Have You Ever Wanted an Idiot to Drop Dead?
By Matt Carroll
It was obviously a symbol.
“So, do you guys want to hear a real joke?” The man on stage asked the audience. A few people humored him by saying yes. “Women’s rights!” A few of the men in the crowd humored the comedian and laughed, some really tickled, their girlfriends frowning and spinning the ice in their drink with their fingertip.
I like intellectual comedy more than the type that required a slapstick punch-line. This man was a coward. The overweight, underachieving, man had a glass of scotch in his hand and a cigar in the other. That image was a little more played out than it should be.
“What do you get when you put ninety Cal-Trans workers in the same room with ten lesbians?” He asked. I’m on the edge of my seat—moron. “One-hundred people who don’t do dick all day.” A few people laugh—I’m waiting for a knock-knock joke.
Why does a man like me sit at a comedy hour somewhere in the middle of the city?
I won’t answer that.
It probably bugs you that I’m telling the story and I won’t tell you another thing about me except my feelings of this man standing on stage.
I hate racist people. There’s irony in that sentence. That’s funny.
Why do fifty women run for Mrs. USA, but only two people run for president?
When you go to the store needing a new mouse for your computer do you ask “Where are the computer mouses?” or “Where are the computer mice?” Does it change between living mice and electronic ones?
“So, why does President Obama want higher taxes?” I wonder if we can get a joke that doesn’t require a question to start. “Cause, he’s not the one paying them.” Was that a black joke? I can’t wait to see Rush Limbaugh’s fat ass dance out on stage singing “Barak the Magic Negro.”
The room is filled with smoke and people laughing at this. I like jokes that are funny—these aren’t. His delivery sucks, he’s fat and sweating, and the jokes he says are for people who fall under certain stereotypes to laugh at sterotypes. This is the NRA vs. Michael Moore, Glen Beck vs. Patty Hearst, and Bill O’ Riley vs. Hippies. There are certain people in the world that I like to call “brand” people—people who insist that you be a blue Democrat, or a red Republican, and I laugh because there are people in certain parts of the L.A. basin that make you pick between certain colors like red and blue. It’s all the same. Can’t a person be a person? I’m not being smug; I just like to make educated opinions.
“I mean, I hate how blacks complain about ‘racism,’ are you kidding me? We basically gave them a free boat ride over here, bred them to become some of the greatest football players of all time—I mean have you seen the mosquitoes in Africa? We saved those people, hahahah!” Oh God, he’s laughing at his own jokes.
Normally a man like this wouldn’t bother me, but I had to sit here and watch him. Don’t ask why. I’m tolerant of people, or I have the ability to stand up and walk out of the room. I didn’t have the second option. Have you ever wanted someone like him to drop dead?
“Why don’t Mexicans play the game Uno?” Another damn question! “Because they’re always stealing the green card!” The crowd erupted again. Does anyone have any jokes directed for the typical white man?
I imagined him suddenly stopping his act.
The act suddenly stopped.
I imagined him trying to recover by wiping his forehead and continuing with another horrible joke.
“How do you say ‘that’s not right’ in Chinese?” He wiped the sweat off his forehead.
I imagined him starting to pant, his breath growing rapid, but weaker.
“Sum. . .” He breathed in and out, “Ting… Wong.”
I imagined him clutching his arm and kneeling to the ground, the crowd breathless as they wondered if this was another horrible joke.
He clutched his arms, and knelt to the ground until he fell to the floor on his back.
I stood up from my chair. The audience walked closer to the stage.
I walked outside and it was raining. Maybe that’s a symbol?
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