So, we did it. We attended the ironic anti-rally in DC. And you know what? It didn't feel like an anti-rally there. I mean it does now, after reading all the dissections and ruminations by the online media and blogosphere, and seeing the hilarious signs posted on various web-culture aggregators (our signs not among them. Boo!), but when you're down in that shit, packed assholes to elbows with 200,000 liberals, it is definitely a Rally, with all that entails.
The signs turned out great. There was a last-minute jerry-rigging, when Kim's mom pointed out that the "LaDouche" logo bar running on the bottom of each sign would possibly(probably) give the impression that we thought Obama was a douchebag; seeing her point, we hastily covered the logos with black tape, and off we went.
And on the whole, I feel pretty good about the reaction we got-- most people got the joke, though it often took a second to figure out (those are my favorite jokes, by the way-- the ones you're confused about just for a beat, so that in the next beat when you get it, it's rewarding, as if you getting the joke is a collaboration with the joke-teller). But some people didn't get it, and those people really didn't get it. I now know what stand-up comics mean, when they talk about fixating on the one dude in the audience who doesn't get them; it's frustrating as hell, and you feel like if they just used their brain for one fucking second they'd see it, but the don't know how to use their brain, so what the hell can you do? Nothing.
The first critic we got was an older black woman at the Metro station who walked by Kim and said "I don't like you" as she passed, and then gave us the stink eye the entire wait for the train. I wanted to explain the whole thing to her, but knowing what I know now I'd probably never have succeded. A minute later an old man came up and just looked at us, said nothing, and walked away, clearly annoyed. We shook all this off pretty easily, because there were many others who got the joke, complimented us, and even took pictures of and with us. So I was feeling pretty good.
At the rally, a really old lady (sensing a pattern here?) came up to us and asked us why we were there if we weren't going to be civil. I couldn't believe it; she actually mistook us for Teabaggers! I mean, had she ever even seen their signs?
Another older guy behind us told me he could tell we were joking, but didn't get the joke. I explained that the LaRouchies put a Hitler mustache on Obama as if that alone made him a Fascist; so what happens when you put a Dali mustache on him? Get it? Eh?
He didn't. "That's the problem I have with Stewart and Colbert," he said. "Their jokes are to intellectual. I don't understand all that brainy stuff."
Yes, they are intellectual. I can't help you, my man.
Another older black lady actually punched me in the shoulder, and demanded, "Do you really believe that?" meaning my sign. I stared at her, confused for a moment, and said, "No!" What, do I believe Obama is exactly like Frank Zappa? Yes, of course I do. Once you put a mustache and soul patch on him, it should be easy to see that Obama is a multi-instrumentalist, obscure rock genius.
So what I learned, though should have realized, is that the Baby Boomers have no sense of irony, which folds nicely into my thesis about them being the worst generation in American history. And that MY generation speaks irony as a second language. And of course we do; how else to respond to being raised by the most entitled, ideological, overzealous, over-earnest, ignorant navel-gazers ever?
All I know is, the kids got my signs. Not a single critic was under 50. And that's why Stewart and Colbert resonate so strongly with us: they speak irony. There is no defense against it, and no way to even comprehend it if you don't speak it. And I learned I speak it as fluently as anyone. So the question for me is, what's next?
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