,” and part pandering – catering to “millennials,” – a short-attention span generation with record highs in narcissism and record lows in employment a/k/a spending power, they are marginalizing stand up at a rate that would make MTV’s usage of music jealous.

I am sure I am just being a curmudgeon and a hater, but when the main station for comedy and stand up is promoting and pushing for people to enjoy tweets and 6 second videos, what future does stand up comedy really have?  Maybe in a few years live stand up comedy will be called “Long Form Stand Up” or “he practices that old school form of stand up – no memes, no tweets, just 30-45 minutes talking into a microphone!”  Perhaps stand up’s best days are already behind it, but it should still look back, not to reminisce, but to make sure Comedy Central is not coming to strangle it to death.  #LookOut

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

One month from today (May 18th if you are bad at words and math) I record my 4th stand up album LIVE in NYC at the Triad Theater.   Get tickets here:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/367876

I would love to pack the place.  Tickets are only $10 so please organize your friends and colleagues who are frieds of stand up comedy (and not easily offended hopefully, but I will accept their money anyway) and buy tickets in advance (advance sales are key for me).

Thanks – see you in a month!

On Monday afternoon, after clearing my DVR of 4 days-on-the-road recordings, I returned to the regularly scheduled television programming to see that it was not the regularly scheduled programming.  The news was reporting a bomb or bombs had gone off at the Boston Marathon. The tragedy would end up killing three, maiming dozens and injuring over one-hundred.  It was a terrible day for Boston, running enthusiasts and anyone who wants to feel safe and secure in their every day life.  But almost as instantly as the tragedy occurred, a now familiar threesome of of sympathetic messages, patriotic outrage and unformed, unfunny jokes flooded social media.  Because of the conditioning many of us have undergone with social media (my unproven theory is that due to the decline of  faith and religion, but not in humanity’s overriding need to feel connected, we have developed a culture where food eaten, thoughts thought and feelings felt must all be shared to give us some sense of meaning and of being part of something bigger) I considered sharing my thoughts on the incident, as well as some unfortunate jokes that popped into my head (“Even our 9/11 was better. #GoYankees” was a particularly heinous fleeting funny thought), but chose not to.  I preferred a time when I did not have to consciously stop myself from doing these things, but it is a start in retreating from the mentality I have adopted within social media.  The fact is I believe a lot of the outpouring of sympathy is self-serving, not necessarily selfish, but definitely self-serving.  And I think the comedians that jump at a chance to make these jokes are seeking only exposure and notoriety  – why else would you post half-baked jokes that are likely to offend people? No one really wins with that – comedy fans get a weak product and people’s feelings get hurt.  And then these lead to conflict and stupidity on social media.

The basic timeline for these tragic events now go like this:

1. Tragic Event occurs
2. Everyone sends out thoughts and prayers via social media
3. More facts emerge
4. More thoughts and prayers are sent out via tweets, status updates and possibly through actual thought and prayer
5. First few comedians begin to post jokes that are generally not clever or funny, but are definitely the first on the topic.
6. Patriotic anger from people
7. More thoughts and prayer messages
8. Outrage at jokes made as well as “how could you do (fill in the blank) at a time like this, which then extends to anything that is not outrage and sympathy on your Twitter feed or Facebook Timeline
9. Defense of jokes made by comedians claiming to be the guardians of the 1st Amendment and “everyone grieves in their own way” even though they are not really grieving at all.
10. More thoughts and prayers, but with inspiring messages and memes of how we cannot be defeated by ugliness.
11. Political anger – why isn’t Obama calling it a terror attack (even though common sense tells you that while clearly a terror attack, the term “terrorism” evokes a more specific connotation that may be wise to avoid before more facts are revealed)?
12. Messages that we all stand with Boston
13. Messages from people reminding us that all over the world there are bigger and worse tragedies every day and that we should once in a while throw thoughts and prayers in their direction as well.
14. Gruesome images of the Boston attack for no apparent reason, but that we should all be angered and hurt by the incident, so why not post bloody limbs on the Facebook timeline.
15. We all stand with Boston messages have officially replaced thoughts and prayers
16. More people joking.
17. Share pictures of different children holding signs teaching us how we really should be.

And this was basically a recap of 24 hours.  One day!  I do not mean to sound callous or rude, but the Boston incident did not really affect me in a significant way.  I think it is a sad event and I think it is terrible for the people who witnessed it, experienced and have suffered loss.  But this is someone writing who has not felt fully safe in a movie theater (my favorite sanctuary from a lot of things) since the Aurora shooting.  What are the chances something happens to me in a movie theater?  Almost zero.  But that incident felt like my sanctuary was shattered because it was so violent and so unexpected.  Similarly, I am sure runners everywhere feel that way and I appreciate and understand it.  That is why I chose not to joke about the incident. Out of respect.  The need to joke about it did not trump common decency, something that our sex-tape, shock-value, nothing-is-sacred culture seems to have misplaced. But I won’t pretend like the incident has touched me in a deep way just to appear like everyone else.  Every day I read something in the New York Times that makes me cringe or feel terrible, but it is also not my place to blast that the day of an incident that has hurt many people deeply.

I really think we just live in a fraudulent society now.    Even if thoughts and prayers do something, I am sure that tweeting thoughts and prayers does nothing except allow everyone to see that you are doing proper things.  I spoke to my Mom about how sad the incident was and watched some of the news.  Had the incident been bigger in scale, perhaps I would have donated blood.  When did we become a society where the outward appearance and expression of emotion became the norm for everything?  I actually had the thought when social media exploded during and after the Boston tragedy, “Thank God we did not have this crap during 9/11.  At least we were forced to process that tragedy in a deeply personal and meaningful way instead of becoming a series of token statements and weak humor.”  Appearing to feel something now seems as important as actually feeling something.  And competing with that emotional fraudulence is a comedic fraudulence.  Comedy used to be about being funny and/or having a message.  But thanks to Twitter followers, Google Analytics and dumb friend willing to like and indulge mediocre comedic sensibilities and worse taste, every death, ranging from celebrity to human tragedy, begins a stop watch for comedians acting like heroes and writing like amateurs to pump out something offensive or mediocre in an effort to satiate the gods of web traffic and timeliness.

The funny thing is I agree with most of the things on the list above and also hate most of the things on the list above (especially the jokes part – I am never for censoring comedians’ right to say something, but hate when most of it is unfunny, simple and sensational).  But our response to tragedy, due perhaps to a combination of numbness and needing to feel included and special, appears to be about us and not about the tragedy or the victims.  “Look how sympathetic I am” (to me it is no different than wishing RIPs or Happy Birthdays to people on social media who are not actually on social media – who is this for?  Us to recognize what a warm and caring person you are, or to honor the person you speak of?), “Look how edgy I am,” “But look how outraged I am!”  This was a tragedy, but sadly I think it is the new normal.  We live in a world with increasingly deadly technology, easier access to that technology and a populace always looking to send messages from hashtags to terrorism.  I just hope as our society changes we still remember how to actually feel sympathy and experience joy and pain and not just express it on websites.  And one thing I left of the list…

18. Blog about your thoughts on the whole incident.

For more contentious, but also more funny, stuff from J-L check out this week’s episode of his podcast here.