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| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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August /
September 2006 Contest Results |
Blame
Hollywood
By E. Mitchell,
Illinois
I’m here to tell
you that if there’s anything wrong with your life it’s not your fault.
Blame Hollywood. Let my pronouncement be a beacon of light and hope to
all the slackers, losers and malcontents out there who currently
misdirect their frustrations in self-loathing or road rage. The real
problem is Cary Grant.
But how can Cary Grant be responsible for your failed marriage and poor
hygiene you ask yourself? Surely your career path as a sideshow carnie
has more to do with your failures than a dead Hollywood idol, you’re
thinking, but that’s where you’re wrong. Don’t blame the victim (you)
blame the real culprit (Hollywood).
Think back to that rainy night years ago when your wife was watching the
movie “Charade” for the umpteenth mind-numbing time (already you’ve got
a beef because you wanted to switch to the ballgame). Just a few more
minutes, dear, she said clutching the remote to her bosom wishing it was
Cary Grant (another beef). And then the defining moment when she glanced
away from the screen, over to you and then back to the screen again.
There. Your marriage officially ended and you didn’t even know it. The
seeds of discontent were sown. The other man was standing right in the
room but was not even on your radar.
Why did your marriage fail? Because you don’t look like Cary Grant, you
don’t sound like Cary Grant, you don’t move like Cary Grant. You can’t
run through a cornfield without mussing your suit, in fact you don’t own
a piece of clothing that doesn’t look mussed the instant you put it on.
You are incapable of good diction and snappy dialogue. Forget diction
and dialogue, you communicate through a series of grunts.
Yet, your hideous inadequacies would all be perfectly fine if the bar
hadn’t been set so high years ago in Hollywood. Cary Grant is the gold
standard by which male perfection has been judged for decades. Grant
himself was quoted as saying, “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant, even I
want to be Cary Grant.”
The truth is he was really an illiterate cockney circus performer when
he started out (you and he have a lot more in common than you thought!)
The most significant difference is that he got the Hollywood treatment.
You haven’t even had the Vitalis treatment.
Surreal as it may be, thanks to a media susceptible culture, Cary Grant,
dead, has more influence over your wife than you do alive. Your only
hope now is to humiliate yourself on a reality show - if you suddenly
appear on the TV screen your wife might actually give you a second look.
Unattainable fantasies of the dream factory are the root of your
troubles, my friend, so never, ever let the pesky concept of personal
responsibility (or hygiene) nag at you again. You’re beat before you
start so don’t start. Aim low and you’ll never be disappointed.
Drive that beat-up Gremlin proudly. Date a troll. Buy the
Elvis-on-velvet from the back of a pick-up truck. Who needs a real
tuxedo when you already own a novelty t-shirt tux? Why eat caviar when
beef jerky is just as salty and will keep longer when the electricity
goes out in your trailer.
Forget your problems. Instead of drowning your sorrows in another case
of brewskies, remember, despite the champagne and roses, Cary Grant was
divorced four times. If you keep at it you just might achieve the
marital track record of a glamorous Hollywood movie star! And to think
your wife once laughed at your lack of ambition -who’s laughing now,
Mrs. Ex-FancyPants?
You’ve already picked out your next future ex-wife and she’s never even
heard of Cary Grant. The deluxe drive-thru Las Vegas wedding package is
planned for late spring as soon as your fiance graduates from high
school. And your first wife thought you didn’t have class!
So get out there and enjoy life. Who cares if your appearance has been
compared to a drifter’s corpse? You’re on the road to the Cary Grant
lifestyle, just without the fancy clothes, expensive extras, good looks
and charm. And if things don’t work out you can always blame Hollywood.
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