DANTRIFICATION

White People, Get Over Yourselves

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:12:00 +0000

On Obama's "race" speech.

Once Upon A Time...

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:00:00 +0000

... I wrote this article for YogaJournal.com

Apparently, it is now in the running for a Maggie award.

You be the judge.

She's so out there, she's in there.

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:45:00 +0000

Erykah Badu has finally given us a new album, only her third full LP of new music in, oh, eleven years.

Now she says she's learned to use iChat and Garage Band, so she's got two, maybe three more albums coming this year. "New AmErykah, Pt. 2" in the Spring. Then her alterego "Lowdown Loretta Brown" in the Fall. And then she's got her new supergroup with Ahmir & Mike Elizondo, "Edith Funker."

EDITH FUNKER!

She may be the world's biggest tease, that Erykah, but she sure is funny.

Peep the video and my review in the Washington Post.

He Gave His Nose

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:32:00 +0000

It's the 25th anniversary of the release of Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

Writing my review in the Washington Post gave me occasion to really think on the album's importance, which runs so much deeper than it's status as the greatest selling album of all time. More than all of that, in 1983, "Thriller" almost singlehandedly achieved the reintegration of American music.

P.S.: If you really want a renewed respect for the Jackson family, just listen to this home demo that Michael, Randy and Janet (yes) put together in 1978, setting out the now famous arrangement of "Workin' Day And Night." They are so in the pocket with the percussion, it's insane.

Obama and the Skittles vote

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:14:00 +0000

...and for a non-ignorant analysis, peep Jeff Chang's blog here.

Evolution of an Outlook

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:47:00 +0000

The first time I saw the Palestinian hip-hop group D.A.M. was in 2005, when they did their first gig in New York.

A lot has changed since then for this Jewish-American hip-hop writer. Now that D.A.M. released their first album (which I reviewed in the Washington Post), apparently the change shows.

I went to the West Bank in 2006, and saw some things that I needed to see — the Deheisha refugee camp near Bethlehem, Israeli settler terror in Hebron, the streets of Ramallah, and of course, the Wall, the Wall everywhere. It was a sobering counterpoint to my trip to Israel proper the year before, something that I wrote about in my-yet-to-be-published-Masters-Project-because-I’m-neglecting-
everything-else-in-my-life-but-this-book

In it, I described my outlook in the years prior to the West Bank trip...

"My politics aligned with standard “liberal Zionism.” I supported a two-state solution and believed that the failure of the peace process lay not with “us” — reasonable Israelis and Jewish-Americans — but with “them” — the unreasonable Yasser Arafat and Palestinian militants, who had been offered 95 percent of what they wanted, yet still resorted to violence."

After the trip, I summarized my transformation this way:

"If Israel is a democracy, I conclude, it is the democracy of Jim Crow. And if being a Zionist means supporting that, then I am most certainly not a Zionist."

In other words: If I am a staunch multi-culturalist while in America — meaning that I believe in creating a plural society where people of different ethnicities co-exist on an even playing field — then I must be a multi-culturalist everywhere, and Israel/Palestine can be no exception. Whether that means a one-state or a two-state solution is up for discussion — and frankly, at this point, neither one seems possible despite what our Hypocrite-in-Chief says. (Remember when he slammed Clinton in 2000 for getting too tied up in the peace process? NOW look who wants to leave a legacy.)

All I know is that you can’t solve one refugee problem by creating another one. It was true in 1948, and it’s still true now.

--Dan Charnas

Let's Not Get Carried Away

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:21:00 +0000

Read the rant here.

Happy 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:33:00 +0000

After an extended holiday both here and abroad, it’s time to dig into this year’s work:

• As many of you know, I’ll be spending most of my time reporting and writing my book, “The Big Payback: How Hip-Hop Became Global Pop,” coming out on New American Library/Penguin in the Fall of 2009. See y’all in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami and Houston soon.

• Music criticism for the Washington Post, and posts here and on hiphopmusic.com.

• Other ventures, coming soon.

Wishing power to all of your resolutions.

-D

Checkmated in Cali

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:21:00 +0000

Read all about it on hiphopmusic.com.

