***

I’m beginning to get very angry whenever I see those “Support the Troops” car magnets.  They are the lamest, phoniest way of taking credit for other peoples’ bravery.  They have NOTHING to do with supporting the troops, and EVERYTHING to do with broadcasting a highly politicized version of moral superiority.  Today, someone complained in a letter to the editor that somebody  stole the magnet off her car.  What is this world coming to, she asserted, when a vandal in the night can just come along and have enough disdain for our freedoms, that they would STEAL a magnet whose express purpose was supporting the troops?

Well lady, if you’re so into supporting the troops, who cares if someone stole your little ribbon?  Great!  You already donated the 5 bucks, (or whatever it is) for the families of soldiers, isn’t that more important to you than having an over sized fridge magnet?  Hell, you should be thrilled at the opportunity to buy another one and support the troops some more!  If you were really committed, you wouldn’t have even put it on your car, you would have bought a dozen and given them to all your friends and motivated them to do the same.

But no, that would never do!  Then, total strangers would think that your good-for-nothing, troop-hating friends gave money to help military families and you didn’t, because you want all the troops to die.

Heaven forbid the only thing you’d get for your money is the knowledge that you helped somebody you’ll never meet in their time of need, and that’s just not worth the 5 dollars, is it?  No, that’s not why you display the gaudy fake ribbon on the bumper of your Chevy Silverado.  Oddly enough, if people like you rode your bikes a little more, and drove your Silverados a little less, there wouldn’t be quite so many troops in the Middle East.  The Iraqis might as well be sitting on Jell-o if we didn’t need their oil so much.

Troops don’t need any more fake support, they get enough of that already, for good reason, too.  What better way to convince young men and women to do brutal, dangerous work that most of us wouldn’t dream of doing, than by constantly heaping meaningless platitudes like “support” on them.  It’s easier than paying them more, which reminds me, troops also get another kind of support, it’s called a livable salary.  They’re paid to do a job, and they do it.  How about a ribbon that says Support the Pacifists?  Or Support the Scientists?  They’re the ones that need our support these days [George W. Bush still President at the time of writing].  What about Support the Prostitutes?  Support the Janitors!  Support the Garbage Collectors!  They all do hard, thankless work that nobody else wants to do, and they don’t get paid well either.  Not to mention, they all have dirty, used equipment too.

Garbage men have wives and children. 

“When’s daddy coming home?”

“I don’t know, Tommy, I don’t know… It depends if he gets deployed to… Riverbend…”

“Daddy might go to Riverbend?”

“Yes Tommy, he might.”

“But there’s so much garbage there, he might never come back…”

“Do NOT talk like that Tommy, he’ll come back, I know he’ll come back.   Oh, look, a car just drove by with a magnet that says ‘Support the Garbage Men’ on it!  Did you see that, Tommy?   It was shaped like a ribbon!  It’s going to be OK!!!!”

***

Ugh, Support the Troops Car Magnets.  What a travesty.

Welcome to my new series called, “Travesty”.  This is where I tell people who don’t care what I think, about the worst things in the world.  It is my first foray into becoming a curmudgeon.  I’m guessing it won’t be the last.

Today I cover the “spoof” video.  What’s a spoof?  Well, dictionary.com (a handy resource) lists it as:

1. a mocking imitation of someone or something, usually light and good-humored; lampoon or parody: The show was a spoof of college life.

2. a hoax; prank.

Of course, on today’s internet, the correct definition is:

1. Unoriginal imitation

2. Hunk of crap

Please see exhibit A, a spoof of a popular Saturday Night Live sketch.  (Keep in mind, SNL has been around longer than most people doing spoof videos of it.  A sad aside.)

Yes, it’s just like the original, but with one detail changed.  They replaced “mother” with, get this, “father.”

Oh my dear Lord Xanadu, that is just wicked! They’re making fun of… uh… well they’re taking the fact that the original video is funny and creative, and… uh… uh… proving how funny and creative it is?

I know what could make this video better… FORGETTING IT EVER EXISTED!

I’m not even going to mention that all the work that went into the MUSICAL part of the song was just copied and pasted.  Ripped……… Off.

But it’s a parody!  It’s a parody!  It’s like Weird Al!  He’s a respected musician!

Weird Al Yankovich doesn’t do parodies of funny songs, and I’ll tell you why:  It wouldn’t be a parody if he did.  He has to work hard to come up with funny takes on serious songs.  The more serious the song/artist, the better.  Not to mention, Weird Al has written COUNTLESS original funny songs on top of his parody repertoire.  I’d bet my life (value: $26.17) that Weird Al has received thousands of e-mails telling him he should do a parody of any number of SNL/Lonely Island songs, and I’d bet even more that he pays someone to delete them.

Ok, the point is this:

If you make a parody of something serious and put a funny light on it, that’s funny.  If you parody something that’s already funny, and make it less funny, that is a TRAVESTY.

Being creative is hard, I know.  It means having to use your brain, like, once a week.  At least!  And brains just aren’t made to be used that often.  If they were, they’d be five times the size, and ten times the mass.  Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg are creative.  Can you imagine the rush they got, the joy they felt, coming up with the funnier, original video?  If you are the creator of this spoof video, my guess is, no.  You probably can’t.

Spoof videos are an easy way for someone to convince themselves that they’re funny.  It’s like paint-by-numbers, without the skill.  YouTube is rife with this kind of bandwidth-wasting tripe.  It’s like the monkey inside us has suddenly found an outlet.  Ooooh, funny movie!  Me like, me like.  Hey monkey-friend, grab camera!  We shoot exact same thing!  We are profeshunals now!  Wait!  We must change single detail.  Now we are funny, origninul profeshunals!

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but there’s a difference between flattery and respect.  And that difference is… the Spoof Video.

Ugh, what a travesty.