Humor needs no apologies (Would dad approve)



The truth behind mostly widely read blogs and websites.

There is something in the water today...or is it the air (no, what is in the air is burning forests...at least here in Colorado, that is). Several times today, I have been involved in conversations about comedians having to apologize for making a joke. It has even infected the internet (Nerdist: Comedy Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry...Right?).
A lot of people do not like my personal stance--I never apologize for making a joke, no matter how badly it fails or how offended you feel about it. The only possible exception is if you are a friend that I have known for years...and I must really care deeply about your feelings to even consider apologizing to you. I have been known not to apologize to people that I was having sex with, so the average internet reader doesn't have much of a chance to weasel an apology out of me.

Basically, there are three people in my universe who might be able to get an apology if I offend them with a joke...or at least, there are only three people that I ever remember apologizing to for comedic mistakes.

In fact, I am just the type of person who if I realize that the subject matter bugs you that I will keep pounding that particular drum all night long. Yes, I know it is rude--I don't care. This is something that recently some people did not consider when accusing me of making a particular joke that they did not like...if I was responsible, I would have continued to use the offensive character in question. (Hell, the character had great potential in my opinion.) It might be a family trait.

Occasionally, someone wants me to apologize for something that I found funny. Really? I need to apologize for having a sense of humor that doesn't perfectly match your finely attuned  and much superior sense of humor? Sorry, but that is not going to happen either.

My first role model for comedy was my father. And yes, that is probably the worst thing that could happen to me. Dad worked construction, was a delivery driver, etc., all those manly jobs that I consider to be too phsyically intensive for my tastes.

(On the other hand, I choose to do the mental labor intensive tasks of staring at a blank screen until my forehead bleeds--I am not sure that was a wiser decision.)

Anyways, most of the jokes that my father told involved the Polish. His friends focused on the other races.

This was before the era of political correctness. Today, you would not dream of telling these types of jokes. On one hand, this is a good thing--we now know that we just one big human family, an unhappy infighting one, but still family. On the other hand, it tends to led to the argument that you are not allowed to point out the weird things that anyone does because it might offend them--after all, you do not want a stupid person to realize that they are being stupid.

Would my father approve of my own humor? I am not sure. He would probably groan at the weird definitions that I created for The Zealot's Dictionary. He would probably also agree that some of my jokes work best in person (or video) because discussions of the specialness of OTO is best when accompanied by a hip bop and the Golden Dawn with an Elvis thrust. And he would definitely support my opinion that if one person is allowed to use bad humor about people they do not like, then so am I when I talk about them in return.

Yes, my dad might not have understood my sense of humor or many of the jokes I tell. But he would support my stance that no apologies would be forthcoming just because it just happened to offend you. After all, he never apologized for any of the jokes that he told, no matter how dubious they were.