American Cuisine

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:44:00 +0000

Thoughts on Sylviagate here.

Good Intentions

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:25:00 +0000

The confluence of genius and psychopathy is all too common in hip-hop, the convergence of genius and altruism all too rare. Few rappers possess what Chuck D. had, try as they might. From today's Washington Post.

America's Two Destinies

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:41:00 +0000

Read my 9-11 post on hiphopmusic.com

Hydrated Fo' Life

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:23:00 +0000

Reviewed the new Fitty for the Washington Pizzy today.

And got Milk some ink too.

The Torch Ratings — 2007 VMA Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:22:00 +0000

Even if you hadn’t watched the VMAs Sunday night, you’ve heard about the fiasco. But there were some encouraging moments too.

Torch ratings go from a scale of -5 to +5, with -5 being abysmal behavior and no f**king balls and +5 being completely courageous in making a sincere point on behalf of the hip-hop generation.

Here they are, from worst to best.

BRITNEY SPEARS: -4

Britney Spears has been getting by on her skin privilege for years. On Sunday, this non-talent was finally naked for the world to see. Let this be the last time that more deserving performers get bumped for her ass.

KANYE WEST: -1

Really, Kanye. Who gives f**k about a goddamn Moonman?

TIMBALAND: 0

This was the super-producer’s finest year, and should have been his night by default, but Timbo awkwardly insinuated himself into his artists' finest moments. And is the new "Maestro" title mandatory like “The King of Pop” or “The King of all Media”?

RIHANNA: +2

For being a class act and paying a visit to the rockers’ suite.

CHRIS BROWN: +3

A star is born.

JUSTIN: +4

For telling MTV to cut the shit.

TOMMY LEE & KID ROCK: +5

For giving us pundits some fresh bad-white-rocker behavior to reference the next time Bill O’Reilly needs a comment. HONORABLE MENTION: JAMEY FOXX & SEAN COMBS for perfectly encapsulating that shit.

Aiight, kids. Get back out there, and remember to hold the torch.

Where hip-hop lives...

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:49:00 +0000

...on Monsieur Talib Kweli's new album, Eardrum.

From today's Washington Post.

It’s not about the music. It’s about the songs.

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:35:00 +0000

Just to show you how big of a Prince fan I was in high school:

On Class Night — the annual party where the outgoing seniors ripped the teachers, and the teachers roasted us back — the faculty sketch ended when Principal Chestnut came out dressed as yours truly, holding a framed portrait of the Purple One.

“Prince and I are here,” he exclaimed, closing the show.

By the time I left college four years later, Prince and I were through.

Why? I think Jon Hein had it right: Prince jumped the shark at “Sign O’ The Times.” Until that album, Prince was an innovator. As popular as he became with mainstream audiences, he was always doing something bold. A new album from Prince was like a musical middle finger to everyone, even to some of his fans.

But “Sign O’ The Times” was different. If, as Alfred Hitchcock once said, the definition of style is self-plagiarism, then Prince was becoming very stylish indeed. He began repeating himself. As much as I liked “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” I couldn’t help hearing his re-use of the stutter-step riff from The Time’s “Get It Up.” As much as I liked “Dorothy Parker,” I couldn’t listen to Prince drone on about things like taking a bubble bath with his pants on, not when another group, Public Enemy, was just starting to talk about some really important things. Songs like “Hot Thing” and “It” seemed like self-indulgent double-album filler. That year, during the sultry summer of 1987, was the last time I really heard Black radio play a Prince song to death. “Adore” was his swan song, the last grind.

Don’t get me wrong: I think Black people will always, always love Prince. But that doesn’t mean they’ll listen to him. Ironic indeed that, in 1988, the bootleg “Black Album” surfaced, a meandering collection of mediocre songs that were rumored to be a meditation on Blackness but, if anything, showed how Prince felt about being upstaged by hip-hop during its Golden Age:

“Riding in my Thunderbird on the freeway
I turned on my radio 2 hear some music play
I got a silly rapper talking silly shit instead
And the only good rapper is one that's dead.”

