"The Aristocrats" - an example of the larger truth

I am back. I wanted to mention that I watched "The Aristocrats" the other night. For those of you who do not know, it is a documentary style movie, done by Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller fame, on a bunch of stand up comedians doing an old, disgusting joke called the Artistocrats. The point of it is, it is not the joke but the set up.

My wife did not enjoy it. She found the joke as told to be disgusting. That is the point. It is the joke tellers version of free form jazz. The only things that are necessary is the set up and the punchline. The stuff in the middle can be improvised. That improvisation comes from the darkest part of the brain and is full of disgusting, degrading and illegal activities. It always involves lots of bodily fluids, any and all, along with gross acts of indecency that decorum forbids me from listing them here. Then you end with the punchline "the Aristocrats".

The joke itself is not that funny. I mean the punchline is not really funny but when you break the joke down, it becomes apparent that it is all in the set up. It is the journey and not the destination that is the important thing. It is like that in life. The destination is known (and non too pleasant in my eyes since it is the unknown, though religious ideas of an afterlife aside, be honest with yourself it is a matter of faith and not fact, which is okay) so the meaning and fun can only come in the journey.

The damn movie spoke to me in a profound way. Funny how the message came in a disgusting, but thoroughly funny, medium. It was a movie that spoke too a larger truth. It also had some great telling of the joke and breaking it down by some of the best stand up comics of my generation including George Carlin, Gilbert Gottfried, Paul Reiser and Larry Miller. It was good and that is all I will say about it for now. Ciao!