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Lightning Rod Gets The Zot
The Poet's Eye ^ | Lightning Rod

Posted on 10/23/2010 5:17:52 PM PDT by Lrod

A character like Christine O'Donnell presents a unique problem for a humorist. Few elaborations are called for since the caricature is self-embodied. All that is needed is a dead-pan Jack Benny look. You know, the one where he just stares blankly at the audience without saying a word and eventually someone titters and before you know it the whole place is in hysterics? Her very existence as a major party candidate for US Senate is the kind of comedy which arrives ready-written and would only be spoiled by embellishment. I mean, what can you add to rabidantimasturbationtarianism, rats with fully-functioning human brains and her famous Witches of Eastwick campaign ad that looks like it was produced by Tim Burton? I had fully intended to leave Ms. O'Donnell to the other comedians and the pundits who were wearing her out on cable TV. But then came the most recent revelation that she has claimed that her father was Bozo the Clown. Here I had to break my silence, not in the name of humor, but in the cause of veracity. This is a subject I happen to know something about.

Long ago, for one magic season, I was related by marriage to Bozo the Clown. I'm not making this up. My father was a semi-notorious lothario in the television and advertising business. Sometime after he turned 50, he married the 17 year-old daughter of one of his professional colleagues, Larry Harmon, the guy who owned the franchise to Bozo, the Most Famous Clown in the World. He was Bozo Primero, not one of the many FauxZos who were franchised in every major media market. I was much closer to the power center of the Bozo world than Ms. O'Donnell ever dreamed of being. It gave me an intimate glimpse into the backstage life of clowns. I knew little of the inside workings of the clown business in those days. Like a naive child, I had assumed that, you know, Bozo was Bozo. It never occurred to me that there was a school, like a Bozo boot-camp, where imposters went to learn how to walk like a Bozo and talk like a Bozo and draw the red rictus of a smile on their faces with greasepaint. It was like learning a dirty family secret and it was a big disappointment. When you go to see Bozo, you want it to really be Bozo, not some guy dressed up in a Bozo costume.

I hadn't thought about my brief inclusion in greasepaint royalty for years until Ms. O'D surfaced with her claims of actually being a blood relative of Bozo the Clown. The marriage between my father and Princess Bozo, which was chronologically challenged to begin with, barely outlasted the honeymoon. They had about as much in common as Christine would have in common with the 99 other US Senators. Suddenly the whole subject bubbled from my subconscious and made me wonder about franchises and politicians and the authenticity of clowns.

Since John Quincy Adams carried forth his father's political legacy, American politicians have campaigned on the richness of their family's past public service. Roosevelt and Kennedy and Bush all represent minor dynasties and it is entirely in keeping with this tradition for Ms. O'D to claim descent from Bozo. Clowning is as present in the current of American politics as populism, liberalism or conservatism. But in light of Ms. O'D's penchant for resume enhancement, she fibbed about her college career and has downplayed her wiccan studies, her claims to clownly ancestry are also suspect. While she seems like a natural and can certainly get a laugh and works well in the side-shows, one has to wonder if she is really ready for the Big Top, the center ring.

The US Senate is the Big League of Buffoonery. Even pros like Colbert have trouble hanging there. It's a tough room. Notice that Al Franken, even with all his years of practical comic experience, has been keeping mum in deference to the mime-masters of the Senate. These clowns can juggle, ride unicycles, do pratfalls and get shot from cannons, all with the perfect dead-pan of their painted-on media faces. They are consummate clowns adept with all the tricks, the seltzer bottle, the pie-in-the-face, the filibuster. I don't want to get all Stephen King on you but these aren't nice clowns. Ms. O'D should think twice before she alienates her witch constituency, she may need some strong juju to avoid the dunking stool. They'll make her the senator-punk-clown. Every troupe of clowns has one, the smallest clown, bottom of the pecking order, the one who all the other clowns slap and when there is no smaller clown for her to slap, she turns to the audience with her out-turned palms and pitiful Emmett Kelly frown and says, "I am you."

