friday celebrity-letter blogging
dear jon stewart,
i know that this is way, way overdue, but you really rocked the wang back in october. i was the girl to your left in the orchestra pit who "woo hoo"d when you said your home computer was a mac (thanks for the subtle point in my direction in acknowledgment; for the record, i know next to nothing about graphic design, but i'm proud to have been able to provide you, at least in part, with an opening for a joke). it was the first time i had seen you live, but it was far from the first time i had seen your stand-up act. everybody knows that story, and i really wouldn't tell it again, but it becomes hugely important in the context of this letter; i'll try to inject some new life into it.
in what i'm almost entirely certain was the late spring of 1992, a portion of your act was aired as a segment on the mtv half-hour comedy hour, and the only joke from that segment that i remember in its entirety is the one about the inanity of the u.s. military's refusal to allow gay men to enlist. at the time, the DOD's policy on homosexuality was receiving a fair amount of coverage, the freddie mercury tribute concert had been playing on a loop for weeks, and i had recently become close friends with a shy, slight boy whose sexuality was frequently called into question in a none-too-tactful manner by the population of our small-town high school. i was pretty young, but i was already beginning to adopt the strongly liberal stance that has since become the cornerstone of all my daily dealings (i'm surprised anyone can even read my letters, given how smudged and obscured the writing is once my pink, pink heart is finished bleeding all over it). it may be why that joke stuck, or something about your delivery may have made it especially resonant, leading to its longevity in my memory and thus influencing some portion of my social and political development. whatever the case, the moment lodged itself, and i have loved you ever since because of it.
and when you told it again, word for word, at your show this fall—god, i didn't even know what to do. i wanted to squeal and stand on my seat and cry and throw a brick through a window and buy you a state-of-the-art video game console and run out of the building and into the woods and renounce society, because it was my joke, it had been my joke for almost fifteen years, and i hadn't heard it since that first time, and there you were, not fifteen feet away, telling it in person—and because it was my joke that i had heard for the first time fifteen years ago, and you could still tell it and get the same reaction as you had gotten the first time you had told it, because nothing had changed.
this year the u.s. army dropped its recruitment standards to the lowest permissible levels in an effort to meet enlistment targets, which they've been missing by margins greater than any since the 1970s. they're willing to accept recruits who have failed aptitude tests, who have criminal records, who have drug or alcohol problems, and who have health issues that could interfere with their performance; they are not willing to accept healthy, competent, sincere men with spotless records who refuse to lie about who they are. while daniel goure, vice-president of the lexington institute, has said that the main requirement for the army is a high school diploma, only 81 percent of the newest recruits have one. the military feels fine about actively recruiting autistic teenagers, but they'll discharge anyone who's openly gay, regardless of his or her performance, on the grounds that homosexuality is an irredeemable defect. i think that's nonsensical. i think that's INSANE. i know you're with me on this, jon, but while misery may love company, this particular misery is incapable of taking solace in the number of people in its corner, even when one of them is you.
in defense of its new tactics, the army issued a statment affirming that "good test scores do not necessarily equate to quality soldiers . . . test-taking ability does not measure loyalty, duty, honor, integrity or courage." but who you sleep with does? can they honestly believe that? what do they think's gonna happen?
well, you know the answer to that question. and i just wanted to thank you for shining a floodlight on it, then and now. sometimes i can't muster up any hope about the masses finding a way to approach ideas like this with a modicum of logic. but i think maybe you can't, either, and you haven't let that stop you from begging them to do so for the past two decades. so i'll soldier on alongside you, because the folks on the other side were never adorable in my eyes, and they only grow less so with time.
that's it. my best to your family, including that cat with the nine recta and your vomit-slurping pooch. thanks for standing up, and thanks for your dogged, unswerving moral clarity. i don't know how you feel about being a role model, but i feel inexpressibly fortunate to have you as one.
