Who's laughing now?

I went to some local theatre the other night - a play called Laughing Wild that was set in 1987 New York and only had two characters performing two monologues, and then one final scene that was entirely unecessary. Although by the end I was lamenting the fact that I had lost $15 and almost 3 hours of my life, there were some parts that were so hilariously inappropriate that I really was laughing wild. At one point, the male character is having a conversation between God (a big water jug) and the angel Gabriel (a small blue water glass) where he not only says that AIDS was God's way of punishing homosexuals, but that all of his best diseases were really quite ingenious as well. In one sense the monologue was completely uncalled for and wavered over the line bewteen good and bad taste, but of course I thought it was great. After all, I love movies like Heathers and anything by Todd Solondz.

But what I thought was even more amusing than the dialogue itself was the fact that, apart from the couple kindred spirits I attended the play with, there was no one else laughing in the audience. On occasions like these (which reminded me of when I first saw White Biting Dog many moons ago) I always wonder if it is a prime example of me having a great sense of humour or of everyone else having no sense of humour (or some combination of the two). For this play I think it may be strong indication of the place I live in, my mid-sized Canadian City of God, and how many people, even the open-minded ones who attend plays such as this, would not approve of God and Gabriel chatting about AIDS in such a manner. I do have to give props to the director, who made the conscious decision to fuck some shit up by performing a play like that here. Before moving here last year I had many people tell me how Conservative it was, which might have been fine if it only referred to the government (and believe me, it does), but I didn't realize that 80% of the population here would be good god-fearing Christians as well. I'm more of an atheist myself, which surprisingly is not a good fit with those aforementioned 80%. Thus far I have been mostly able to keep my beliefs (or lack thereof) to myself, even though there have been a couple occasions that have almost put me over the edge. I have also recently discovered that it's a great idea to shop on Sunday morning because everyone (besides me) is at church and the stores are almost empty.

A man walks up the the reference desk:

Do you have any of the videos by Dr Dino - Kent Hovind?

Uh, I'm not sure - let me take a look ... No, I'm sorry, it doesn't look like we do. I may be able to order some for you - what are they about?

Oh, you should definitely get them - they'll be really popular. He has a website - you can order them from there.

(I go online and find the website) - Ah, here we are. Dr Dino - Creation Science Evangelism - Creation, Evolution, Dinosaurs and the Bible - is this the one, sir?

Yeah, he's a very smart man. This video series explains the truth about the dinosaurs - and he talks a lot about that garbage they teach in schools.

Oh, you mean evolution?

Yes, all that garbage.

Oh right. Well, I'll see what we can do for you - maybe we can set up an interlibrary loan for you...

The sad thing about that is that if we really did order the videos in they would probably be very popular at our library, given the religious majority of the city. Granted, many of them may not be firm believers in Creation Science Evangelism, but I'm sure if you suggested it to them they would be more than willing to take a looksy. I've also had conversations with teen guys who have told me "oh, I can't read that book ... it has gay characters in it", or "that new Anthony Horowitz book is Satanic and should be put in a Restricted section" or " I could never lie to my parents ... I'm a Christian". Well now I feel like I really need to listen to some Marilyn Manson - maybe that will make me feel better.