Funny thing is, cranky critic continues to read

Dear Otus,

I'm 76 and consider myself to have a pretty good sense of humor. I know I'm speaking for many DemGaz subscribers when I say you are not funny. Not in the least.

You have never been funny and it baffles me that they have let you write a weekly column for 38 years. I weep when I think of the number of trees that have died so you'd have newsprint.

Also, I thought you died in 1992. How can you still be writing?

-- Belden Kittredge,

Benton

Dear Belden,

It was a pleasure to hear from you. Not wholly a pleasure, as is usually the case, but a pleasure nonetheless because I'd rather be ignorantly despised than eruditely dismissed.

In addition, despite your opinion of my humor, you have obviously been a regular reader since 1980. I'll count that as a win. And not knowing you personally, I can't attest to your sense of humor or lack thereof, but I will defend to the last your right to your opinion.

But you know what they say about opinions -- everybody has one. But they're like auriculares on humans -- pretty much useless.

If there's one thing I've learned about humor over my storied, award-winning career that was honored in the Guinness World Records 2017 edition (page 118), it's that humor is the most subjective of genres. Some, for example, may find amusement in the groaning simplicity of puns, widely accepted as the lowest form of humor.

Example: Why didn't the cat go to the vet? He was feline fine. See what I did? Feline substituted for feeling. They sound alike, but a feline is a cat. That's a pun.

Others may get a guffaw out of a late-night comedy special on one of the premium channels. You know the ones. The comics try to channel the genius of Richard Pryor or George Carlin, but simply end up with a profanity-laced stream of vulgarity that aims for shock value but ends up being boring.

It's not original, insightful or even provocative. It's simply stale and insipid.

These days many try to be humorous on social media, which is fraught with danger because it's too easy to misinterpret the message without verbal tone, subtlety and nuance.

I recall one recent example when one of Owner's Facebook friends attempted to use humor to give away some kittens.

"Three evil, flea-infested, ugly, hateful six-week-old little monsters available to anyone who wants them," she wrote. "We're having to get rid of ' em because they keep attacking our pit bull."

However, stuff occasionally appears online that's so profound and funny, it gives us pause. This came under a Facebook ad-choked clickbate labeled "Great Truths About Life That Little Children Have Learned."

1. No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.

2. You can't trust dogs to watch your food.

3. Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a Tic Tac.

The list went on.

I'm convinced that the Internet was invented so we could share funny photos and videos of our pets. And pictures of what we're eating at the restaurant. As if anybody cares.

Unfortunately, one major source of humor is schadenfreude, German for "shady glee." It's "laughter emanating from the humiliation of others." It probably began when the first bipedal proto-human with ulnar opposition slipped on the first banana peel much to the delight of his knuckle-dragging cavebros.

Every episode of America's Favorite Home Videos is replete with dads getting smacked in the groin at their child's pinata party. Or people face-planting while attempting a trampoline or skateboarding.

A glace around YouTube finds untold videos of "fails" -- compilations of folks falling down or crashing into things. It's sick and we all laugh. I cringe most at the filming bystanders cackling and laughing and saying, "Duuuude!," while their buddy is still prostrate and in pain.

As far as my continuing to write after my ninth life expired in 1992, I credit clean living and pro bono demands. In addition, Kalaka has arranged for my pearls of wisdom to be electronically disseminated over the World Wide Web from up here across the Rainbow Bridge.

As far as my humor is concerned, it's in the school of the time-honored hyperbolically fabricated anecdotal genre (with the occasional dabble in the mordant and parodic) founded in Fayetteville by the legendary folklorist Vance Randolph in his seminal 1951 best-seller, We Always Lie to Strangers: Tall Tales From the Ozarks.

Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that some also believe Sacha Baron Cohen is funny. Those people are sick and disgusting examples of fatuous asininity.

Disclaimer

Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of humorous fabrication

appears every Saturday. Email:

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HomeStyle on 07/21/2018