In-Depth Opinion Piece: Joke Theft

I've been reading a lot about the concept of "Joke Theft" recently, it's a fairly interesting thing to think about.

I don't know if anyone's ever read the "Author's Info" or whatever in the Index Section of this blog-ee-oh-lee before but in that description of myself (which is mostly STOLEN verbatim from words Beetlejuice has said over the years)...I say something along the lines of "if you read something you like in this blog you can steal it if you want, I don't care" and then I stated a joke to finish that section off which went "If I was President I'd legalize stealing!" which is of course something I STOLE verbatim from a Rudy Ray Moore joke off of the album "Dolemite for President."

So yeah, I have an open attitude towards stealing of read-words by readers, or the stealing of heard-words by listeners, I'm not super offended by the whole idea of something I thought out and wrote being read and said/wrote by someone else. Why? Because that's what humans do.

I hope people understand by now that we evolved from monkeys and the saying "Monkey See - Monkey Do" really rings true for our kind. We learn from observing and we try things for ourselves through the act of mimicking things we've seen/heard/etc before. Stealing things we observe is literally what Humans do...that's the reason why we're the top species on earth is because we're really good at emulating and learning from each other.

There's no way around the stealing of "bits" or "jokes" or "concepts" or "ideas" because that's what we do. That's the cold hard facts.

Even though this isn't a popular publication I have goin' over here, have I ever been sorta angry when I've seen something I've wrote...100% verbatim....re-produced on some other medium...and sometimes on a BIG medium? Yeah, I guess. I mean, I do think some people  rip stuff off from this shitty obscure blog from time to time and some are pretty fucking famous to be honest....but even then...there's this sort of feeling of "WOW, that person reads this shit!? Cool" that goes on too. I'd say, all in all, seeing my ideas absorbed and re-vomitted back through another brain isn't that offensive to me.

I will say this:

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO ABSORB THE CONCEPTS/IDEAS YOU EXPOSE YOURSELF TO.

If you grew up in the jungle away from any other humans and never learned to read/write and speak/understand any language then you'd be able to create without influence. Even then your creations would be based on things you've seen monkeys or wolves or something do in the wild. You'd make like bone-carvings out of animals you ate that look like trees or bugs you saw. Even a jungle-boy/jungle-girl, when you think about it, couldn't free themselves from outside influence.

What about a cave person? A child who grew up in a dark dark Patmos-style cave of some sort? You know, like a Poor Little Blind Girl, you know? A cave so dark she never learned to see, a cave so quiet that the poor girl never learned to hear? She eats mud and dirt and stuff. She knows "nothing about everything" but "everything about nothing"? Could she live an influence-free life? Yeah, maybe.

But us? Regular non-FacelessMay and non-N.Senada brand of humans? Can we live influence free lifestyles? NO! Us regulation non-cave-isolated humans have to abide by the laws of Monkey See and Monkey Do.....so get used to it.

If something works? We use it. If someone thinks up a good way to pick meat out of teeth, or get olives down from olive trees, or how to get from point a to point b faster....everyone will start doing it that way. Why? Because it's the best way to do it....and it works.

Look, I understand in the artistic world that intellectual property rights and identity exist and am not 100% for theft but I just want to show how hard it is not be a thief and many who accuse others of theft should think about how much shit they've stolen.

As a person who loves history, it's SUPER RARE that I can watch something and not say to myself...."oh that's like what whats-their-name does." A lot of things that "work" in show business are used for that reason...they work. You can get to the root of a lot of things that "work" and find out that these methods have been done for centuries.


Extreme Cases

I'd say I side with the defendant in about 70% of joke-theft cases. Due to the laws of Monkey See and Monkey Do...and knowing how hard it is not to be influenced by the world around you...I usually give the defendant leeway when reading about these cases and trying to form an opinion on it.

Sometimes, the case is so extreme that it's just ludicrous though. About 30% of theft cases are too effronterous to accept. I'm gonna throw out a few examples.

Jerry Lewis was A HUGE ACT back in the day and he had copy cats galore but none to the level of Sammy Petrillo who copied his voice, mannerisms, facial contorts, and hairstyle. Observe:

Petrillo, Bela Lugosi, and a Gorilla star in......oh boy.

I watched this movie the other day and it's actually pretty fucking good....but if I was Jerry Lewis....I'm sure I'd be fucking pissed that Petrillo is basically trying to pass himself off as being Jerry Lewis. It's not just a little theft here and little nip there....it's like ALL of his STUFF being ripped off.