Two of the greatest Senatorial Clowns, Lloyd Bentson and Dan Quayle, in their famous vice-presidential debate in 1988 demonstrated the type of cut-throat comedy these jokers are capable of. When Quayle set the joke up by comparing his inexperience to the inexperience of Jack Kennedy, Bentson spiked it with this punch-line, "Senator," he said, "I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."

The Poet's Eye would like to say to Christine O'Donnell in this same spirit, "Ms. O'Donnell, you say your father is Bozo. Well, I knew Bozo. Bozo was briefly my step-grand-father-in-law. Christine, your father was no Bozo."

Yes I’m stuck in the middle with you, and I’m wondering what it is I should do. It’s so hard to keep this smile from my face. Losing control yeah I'm all over the place.

Clowns to the left of me! Jokers to the right! Here I am stuck in the middle with you. ---Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty

Visit The Poet's Eye


TOPICS: Government; Humor; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: bozot; christineodonnell; clownzot; hater; humor; kittychow; molassesmiasma; odonnell; ozone; penguinhumor; satire; sionnsar; thepoetseye; troll; vikingkitties; vikingkitty; zot
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To: Darksheare; Monkey Face

Name it “Irksome Bowels”


901 posted on 11/11/2010 4:11:10 PM PST by HKMk23 (Quit worryin' what other folks think; they don't do it all that much anyway.)
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To: Darksheare

It’s amazing, Darks. Now if we just had enough to send to the White House and Senate....


902 posted on 11/11/2010 4:11:54 PM PST by Monkey Face (Atheism is a non-prophet organization.)
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To: HKMk23

YOU name it! Not touching THAT one!!!


903 posted on 11/11/2010 4:12:58 PM PST by Monkey Face (Atheism is a non-prophet organization.)
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To: tubebender

I fear that is NOT a man behind that curtain.


904 posted on 11/11/2010 4:13:32 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Darksheare; All

Walp. My bedtime. Been a wierd day. See ya tomorrow day.


905 posted on 11/11/2010 4:18:12 PM PST by Monkey Face (Atheism is a non-prophet organization.)
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To: Monkey Face; tubebender; NicknamedBob

Two groups, one on a mining mission, one in prep to head to Venus.
Outer fleet in supporting role as a supply station and waypoint.

The asteroid rotated on the horizontal axis, a slow forward roll of little consequence during its lazy plodding trip around the sun. An altogether boring existence, even for an asteroid, much like all of its neighbors. But this asteroid had changed, something had noted it.
Scanned, measured, rated, cold calculating eyes surveyed the asteroid before a course was plotted, a path taken.
A spiderbot floated into view, but this one was different. It could fly. Trailing before it were strands of ferrulefiber, along its body sat tiny but efficient thrusters. It looked eerily similar to terrestrial spiders ballooning in the air on strands of silk. But the ferrulefiber strands had no flight usage as they served the more mundane purpose of acting as grounding straps for landing.
The ballooning spiderbot knew static discharge was a real and fatal possibility in the dusty environs it travelled.
Carefully it made the journey to the target landing point, the site of least rotation. The grounding straps sparked and flickered faintly on contact, space borne St Elmo’s fire to human observers if there had been any.
If it had emotions as humans knew them, it would have been anxious. But it was a machine intelligence, though amazingly aware of reality while coldly practical about its mission. Legs tipped with multiple gripping ends gently gripped the surface.
The first prospecting flight in the solar system had accomplished the toughest goal, landing on an asteroid in microgravity.
Sensors took in the up close view of the surface and found it a conglomeration of loose rubble and particulates. A solid mass lay below the rubble, as penetrating radar said, but that was a secondary goal. A pedipalp scooped up some of the particulate matter and held it up to an eye as if looking through a jeweler’s loupe.
Spectrometers flashed the results to the brain, other sensors swiveled outward to confirm.
This asteroid had carbonates.
A technological whistle was sent out, and other eyes observed the asteroid. In a relatively short time, though time meant nothing to the coldly efficient spiderbots, the area around the asteroid was abuzz with activity. And soon, the asteroid itself.
The spiderbots began to process it, clearing the surface of raw materials destined for use elsewhere.
A latticework of ferrulefiber served as a walkway for the spiderbots to hold onto, lifting off from the asteroid was an easy task as well. An exposed promontory of underlying iron served as an anchor point for several strong strands of ferrulefiber, and as the asteroid turned, the spiderbot payed out more fiber.
Eventually the desired speed was attained, and the spiderbot merely let go of the line when it was heading close to the desired direction of travel, starting the whole process over.
Once the iron was exposed and all other materials removed, the spiderbots began their secondary mission. Some anchored themselves down at carefully plotted places and began lighting their thrusters in a complex dance in time with the asteroids motion. Others began to construct a solar sail.
The asteroid was destined for removal to a parking orbit, its spin slowed to a halt.
Powered by a system that was good for thousands of years, the spiderbots would continue their asteroid shepherding mission long after the people who had sent them on a seemingly insane adventure had become dust.


