Sigmund Freud would have loved being at lunch with me today.
No, not because i had a hotdog, milkshake and a fine cigar (just like Mom used to make), but because i was more than a bit angry and more than a bit stressed. Some people eat when they're like that, others cry, i crack jokes. In fact, i usually try to crack as many jokes as i can about damn near anything i can find.
So what's with the Freud reference? Old Siggy wrote a pretty long paper on the Theory of Humor. i read this early in my youth after finding it buried on a dark corner of my father's office. You know, there's probably something to be said for both my father (who kept stuff like theories of humor in the dark corners of his office) and myself (who gave up looking for girlie mags for that tome).
Thing is, he had a point. Most people are funniest when they're angry. Sure, it helps to be funny to begin with, but folks like Louis Black wouldn't have had quite the career he's had if he gave a 90 minute monologue about bunnies and sunshine. From "Yo Mama" contests to Oscar Wilde, nothing brings the funny like a right good pisser of a mood, and my GOD does it feel good to let loose. Best thing is that the rant can have absolutely nothing to do with what you're really mad about, but be instead about finding mayo on the barbeque sandwich you got at the cafeteria.
Who the hell puts mayo on a barbeque sandwich?
Is there not enough fat in the shredded meat slathered with sugary sauce that someone decided "You know what would really make this sandwich squirt through someone's system like a Tijuana ex-lax slurpee? Bob! Get me that gallon tub of Hellmans!" i mean, i'd understand if it was back in Virginia. They put mayo on everything there. That glob of white creamy substance in your soup? No, that's not sour cream. Yeah, you'll only WISH the chef was happier to meet you. It's the one state where i would reasonably expect to say "i'll have the chocolate shake, hold the mayo".
After that, i think i was off after something completely different that may or may not have involved badger related headgear. It's kind of a blur to me, but since folks were generally not running away i'm pretty sure i didn't start stabbing the table with my silverware.
i do admit that i felt much better afterwards, and able to meet the next soul crushing with a song in my heart and a smile on my lips.
Granted, now i'm worried that folks will try to make me angry just to get a better show out of me.
Hmm… i wonder how that could have effected others? Ladies and gentleman, fresh from his Broadway Smash, Shecky "the Hulk" Banner…
I… I put mayo on barbecue sandwiches. Barbecue chicken sandwiches, but still.
JIM: If you're talking those "barbeque" sandwiches featuring a whole slab of roasted chicken treated with barbeque sauce… maybe. Since that's basically using sauce as a ketchup replacement.
If you're talking about a 8 hour, slow cooked barbeque complete with delightful pink smoke ring so tender that you don't really chew it so much as let it dissolve in your mouth, no. The only thing that might come close is a proper Carolina 'que with it's tartly vinegar sauce just accenting the pulled meat, that gets served with a topping of fresh cole slaw, and while that should be more vinegar than mayo, some mayo is allowed.
I had this exchange after the Veep heard me cracking jokes on the way back to my desk a couple days ago.
Me: … and that was the end of the Badger Riders of Bangkok
Veep: How's it going?
Me: Frazzled.
Veep: Well, I like your attitude.
Me: It's a coping mechanism.
Never read Freud, but I think the man certain amount good intuition.
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I think there's a similar satisfaction in anger humor and absurdist humor in that they both allow us to experience vicariously that which social decorum prohibits. Would I like to ride a robot elephant through a bank? Of course. But society frowns upon that, so I read comics about it instead.