Satirist P.J. O'Rourke passed away this week. His humor writing, especially during the National Lampoon era, influenced my writing. National Lampoon gave us Baby Boomers something to read that was as cantankerous as we were. O'Rourke was at the center of the mag for most of the seventies. Then he set off to be a freelancer and author, referring to himself as a "Republican Lounge Lizard." I was entranced by his 1988 essay collection, "Holidays in Hell." I laughed out loud at his misadventures in war-torn Beirut and in Managua during the Contra War. His takedown of the Sandalista Liberals giving aid to the Sandinistas was hilarious and heartbreaking.
The year of the book's publication, I spent Super Bowl Week in Nicaragua delivering supplies to Habitat for Humanity projects. My Liberal self was accompanied by a group of Habitat volunteers from Denver and my Republican brother Dan from Florida. The most fun Dan had that week was setting off with a couple other gringos in a gypsy cab to find a place to watch Super Bowl. He saw about five minutes of the Super Bowl (Denver was wiped out by Washington) but got wildly drunk. I stayed back at the motel and watched (sober) most of the game on a tiny TV.
The oddest moment happened when my brother get hauled out of a so-called informational meeting with Sandinista cultural ministers. I thought we had lost our one GOPer to the gulag but he returned 15 minutes later and said he'd been asked a bunch of questions such as whom had he voted for in the most recent U.S. presidential election. Reagan was the answer, probably the wrong answer, but Dan survived the trip.
He might not be so lucky now. The current government, headed by former revolutionary Daniel Ortega, specifically targets those people who openly criticize Daniel Ortega. In September, the U.S. State Department placed Nicaragua on its highest Level 4 alert with this warning:
Do not travel to Nicaragua due to COVID-19. Reconsider travel to Nicaragua due to limited healthcare availability and arbitrary enforcement of laws. Exercise increased caution in Nicaragua due to crime.
On the other hand, the waves are bitchin'.
O'Rourke pointed out the ridiculousness of the human condition. You could hear him at his best on NPR's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me." I sometimes bristled at his comments on Bill Maher but I think the iconoclastic host was delighted with the humorist because he kept bringing P.J. back. He had the Irish in him, the likes of Jonathan Swift and Flann O'Brien. He also had the English in him, some George Orwell from his "Homage to Catalonia" days. Orwell had his own holidays in hell during the Ethiopian War and Spanish Civil War. Later, he was at his satiric best in "Animal Farm."
My writing has been influenced by O'Rourke, Woody Allen (his books), and Alan Coren. Monty Python, too. But the biggest influences were New Yorker humorists S.J. Perelman, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker, and Ring Lardner. These city slickers knew how to turn a phrase. This suburban kid, whose only NYC experience was "just passing through," loved this work. I see it also in Grace Paley's stories. Humor transcends the telling of jokes to enter into some hard truths. And then we laugh.
Satire is not for the timid. You are often misunderstood and not understood at all by the Blunt Skulls.
Nevertheless, he (O'Rourke) persisted.
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