Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll asks a pointed question: WHO DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE? She draws on her professional experience to answer the question:

Here is a little secret from the comedy world, my friends. When comics get together, they rarely discuss the great gigs – the standing ovations, the necessity to take several minutes after one of your greatest bits for the audience to calm down so you can deliver the next line. I once did a Women’s Wellness Event in Pueblo, Colorado in which I got FIVE standing ovations – three of them on jokes! But that’s not what other comics care about. Every comic with a couple of years’ experience has had great shows — what comics call “killing.”

No, what comics talk about in private are the horrible gigs. What comics call “dying.”

I had a 30-year career, maybe an average of 100 shows a year, with, perhaps, a dozen really dreadful gigs. I don’t mean tepid audience response – lackluster nights happen — I mean where you want the floor to open up and swallow you whole. Where your whole life flashes before you and you wonder if you had stayed on at the type shop for the last 20 years, if you would almost be on days by now.

One of these dreadful shows was for a national convention in Minneapolis of on-camera “talent” from cable stations all over this great land. A more rude, arrogant, self-absorbed, group of people could not be assembled than that roomful of thin, pretty, vacant-eyed Teleprompter readers of both genders. All sporting good hair and capped white teeth. Not a single fattie or Helen Thomas gargoyle in the bunch.

The nightmare began with the terrible, impotent emcee trying to get the superstars to sit down and shut up. This was a thankless task, because THEY were so very important. THEY were the pretty and interesting ones in the room. Who were those nobodies standing in the wings with the temerity to believe they could entertain them?

So sensing the lack of respect for the upcoming entertainment, did the emcee, one of their members, try to defuse that by reading our prepared introductions listing our credentials? No, of course not. He LITERALLY introduced us “Okay now, calm down people. The local organizing committee for some reason has hired these two comics who nobody has ever heard of. Here’s the first one — .” And then he brought up my opening act, my friend, Tom, a fairly new but talented and funny young comic.

The emcee sat down and immediately set the tone by loudly chatting with his seat-mate, his back to Tom. Can you even imagine anyone you know being this rude? The whole room erupted in more talking and determined ignoring of poor Tom. I’m still appalled.

These are the same kind of people who are intolerably imperious, demanding and rude to waitresses, hotel housekeeping staff, and retail clerks. Tom doggedly did his 20 minutes and, circumventing the emcee, introduced me himself. I got a semi-decent laugh with the first joke and perhaps the first ten tables in front stopped yakking and began to laugh, but it was still really tough sledding. There were people milling about, walking in front of me, chatting in standing groups. I did my time and ended thusly:

“You people were the rudest audience I have ever played. Had you listened to Tom, you would have enjoyed him. For those few of you who listened politely to me and responded, thank you, and I’m glad you enjoyed it. For those many others who did not enjoy us, because you could not bear to shut up, lest some other human have the spotlight for even a minute – tough shit, we got your money.”

I did not do a mic drop. That wasn’t a thing yet. Mics are expensive and I am not a brain-dead vandal. I rarely used vulgarity in my act. But, I’m not sorry. I hurried in tears to the parking lot of the event center, screeched my tires pulling out – and promptly got lost going home.

I include this story to assure you that these are exactly the same people who decide night after night what “is” and “is not” news. They aren’t nearly as smart as the average farmer, nurse, plumber or PL commenter, but they now have one relentless, single-minded goal: to overturn the results of the 2016 election and destroy the presidency of a man who was elected by the Great Uncool Working People who Love America.

The hilarious patriot, Colonel Schlichter, is absolutely correct: THEY HATE US.

They try to disguise it, mostly by a good offense, accusing US of being the hateful ones (as commenter Mary Louise reminds us daily and quite accurately). But every once in a while, they really let the cat out of the cellophane bag. One such recent time was when Politico’s Marc Caputo tweeted that at the Trump Rally if you “put all the garbage people together, you could make a full set of teeth.” Oh, the cleverness, the wit!

I looked up Mr. Caputo’s picture. He is reasonably good-looking. Two things stand out – he has a nice full head of hair and a set of beautiful white teeth, indicating “dental privilege,” possibly including orthodontia. My husband’s cousin by marriage has a full set of lovely implants that cost her over $100,000 in Los Angeles. It’s remotely possible that the average Trump supporter does not have a couple of years’ wages to spend on dental perfection.

I studied that picture of the mockers around Jim Acosta. The snotty little twerp claimed to be “scared” — ha! There was no undercurrent of violence, no brandished bike locks, no arson, only mockery, which these prima donnas hate much worse than violence. The crowd looked perfectly attractive to me. Do you know why Mr. Caputo could even SEE THEIR TEETH? Because they were not cowardly thugs wearing masks, that’s why. But if their teeth WERE less than perfect, for some rich little frat boy political writer to make fun of poor people’s teeth is as unseemly as a group of physicists mocking the intelligence of the mentally handicapped. Not a level playing field, Marky-Marc. You guys pretend to hate “disparity of outcome.”

Will Mr. Caputo’s career be as “kaput” as Roseanne’s or Papa John’s? Get serious!

THEY HATE US. These are insufferable, arrogant elitists: Obama, raised in privilege and private school in Hawaii, calls us intolerant, bitter clingers who hate The Other. The humorless, influence-peddling, ex-First Lady who runs a fraudulent charity, and gets a quarter mil for coughing through each secret corporate speech, calls us Deplorable. And now this little twit from Key West calls his fellow Americans “garbage people.”

Explain, please, Mr. Caputo, what is a “garbage” person? Because it can’t be what you pretended – that you were offended by Yellin’ Jim Acosta being shouted at. You talk about KARMA. Now, personally, I don’t like ANY speaker shouted down. If I don’t like a speaker, I don’t go to the event. I have never even booed at a sporting event. But, heck, you leftists LOVE it when speakers are shouted down. You LIVE to prevent free speech. Ask Milo or Ann Coulter or Candace Owens or Ben Shapiro.

Is a Garbage Person different from a “Deplorable”? If so, how? How about “vermin”? That term did quite well in Nazi Germany. You know what a “garbage” person is to the Caputos of the world? It is a person who refuses to fall to his knees in front of them in wonderment at their brilliance and entitlement to run our lives. For one glorious night in November, we uncool, unhip, garbagey taxpayers utterly forgot our place in the Great Pecking Order. Pull up YouTube once again for the awesome compilation of politicians, media morons and “celebrities” with Carter-era speed limit IQs intoning with rolled eyes and dripping condescension: “Trump will never be President.” Makes my day every time.

The Paranoid Texan next door thinks that I am very ill-informed because I NEVER – and I really do mean NEVER – watch televised news, even local. That’s why I am always surprised by the weather. But, see, I hold grudges, and these biased, bigoted, cowardly lemmings make me sick. We cut our cable, don’t go to movies, have been done forever with the NFL for over two years. We used to watch all three games on Sunday, plus Monday and Thursday nights. We recently got rid of Netflix. Why would I contribute in any way to the obscene salaries of people who hate me? Why would you?

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses