Race, Religion and Political Persuasion

A comment posted on my other blog (Bogan Star Chamber) was in the form of a joke that might be considered slightly racist in that it used a stereotypical southern USA black form of speech in a way that might be interpreted as racial denigration. To put it another way – to be funny, the joke assumes black people are less well educated than white people. Wether you believe that to be true or not is beside the point, it is the assumption that might be considered racist.

You may wonder why I am interested in this. After all I obviously delight in taking the piss out of any race, ethnic group, all people of any political persuasion - why am I concerned with this particular instance? Well, it interests me because inappropriate humour has a tremendous fascination for me. Why do we laugh? And especially, why do we laugh when we really shouldn’t? Let me explain.

I am one of those unfortunate people who are attacked by laughter. I’m not talking about your vigorous ‘Ha, Ha’ or your ‘boisterous belly laugh’ or even your ‘rolling on the floor laughing’ kind of laughter. I’m talking about gales of choking, suffocating, snot blasting, leg collapsing, purple faced, gasping, crying, agonising, as–close-to-a-near-death-experience-you-are-liable-to-get-to-without-actually-passing-over-to-the-other-side-even-if-that-were-preferable-to-the-torture-your-body-is-wracked-by, kind of laughter. I can give you a for instance but, I warn you, it may not seem funny because it was one of those ‘you had to be there’ kind of things.

Many years ago I was, believe it or not, quite a senior manager of a highly regarded Brisbane company. We were going for a lucrative contract with The Queensland Museum that had only recently moved into its posh home in the new Brisbane Cultural Centre at South Bank. It was decided to boost our chances of landing the contract by taking our firm’s top-gun to an important and decisive meeting at the Museum. The top-gun was me!

Even though I was valued more for my technical expertise than for my sartorial elegance, I had put on my best suit and had carefully chosen a tie with no bits of food stuck to it. I had two of my best sales representatives with me, both of whom had been working their arses off to win this contract and I was determined to help them close the deal. I was introduced to a tall and exceptionally elegant lady who was the Queensland Museum’s decision maker and she graciously gave us the grand tour of the Museum’s new home. Finally we settled down to business in a nice little mezzanine type spot surrounded by glass walls that gave views of the river as well as looking down on much of the Museum’s lower levels.

The mezzanine was simply furnished in that chrome and black leather look which was once so popular but I soon found out that the furnishing budget must have been a bit tight because the black was definitely not leather. It was that plastic stuff that you sit on for ten minutes then break out in heat rash of the arse. Eventually the younger of my two reps (I’ll call him Steve) shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Not only was the black leather just plastic, it was also the specific sort of plastic that makes a farting noise when you slide a sweaty arse across it. Steve was obviously a tiny bit embarrassed but he hid it well, taking only the briefest surreptitious look around to make sure he had got away with it. His eyes met mine.

Now this fucking, arsehole, bastard, shit of a rep, Steve, knew me very well. He knew what was going through my infantile mind and he saw my lip curl in the tiniest of smirks. So what did he do? Did he let it go and concentrate on this desperately important meeting? Did he fuck! He wriggled his arse again. This time the noise the seat made could not be ignored. Well, it could – by everyone except me. I snorted and covered it with a cough. Steve wriggled again. I had reached that dreadful stage where I am amused but in a situation where it is wholly inappropriate to show it – and that has always been my undoing.

This went on for about twenty minutes and, to me, it seemed like hours. I had coughing fits, sneezes, sudden shouts in most inappropriate places. If someone made a weedy joke I launched into howls of relieving mirth. All the time Steve’s face was turned to the Museum lady as if hanging on her every precious word whilst the sadistic bastard kept shifting his backside. Steve’s expression could only be described as beatific. The arsehole was blissfully aware of just what he was doing to me. Eventually the Museum lady rounded on me.

“******** just what is wrong with you?” she snapped.

“I’m sorry,” I snorted, “I’m not feeling too well.”

With that I ran out of the meeting. I dashed through the first door I came to and ran along a glass walled corridor. I turned into other corridors. I ran and turned and ran again until I came to a quiet spot in this maze of glass corridors. It was a small open space with the usual museum statuary. Low railings surrounded the space and I leant over them and howled. I cried, I bubbled snot and saliva, I wailed. My stomach cramped and I gasped with laughter and pain. I pounded my fists on the railings and let the whole, horrible paroxysm sweep me up.

It finally ebbed and I was able to stand straight and wipe my eyes. It was then that I discovered that in my pell-mell dash from the meeting I had twisted and turned only to arrive back at almost where I started. I was just a glass wall away from my reps and the dignified lady from the Museum who were all standing and staring at me through the glass. Steve’s grin was wider than his head, the senior rep was horrified and the Museum lady’s eye brows were hidden in her perfectly coiffured grey hair while her chin was somewhere between her tits.

For a moment we simply stared at each other, then I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the glass. My hair was wild from the tugging I had given it, my face was streaked with sweat, snot and dribble. My tie was twisted up by my ear and, in my contortions, my suit had ridden up so much I looked as if I was dressed in a concertina. It was too much. I fell to my knees, held my arms wide and brayed with laughter. I howled, I screamed, I bellowed with laughter than fell forward until my head bounced on the ground and I shook and quaked in a fit of hysteria.

I don’t remember exactly what happened next. I do know that I kept my job and, amazingly enough, we got the Museum contract.

So there we are. And the point is? Politically correct humour has no place in my life. If something strikes me as funny then no social norm, no appropriate code of conduct, no standard of decency and no politically fashionable guilt as designated by the latest horde of sociologists to escape into our midst determined to simplify life by complicating the fuck out of it, applies. I simply cannot help myself