Lighten Up, Francis!

You remember the scene in the movie, Stripes where they are sitting in the barracks and the new soldiers are all telling the others about themselves?  And the guy they called, "Psycho" says, "Any of you HOMO'S touch me?  I'll kill ya!  You touch my stuff?  I'll kill ya!  You call me, Francis?  I'll Kill ya!"

Then the Sargent says, "Lighten up, Francis."

I'm feeling like Sgt. Slugowuski today.  Why is everyone so serious?

I posted two jokes on Facebook yesterday.  One was about my wife, the blind woman, calling me in the middle of the day to ask for the combination to the gun safe.  Now that's some funny shit right there, I don't care who you are.  How many ways can you go with a line like that?  I mean, she can't SEE the keypad, and who's she going to shoot that couldn't just keep moving away from her?  There are a million possible punch lines to that statement.  ONE friend noticed it, and hit, "like" cause she thought it was funny.

The other joke was about women always wanted to change men.  They meet you in a bar where you are drinking and smoking, and marry you, then they want you to change!  I thought that was pretty funny.  No less than SIX people came un-f******-glued at me!  One old friend implied I was hating on women, cause men want their wives to look like supermodels and cook like they should have a show on, The Food Network!

A former boss seems to think I'm drinking myself to death and my wife is constantly bitching at me.  Neither of which is true.  It was just a joke!

Another friend seems to think I was telling the world I am dying and wondered how long I was going to be around.  I'm having a HIP replacement not a HEART transplant!

One old friend even wondered why I would bring that shit up in the first place?  Cause it was funny?  I THOUGHT it was funny.

When I first got to know my friend the comedian, we ONLY communicated by email and Facebook messages or chat room (until she got too famous to use the chat room) for months.  Never talked face to face, didn't talk on the phone.  I never even thought to give her my phone number until she was driving out here last summer and wanted directions.

But one of the first things she said to Deb when we finally did meet face to face was, "Your husband is so funny.  He should be doing stand up."

She got it.  And we had never met.  So how come folks I have know, sometimes since we were teenagers, think I'm a woman hating drunk with a death wish.  And yet I don't believe in an afterlife, so that doesn't make a lot of sense.

I studied Sociology and Psychology.  I KNOW that most communication is non-verbal, when folks are talking face to face.  Voice inflection, facial expression, tone, body language all deliver a message.  But when I have gone out of my way to tell anyone who's paying attention, that when I'm on FB, I'm doing, "Sit Down Comedy", cause I don't have the guts to be a Stand Up Comedian.

When I told this to Lisa, she said, "You kicked down doors in meth labs, and you're afraid to get up on a stage and tell jokes?"

I told her, yeah.  If I was doing a no knock search warrant in a meth lab, and someone FOUND a BOMB (and it happened) I knew how to deal with that.  If I was up on a stage and WAS the BOMB?  That scared me.

So, for the thousandth time, if I say something on FB you don't like?  Before you go off, take a second and ask yourself if I might be trying, even though it could be badly, to make a joke.

Now, if it's about politics or religion and pisses you off?  Well, that's probably NOT a joke.  I'm a total left wing Liberal and an atheist.  So no, I don't respect your denial of global warming and evolution and I don't respect your religious traditions.  That doesn't mean I won't like you as a person.  But I won't stop eating to let YOU say grace in MY house, OK?

And I'm not a total jerk about it.  If you're Jewish?  I'll be happy to keep the cheese off your burger at the BBQ in my backyard.  But don't expect me to give up the pork cause God told YOU it was a bad idea.

Oh, and for my Mormon friends, the few I have left, who are asking yourself, "What's the religious difference between a hamburger and a cheeseburger?"  It's not Kosher to put the dairy on the meat.  We'll talk about shell fish later.

I'm joking again.  Lets see who gets it?