Fact-Checking the "PRT Boondoggle" Blog
A project of the PRT NewsCenter

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Untitled


Originally published at "PRT Is A Joke" IS A JOKE v.1
Words written with wildcards (***, !!!, etc.) was the way we originally wrote
Ken Avidor, Ken, and Avidor.



Having this week revealed his interest in Victorian sexual attitudes, *** ****** now turns his Magoo-like scrutiny toward humor, and passing judgement on what is and isn't funny.

Yesterday the pitbull of propriety, the one who envisions Sen. Bachmann as a dominatrix and winos throwing up on transit riders, bit down hard on two passages posted in Yahoo Groups, and wouldn't let go.

He quotes Alaska's Ryan Kennedy:



"I [expletive] hate my car. Lousy piece of [expletive]. I'd gladly put a bullet in the back of its head, [then] dump it in a lime-filled ditch, piss on it, then walk away with fond memories of the event."



Does *** put this out hoping you'll be shocked? Odd, since *** himself hates cars too.

Again quoting Kennedy:



"He gets on the bus. There is one black person. At the next stop he gets off. All of a sudden, girls drop their trench-coats clad in skimpy dresses, silver platters of drinks and hors de vours suddenly appear. Music starts, everyone smiling and laughing. Then at the next stop a black guy gets on the bus, everything disappears. Girls jump back in their trench-coats.

"That's what it would take to get me on the bus: girls, booze, good food and good company. In that order."



Gosh, what was that? Some sort of private tape from a therapy session? A trial transcript? No, it was just Kennedy trying to come up with a humorous way to advertise PRT. It reminds the Editor of a skit from Saturday Night Live, In Living Color or, more recently, Mad TV. And in fact Kennedy does refer to Eddie Murphy's classic "White Like Me" skit from SNL as inspiration. But *** doesn't include this in his post, because that would provide accurate context.

*** feels Kennedy's words are—actually he doesn't say exactly how HE feels. He just thinks they will shock you. (He also won't tell readers about Kennedy's words when they won't shock, such as this thoughtful post about the full personal cost of using transit.)

In case his readers still aren't convinced, *** makes one further attempt at playing the shock card. He compares Kennedy's words to the new Paul Provenza/Penn Jillette film The Aristocrats, in which the greatest comics working today take turns interpreting an incredibly dirty joke that has been told backstage for years.

Here's what that lowbrow gutter publication Salon.com says about The Aristocrats;



"...exhilarating documentary about the genesis and continual evolution of one very dirty joke, is less about free speech than about the freedom of speech. And viewing it as a manifesto only detracts from its indelicate, yet delicately calibrated, brilliance." Source



Strange that *** would not like such a celebration of free expression, since he himself makes his living as a supposed artist.

And in doing so *** aligns himself with that one-man Blue Code, the hydroencephalic right-wing pundit Michael Medved, who says of The Aristocrats: "What we're seeing here is a desperate attempt to get attention for a project by outraging people"--an amazing quote, because *** is also desperately seeking attention by trying to outrage people.

Yup, that's *** ******. He's Minnesota's own Savonarola, a mad transit monk who's taken a vow of humorlessness.


gPRT

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