If I read the RobBlog, that’s what I’d ask. I mean, I’ve heard that Cupid Pops, and On Top of Spaghetti are spit-take funny. This latest stuff? Not funny. No spit.
I’ve also heard that bananas and “k” words are good for laughs. I dunno. If I’ve gotta
resort to kumquats and banana peels, maybe it’s time to hank thinks up.
See?
Nothing.
No funny.
Sigh…
Maybe it’s the music in my diet. Music isn’t funny. Even worse I’m bloating on The
Carpenters. I’m nostalgic lately.
“When I was young I listened to the radio…”
Last weekend I heard that song for the first time in ages. Karen Carpenter sang
it. That’s not funny. Neither is the song. It’s a reminiscent song. It’s about sitting
around listening to the songs of her youth.
I can get behind that. This year I’m making plans for my future with the Pirate
Queen, and I’m saying good-bye to some old ghosts. I’m not usually a nostalgic
type guy, but fake nostalgic cigars have been exploding in my face and buzzing my
memories with joy.
“…those were such happy times…but now they’re back again…”
Why couldn’t they bring the funny with them? Why couldn’t they be anecdotal
ghosts not just nostalgic ones.
I found a post on my Facebook page:
“About 15 years ago, you were the first person to inform me that Jimmy Page was
a ‘sloppy’ guitar player (and I know for certain this is the exact word you used)…”
The Pirate Queen asked me about it. She’s trying to help me find my funny. She
suggested I look in back-story. It might be amusing.
I humored her
I told her.
It wasn’t funny.
Some Jokes are location jokes: you have to be there.
She wasn’t; the story wasn’t funny.
“Trust me, I was there. It wasn’t funny then either.”
“Oh, then have you tried writing about bananas?”
Most days life isn’t funny. Not naturally. We really have to search for the humor.
Karen Carpenter didn’t find the funny.
“Every whoa-oh-woe…”
Me, during the Cupid Pops days, I needed the funny. I was going through a divorce,
looking for something good.
Today I have something good. I don’t need the funny to fuel my day. I still enjoy it
but, if I don’t get it, I’m not sitting on my closet floor clenched in a fetal ball. Not that
I ever did that…I’m just saying, “what if?”
No really. Stop looking at me like that. You’re creeping me out.
That’s not funny.
Fine, whatever.
“Tell them about the guy at the Hall and Oats concert.”
That’s the Pirate Queen. Now she’s over my shoulder, editing for the funny. She
wants me to tell you about the fireworks show on the fourth. She love’s Hall and
Oats. So we celebrated the birth of our nation with a Hollywood Bowl full of Hall and
Oat-meal with pyrotechnic sprinkles.
Our seats were great. They were so cool they had a special name: the garden section.
That’s not quite as cool as the “Pool Circle,” but it totally rocks over “Section NN.”
You, back in the back. See my hand waving? No? Well just imagine what the band is
going to look like from back there. From here they look great.
“That’s not funny, Rob. Tell them the funny.”
Ok, so there were these people at the table next to us—yeah, we had tables! I told
you our seats rocked, NN dude! Not only do we have tables, but we also had a hip-
high garden wall, fencing us off from our good neighbor’s garden box. We’ve got
privacy!
So we’re sitting there and the Pirate Queen isn’t respecting our neighbor’s privacy.
She looks at me and whispers, “That guy next to us looks like Ron Jeremy and that
old singer who sang time in a bottle—“
“You mean Jim Croce?”
“Yeah, he looks like they had a lovechild.”
“A brokeback, love moment?”
“Exactly! You should blog about that.”
“Cuz it’s funny?”
“Funnier than what you’ve been writing lately.”
I am no longer my harshest critic.
Still, she’s right.
One of the women Jim Jeremy sat with was this Kim Catrell Sex and the City type.
Jim and Kim adhere to SoCal cultural mores. Cell phones and garden walls represent
cones of silence. It’s like dogs hiding their head.
“You can’t see me.”
Only in LA can you get personalized freeway Fireworks.
We can hear Jim and Kim. They’re talking about rehab, lesbians and piles of coke that would make Hunter S. Thompson back away slowly.
“And the good times I had make today seem rather sad…”
Kim is getting nostalgic too. She’s talking about her 40th birthday party. Remember
Major League? Kim had a swingers’ weekend. I know, that doesn’t have anything to
do with Major League. Major League had a Wild thing, no swingers. Still, bear with
me. Kim told Jim, in garden-wall confidentiality, that she had a nude cutout of herself
at the swinger party: Just like the one in Major League. Except for her cutout, instead
of uncovering it, she had people cover up parts of her body. To me, that’s a little
counter swinger productive, but who am I to judge. I’m only the neighbor with his
ear to the wall.
Sitting next to us, Kim drops names of people who were there. We don’t hear
anybody we know. We don’t hear a thing. My queen and I just pour our champagne
and toast. Compared to Kim’s Palm Springs party, we don’t know how to have a
good time.
Our side of the wall doesn’t know how to hold a garden party. Just like that Ricky
Nelson song I heard last weekend.
“…I learned my lesson well…”
Still, moving forward, my queen and I do have fun. As Hall and Oats walked out on
stage, I took her hand and I remembered why I used to love concerts. They’re not
funny, but they are fun. They’re three hours of heartbeat bass pounding in your
chest, and melodic blood pumping through your veins.
So my queen and I are singing along and dancing. Oh yes. There was dancing! Such
cacophonic convulsing as only our parents would appreciate (as they had taught us
to dance the very same said seizure of freedom in their youth).
“You make my dreams come true…”
As I’m butt pendulum-swaying to the beat, my hands, clenched tight in ten and two
formation, syncopate with a rhythm all their own. I amaze my queen with my moves
of love.
“Excuse me sir.” It’s the usher. “The gentleman in NN is asking you to sit down.
You’re ruining the show.”
See? It’s not that funny of a story. Right now my queen is telling me that I didn’t tell
it right.
I dunno. Maybe this is the year of the unfunny blog. Maybe this is the year of
sentimentality singing and white-boy dancing. This is the year of moving forward.
And unfunny or not, this is the year of the Rob.
Stay tuned.
Great Kameron’s Klaxons! It’s a banana peel…
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