Notes Towards a Joke About the Crisis in Gaza
First things first, need to figure out which side to take. Research history of region? Yipes. Would need the patience of a Talmudic scholar to parse even the Wikipedia page for this whole thing, ironically enough.
Does that count as irony? Yes? Because you’d need the patience of a Talmudic scholar but, like, obviously he’d be biased?
Should look up definition of irony. Been throwing term around loosely, lately. Called dinner ironic last night when I think what I really meant was coincidental.
Do I actually need to take sides? Book says jokes need a point of view to succeed. So yes. Book also says to tell self-deprecating stories instead of making jokes at expense of others. Israel killed 1000 Palestinians in just three weeks. I wish I had that kind of determination. I have laundry that’s been waiting to get done for longer than three weeks. I haven’t even watched every episode of Orange is the New Black yet, and it’s been out since early June.
Over 1000 dead at this point, wow. A lot of them civilians and kids. Hard to side with Israel when you read that. But I guess some of those people died because Hamas is using them as human shields? Or at least they seem to be hiding rockets and other ordinance in civilian locations? That’s pretty messed up.
Pretty messed up to wantonly bomb those locations, too, though. Jesus, this is tough. Wish I had economic ties to one side or the other; that would make it so much easier to feel confident about who’s in the right.
Read that Israel claims that they’ve tried warning Palestinian civilians away from their targets via text messages and phone calls. Maybe joke about how Sprint’s poor service is to blame? Israel blames Sprint for rising number of civilian casualties?
Do they have Sprint over there? Should look that up. AT&T or whatever would work just as well.
Pressed for comment, Sprint executive casually points to report suggesting correlation between rise in cell phone use and brain cancer, responds, “The cleansing of this world is a necessity as we pave the way for my master’s ascension.”
That takes a turn, that ascension thing at the end. Why does everything come back to some kind of Lovecraftian horror with me? Probably because his tales of nature’s brutal indifference to suffering and predisposition to subjugation seem especially accurate in regards to a lot of recent events.
Is making a joke about this whole mess really necessary? Isn’t some stuff out-of-bounds? Or is it true that laughter is the best medicine, and that satire is the quickest route to catharsis? Is catharsis necessary? Maybe there are some things you don’t get a release from. Maybe some stuff is just horrible and real and you have to accept the darkness and learn to live within it…
…Can’t forget, though, that finding humorous angle on this situation would be a very edgy thing to do/people like edgy/edgy gets attention.
Need attention. Why need so much attention? Way raised? Should write long essay exploring topic. Include personal details spun to give the illusion of brave disclosure but weighted in favor of me seeming cool. Share story of first sexual experience? I don’t know, neither of those girls model anymore, they’re both married and I think the tall one has kids now. Maybe leave them out of it.
Trying to gauge which side to take via scanning Facebook and Twitter. Both sides come off a little vicious, a little blind to the complexities of the situation. Women on both sides I wouldn’t mind impressing… better chance of scoring if I go pro-Palestine but I’d have a better time scoring with the ones rooting for the IDF.
Split the difference, come up with joke that allows for sexual availability on either side? Maybe a joke about the American response… something like Obama Administration mulls response to Israel-Hamas conflict, polls voter response to photographs of dead children.
Has potential, but mocking Obama might skew too right-wing. I’m trying to get laid here. Not that I wouldn’t be interested in someone just because they’re on the right—I just don’t want to have to pretend to like Zac Brown Band.
Then again, getting texted a bunch of links to Noam Chomsky speeches would might be worse.
Took a break to scan some news from Comicon. Epiphany.
How about a picture from Gaza, like this one–
–and then a caption that says ‘Palestinian re-enactment of summer blockbuster movie gains international attention.’
Gives illusion of a point of view. If you’re pro-Palestine it’s about the atrocities Israel is committing; if you’re pro-Israel it’s about how Hamas plays up the destruction to gain international support. Also picks fun at American propensity for spectacle and the way Hollywood desensitizes us to acts of violence, and it’s edgy because I’m making light of real human suffering.
Glad I got that figured out. Now I can go back to binge-watching Cheers on Netflix. So, so good.
The Tusk 
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