Mitch

Another case that I find offensive was young comic Mitch Mullany (who I first saw as "White Mike" on Wayans Brothers). Mitch died in 2008 and then the very next year a guy showed up and did Mitch's act in clubs....WORD FOR WORD....and ACTION FOR ACTION. Literally stealing the whole thing under the pretense of "oh well, he's dead, he doesn't need this act anymore." Because of the untimely death of the 39 year old Mullany...this theft that I read about really stood out as being extreme and fucking stupid. It's the blatant disrespect for the young man's death.

Even though I'm usually okay with borrowing, learning, adapting, and outright stealing material....there's some extreme cases where obviously it went WAY too far.

Yet on the opposite end....


Accusers Actin' the Fool

For someone to claim theft they must first claim to own whatever was stolen...and I've seen over the years people claim ownership to things that have made me think...."Really? you OWN that? How?"

I heard an interview once where, I think it was Jim Breuer, telling a story about how on SNL....the host was Matthew Perry and Perry was working on a bit with Norm MacDonald. Apparently, Perry wanted the bit to center around something he INVENTED called "Chandler-Speak" and Norm asked him what that was and after hearing Perry's explanation....witnesses claim Norm's response was....."Oh, you mean sarcasm?"

Yeah, it's pretty grandiose and...let's face it....retarded for Matthew Perry to claim to have invented sarcasm. That's beyond the pale. It really is beyond the pale.


Another one that got me scratching my head was a feud between Louis C.K. and Dane Cook. Now look, I know in comedy circles Dane Cook is like public enemy number one...but his target audience is a female audience and he works pretty well with that. I'm male (aged 25-35) and thus he's not my thing but I don't necessarily hate on the dude. I don't find him funny but I don't really dislike him as much as C.K., I mean with C.K.....this guy's bits are mostly penis-stuff, gross-out stuff, and other mundane shit that's standard fare....and yet somehow....Louis C.K. fans seem to think he invented penis jokes and things like that. I'm not sure a person can claim intellectual property patents on "My Ass Itches. Oh my god, my ass itches!" or "you're a penis-face!" or "I want to masturbate!" or "I wanna name my kid something funny!"

Naming your kid something funny? Wow that's original ass shit there Louis n' Dane. You both stole it.

Can you imagine a patent court setting and the plaintiff walks up and says..."Your honor, the defendant STOLE the concept of naming children funny names...and then had the nerve to talk about having an itchy butt!!" Yeah, okay there.

Speaking of Beavis and Butthead, Mike Judge once said people saying the words "[something] sucks" are ripping him off but I've seen that said in movies back in the 60s even. A good example that everyone's seen is GhostBusters where Bill Murray says something sucks a minimum of twice in the film. I like Mike Judge, and consider Beavis and Butthead to maybe be the greatest show of all time, but he did NOT invent the term of "[something] sucks." No way, Jose.

I can't find the clip from G-Bustas so here's him in Scrooged (circa 1988) using the term as well...

"Oh my gosh...does that suck."

The point of this section is....if someone is accusing someone of stealing then they are thus claiming ownership of a concept and claiming to literally OWN sarcasm, something sucking, itchy anuses, and other mundane things is pretty absurd to say the least.

It's naive too, I mean how can Perry for example really believe he invented sarcasm? What kind of an idiot can he be? Could he be any more of an idiot?

Rising to the Top

I don't want to hurt nobody's feelings or nothing, but it's safe to say that people at the top are not necessarily the most talented...but the most expert of thieves. Ninjas, even, if you will.

Word to the wise....just steal from more obscure sources and you should be safe from heat. Steal from weird-ass blogs, shit your co-workers say, guys from bars or the street...those are safe ass sources, g. No doubt.

I was watching that "Last Comic Standing" the other day and this Indian chick's opening joke was taken from the stupid "Epic Beard Man" video of that drunken maniac assaulting people on a bus. That video has been seen by millions of people....do you really think that's an obscure enough source to rob material from? Are you fucking stupid?

I watched an episode of a really shit Canadian show called "The Air Farce" once where they literally robbed a bit from SNL about Elton John almost 100% verbatim. Stealing from SNL is going to make a lot of people go..."wait a sec, I've seen this before...gimme a break." It's not a very hard to trace source.

You think the pros steal from things millions and millions of people are familiar with? NO! They get their "influences" from stuff maybe like 10-1000 people are familiar with...those 10-1000 people get mad that they recognize the bit-theft but there's still millions and millions of other viewers who don't get mad....those millions think it's wicked cool.

Conclusion

Basically, we have two choices....

A) Play off each other, learn from each other, share concepts with each other...and sadly...STEAL from each other. 

or....

  

B) Live in a cave like N. Senada or that poor poor little blind girl from that Nomeansno song "Faceless May" and never be influenced by anything other than the feeling of cold on our sightless, audio-less, smell-less bodies.

I don't know 'bout you but I'm not going to live in some fucking cave. Fuck that shit.



