Killing the Joke: It's Not Like That
We here at the Quasi-Psychologists believe that metaphors and their ilk are some of the greatest language technologies known to humanity. As Gamerdamon would say, we're like sharks... we have to keep making analogies. I personally spend almost all of my time thinking about how some things are similar to other things. But some things are just not like the things you thought they were. This is a story about those things. Unlike a simile.
This story begins around the time we started recording the podcast. At the time, we were still recording out of West Hollywood, still trying to define exactly what a Quasi-Psychologist is. It was a very exciting time, mostly because the three of us still hadn't known each other for all that long. That's an important thing to talk about. Let's do that.
Marisha, Lou and I know each other incredibly well. There's many theories as to why that is, but it seems like it was never really untrue. There are jokes to kill that will enumerate how we all met, like I promised, specifically "Lucky Charms" and "Weed is Dad's drug." But the point is, basically immediately after we were all in the same room for a day, we had become a super-team of solving problems and being funny. A few weeks later, we were recording.
So this is the climate. We work great together, we each get the way the others think, but we don't really know that many facts about each other yet. Eventually we solved a lot of that, all in our own ways (I monologued, Marisha elaborated, Lou interjected), but in the early days there was a lot of "You WHAT?" from all sides. It was fun, especially considering there was nothing we could really say that would put the other two off. Some dark shit came up, guys, but we're all cool about it.
Man, I'm really getting off track here. This was supposed to be about analogies. Alright, so in the first couple episodes, Lou made some analogies. See? I was getting there. But every once in a while, he'd interject (like he do, playa) with a simile that just flat out didn't land. Occasinally I'd dismantle them, but usually the incongruity was just hilarious, and then we moved on. But I noticed it irritating him that he didn't have a way to pull out. The moment he said "It's like...", he was trapped, forced to simile against his will. But no, he thought. There is another way. "It's not like that."
I busted out laughing. "I'm glad you can admit that, because I never can. Whenever that happens to me, I just pretend I've lost the thought."
Lou appreciated the sentiment, and we moved on. But now I know that face. Even though Lou regrets everything he's ever done, that face means Lou is regretting something while he's doing it. And that just won't stand. So I remind him it's not like that, and we move on.
I emplore you to use this in your own life. Get out there. Tell some people they're wrong. They may not appreciate it as much as Lou, but I'm sure they need to hear it more often.
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