Ironically, everyone is talking about the one segment of Carolla’s podcast I deliberately fast forwarded through yesterday.
As I mentioned yesterday morning, I noticed on the show summary that Sarah Palin’s “Paul Revere” “controversy” was one of the topics discussed on the show.
So I deliberately fast-forwarded through the show’s “news” segment, to avoid what I figured would just be the usual tedious faux outrage.
(P.S., Dana Gould, pick up the white courtesy phone— and try to remember, you’re a comedian, not a campaign manager.)
This morning, lots of my newsfeeds reported that Carolla’s guest, Christopher Titus, “joked” that he would kill Sarah Palin if she got elected president. (Audio.)
Uttering death threats is a crime, and Titus did use the word “literally,” but stand up comedians say all kinds of stupid stuff on stage (and off). I’m not outrageously outraged by this, just amused that that’s really the best Titus has.
Regular readers know, I have no time for “tone” and “line crossing.” In and of itself, this is not a big deal.
If the Secret Service investigated him, I’d be surprised. Is this really a “credible” threat? Do stand up comedians really go around “literally” killing people other than themselves?
It’s not like he’s Muslim or something.
The rule on the Carolla show is “yes, and…” also known as “don’t shit on my point.” The more elevated expression for the same thing is the old improv rule, “always affirm.”
If his guest goes off on a topic, however offensive or, frankly, boring (like Joe Rogan’s pot-fuelled paranoid “we didn’t land on the moon” conspiracy theories) Carolla plays along, or makes a superior observation back, but never says, “That’s stupid, shut up.” The most that will happen is a change of subject.
Anything else is a bad show, and bad “comedy manners.” It isn’t done, any more than someone in the Glenn Miller Orchestra would have wheeled around and screamed “You just played the wrong note” at a trumpet player. That’s show biz.
In this case, Carolla’s response was to joke about someone shooting Titus for threatening Palin, then seeing if he remembered the Paul Revere story any better than she did. I doubt Carolla cares passionately about Palin either way, but he does care about not turning a live comedy show into “a very special episode” or “a learning experience.”
Watching the Titus’s of America work themselves into pitiful frenzies over Palin is fun. Let them burn themselves out. And when they turn around and bitch about “civility,” we just have more ammo against them.
It’s like Dennis Miller said yesterday: if Anthony Weiner is a “smart” guy and Palin’s a “dummy,” then I guess I’m on the side of the “dummies” now.
UPDATE: Jim Treacher comments — “I think we’re all missing the real story here: Christopher Titus is still alive.”
