Where is a snarky song from Tom Lehrer when you need it?

"Things I once thought were funny are scary now. I often feel like a resident of Pompeii who has been asked for some humorous comments on lava.”

This is the Snarky Sunday edition of Snarky Senior, I apologize for it being late, but I’m obsessed with the election. I spent the weekend writing a story about Linda Thompson Gonzalez a local Democratic candidate in Broward County, Florida. You can read it here. Linda is an inspiration to us all—she’s 71 and running for office for the first time.

I wracked my brains about what would be a perfect distraction from pre-election anxiety and I came up with Tom Lehrer.

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Before there was Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory, before the word nerd was invented, much less considered  cool, there was Tom Lehrer, a mathematician who makes Sheldon’s mordant observations on the follies of humanity seem tame.

  Lehrer wrote satirical songs in the 1950s and early 60s--witty pitch black humor for a straight-laced snow white era when it was so dangerous to use profanity that you could get hauled off to jail for it—comic Lenny Bruce actually did. 

A math prodigy and Harvard professor, Lehrer’s oeuvre is relatively small, only 50 songs. But almost every one of those songs were satirical masterpieces that are as relevant, hysterically funny and offensive today as they were then.       

  Tom Lehrer was my hero in an era where cynicism was considered un-American and satire was considered an art form practiced only by historical figures like Voltaire.   I was a cynic to my bones and reveled in his subversive brilliance. He knew how to skewer the status quo without self-righteousness but with rapier wit, a commodity I aspired to have one day. 

He was the nerdy girl’s crush.    With his matinee idol good looks, I’d swoon over both him….and Elvis. I also crushed on Lehrer’s favorite comedian, handsome Danny Kaye, the master of gibberish.

 Tom Lehrer stopped writing and performing in the early 70s because he thought Henry Kissinger getting the Nobel Peace prize meant the death of satire.  Ha!  He hadn’t seen anything yet.  He’s in his 90s now and I wish I could ask him what he thinks of Trump giving Rush Limbaugh the Congressional Medal of Honor.   . 

Tom Lehrer would probably have long been forgotten if it weren’t for the invention of that magical wayback machine--YouTube--which has given us a treasure trove of his blasts from the past. 

Here are some of my favorites:

• National Brotherhood Week. Lehrer’s mordant view of prejudice in is as spot-on today as it was back then, depressingly enough.

• Poisoning Pigeons in the Park never gets old. Of course Tom didn’t have to deal with PETA who would have strung him up.

• The Hunting Song. Whenever I hear a story about some hapless hunter shot by another hunter I automatically break into: I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow. Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a purebred Guernsey cow.

•  Lobachevski. Lehrer informed my anarchic, rule-breaking side with bizarre songs such as this ode to an obscure Russian mathematician who got caught plagiarizing.  He even managed to find a phrase that rhymed with plagiarize:   Plagiarize, don’t forget why God made your eyes.

• Pollution. Never reluctant to torture a rhyme in the service of satire, he came up with: See the halibuts and the sturgeons being wiped out by detergeons.

• Be Prepared and Vatican Rag. Hypocrisy was Lehrer’s favorite target.  He skewered both the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church before their current child sexual abuse scandals. I can only imagine what word he would have found that rhymes with pedophilia.

I was introduced to Lehrer by my parents, old lefties who dragged me on Women’s Strike for Peace marches and to Pete Seeger concerts.  Satire is subversive by definition, and Tom Lehrer was an anodyne to the earnest Seeger who seemed much too saintly for me.   Lehrer fandom gave me a connection to my dad, whose subversive sense of humor humanized him and counteracted his insufferable Communist party line political pronouncements about the Soviet Union saving the world.

I don’t think Tom Lehrer would last long if he was writing and performing today.  He would be cancelled fast, just like Kathy Griffin.  Yes, he would skewer Trump et al, but he also might go after the pomposity and self righteousness of the left.  Lehrer loved plays on words, so I can just imagine what he might make of microaggression, cisgender and white fragility.  One thing I’m sure of, his Twitter feed would be a riot. 

Lehrer hasn’t commented on the Trump era, but in 2002 he was prescient about our current nightmare. “Things I once thought were funny are scary now. I often feel like a resident of Pompeii who has been asked for some humorous comments on lava,”  he was quoted as saying in an article about him: by Andrew Robinson in Nature Magazine   

Lehrer was my inspiration. I learned from him to brave the trolls and bashers because satire is offensive by definition. He taught me that snark should know no limits.  

You can watch an entire Tom Lehrer concert here.

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Snarky Senior" is for those of us who qualify for a senior discount, but aren’t content with the crap we can buy with it. Subscribe here for an irreverent take on life, culture, media, aging, health, politics and everything else about aging as a rebel—with or without a cause.  You can follow me on Twitter here (Don’t expect much. I hate Twitter), and on Facebook here (I love Facebook. It’s where we older folks hang out). Email me anytime at Askerica@gmail.com. Suggestions and feedback welcome.

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