Wings For Wheels

I haven’t written about too many comedy songs here. That’s because they tend to wear out their welcome if you listen to them too much. When I interviewed Jonathan Coulton three years ago (was it really that long ago?), I asked him about that, and he spoke about the importance of creating two-dimensional scenarios and using subtlety for that very reason. That’s why his songs hold up to repeated listening over pretty much everybody else.

But every once in a while, a situation comes up that calls for the broad, one-dimensional approach, usually when fighting fire with fire. Like many rational Americans, I’ve simultaneously laughed and recoiled in horror at the stupidity of the teabaggers. There are legitimate and valid reasons for opposing the policies of the Obama Administration, but when the sole reason for opposing them is because you don’t like Obama, you’re entering a whole new realm of weirdo. Guess what, jackasses, you’re behaving no better than Michael Moore during the Bush Administration. But at least he has a working knowledge of the English language.

So yesterday, after hearing people take glee in the fact that Chicago will be losing millions of dollars and thousands of jobs solely because Obama campaigned for the Olympics, this one came into my head. Just as the moronic teabaggers have their perfect mouthpiece in Glenn Beck, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby had theirs in Groucho Marx.  It would seem that the highly verbal work they wrote would have little in common with Beck’s borderline illiteracy. And yet, this seems to be their theme song.