NOLA gallows humour

[Guest guest]

Josh Levin's

 

The Best Jokes About Katrina

Posted Monday, Aug. 28, 2006

 

 

Wacky T-shirts for sale in the French Quarter

 

They say that comedy is tragedy plus time. What they

don't say is how

much time it takes to turn a massive death toll into a

laugh riot.

 

Three weeks after Sept. 11, Gilbert Gottfried

announced to New York's

Friars Club that he couldn't get a direct flight to

California: " They

said they have to stop at the Empire State Building

first. " According to

the New York Observer, the joke was followed by

silence, then hooting,

then a cry of " Too soon! " Last month, the city of New

Orleans released

a schedule of events to mark the anniversary of

Hurricane Katrina,

including a fireworks show and a comedy hour. Two

weeks later, those events

were dumped. According to Mayor Ray Nagin's office,

the cancellations

had nothing to do with the fact that the announcement

had been met with

disbelief and disgust. " Given the time we have, they

could not be

implemented, " a mayoral spokesperson said.

 

The revised schedule of events—a ceremonial wreath

laying, a citywide

interfaith service—shouldn't be taken as a sign that

New Orleans has

become a somber place. Rather, it's evidence that

comedy is tragedy

plus timing—it's generally not a good idea to do

stand-up at a memorial

service. In the absence of Mayor Nagin's Good Time

Katrina Laff-a-Thon,

I checked in on a smaller event over the weekend: a

" humor therapy "

session at a French Quarter record store. So, what's

so funny about a

devastating hurricane?

 

 

Comic Mike Strecker, who bills himself as " Jerry

Seinfeld … with less

money and more problems, " started with some

observational humor about

evacuee dating. After leaving New Orleans for Houston,

he said, he met a

lovely young lady at a local watering hole. " Would you

like to go back

to my place? " he asked. When she responded in the

affirmative, he

replied plaintively, " Yeah, so would I. " Strecker

scored biggest with his

material on the rituals of Katrina story swapping. " It

used to be if you

had a tree down in your front yard, you had a story to

tell, " he said.

Now, it takes a bit more to win sympathy: " We got six

and a half feet

of water and we can't find grandma. We were blessed. "

 

 

David " The Nac " Naccari performs " Katrinalaya "

 

Katrina might have devastated most of the city's

industries, but it was

a huge boon for novelty-song writers. Strecker was

joined onstage by

avuncular middle school teacher/funnyman David " The

Nac " Naccari, who

plucked the song " Katrinalaya " ( " Oh, hurricane, you're

a pain, me oh my

oh/ 'Cause the bowl that I called home is filling

up-oh " ) on his ukulele.

Maryflynn Thomas did a rendition of " Send in the

Clowns " in which the

head jester was deposed FEMA chief Michael Brown. And

Armand St. Martin

performed a tune sung to the melody of " Fever " : " FEMA/

Call 'em in the

morning/ Be on hold through the night. "

 

Strecker's set and the musical performances reveal the

two schools of

post-Katrina humor. On one side, there's political

lampooning—making

fun of the missteps and fumblings of the federal and

local governments.

On the other, there's gallows humor—the " grandma's

dead " school of

comedy.

 

Satire wasn't a viable outlet after the Sept. 11

attacks. The absence

of jokes after the Twin Towers fell—the so-called

" end of the age of

irony " —came about because government incompetence,

while discernible

and copious, couldn't begin to overshadow the absolute

villainy of the

attacks. In the case of Katrina, the buffoonery of the

mayor, the

governor, and the feds was largely responsible for the

deaths of well over

1,000 people and easy to lampoon—cue the late-night

monologues. In New

Orleans, Mardi Gras is the city's annual festival of

public drunkenness

and political satire, an officially sanctioned window

to vent

frustration about the powers that be. This year, FEMA

and the Corps of Engineers

were the biggest targets. A band of merrymakers

outfitted themselves

with canes, dark glasses, and T-shirts reading " Levee

Inspectors. " The

makeshift " Krewe of FEMA " paraded a day late and

handed out Bead Request

Forms that could be exchanged for trinkets at a later

date.

 

 

Anti-looting warning on St. Charles Avenue

 

The grandma's dead school of comedy means railing at

your house, your

street, your family, your neighbors, your life. The

first signs of

gallows humor in the city came while the water was

still rising. On Aug. 30,

2005, this anti-looting message showed up on the

outside of a St.

Charles Avenue rug shop: " DON'T TRY I AM SLEEPING

INSIDE WITH A BIG DOG AN

UGLY WOMAN TWO SHOTGUNS AND A CLAW HAMMER. " A few days

later, the sign

changed: " STILL HERE. WOMAN LEFT FRI. COOKING A POT OF

DOG GUMBO. "

 

In the weeks after the storm, Times-Picayune columnist

Chris Rose

became the city's most notable practitioner of gallows

humor. The erstwhile

celebrity columnist roamed the city and transcribed

the fears, the

despair, and the strangeness. In the introduction to

the paperback

compilation of his columns, 1 Dead in Attic, Rose says

he received 1,000 phone

calls and more than 10,000 e-mails from readers in the

last few months

of 2005. He's also become a huge hit on the local

lecture circuit—my

parents are among the scores of people who've lined up

to see him

speak.

 

One of Rose's most memorable essays began thusly: " It

has been said to

me, almost a dozen times in exactly the same words:

'Everyone here is

mentally ill now.' " The article then told the tale of

Rose's friends,

who jumped for joy when their roof suddenly collapsed,

thus ensuring

that they could file a homeowner's claim. " Our home is

destroyed. Oh,

happy day, " he wrote. " I submit there's something not

right there. "

 

2006 Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC