Ha! Oh, God, I’m evil.

I just read this: 5 People Shot at 3 Different Gun Shows on Gun Appreciation Day with something indistinguishable from laughter. The irony!

Wikipedia informs today’s lazy researcher what irony is: 

A situation is often considered to be ironic (situational irony) if there is an “incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.”^[3]  

They might have added: See “National Gun Appreciation Day, 2013.”

None of my ridiculous attempts at being a decent human being are working, clearly, because I smirked, then laughed, when I read it. And I still think its funny; not like “Ha ha ha, in your face,” but more like “Ho! That is awesome!”

And even though I know it’s wrong, I can’t stop thinking this is funny. The irony of people gathering to appreciate guns, and being injured by gunfire, well that is just funny. It is situational irony at its best.

Because irony is funny, but when it’s “wrong” to laugh, it’s even funnier.

I love ironic headlines of all types and there’s nothing more beautiful to me than stuff like “One-Armed Man Charged With Unarmed Robbery” or “Huge Oil Reserves Discovered in Remote Western US Area-New National Park Created to Expedite Drilling.”

I have no position on gun control. But I do have a position on self-righteous actions and finger-pointing gatherings. I don’t care for them. So that position makes this bizarre turn of events pretty funny.

Do you think it…wrong?

My pseudo inner adult thinks I should find this sad, and of course, empathize with the families of the injured people, even if only for their embarrassment by association. My inner six-year-old is having none of it; he snarfed his milk, and tears are coming out of his eyes.

I know this is a sensitive time regarding this issue, but sorry, that makes it  funnier. Especially given that anyone raising a position in the wake of Sandy Hook, politicizing for whichever side, is a jerk to their bones to begin with.

I can release a good solid laugh at the irony of it—there’s no need to police myself.

Even though laughing at this feels about as appropriate as slipping in some tongue when kissing Grandpa, still, there they are. Irresistible laughs. Laughs that are about as easy to ignore as a fire truck full of vodka, pulling up to a bar at midnight on a Saturday.

Know what I mean?

I know, I know, “If it was someone you love, like your father, you wouldn’t think its so funny.”

Well to tell the truth, if it was my dad, I’d laugh harder and to his face. And he would, too. Dad and I have a certain appreciation for thinly veiled hostility…it would take awhile to explain it.

But if you can’t laugh at yourself, at life, and at irony, ohhh boy, you are more lost than the sign in the photo. And being lost sucks.

Once, my friend Baker lost a $1000 necklace in the ocean. We were all sort of lost, looking out at the vastness, not knowing what the hell to do, or how to comfort Baker. Our friend Peter came up, and we told him the tale. He laughed and said “That’s what you get for owning a thousand-dollar necklace!”

We all laughed; it was true.

I mean, if it was a bunch of vegans who got stomach tumors from some bad kale, would I laugh? Probably not. But, if the same vegans were protesting to free some cows at a huge farm, and the cows got loose and stampeded them, you bet I’d laugh.

I’m an equal-opportunity howler—and irony is irony.

I swear, the site for National Gun Appreciation Day has an article called  “Guns Are Safe and Sexy.”  I love this kind of thing,

Really, this is like Japanese whaling ship Captains being eaten alive by handicapped baby snapping turtles. Or something like that.

Sometimes, even my inner cop has to just let go.

Mel Brooks said “Tragedy is when I get a hangnail. Comedy is when you fall down the stairs.”

I love comedy; the self-deprecating stuff flies, to me, and social commentary slays me about half the time. Absurdist is probably my top fav—and stating the obvious as if it were a revelation is Timex reliable: I’m a sucker for that.

But what makes funny, funny?

I cannot help myself from enjoying the hell out of this sad tragedy, again and again. It has the irresistible element of other people’s misfortune, the seduction of victims who are in the act of celebrating their “rightness,” and the umbrella, of course, of sweet situational irony.

Kind of a home run, really. A perfect comedy storm, delivered in strange misfires.

The funniest headline on it I’ve found is:  “National Gun Appreciation Day Evidently Fails to Make Guns Feel Appreciated.”

Is there anyone who doesn’t find this funny?

Educate me, tell me why; I bet I’m being insensitive. I promise not to laugh at you…and that is a total lie.

Once at Washington Square Park, I saw a brilliant street performer, a vent act. He was a black guy, with a black puppet named “Meese.” That I remember the puppet’s name and not the performer’s says it all.

This puppet would insult people as they walked by. One at a time, they would engage with the puppet, insulted, learn that they were entertaining us with their ire, and then join the crowd to watch the next poor fool. The lady who closed the show, to an enormous hat and thundrous applause, was a new age earth mom who floated up in all in purple, bestowing grace on all in her wake, right as right could be.

The righter you are, the funnier you fall.

Just sayin’.

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Ed: Bryonie Wise

Source: iciio.com via Kim on Pinterest