Peel

The first half of Rudy Francisco’s poem Letter to the Apocalypse (video left) reads like an 80’s stand up set.  Each punchline is specific and biting and immediate; critical and past the point of sour, having long moved into a cool contempt. “I bet your girlfriend is cheating on you with a snow storm. / Donald Trump says he wants to see your birth certificate.” And his delivery: punchlines read like a royal flush returning. The audience responds in kind, every new tag deserving of a cheer more than a laugh. “If you won a Grammy, / *pause* / Kanye West would interrupt you.”

We resound with Francisco. He, battling the Apocalypse on our behalf, in honor of our unquenchable horniness for a good concurring. The punch up, proverbial. Francisco serves as our gladiator, a tiny dot on armageddon's forehead, reigns in hand. What’s more, the Apocalypse, a target as deserving as racism and Chick-fil-A, simply crumples before righteous laughter. Our laughter. 

But, much like a comedian, Francisco is a poet. The latter half of his set take the apocalypse seriously. We see the character of the apocalypse rendered with almost compassion. They are “a clenched fist waiting for a reason”, the audience “puts LOL next to [their] name on twitter”, they are full of repression and anger and internalized ridicule and the need to be dangerous, and god damn! The butt of a joke. Our laughter. Genuinely, that must be horrible for them to have to hold. To have to exist steeped in such hatred. What a horror. Why, they think, not share?

…

Joke Poem

Orange rhymes with door hinge. 

Silver with Dilver, 

the annoying, Polo family down the street. 

Named my car Jackson Pollock.

The Dilvers dog rhymes

with shmar shmacident. 

...

In the interview, Romano tells a second anecdote about his son. This time his son comes home at 6 AM and Romano asks him, "you're coming home at 6 AM?" It’s delivered in a puzzled tone that's also an accusation. And Romano says, "and he said, for now (punchline!!). And walks into his bedroom." As the interview continues he describes how he came to the "right" setup, ultimately landing on ego collapse, utterly dismantled by his son's blithe disregard for the compulsion of time. 

But what Romano doesn't explain is why that context is the "right" context, the “right” setup for the joke. In the context of the interview, "right" approximates to "correct”. As in, there can be no other. As in fulfillment. As in, perhaps, providing the perfect resonant balance between what has occurred (set up) the punchline (our propulsion out, our elevation of the real). What Romano does not answer is how he feels these resonances. How he decided to stitch the skin back on. 

How, Mr. Romano, is anything ever made "correct"?

p. 4/5