Molly Ivins, �Nothin� But Good Times Ahead�
One of the reason that I read so much by P.J. O�Rourke is because liberals don�t know how to be funny. Sure, people like Noam Chomsky or Michael Parenti or Ben Bagdikian have incredibly interesting things to discuss and learn, but they would bomb at a comedy club. I�ve seen Chomsky speak in person, and the man is dryer than, well, a Maytag dryer. They never know how to have any fun. It�s part of the PC backlash, the same backlash that made my last band decide to call ourselves �Idiot Bitch� in the first place. �Ooooh!� say the liberal elite. �Don�t say that! Some people might be offended!�
Offensitivity, to quote Berke Breathed.
And so, from the atmosphere of cultural respect, we breed a culture of fear. Fear that anything we say in jest may be taken as seriousness, and so we stifle ourselves. Or I should say they stifle themselves, �cause I�m still on the corner being as obnoxious and offensive to everybody. I�m an equal opportunity offender, and fortunately, there isn�t a need to try and use affirmative action � everybody needs an equal amount of berating in my book.
Especially you, fuckhead.
In the meantime though, if I want to hear somebody who has a point and who also happens to be funny, I�m forced to stick with O�Rourke, whom I also happen to disagree with almost every thing he says, while still manages to make me laugh my head off.
Well, no longer. Along comes Molly Ivins. And it�s about time. Ivins is a smart liberal democrat, made even funnier because she lives in the middle of Texas. She even looks and sounds like she comes from the middle of Texas, whereas other people of liberal persuasions move away from the area and try to lose the accent as quickly as possible.
Ivins, through her writing, comes across as a beer swilling, armadillo shooting, truck driving, arm wrestling, rootin� tootin don�t fuck with Texas lil� lady, who will challenge any yahoo who wants to take away abortion rights to a rasslin� match. And win.
But she ain�t all Texan, �cause this gal is smart. Smart enough to know that if you pull the hoity-toity Ed-Yoo-Kated mumbo jumbo, you�re going to lose more than half of your audience. Thus, in between stories of a wild boar roaming in her suburbs and drinking at the saloon, she reminds people of the homeless wandering the streets, or the culpability of our so-called elected officials. And she hates Bush, which is always a plus, especially since she isn�t afraid to say as such.
With Ivins� you can sit around and shoot the shit over a couple of beers. I think it�s been a long time since Chomsky even went into a bar to use the bathroom. Even better, unlike O�Rourke, she backs up her jokes with the facts behind them, so nobody can accuse her of changing facts to suit her punchline. Even Michael Parenti doesn�t do that, though I don�t think he�s ever been funny in his life. But even with all of that, she never gets preachy for the converted, and that�s why she�s probably one of the most important humorists working today.
Unfortunately, she�s also centered in Texas, and it shows. Several of these pieces deal with local officials, and we as Americans prefer to limit our knowledge to a fifteen-foot circumference. This is an old book, and her popularity has grown, so I can only hope she has since branched out into a more national view. The more people who can relate to her stories, the more people who will read � at first to laugh, and then to learn.
