I Feel There Is Still Potential in the "Funny Animal" Genre, Though

There has been a fair amount of talk of "café culture" in my world line lately, due to the influence of certain elements. Mostly "café culture" seems to mean breaking minor laws while sitting in front of Au Bon Pain. Today I was doing the latter half when a strange conjuncture occurred:

1. I started eating a "caprese" sandwich, the most shamefully class-inscribed of all widely available sandwiches (mozzarella, tomato, pesto, baguette).
2. A truck drove past, its trailer emblazoned with the word "BOURGEOIS."
3. A loud-mouthed would-be troubadour said, by way of introduction, "This is a song about my identity."

The troubadour troubled me, which raises etymological questions I don't dare to confront. I encountered him at a different location earlier on, engaging in a weirdly violent performance/terrorism: as people walked by, he sang about them. "You, with that pastry / Is it tasty?" It was something of an "act" and a "joke," but you could tell how uncomfortable people were with the (unacknowledged) shattering of their anonymity. A few steps away, a hired hand dispensed free samples of Eclipse gum, but people weren't taking them because they thought there was a catch, such as homelessness. The troubadour greased the wheels with his dulcet tones: "Hey, why don't you take that gum? / It's actually free!"

Obviously there are lots of things here about space, "the city," quack quack. I kind of liked the guy. But by the time he wound up in front of Au Bon Pain, his gimmick had become weirdly toothless and dispiriting. He sang that Barbie girl song in a funny voice. Also songs by Britney Spears. The small crowd was eating it up, so he transitioned to original works. The song about his identity was actually a riff on being — get this — Jewish, but taking Jesus as a role model. Main joke: the idea of Jesus eating gefilte fish (Jesus was Jewish!). Next song (people are digging this): something about Massachusetts politicians drinking a lot, doing drugs, and "lov[ing] coitus." Main joke: name of Massachusetts politician + lifestyle infraction. Final song, loudly demanded (and therefore apparently previously heard) by a homeless man: begins with the phrase "Starbucks supports Al Qaeda." Main joke: Starbucks supports Al Qaeda.

Now look — and here is where I guess I cross the line separating Gawker-style "here's a thing" from other-blogs–style "here's a thing" — this is just terrible. Everyone was laughing and laughing, thrilled at how controversial this guy was being, at how un-Peoria they were for accepting his jester-like truth-to-power shenanigans in the heart of the town square. But what was his point, exactly? Jesus was a Jew: incredible how this still retains force as a "startling" "revelation." Politicans as "immoral" in boring way: a staple of conservative thought. Are we to be titillated by this? Starbucks + Al Qaeda: a little funny, I'll admit. But how characteristic of the whole currently dominant mode of production of culturally knowing pseudo-humor! Just juxtapose some things that are floating around in the culture. Jesus robots! Robot Jesus zombie terrorist monkeys! I don't even want to go on; it's too sad, and I'm wasting perfectly marketable YouTube screenplay ideas. In the comic store I patronize — the shelves of which are strewn with the works of Robert Kirkman, an avatar of this style of "creativity" who's starting up a wolf-man book to complement, among other things, his (hilariously irreverent!!) Battle Pope book — a white board behind the register lists the week's new releases. A few times in the recent past, books entitled Zombie and Zombies came out during the same week, and I think that a third book, Zombies vs. Robots, also came out one of those weeks. The mischievous store clerks added fictitious entries for Zombies vs. Robots vs. Monkeys and Zombies vs. Robots vs. Monkeys vs. Pirates underneath, but it took me at least a few cycles to figure out what was real and what wasn't.

Surely this isn't all the future has to offer, right?

Blog 1: a comics review: "First, I think we can all agree that 'Zombies vs. Robots' is the best title of anything in the history of the world.…One might wonder how anyone can get a good story out of this concept. After all, what possible threat can zombies pose to robots? And at first, the answer would seem to be, 'Not much.'" (But there's a twist.)

Blog 2: http://robotzombiejesus.blogspot.com/.