"Hicks had pure, unmitigated hate (odd for someone who was so loving) and he just let it spew. It's one thing to say 'I'm going to cross the line and fuck you if you can't handle it.' It's another to say 'What line? I didn't see any fucking line. I was too busy drinking and trying to hunt down Jerry Fallwell.' I can't conceptualize what he would say if he were alive for this administration. He'd be in prison. He'd have to be."
--Matt, on Bill Hicks

After my last post, Kate tipped me off to David Cross's blog, where he has an open letter to Larry the Cable Guy. Apparently they have a silly feud because they've each talked shit about the other in the press. Larry accused David of not knowing Larry's audience and called him part of the "PC left." David said that he did know Larry's typical audience, as he got his start playing clubs outside of Atlanta, and he made a lot of fart comments, implying that Larry's act relies on a lot of fart jokes.

I've gotten a lot of support from comics who have been willing to sit down with me and give me advice on delivery, writing and stage presence. There's a family atmosphere with those guys. But I've also learned that there's a lot of backstabbing: people stealing each other's jokes, people talking shit about each other and overall elitism.

I think that's bullshit.

To address Larry's concerns, yeah, David Cross is "left" of center when it comes to politics. Which is fine. And he's good at it. David Cross denounces government corruption and the way that this country is systematically disenfranchising gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Denouncing Bush isn't daring: any 14-year-old with the capacity for speech can do that, and if you're famous, getting quoted denouncing Bush is good PR. But David Cross is intelligent and witty and doesn't take himself too seriously, and that's what makes him effective. As for David Cross being "PC," I'll quote David Cross: "Have you ever seen the fucking show?!"

Larry is a little "right of center," which is also fine. The more viewpoints on stage, the better. No reason for Bill Maher, Patton Oswalt and Lewis Black to be the only comics with political viewpoints. But he doesn't force it down anyone's throats and he doesn't claim to be anything he's not. And yeah, he does tell dick and fart jokes. But so did Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks and Eddie Murphy. The difference, though, is that they dug deeper into other topics.

For the record, I don't see a problem with dick and fart jokes, per se. I don't think any topic is untouchable as long as you know how to approach it. The act of farting might be funny to some people, but what I find funny is that culturally, we've made farting something to hide, something taboo that isn't appropriate for conversation. The physical act isn't funny; it's the mores that go with it. "Pull my finger" isn't as funny as realizing that we can't talk about farting in the newspaper but we can dedicate several months to the fact that Bill Clinton's cum was on a dress. And that's funny not because it's got the word "cum" in it, but because we thought that was newsworthy.

Larry the Cable Guy is associated with the south, mainly because he toured the country with three comedians who've made southern pride a staple of their acts. Larry the Cable Guy is not from the south. He's from Nebraska. But a lot of people will associate him with the south, because he intimates a southern accent, opposes the liberal media and mentions guns and NASCAR in his act.

David Cross, on the other hand, *IS* from the south. Georgia. But he's not really associated with the south, is he? I think it's because he doesn't talk with an accent, he's openly anti-Republican, he's Jewish and he talks disparagingly about some southerners.

Now, you'll notice a lot of stereotypes in those two paragraphs. That's purposeful. I think our opinions of those comics aren't isolated to them and them alone. I think our opinions will be based on our opinions of what we associate with them. A lot of people who rip on the south might use Larry the Cable Guy as the southern poster child. I was surprised when I found out Larry wasn't from the south, and I had to take a step back to analyze what that meant. I was also surprised to learn that Cross is southern. Again, I had to step back and analyze my biases.

I like both these comedians, which is why I think they're kinda shitty to be fighting like this. Leave this diva shit to Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. Comedians should not take things so personally or seriously. Bill Hicks was an unapologetic liberal who ripped on the south and told dick and fart jokes. And he had a southern accent. Because he was from the south. And he loved it as much as he hated it. It's because of him that we have Larry the Cable Guy *AND* David Cross.

Wrap your head around that, eh?

Git-R-Done?

I think we all have guilty pleasures. Some are worse than others, and some are more open about them, but I think we all have them.

Mine? I love Rick Astley, Taylor Dayne, Rick Springfield, Howard Jones, Shania Twain and Mariah Carey. Just to name a few. And yet I really wouldn't classify those as guilty pleasures, because I'm not too ashamed of any of those.

But I have a doozy of a guilty pleasure.

Last night, I saw Larry The Cable Guy. In concert. In Myrtle Beach. And I was wearing a flannel shirt. To my defense, though, I was wearing a University of Berkeley shirt underneath.

I'll repeat.

I saw. Larry. The. Cable. Guy. In. Concert.

It's not that bad, right? I'm in the south, I'm studying stand-up comedy and one of my best friends is moving away, and this was an appropriate send-off. I shouldn't have to defend it, but it does kinda make me feel funny. And I don't mean humorous. All I need now is a gun rack on my car. In five years, you can expect to see me in Wal-Mart yelling at three kids all younger than four. "Quit bein' ignorant to your sister!"

