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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2001)
▼ What's so funny? et me start by saying that nothing is remotely funny about thousands of inno cent people dying. Nothing is funny about the senseless evil of terrorism or the True stories of healing and laughter unceasing sorrow of families and friends. Surely nothing is funny for a humorist like me to say the broad shoulders of some big fireman. right now. 1 understand lots of people aren’t ready to Or is there? laugh yet—some aren’t even ready to cry— I’m originally from New Jersey, so 1 know at hut 1 firmly believe the ability to laugh even least a half-dozen people who regularly do busi when the world is falling apart around you is ness in the World Trade Center hut were lucky as stirring a testament to the strength of the enough to be elsewhere that morning as well as b y M a r c A c it o human spirit as any. another half-dozen who live or work nearby. 1 And if ever there was a time we needed to spent that horrible Tuesday anxiously making laugh, now is it. What could he funnier than can retreat. He is relieved, of course, because frantic phone calls all day. the sight of Jerry Falwell of the Moronic whenever disaster strikes New York the next But even in the midst of panic, at times 1 Majority telling Pat Robertson of the Un- thing he always thinks of is the scenic hill couldn’t help hut laugh, and 1 thank God for Christian Coalition, it, or else I might have lost my mind. The towns of Tuscany. “The pagans and the I talk to a woman whose son works on Wall situation wasn’t funny at all, hut sometimes Street and had been frantic with worry until he abortionists and the people can’t help hut be, particularly in an feminists and the gays called. “How are you feeling now?” 1 ask her a emergency. and lesbians...! point couple of days later. 1 come by this will to laugh genetically. 1 the finger in their “Pissed off,” my friend harks. I respond call my aunt to make sure my cousin who lives face and say, ‘You gently that lots of people feel the same way in Greenwich Village is OK, and what do I helped this happen.’ ” right now. “Yeah,” she says, “and I had tickets hear in the background? Uncle Joe playing the I laugh hardest at to The Producers this week." piano. This is a prime example of the Acito these two clowns be I watch the news and hear the report of the Family Emergency Response System. In case of cause they’re not wor woman who, upon waking to learn her entire disaster, lift cover and play. thy of my shock or dis lower body has been reconstructed by surgeons, 1 read an e-mail from a gay couple in down whispers to the doctor, “Does that mean my ass may. I’d love to point town Manhattan forced to evacuate their a finger in Falwell’s is smallerV' building. As their apartment fills with smoke doughy face myself, and you all know which I get a call from a Los Angeles friend who’s and debris falls outside their window, they stranded in Manhattan. We talk about the fire finger. quickly grab emergency supplies: a first-aid kit, If we deny ourselves laughter and joy, then fighters we see on television and what heroes flashlights, batteries, a change of clothes and a our enemies, he they Falwell or some terrorist, they are. “Absolutely,” he says, “and they’re wheel of brie. have already won whatever war they’ve waged such hunks, too, aren’t they?” A friend here in Portland gets a call from against us. Admit it. Surely he’s not the only gay man his parents even though they are nowhere near 1 have to laugh because the Red Cross not in the country who, for a split second, forgot New York City. “We just wanted to let you • only refuses the blcxxl of any man who has had his grief, his shock and his rage and admired know we’re all right," they say from their Tus- L THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARC gay sex in the past 20 years but also doesn’t want the blood of any woman who’s had sex with a gay or bisexual man in the past 20 years. So I get an angry phone call from a female friend who has to leave the line at her church bltxxl drive because 17 years ago 1 slept with her college boyfriend. 1 have to laugh because able-bodied gay men and lesbians are denied the opportunity' to serve in the military while my friend’s 70-year- old father has just been called up by the Coast Guard to protect the coast of New Jersey. If 1 didn’t laugh, I’d he crying, and 1 can only cry so much. I’m reminded of a time when a friend of mine suffering from AIDS, bedridden and mourning for his own life, smiled at me through tears and said, “On the plus side, I won’t have to worry about saving for retire ment.” He got better through a combina tion therapy of really good drugs and really bad jokes. The sicker the humor, the better he felt. I’m absolutely cer tain that humor kept him alive. For where there’s humor, there’s hope. We’re going to need a lot of both in the months to come. And that, my friends, is The Gospel According to Marc. JH If we deny ourselves laughter and joy, then our enemies, be they Falwell or some terrorist, have already won whatever war they've waged against us FIND ACCOMMODATION to x (/) cxr UJ I £ CL O EVERYWHERE • YOU CAN SHEAR A SHEEP A LOT OF TIMES, M a r c A c i t o extends his condolences to all those who lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy. He can be reached at marcacito@home.com. 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