906 posted on 11/11/2010 4:21:27 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: HKMk23; Monkey Face

Dispeptic Insidia.


907 posted on 11/11/2010 4:23:29 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Monkey Face

Pleasant dreams.


908 posted on 11/11/2010 4:24:05 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Monkey Face

Going to Bed??? Where do you live... on the Titanic?


909 posted on 11/11/2010 4:39:28 PM PST by tubebender
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To: tubebender; Monkey Face

Chronic fatigue, she loses steam rapidly.
I do as well, to a lesser extent.
If you ever had mono or anything similar, you too can experience the joy of being constantly tired.


910 posted on 11/11/2010 4:47:23 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Darksheare

mono [shudder]

Whenever I’ve the option, I choose stereo, at least...;)


911 posted on 11/11/2010 4:52:12 PM PST by HKMk23 (Quit worryin' what other folks think; they don't do it all that much anyway.)
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To: HKMk23

Mono, kills the fun right quick.


912 posted on 11/11/2010 4:57:15 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Darksheare; HKMk23; tubebender; Monkey Face
"Chronic fatigue, she loses steam rapidly.

If you ever had mono or anything similar, you too can experience the joy of being constantly tired."

I'm approaching it the old-fashioned way. That is, the "old" fashioned way.

By getting older.

And older.

Hey, it's a living.

913 posted on 11/11/2010 4:58:02 PM PST by NicknamedBob (Maybe I can become a were-spork-weasel. It is good to have aspirations. Essential, actually.)
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To: Darksheare

I simply fall asleep in my chair with the mouse in my hand and that’s why you see the USB cord wrapped around the desk lamp. Go ahead ask me about the cord, mouse, lamp, sleep


914 posted on 11/11/2010 5:03:31 PM PST by tubebender
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To: NicknamedBob; HKMk23; tubebender; Monkey Face

That as well.
Aging plays havoc on the body.


915 posted on 11/11/2010 5:05:07 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Monkey Face
Is there something going on in the Lower Levels that would cause it to be dank, dirty and pit-iful?

Don't look at me. I LIKE taking showers. Even the Dwarves have been wearing deodorant.

916 posted on 11/11/2010 5:06:46 PM PST by Dead Corpse (III, Alarm and Muster)
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To: tubebender

The mouse moves, takes teh lamp with it, instant alarm clock?


917 posted on 11/11/2010 5:07:25 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Darksheare
"Aging plays havoc on the body."

Not to worry. We'll fix that.

Trick is to stay alive long enough to benefit from the new procedures and technology.

F'r'instance ... new techniques for regeneration surgery. Imagine, fixing up your problem areas like repairing a pothole.

It's happening.

918 posted on 11/11/2010 5:09:36 PM PST by NicknamedBob (Maybe I can become a were-spork-weasel. It is good to have aspirations. Essential, actually.)
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To: NicknamedBob

My luck they’d clone several copies of me and I’d either have to hunt them down, or they’d come looking for ‘the original’.


919 posted on 11/11/2010 5:11:50 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Darksheare

He-heh. You ever see the movie “Multiplicity”?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplicity_(film)


920 posted on 11/11/2010 5:18:09 PM PST by HKMk23 (Quit worryin' what other folks think; they don't do it all that much anyway.)
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