Went the neigborhood

They said it was just a matter of time before I crossed the line. They.

The Acorn excused me from writing this column after publishing "Inglewood 90310." Too many people called for my head. The Acorn wasn't my only paper, but it was my favorite. I grew up in Agoura, if anyone could call this grown up.

It all began a million years ago, when The Acorn published one of my Snapshots in which a policeman says, "I don't want to catch you running away again, Frank -- you live by yourself, for Christ's sake."

The editor received six threats from readers who wouldn't stand for using the lord's name in vain. Of course, with standards like that, all words are in vain.

Snapshots disappeared from the paper shortly thereafter.

So what is it about "Inglewood 90310" that the paper couldn't pardon? As my black fiancée joked, I called a spade a spade. That is not an ethnic slur; it is a mistranslation of Plutarch's "to call a trough a trough." So it goes.

Let me take you behind the scenes so that you can enjoy the irony in my being fired for calling a trough a trough:

Irony # 1: The story didn't take place in Inglewood; it occurred in Philadelphia. I changed the setting to use the title parody. In fact, I only arrived in Inglewood by performing a web search for said area code. 90110 didn't seem as funny.

Irony # 2: The disputed reference to Jane Goodall was a nod to a Snapshot that appeared in The Acorn 2 years ago. In standup, it's a "callback." In print, it's a super-sized Oops. As you see above, the Goodall thing was not about blacks but machismo.

hu · mor, n. 1. The quality that makes something laughable or amusing. 2. The ability to express that which is incongruous or absurd.

My visit to Philadelphia was laughable and absurd. It may have even been incongruous if I knew what that meant. I spent two days fearing for my life, unaware that people lived like that outside an Ice Cube movie.

If I'm naïve, it is only because I work at it.

In Phili, I was besieged not by Blacks or Hispanics or Filipinos, but by people who expressed an interest in murdering me. How would I convey that sense of lawlessness? Well, it was like a zoo without cages… Yes, and I could tie in the Los Angeles Zoo at the end of the column...

Last year, I competed for a spot on The Ventura Star funny pages. First day, they ran a Snapshot in which a woman grabs her son and says, "I know you're 10 years old, Josh, but if you don't start behaving, I'm going to have an abortion."

Two people called the paper to say they were in stitches; fourteen pro-lifers called for my hanging (a brain-teaser in itself). I was dismissed the following day.

I have an odd relationship with newspapers. It is my job to hold a carnival mirror to reality, and it is the editor's job to make sure people only see the flattering parts. I can mention the size of a black man's privates but not the size of his lips. Unless I'm black, in which case I can call him the N-word.

Somewhere along the line, I grew confused about the rules and said to hell with it. But firing a man for his opinion? That smells like a book burning. No, you know what it smells like? It smells like David Howard, the mayoral aide who was forced to resign for using the word niggardly in the company of a black officer. All these years after the Red Scare, we get the Black Scare.

People always ask me the same question: "Jason, are you gay?"

When I say no, they pause a moment and then say, "Are you sure?"

I am mistaken for gay because I am unashamed to cross my legs at the knees. Well, that and I talk like a girl. Likewise, I am so not-prejudiced that I don't realize when I'm offending people who don't know what niggardly means.

"Politically correct" is a boulder under which the worms of society hide. Some are black, some are white, some just want their unemployment checks. They take cover beneath hard-luck tales and blame it all on The Man.

Irony #3: I also despise The Man.

If the black population feels that we owe them something, let's just say O.J. is golfing and can we call it even? How much longer do they play the race card and get away with murder?

It was a great day in my life when Chris Rock lampooned O.J. Simpson. The audience didn't know how to react. Their hero had betrayed them with … the truth. Rock had lifted the rock, and the worms writhed in the spotlight.

The Acorn's Letter-to-the-Editor posse emphasizes present-day discrimination and 100 miles of politics that would be perfectly fitting if this were not a humor column!

As the jester, it is my job to oclast the icons. If my column did have a You see, Timmy, it is this: "Sometimes it's not because you're a minority that people dislike you; it's because you are waving a gun."

Incidentally, the column was published without its picture (at right). If it appears that no black men are present, it's because there aren't.

Maybe they are right -- like Reginald Denny, I just had it coming. I drove my circus into the wrong part of town at the wrong part of time.

The Acorn has heard from every Tom, Dick, and Johnny Cochrane who wants me burned at the stake, but they haven't heard from you who enjoy the column. I'm assuming you exist. Otherwise, they've been overpaying me these past four years.

The object isn't to exhume my column but to appease the comedy gods. And goddesses.

Farewell, Agoura. I grew up here and loved you well. I'm boarding a new ship called the U.S.S. Get Over It. We're headed for saner seas and colorless rainbows. You can find us online at www.jasonlove.com, or just think a funny thought and we'll be there.

I will forge ahead with the same sense of humor as always. I just can't sit around with a bunch of great observations hoping Chris Rock will state them for me.