Media Wed May 05 2010

Use Yer Hed Part!

By Ramsin Canon

So, this is "Larry the Cable Guy" when he was still Dan Whitney:

Which, when you think of it, makes Larry the Cable Guy a kind of working class white guy minstrel act.

Which gave me and a friend of mine an idea. We are going to start a comedy duo act called "HedPart". Our names would be Goober and Fart, though we'd alternate between which was which. And we'd use catchphrase humor in the tradition of Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall. If you're unfamiliar, the set up for both those guys is basically this:

"If you participate in activity X, then you must be Y!"

The Fox says things like, "If you're dumb, poor, and white you might be a redneck." Engvall says things like, "If you do a thing that is stupid, here's your sign" meaning a sign saying you're stupid.

We'd do a similar act, except our set up would be things like,

"If you think we should let the guvurnamint get their hands on social security, Use Yer Head-Part!" Meaning use your brain. But brain is a complicated word, so we'd just say "head part" and point to our heads.

After twenty or thirty "head part" jokes, we'd throw in a more risque "pants part" joke, like,
"If the wedding reception ended early and you can't tell if the girl stuffing leftover cheese in her purse is your cousin or one of the cashiers, Use Yer Pants Part!" and then we'd gesture to our groins to make our point clear.

Of course, we would be dressed in faded NASCAR shirts that implied very strongly that Jeff Gordon was attracted to men, white jeans with the cuffs tucked into our unscuffed Timberlands, and Carhartt jackets.

Now, it would be easy to create this act and go perform in Chicago for rooms full of hip comedians and their friends. But that'd be cheating. Nope, our first goal would be to book a room in Branson. Only if we can make these Branson tourists laugh is HedPart going to be legitimate, and our hit catchphrases going to take the nation by storm. The tricky part will be not getting beaten to death after our shows by a particularly clever redneck who, while excusing the dumbed-down class of mockery of Dan Whitney, cannot abide such mockery from an Assyrian and Asian. My friend is Asian.

So, you may be asking, what does this have to do with politics? Well, frankly, it has a lot to do with it. Because perhaps only through the medium of comedy can we slowly but surely turn these folks around to seeing the classism with which the conservative elite treat them. Witness for example the RNC and McCain campaign's horror at having to actually deal with Sarah and Todd Palin.

But this will require increasingly clever "Use Yer Head Part!" joke constructions and content. Remember, the goal is to turn the roars of laughter into murmurs of critical thinking. So, for example:

"If you think three decades of tax breaks for rich people like Paris Hilton and Kobe Bryant and an even bigger gap between you and the rich have anything to do with one another, USE YER HEAD PART!...

"If you think voting is more useful than texting your opinion to Fox News, USE YER HEAD PART!

"If you think a fart is better than a mouth punch, USE YER HEAD PART!"

That last one is a crowd pleaser to keep things moving. Anyway, you get my drift. The important thing is that we build up a list of about 3-500 "Use Yer Head Part!" jokes that we can captivate the Larry the Cable Guy audience with (and sell to them printed on low-thread count sheets) and slowly over time win them away from their current corporate overlords.

Because if there's one thing narrative politics has taught us over the last few election cycles, it is that by adopting superficial and in fact insulting trappings of the lower classes, you can "identify" with them and get them to do whatever you want. Whether that's "clearin' brush" or "sayin' words like sayin' and betcha" or duck hunting or bowling or whatever. It goes the other way too: awkwardly clapping in black churches or drinking a beer at a union bar. You see? It's so easy to convince these rubes you're on their side, and then it's just a short sprint to riches and power. That's why, for example, voter turnout and civic engagement is so high among working class people. Because people treat them like adults. And if you believe that...USE YER HEAD PART!

This is just...so painful to watch.

So start submitting your Use Yer Head Part (and Pants Part) jokes today, because we're hoping to get our first gig by December.