Fink - Mea Culpa
Pushing the Boundaries
aBr’s back page, enigmatically titled the Last Writes, and compiled by the equally intriguingly named Baron Claude
Borlz, has become something of an institution, and by the number of comments we receive from our readers, is
definitely the most popular column in our magazine. This is a compliment to our compiler, but it could also be an
indictment against the rest of the contents of aBr, which has more serious editorial.
T
here are two questions you may ask
about the Last Writes. Firstly, why do
we have this back page? Secondly,
is it necessary? To answer both these
questions, I quote the proverb “All work and
no play makes Jack a dull
boy”. It is good to let your hair
down every now and then,
and with magazines it has
become the norm to use the
back page for some humour
and some laughs. The next
question you may ask is “how
far should you go”?
And this clearly shocked one of the
roasters, the elderly Carl Reiner, who
mentioned that when he started out on TV
in 1960 he was not even allowed to use the
word “pregnant”.
Maybe we should have allowed more time
for wounds to heal before printing such
jokes, so on this basis I wish to apologise
to all that were offended by these jokes.
As one reader who phoned to complain
said, “rather stick to jokes
about the government”,
and I intend to do just that,
because our government is
truly one long running joke.
In my defence, I do wish to
state that I see humour as
a cathartic expression of
anger and sorrow, and that
in my case it does have a
healing effect. And I am truly
angry and sorrowful about
the untimely and totally
unnecessary death of Reeva
Steenkamp.
This is where it gets a bit
tricky. Our readers are an
eclectic lot, with varying
levels of tolerance to humour,
particularly below the belt
humour. So where do we
draw the line? Because of
my upbringing; which was a
schizophrenic combination
of on the one hand being brought up to
observe extremely conservative behavioural
norms, and on the other hand being
exposed to outrageously liberal points
of view; I am what can be generously
described as a crazy mixed up guy, who
whilst living a squeaky clean life, finds most
things funny, no matter how outrageous the
humour. But does this allow me to foist this
craziness on my readers?
Nowadays the airwaves are blue with four
letter words, and the jokes go beyond many
thresholds. Joan Rivers, for example, &V