Sunday, April 30, 2006

Dissin' The Dubyuh

I don't just sit around chewing gum, filing my nails, reading comic books, and listening to records all the time. Although it sometimes hurts my head to do so, I occasionally think about more serious stuff. Such as Stephen Colbert's "performance" (here pt.1 and here pt. 2) at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner Saturday night (if a performance is what you call it), which could not have been more disrespectful toward Boosh than if he'd got right up in the Dubyuh's face and Done the Dozens on his momma.

Afterwards, Colbert was quoted as saying the whole thing was done in the spirit of good, clean "comedy" fun. If you believe that, then I have some proverbial swampland in Florida. . .. But at least Colbert equivocated after the fact.

This is the only thing I have witnessed in the mainstream media since the start of WMD that even begins to reflect the seething, unbridled rage that most of my friends and I, and, I suspect, a good deal of the rest of the world feel toward this low-normal, failed Wal-Mart Manager of a president of yours (he's not mine). A welcome relief from endless pseudo "news"--- stuff such as Rosie O'Donnell obstructing "The View" and the Long Island Lolita's facelift---this was not at all like the copout on the cover of the current Rolling Stone, with its "The Worst President in History?" headline. Colbert not only ripped Boosh a new one, but removed that lingering question mark after "History" for once and all time.

What made the whole thing doubly effective was the offhanded, common-as-an-old-shoe, cliche-mongering style of Colbert's faux Fox Network commentator, more-or-less modelled on none other than THE MAN himself.

I felt like I was watching living history unfold before my very eyes. As in, "Do you remember where you were in 2006 when someone finally went on live TV and told the truth for a change?" Had it been tape-delayed, Colbert would probably never have made it to the air.

Don't get me wrong: I love Jon Stewart as much as the next guy, but this was something else. As if Colbert were channeling Lenny Bruce. It was that rough. Rougher! The entire half-hour-or-so turn, which included a 10-minute film co-starring recalcitrant reporter Helen Thomas (!), was a high water mark in the annals of snarkery and---to employ Colbert's popular catchphrase--- truthiness, not to mention "political satire."

No disrespect intended, but the old man is probably still throwing up, and not just from all the booze he quaffed Saturday night. Heads are bound to roll this Monday morning, and I don't mean at Comedy Central, where Colbert is employed.

Thus far, all wings of the Fourth Estate, as much a villain of Colbert's "piece" as Boosh himself, have been more-or-less mum about the entire affair. They choose to focus instead on a lame, mildly self-deprecatory routine that Boosh did with a---poor bastard---presidential lookalike. Predictable.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Poor Bushie.
Colbert's schtick never fails to get me roaring with laughter.