comedy

The Tyrannical Rule of Three Callbacks

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Last Call for the Three Comedians

The melancholic comedian considered the puzzle of existence. 

The listener doesn’t know. The ins and outs.

He considered the audience, melancholic, dour, hard to please. Their lack of humor saddened him and effected his presence, a poor reflection upon them. He sought out the advice of his compatriots. 

His bombardier insisted the answer was to hurl more bombs, from unexpected directions, the unpredictability measured to alter the viewpoint of the audience. In this she was adamant. It was the only way. Confrontational mendacity. Factionalize the audience. Make them fight themselves before you. Because the listeners don’t know. 

What’s good for them. 

She had written a book on this subject, of interest to those who rebel. Naturally it bombed in the marketplace. She claimed it had been defused by being watered down by said marketplace; because a product of a marketplace can never overturn 

the market 

in which it, itself, is a product which arose from those market forces. But people don’t usually find talk like that funny. 

That’s the problem, said the bombedier. The body counts.

The upbeat comedian commented that the way was to be as middling as possible, to pander to the most genteel sensibilities,  feed the crowd hamburger to warm their hearts, to make the audience feel 

comfortable 

and part of the majority. To fit in, together. Because the average listener doesn’t know. 

What they are missing. 

That is why they are so easily satisfied. The other comedians called him a dirty hack, which, of course, he was. But those people who called him that were themselves guilty of being controversial. And it’s a strange hill to take a stand on because controversies shift underneath you. And you might slip and fall. And people would laugh.

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