(END NOTE: If everyone tries to have no influences all we'll have is surreal/absurdist comedy like the Williams Street people make. I like those shows but I wouldn't rank absurdist humor at the top of the list of comedy, to be honest. Wackiness can get old fast, the format is usually like 10 minute shows with the Williams cartoons. You can't work topical, or have a message with absurdist/surreal humor. Tim and Eric work over-the-top absurdist and it's original that's for sure but it wouldn't hurt them to have like a bit of structure. That "Bag Boy" of Steve Brule's show which had a story to it and thus some structure was one of the best things they've ever made, by far.

To achieve super-originality through absurdity and nonsense is often really really funny and it's unlikely someone will say "I've seen that before" while watching it...but it's like abstract art a bit...it's just whacky shit everywhere with no rhythm or reason. )


(END NOTE 2: Conan is in the news for being sued for joke theft and the guy wants 600K, i don't know what value jokes have, I know Rodney and old timers paid the kids in the hall of clubs money for jokes, and I know Jackie Martling devised some joke-value system with Rodney that is not very scientific sounding ("I borrowed 1000 bucks from [Rodney] but I paid it back in JOKES").

That guy suing Conan, I don't know how someone can put something into the public sphere for everyone to absorb and then want 600K from people. If you wanted that joke to be TOP SECRET...THEN DON'T FUCKING TWEET IT, FUCK! If it's secret data worth 600K to you then why put it in the public for EVERYONE to see? Why not keep that six hundred thousand dollars worth of jokes under lock and key at the bottom of the sea...where no one can take it from you?

Also that dude "Fat Jew" guy is getting hype from joke theft, there's so much buzz around him and I'm pretty sure he paid for the buzz. Why everyone is helping him get buzz by talking about him endlessly is beyond me. They don't like him but they are giving him all the attention humanly possible.)


(Amendment: I re-found and re-read that datum where Mike Judge claims to have invented stuff sucking...and it seems to maybe be a joke. I'm unsure but decide for yourself: (John K. interviews Mike J.)

Do Young Canadians have to Care about Politics?

Election season is in full swing up here in the "coolest" (literally the coldest) nation on earth....Canada.

The leaders are debating the big issues on the television screens, such as their official stances on "TV Shows" and "Movies" and other fascinating topics....

Golly gee whiz....I love TV Shows too!

This is what we get in Canada, so all you people hating on Trump down there in the states....try and imagine how Howdy Doody our election is. You Americans should be grateful for the entertainment value and debates surrounding your elections. You don't want what we have, we have people with the intelligence of five years olds debating each other up over here.

"Golly gee...Do you love TV Shows Mr. Prime Minister of Canada?"

"Well howdidly doodidly ms. Reporter, oh yes, I most certainly do love Movies and TV Shows. Thanks you kindly for asking me that."

I would love to have the media circus of an American election in Canada, believe me, your shit is so much better than our shit...so don't take it for granted. Believe me, you'll miss the circus if it ever leaves town, even though you don't appreciate it now.

If one day the media circus surrounding the American election disappeared and was replaced with Trump telling you what his favorite kind of jam is and how much he loves going ice skating on the lake up near his house...believe you me....you'll be angry. You'll wonder why the circus left town and was replaced with this boring obnoxious drivel.

The thing that gets my goat the most about the lame-wad Canadian election is that people get on my case for not taking this boring garbage seriously. I've never voted in my life, when I turned 18 I felt like I should vote but when I did go to vote I'd end up writing in old Expos baseball players on the ballot when I got to the booth because I didn't know what else to do.

When I tell people that I don't vote, especially old folks, they tend to get bent out of shape over that. They look at me like I'm some sort of social pariah with no brains for not caring about Canada's lame-wad political farce. I'm not even a "young voter" anymore and don't vote so it's like a double-faux-pas apparently, but I'm a chronic non-voter and I doubt anything will ever change that.

Alrighty so, I'm gonna harness the power of statistics in this opinion piece to try and show why the fuck I don't need to give a fuck about these dumbass leckshuns at all.


Young Canadians...Does your vote even Matter? 

Ok, first off we need to look at Canada's age demographics before we talk about anything else. This next link shows out of the 35.5 million dudes/chick/n' trannies that live in golly-gee jolly-gosh Canada what age group they are:

Stats (bad as) Can: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo10a-eng.htm


Young voters I will classify as being 18 to 30. Let's take a nice round number like 7 million to quantify "young voters" okay?

Now how many "old voters" are there? People from 31 to Soylent Green years old? Let's round it to a nice number like around 22 million.

Let's say 29 million people are voting age in Canada and young voters are 7 million of them. How is that on a pie graph? Let's take a look-see:

Beauty graph eh?

