Sunday 11/19/03 3:11PM Joe Coluccio

I've been thinking about Lackzoom Acidophilus and how I have abandoned in this blogging trek items that are either light, witty or comic, for a darker dreamier side of my personality. Is it, I wonder, with a continuing vengeance, because my notions of what is comic have changed? Have I lost my notions of the comic? Worse have I worn out my sense of humor? Have I come to believe, as those who employ themselves bringing their full critical facility to bear on the arts and surrounding aesthetics, that the comic is more flawed and less serious than deadly dark drama that rents our souls?

When, I wonder, was the last time that I had a good gut wrenching laugh at someone slipping on a banana peel? I'd rather eat food, especially in these dire times when I must loose weight, than fight and smear the slimy gooey condiments of my water cress and chestnut "sammitch." The last time a saw a couple "bruisers' poke the eye out of a one hundred pound weakling, it did not leave me laughing with tears pouring out of my rolling eyes. Conservative talk radio should have me convulsing and hiccupping when the careless smug host makes fun of folks far more unfortunate than even people portrayed on soap operas. Instead it just leaves me in a cold rage. I laugh at jokes that make my bald pate the abject object of clowning, but I hardly ever understand the humor. Likewise vomiting and other liquids that squirt from the human anatomy fail to bring in me the gales of hilarity that spit from the lips of others.

I conclude that everyone should take their humor where they can find it. So, please,don't think that I think you any less of a human being because those things listed above, that leave me deflated, bring feelings of relief and laughter to you. There truly is no accounting for taste. I read books that I would swear, face red and puffed, to you on a cannon of Holmes Mysteries that I would never touch. That, my friends, remains my little secret. I really don't think any less of you if you enjoy the most puerile of humor, rather I look into myself and ask what I am missing?

I don't have any answer. I know this, each member of Lackzoom Acidophilus, there are four of us primarily involved, has a different idea of humor and what is funny. And the deal is that each of us respects the common ground of our intellect and our family-like relationships which have been growing for close to thirty years now and can accept what the others are creating. I know where the well spring of my humor lays and how it seeps to the surface. I trust Dean, Foley and Marc in whatever manner they find and tap the field of their creation.

I write this on the eve of a change that is about to happen. It is exciting and daunting. If it comes about our lives will change in a significant manner. I hope that by next week at this time I can make the announcement.

Ciao!