Anthony Bergen - Fly Away Hypocrites

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"Here's a sigh to those who love me, And a smile to those who hate: And, whatever sky's above me, Here's a heart for every fate."

I rarely have anything important or interesting to say, but if I do, you can usually count on me to say it in a fairly entertaining way. For the most part, I will use this blog because it seems like a fun thing to play with. Like the rest of my phases, this will likely burn out quickly. Instead of a blaze of glory, however, it will simply smolder until someone steps on it like an irritating fire just begging to be extinguished.

Metaphors are for assholes.

"I'll publish right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song." - Lord Byron

E-mail: bergen.anthony@gmail.com

August 27, 2009

Fly Away Hypocrites

So, I lost some followers today because I was mean and made fun of a soldier. Because, see, it’s okay for me to make fun of AIDS victims, or babies getting beat up, or people with cancer, or pregnant women getting thrown down stairwells. It’s okay for me to be racist or make abortion and miscarriage jokes. It’s okay for me to constantly poke fun at homosexuals. It’s okay for me to do that because those don’t hit close to home for most people.

But soldiers? Oh my. You can’t make fun of a soldier. Everyone knows a soldier. Someone’s brother is a soldier, or their sister is in the Navy, or their cousin might get shipped to Afghanistan when they are finished with boot camp in three years because they are too stupid or too fat to pass it the first time. No, soldiers are sacred. Soldiers are above the fray. You’re an asshole if you make fun of a soldier.

Let me put it very simply: Nobody is above humor, nobody is too good to be poked fun at and nothing — yes NOTHING — is sacred. That’s the great thing about humor. See, all of those other topics — AIDS, abortion, miscarriages, racism, homosexuality, cancer — they hit *someone* close to home. There’s always going to be at least one person who doesn’t like what I am joking about. And that is fine. That is absolutely okay. There are followers of mine who don’t like Laci Peterson jokes, so they don’t laugh at them or they don’t read them. What they don’t do is hypocritically unfollow me because I hit too close to home one time out of 700 posts. What they don’t do is tell me that I can’t make jokes like that.

Do you know what happens when you tell me that I can’t make jokes like that? I find worse ones to make, which is why I came back for Round Two with burn victim jokes. I have nothing against the soldier who I poked fun at, but I also don’t have anything against people with AIDS or aborted babies. Those jokes are fine, but I have to stay away from the soldier? The soldier lived. Yes, he did something heroic, but when you tell me that he fought for my freedom, I tell you that I’ve been free since I was born. Unless he fought in the Revolutionary War, then he didn’t fight for my freedom.

It’s a tragic story. It’s not nice to poke fun at, but it’s fine to make Laci Peterson jokes? Someone said that I should go back to making Laci jokes because “Laci deserved to be killed”. REALLY? A pregnant woman who did nothing wrong deserved to be killed on Christmas Eve and dumped in San Francisco Bay? Really? No, not really. It’s just easier to handle because she’s not here staring us in the face like the soldier is. Plus, it’s easy to get behind what the cool kids are doing. When everyone’s laughing at my AIDS jokes or my miscarriage jokes, it’s all fun and games. But when the majority of people are repelled and criticize and unfollow because they don’t like the burn victim jokes, then you gotta go with that crowd, right? That’s why they call you “Followers”.

To those of you who liked the jokes, thanks. To those of you who didn’t like the jokes, but felt that it was fine for me to write them since I attack everything and everybody, thank you, too. To those of you who didn’t like the jokes and never followed me before and wouldn’t follow me in the first place because of my humor, I understand. I really do. It’s not your thing; it’s not for everybody. To those of you who did follow me and laughed at every other joke about every other misfortunate category but called me “heartless” or an “asshole” for the burn victim material, you are fucking hypocrites and I hope you are disfigured in a fire so that I can make fun of your expressionless face afterwards. (See what I did there?)

George Carlin never apologized. Richard Pryor never apologized. I’m not even trying to compare myself to them, but those are my idols. Those are my comedic role models. What they did was honest comedy that punched you in the face and you either laughed or cried or tried to punch back, but whatever it was, you reacted. What I did today got a reaction, and I will continue getting reactions and when I stop getting a reaction, then you can point and laugh and tell me I’ve run my course.

But I’ve just gotten started. Go shit in a hat.

12:38am | URL: http://anthonybergen.tumblr.com/post/172812860/fly-away-hypocrites
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