Politically Correct Travel Humor

*This is Part II of How to Sometimes Piss Off A Reader By (in their mind) Unfairly Dissing Their State With Tongue-In-Cheek...from 2006*

I drove through New Mexico and it was just stunningly splendiferous! I have never seen anything quite like it, ever in my middle-aged life! Oh, the splendor! Oh, the grandeur! Oh, the endless miles of things that absolutely NO ONE ELSE HAS IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD! How could ANYONE say ANYWHERE was BETTER than NEW MEXICO?

In the previous blog entry, a reader took offense to my tongue-in-cheek anecdote of travelling across New Mexico, enroute to it's somewhat look-alike neighbor, Arizona. Among his other emotional observations was that my seeing eye dog must have been asleep, I'm full of sh**, and he even managed to throw a f**k in there (to borrow his colorful metaphors, which are not standard fare in this blog; unlike some individuals, I don't need to employ the simple four letter words to make a point).

Guess that person told me, eh? What he told me, he didn't intend to. I'll return to that momentarily.

But I must acknowledge that the person did have one point that was relevant and, for a critique, carried merit: I misspelled Albuquerque originally. That much has been corrected. Thanks for that correction.

If you've read much of this blog, I tend to make fun of things. Frequently, the target of my humor -- satire, parody or sarcasm -- is me. I do things that, in the light of having survived it, it's funny. And I have no problem poking fun at myself. Hard for anyone to be offended when it's me I'm having a laugh over.

As for places, I've made fun of Kansas: I've often suggested that Colorado start a border war with Kansas, and after we've soundly thumped them, make them take all of Colorado from Limon, east. 'Cuz it all looks the same. I've also poked fun at North Dakota; my very capable chiropractor is from North Dakota, and is a doll to boot. I let her read it; she laughed, and didn't bend me into a pretzel thereafter.

I've poked fun at the Left Coast (aka, Califorlornia); I've poked fun at Florida. I've poked fun at my own home state of Iowa (I've heard jokes about the place for years, and find some pretty inventive humor in some of them). Ah writs like ah dun think them thar rednecks writs, 'speshully when ah'm funnin' them thar Nigerian scamster fellers hyar.

Yep, I do that.

At the same time, I've travelled through 38 of our 50 states thus far: and no matter what the state, there is always something good I can write about it. Each state is unique; each state has history, geography and culture unique to it. That's a simple statement of fact.

At the same time, any number of persons of varied antecedence, erudication and ability with prose, can find something in the most splendiferous place, to poke fun at.

If I'm of a mind, such humor will be written at such a time and place as I wish to. It just so happened that in the previous case of New Mexico, I found the good thing was leaving it behind...*oh dang, I dun it agin*. Hate when that happens.

Since my reason for traversing New Mexico was for attending to a family loss, and not for seeking the scenery I'm sure is there in abundance, that didn't factor heavily in the previous blog entry. The fact that a map would lead me to such stuff, and I wasn't there for that, obviously went over the head of this emotional, in-need-of-Valium critic.

Now, what this complainer to my one-time view of New Mexico has decided is, in essence, I'm full of ca-ca. Tell ya what, fella: sometimes, I am. Deliberately. It's called humor. It might not fit your definition of the word; but perhaps you find humor in something that someone else objects to. From the tone of your pithy comments, I'd reckon so, even though I have to concede not knowing you, any more than your pathetic comments indicate that you know me.

Be that as it may, you can challenge my facts, where/if I've bothered to put up any outside of tongue-in-cheek; you can point out my typos and misspellings, which are pretty hard to deny once they're posted for all to see. You can even challenge what I consider humor, and deign it nothing of the sort. And you'll be right for your little universe. No doubt, you'll even have folks who agree with you.

Humor is subjective, and humor tastes run quite the gamut.

Folks are free to come and go here; those who enjoy what they read, I always welcome their comments when they choose to do so. Those who don't like what they read, are free to not visit again; no point for someone to come in here and constantly grouse about what I chose to write about and/or how. If they choose to comment, it's my choice to let their words stand, or take them down, if I feel they've crossed a line of decorum that I set on my blog, and I won't brook the crossing of. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Heck, I can even live with some emotional criticisms.

But when the critic insists on punctuating it with four-letter words that display an intellectual shallowness of the commenter, as well as dilutes his/her arguments and objections, that generally diminishes their complaint to the point of rating no worthwhile consideration from me.

But in this case, I went and gave him some consideration. In fact, I gave him a whole blog entry's worth of it. Frankly, more than his whiny, foul-mouthed diatribe deserved. I'll even leave up the comments he posted on the previous entry that so bunched his panties in a wad. That way, folks can decide what it is that they consider him, me, and/or both, to be full of.

* the unhappy party fired a couple parting salvos in comments that showed he didn't get it, picked up his marbles and left, and -- *yawn* -- took me off his overflowing blog roll. Boy, that sure hurt...considering I never knowd I was on it, and noticed not a whit of traffic difference, before or after.