Now, it seems Young Jabronies are a pretty small piece of the votin' pie. It looks like Soylent Greeners are actually a big green Pac-Man like creature that is devouring Young Jabronies according to the data.

If you aren't familiar with statistics and sample-size and things like that... this might not have an effect on your young mind. I don't want be bursting bubbles up in here but this data is suffice to say that for every 1 vote the young people demo have...oldoes have 3 votes. 

Soylent Greeners have 3x more voting power than Young Jabronies do.

Speaking in realistic terms, young voters are a niche market that's barely even worth catering to for someone trying to win an election. From a strategic standpoint that's the reason why the Red Party (Liberals) have sunk down to third place in the polls. They are trying to get young voters to vote for them and young voters is a niche market not even worth investing any time in to try and cajole.

When Justin Bieber or Justin Timberlake or Justin Trudeau or whatever the fuck his name is...goes on TV and talks about smokin' blunts and takes his shirt off to do boxing promos...all it does is turn off almost 75% of voters in order to cajole less than 25% of voters. It's a horrible strategy, whoever the Liberal strategist is...that person should be let go and fast.

From the data we can clearly see that Young People's voting power is not enough for anyone to take seriously and thus when Young Jabronies pretend they are important it's just annoying and dumb.

A Four Hundred Million Dollar Boring-Ass Dog and Pony Show

Next off, let's rap loose a little bit about money. This election as everyone knows is the most boring, howdy-doody, offensively condescending, loser-filled, freak fest LOAD OF NONSENSE on the face of the planet that no one with half a brain would pay any interest in...

....and yet...

Experts and members of Elections Canada predict this election will cost tax payers 400 million at the least. Now, American readers have to remember that Canada isn't a big deal like the states is and maybe that number doesn't seem large but if we look at population and GDP, we can see that Canada is such a miniscule region that this amount of money is a pretty large sum.

USA Population:  320 million

Canada Population: 35 million

USA GDP: 17 trillion

Canada GDP: 2 trillion

Canada is not a big Juggernaut of a nation by any stretch of the word yet its Elections cost their citizens 400 million dollars each time they engage in these shenanigans. It's not big enough of a Country to have such a long and circus-esque election season.

On top of it all, the 400 million price-tagged show payed by tax payers... IS NOT EVEN ENTERTAINING AT ALL! It's lamer than fuck. It's more boring than shit. It's something only the most mentally-neglected loser could find entertainment value in. It's atrociously boring.

It's an atrociously boring 400 million dollar rinky-dinkin' Dog an Pony show that tax payers have to pay for. It's offensive by all accounts.

Conclusion

Look Young Jabronies of Canada, for you people to invest even one iota of care into these election proceedings is a gigantic mis-use of your time. For every second of care you're currently investing into politics...please take that time and invest into learning a skill, learning a trade, advancing your understanding of mathematics, read a book, write a book, go visit your grandma in the hospital or old folks home, join a rock and roll band, write a rap, preform some rap, learn how cook, etc. etc. etc.

Basically anything you do with your time, Young People, is better than wasting your time caring about politics and this lamewad of an election. There's serious problems in the world today, you can change things. You can become inventors and tech experts. You can become doctors. You can volunteer and feed the hungry n' thirsty kids of the world. You can do shit that actually isn't stupid. Your time has value.

For a young person to convince themselves to care about politics is the corruption of a young brain. It is the waste of a young person's brain power and its time here on earth...it really fucking is. If any Soylent Greener calls you dumb or uneducated or socially unresponsible because you don't vote...next time...tell that Soylent Greener to go take a bath because they smell like an old person and are disgusting. 

And, as for Americans angry over the media circus of their elections and wanting it to be toned down. Be careful what you wish for, guys. Be careful what you wish for. Put yourselves in a Canadian's boots and just try to picture for one second the topics our 400 million dollar freak show covers....

"Mr. Leader what is your favorite kind of Tim Horton's Donut?"

"Honorable Member of Parliament...what kind of ice cream do you like?"

"Prime Minsiter of Canada...what color in the Smarties box tastes the best in your opinion?"

"What is your official stance on Movies and TV Shows?"

If you Americans had to be in our boots for even 5 seconds of this you'd literally kill yourselves. You wouldn't be able to handle this level of howdy doody, you wouldn't. Believe you me....you'd go crazy having to listen to this shit, man. No joke.



End Note: I think the template media-character the Canadian politicians go with is the "innocent retarded child" character. Good examples of this are Andy Merrill's "Brak" character or John C. Reilly's "Steve Brule" character. It's un-comprehensible to me how Canadian politicians go with this as their default image. Apparently the minds of Canadians is comparable to a mind of a 4 year old if these are the personas our politicians think we will relate to.