Post-ride deep thoughts

As I was preparing my dinner,* I was allowing my mind to wander back over the preparation of the dinner. I had invited jeff over for dinner, he joined me, then helped me clean up. Given jeff’s house’s proximity to my house, this is likely to become a relatively frequent occurrence, and then my imagination took over and proposed the scenario of some of the folks from work coming over and observing jeff and me cooking and cleaning efficiently together, and then the inevitable gay jokes that would accompany the observation. Why my mind wander like this, I haven’t the faintest idea.

Incidentally, the riesling spätlesse that I bought on saturday has a decidedly peachy flavor that I only noticed now, but not at the tasting.

Anyway. pursuant to the above flight of fancy, my imaginary counterpart of myself gets irritated, rolls his eyes, and mocks the gay jokes. My co-workers, no doubt mere maligning shadows of their actual selves, respond in a manner paraphrased adequately as, “light up, dude, it’s just a joke.”

Now, I have, over the past..mm…5-6 year or so, lost some of my sense of humor, especially or, hopefully, exclusively when dealing with people I don’t know. So I asked myself….what is the big deal? Why am I making such a big deal out of gay jokes, even in stupidly pointless near-future fictions that I’m telling myself to pass the time?

As I opened and poured the wine, the answer came to me. The reason that it’s worth posting is mainly because this isn’t the first time that this question has bothered me, but I’ve never managed to come up with a response that I felt was adequate. I think many of you, dear readers, especially those of you who think for a living (my academic acquaintances, associates, allies, advisory friends), will have had this revelation long ago and wonder why I’ve spent all this time building it up. Chalk it up to wireless, wine, and winded mind. Anyway, the revelation, the deep thought, was this: that humor that understands is funny. Humor that the listener believes** to be based in ignorance is not. This is why I usually get annoyed or even offended when most of the folks I know from the Air Force community make gay jokes…they rarely show any understanding of the gay folks that I’ve known. Further, reinforcing this belief of mine, they often make serious references to show that they do not understand the truth of the matter, but are operating out of fear or ignorance.

As an example, it’s why when Chris Rock or Dave Chapelle make a joke about blacks, it’s usually pretty funny to most of it. Their humor seems to convey understanding, even when it is a harsh or satirical humor that exposes or questions even as it entertains. It’s why people inside of a group are more able to make jokes at that groups expense…their audience will feel, rightly or wrongly, that their joke is based on understanding and truth. Conversely,*** when people like George Allen or Rush Limbaugh (or, really, any republican) make a joke about black people, it comes off as in poor taste at best, and deeply racist at worst.

Back to the original fiction. Despite the fact that I believe that I’m right in this, I may not be giving my peers from work the benefit of the doubt. If their understanding is greater than I suppose, than I am guilty of having no sense of humor. Which, these days, seems likely.

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*…by which I mean pulling yesterday’s pork out of the fridge and putting it on a plate for the purposes of consumption.

**I wanted to use “knows” here, but it wouldn’t be accurate enough. It’s why the cultist cannot see the humor when his cult is mocked, or the nationalist her nation, or the starry eyed lovers their childish romance. The truth and fact of the matter, objectively or subjectively, don’t matter. Only the audience’s perception of it, individually.

***Ok, is that the right usage? My logic usage of conversely, inversely, etc., has never been accurate.