your always-devoted fan, who knew that was you in the rollerblades in that steve martin movie with the christmas tree,
juniper
i know that this is way, way overdue, but you really rocked the wang back in october. i was the girl to your left in the orchestra pit who "woo hoo"d when you said your home computer was a mac (thanks for the subtle point in my direction in acknowledgment; for the record, i know next to nothing about graphic design, but i'm proud to have been able to provide you, at least in part, with an opening for a joke). it was the first time i had seen you live, but it was far from the first time i had seen your stand-up act. everybody knows that story, and i really wouldn't tell it again, but it becomes hugely important in the context of this letter; i'll try to inject some new life into it.
in what i'm almost entirely certain was the late spring of 1992, a portion of your act was aired as a segment on the mtv half-hour comedy hour, and the only joke from that segment that i remember in its entirety is the one about the inanity of the u.s. military's refusal to allow gay men to enlist. at the time, the DOD's policy on homosexuality was receiving a fair amount of coverage, the freddie mercury tribute concert had been playing on a loop for weeks, and i had recently become close friends with a shy, slight boy whose sexuality was frequently called into question in a none-too-tactful manner by the population of our small-town high school. i was pretty young, but i was already beginning to adopt the strongly liberal stance that has since become the cornerstone of all my daily dealings (i'm surprised anyone can even read my letters, given how smudged and obscured the writing is once my pink, pink heart is finished bleeding all over it). it may be why that joke stuck, or something about your delivery may have made it especially resonant, leading to its longevity in my memory and thus influencing some portion of my social and political development. whatever the case, the moment lodged itself, and i have loved you ever since because of it.
and when you told it again, word for word, at your show this fall—god, i didn't even know what to do. i wanted to squeal and stand on my seat and cry and throw a brick through a window and buy you a state-of-the-art video game console and run out of the building and into the woods and renounce society, because it was my joke, it had been my joke for almost fifteen years, and i hadn't heard it since that first time, and there you were, not fifteen feet away, telling it in person—and because it was my joke that i had heard for the first time fifteen years ago, and you could still tell it and get the same reaction as you had gotten the first time you had told it, because nothing had changed.
this year the u.s. army dropped its recruitment standards to the lowest permissible levels in an effort to meet enlistment targets, which they've been missing by margins greater than any since the 1970s. they're willing to accept recruits who have failed aptitude tests, who have criminal records, who have drug or alcohol problems, and who have health issues that could interfere with their performance; they are not willing to accept healthy, competent, sincere men with spotless records who refuse to lie about who they are. while daniel goure, vice-president of the lexington institute, has said that the main requirement for the army is a high school diploma, only 81 percent of the newest recruits have one. the military feels fine about actively recruiting autistic teenagers, but they'll discharge anyone who's openly gay, regardless of his or her performance, on the grounds that homosexuality is an irredeemable defect. i think that's nonsensical. i think that's INSANE. i know you're with me on this, jon, but while misery may love company, this particular misery is incapable of taking solace in the number of people in its corner, even when one of them is you.
in defense of its new tactics, the army issued a statment affirming that "good test scores do not necessarily equate to quality soldiers . . . test-taking ability does not measure loyalty, duty, honor, integrity or courage." but who you sleep with does? can they honestly believe that? what do they think's gonna happen?
well, you know the answer to that question. and i just wanted to thank you for shining a floodlight on it, then and now. sometimes i can't muster up any hope about the masses finding a way to approach ideas like this with a modicum of logic. but i think maybe you can't, either, and you haven't let that stop you from begging them to do so for the past two decades. so i'll soldier on alongside you, because the folks on the other side were never adorable in my eyes, and they only grow less so with time.
that's it. my best to your family, including that cat with the nine recta and your vomit-slurping pooch. thanks for standing up, and thanks for your dogged, unswerving moral clarity. i don't know how you feel about being a role model, but i feel inexpressibly fortunate to have you as one.
your always-devoted fan, who knew that was you in the rollerblades in that steve martin movie with the christmas tree,
juniper
Labels: celebrity letters, jon stewart, politics, rage, social commentary, war
posted by juniper pearl @ 11:24 PM
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