Irreverence Is My Only Sacred Cow

Coming of age in the 1960s I often say that irreverence is my only sacred cow. That mantra remains a central theme for me. It was the masthead manifesto for a small broadsheet, The Realist, published in that time. In some respects, my glee for the irreverence of The Realist was a natural evolution from my more youthful excitement over Mad magazine. I sometimes wonder if many of us, aging 1960s activists and hippies, received our formative push from Mad magazine.

Earlier, I talked about the cultural divide that cleaves the boomer generation that came of age during the 60s. I can see it clearly framed as uptight, irrational fear on the one side juxtaposed to Alfred E. Neumann’s “What, me worry?”

I thought of that again, watching the Republicans debate in South Carolina. The audience was overwhelmingly white bread. There were lots of young Republicans in the audience. The clean cut young men were all wearing ties and the girls were well scrubbed and put me in mind of the Breck girls of the 1960s.

If those white bread kids are devotees of Alfred E. Neumann they are clearly in the Mad magazine closet. When they become leaders in the party, maybe, like Larry Craig, Mark Foley and a host of other Republicans, they will remain in the closet.