By Beau Elliot
So I was meandering through life — which is a great way to do it unless, of course, getting filthy rich and insulting the universe for harboring dark matter is your notion of attaining Olympian heights and strawberry hair forever — when I stumbled across this gem on the ESPN Radio website: “Reese Waters in for Izzy. He and Sarah preview the AFC and NFC Championships and give their thoughts on the lack of parody in the NBA.”
Aha, I thought, though I’m not accustomed to typing the word “thought” these days. That’s what’s ultimately wrong with America: There’s no humor in the nation’s premier basketball league.
We could only imagine.
LeBron, as he attempts a 75-foot 3-pointer against Steph Curry: Hey, man, how many Donald Trumps does it take to change a light bulb?
Curry: 75 feet? How insane are you? I mean, despite completely.
Swish.
LeBron: Call the black custodian.
Now, that’s a better America. If you prefer parody over reality.
Which seems to be the way the country is going.
Take the recent to-do over the number of people (we’re assuming people, though these days, one never knows) attending the recent coronation — pardon me, I meant inauguration — of the Fake-News-in-Chief. By almost all accounts, the Fake-News’ numbers were far below those of former President Obama’s numbers for his inaugurations — and you could rightly point out that any of those numbers were far, far fewer than the number of starving children in the world.
Just for some parody context.
But. Despite all the available evidence, new White House spokesman Sean Spicer insisted, sometimes employing what he thought (there’s that word again) was venom but was probably high dudgeon, that the Trumpster’s inauguration numbers were the biggest in history. But of course, everything about the Trumpster must be HUGE — his crowds, his hands, his mind.
Chuckle, went the thinking world. It’s not only that Obama’s inaugural crowds were much larger, it appears that the Women’s March on Washington swamped the Trumpter’s numbers, too.
Quickly jumping into the fray, because that’s apparently her job description (wonder how she’ll like it a year from now), White House adviser Kellyanne Conway defended Spicer by saying he had employed “alternative facts.”
I know about “alternative facts”; I received a C-minus on my organic chemistry exam, but if the professor hadn’t mindlessly rejected my alternative facts on the composition of some obscure, and probably worthless, carbon rings, I would have had an A-plus.
Needless to say, Conway did not receive an A-plus on her “alternative facts” theory of the universe. Reactions ranged from uproarious laughter picked up by the International Space Station to sustained giggling fits unable to be cured by the traditional method of standing on one’s head while gargling pickle brine laced with cayenne peppers.
Einstein was reported to be spinning in his grave anti-gravitationally, while Heisenberg’s location was uncertain. On the other hand, Schrödinger’s cat died.
So here we are in the universe of Dr. Fake News (it’s an honorary degree, so he can’t practice in real life; of course, that detail doesn’t stop him from practicing, because he’s never lived in real life).
Frankly, NBA parody is looking pretty good right now.
LeBron, eyeing a 95-foot 3: Hey, man, can you dance the Bebop-Sha-Bob Shin?
Curry: No, man. Are you beyond completely insane? I’m a wingman.