He did make some political comments and pandered to one of my favorite ploys: He said that we as a society have gotten too uptight and we shouldn't be afraid to laugh at anything and everything. It justifies some raunchier, more controversial jokes, but it's true. We can't have sticks up our ass, or else we'll go crazy. The most laid back people are the ones who can laugh at themselves and not get too easily offended.

Other things to think about

1. People are rarely indifferent to Valentine's Day. They either go along with it or they hate it. People rarely just say, "Ehh." It's like racism. Or U2.

2. If you live someplace where the climate changes with the season, you have better grasp on what month or season you're in than someone who lives in a place with a steady climate. Me? I know that each day ends in "Y" but other than that, I have no frame of reference for what part of the year it is.

3. When you're in college, you have a lot of friends and you talk to them constantly. When you move on from college, you have fewer friends and you don't talk to them as often. But the friends you do have will probably mean more to you than the friends you had in college, and you'll probably have a greater appreciation of the time you spend and talk with them.

4. Whether it's brewed in Kansas City, St. Louis or South Carolina, unfiltered wheat beer is a beautiful thing. And more importantly, it is tasty.

5. Old people at the library get mad when their sessions expire in the middle of an e-mail. So many people in their address books will be deprived of an Erma Bombeck poem, or an angel chain letter.

6. The Gmail chat function is pretty cool, except it provides yet another distraction for the times when the last thing you should be doing is chatting. Also, it sucks because you can see who is online at the time and remind you that this person has time to be online but not have time to e-mail you back. I liked it better when I could think the person was never online. But then I just think back to item #3 and things are A-OK.

Before this year, I hadn't been big on football. I wouldn't even call myself "big" on football, but as a newspaper man in the south, I kinda have to know what's going on in the world around me. And in the south, a big part of what's going on is football. Or talk of said sport.

So, I grab a beer and watch the game. And I kinda get into it, because I like math and strategery. And being catty.

It's with that intro that I present...

Super Bowl XL: The Digest

1. A lot of people go by names, others go by numbers. I'm a nice guy, I'll give you both.

2. Troy Polamalu (Steelers #43) totally has Cher hair. He doesn't have to sing "Turn Back Time," because I thought last night was 1989.

3. The big controversy was whether Ben Roethlisberger (Steelers #7) was "over the line" at the end of the second quarter. They showed the footage over and over. I don't think he was over the line. Now, right before he landed, the ball was in the air directly above the line. But when he landed, he was not over the line. Unlike Smokey in "The Big Lebowski." He was over the line. Mark it eight, dude.

4.If William Perry's nickname is "The Refrigerator," what shall we call Casey Hampton (Steelers #98)? Holy fuck. He's huge. It makes sense that he's from Texas, he's that huge.

5. He's so huge, in fact, that we have to take a second item to talk about him. He's ginormous. Every time they showed him, he looked like he was just waiting for someone to shovel a trough into his mouth. What a fat bastard.

6. They kept showing Jerome Bettis' friends, family and fans rocking the #36 jersey. But one fan had the shirt on only halfway. One of his arms went through the sleaves, but not the other arm. Someone mused that this will be the new trend in the same vein as the Kriss Kross (wearing pants backward) or wearing your pants around your knees.

7. Whenever they'd mention Matt Hasselbeck (Seahawks #8), I'd laugh, because it made me think of David Hasselhoff.

8. The green gloves were a nice touch for the Seahawks uniforms. I don't recall seeing those before. My friend Dawn pointed out that they were "Poison" green. As in, the band.

9. Is it me, or did the announcer say "Larry Foote" (Steelers #50) as though it were "Larry Flynt" (Hustler #1)?

10. Bill Cowher's daughters are kinda cute.

11. Mike Holmgren doesn't look like a football coach. He looks like a car salesman. I guess it's because he used to be a math teacher.

12. And he had mean face. Yeah, he would have become the first man in Super Bowl history to win a title with two teams, but don't look mean.

13. He was OK to be mean to the reporter who chased him after the second quarter. She was annoying.

14. The Rolling Stones are, what, 70? And yet they still move around quite nicely.

15. But the drummer should not have been wearing a purple shirt.

16. I liked the giant tongue bit, though. It was like the giant U2 heart, but cooler.

17. Wasn't Aretha Franklin supposed to be out there, too?

18. Did anyone else notice that Matthew Lillard was at the game?

19. Most of the commercials were lame, but there were a few good ones. The one where the guy throws his phone at the guy as "theft deterrent"? Brilliant. Also good was the one where the orderlies at the hospital zap the bug and say "We killed him" just as his wife and kid walk in the room.

20. The H3 Hummer commercial blew chunks. And I'm not just saying that because I loathe Hummers and all that they stand for, though that didn't help matters.

21. I got irritated whenever they'd cut to John Madden. I like his announcing OK, I guess, but watching him is like talking to your friend's drunk grandpa at a wedding.