And I was like, “Fuck that.” I’d much rather listen to Nice and Smooth rip “Starfish and Coffee” over the Lafayette Afro-Rock Band than Prince’s pretty, precious original any day of the week.

Prince entered his jingle phase in the 1990s, nice, easy-listening pop confections like “Diamonds and Pearls” and “Cream.” And what do you do, a few years later, after putting out garbage like “My Name is Prince” and “Sexy MF,” when nobody gives a shit about your music anymore? Blame your record company.

I was at Warner Bros. during his ugly split with the company. Russ Thyret, the chairman of Warner, the man who had found Prince and signed him in the 1970s, had just invested millions in Prince’s new label deal when The Kid announced that he would no longer record for Warner. Russ felt completely betrayed. One time, Rick Rubin began to ask Russ about it, and Russ pointed a finger at him: “Don’t – You – Say – That – Word.” The “P” word, he meant.

In the post-Warner years, I must admit to a hope that Prince would somehow find a renaissance in the opening of his vaults. But I listened to all three CDs of “Emancipation” — I remember because it absorbed an entire road trip from LA to San Fran — and the only songs I liked were the ones he didn’t write: “Betcha By Golly Wow,” and the Bonnie Raitt song, “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” The album was as boring as the Central Valley landscape rolling by my window.

Still, Prince was one of the first artists to try to tap the power of the Internet. Even if I didn’t care for his music anymore, I developed a new kind of admiration for him: Damn, he can really do this himself. An artist can make a living, even remain a star, without the help of a major record company.

I hadn’t much considered Prince until 2004, when my college roommate invited me to see Prince at Meadowlands, a stop on his “Musicology” tour. As expected, his mode of distribution was ingenious: Everyone who bought one of the pricey concert tickets walked away with a free album. What I didn’t expect was how the show would move me.

For a guy in his 40s, dude looked, played and moved spectacularly. Entering my late 30s, that was inspiration enough. But at mid-show, he started doing this tune, “Prince Is The Name” (unrecorded, I guess, because I can’t find it anywhere). He said:

“Warner Bros. used to be a friend of mine/
Now they’re just a motherfucking waste of time”

...and by 2004, Warner had become the exact same thing to me. He continued:

“If you cant do it on your own/
It ain’t worth the fame/
Everyone gets older/
But I remain the same/
Prince is the name”

Hot damn. People cheered, the confetti came down, and damned if I don’t still have a few pieces of that sacred paper on my altar.

As a performer, as a human being who does “himself,” Prince is a renewed inspiration. His performance earlier this year during the Superbowl half-time deluge was a modern day miracle: How did he keep from tripping on the rain-slicked stage? How did his hair stay up? How could he move his fingers so accurately over those wet guitar strings (I can’t even do it well dry)? How did he keep from electrocuting himself? Dude is blessed.

Even so, I wouldn’t go as far as Jon Pareles did in his recent article in the New York Times, in anticipation of Prince’s new album, “Planet Earth.” In “The Once And Future Prince,” Pareles intimates that Prince gets that, in the 21st century, it’s not about CD sales, it’s about the music. I wouldn’t even be as nice as my pal J. Freedom DuLac was, when he pronounced in the Washington Post that the new album was “30 percent bad, 40 percent mediocre and 30 percent really, really good.”

As much as I admire Prince, I want to like his music more than I actually do. The truth is, even with Prince’s independence and brilliance as a performer, I can’t remember a single song he’s done in the past decade. And when it comes to being culturally relevant and resonant, it’s not about the music. It’s about the songs.

The fact is, R. Kelly is writing better songs than Prince. Has been for a while, actually.

God help us all, but it’s the sad, sad truth.

It's enough to make your blood run khaki

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:29:00 +0000

Reviewed Common's new album, "Finding Forever," this week in the Washington Post.

Once you go gat, you'll never go backpack...

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:49:00 +0000

Reviewed this week in the Wizzashington Pizzost.

Well, At Least One Yankee Will Have A Good Season

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 16:15:00 +0000

My review of Daddy Yankee's new album in the Washington Post today.

Scenes From A Graduation

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:19:00 +0000

Just a few short weeks ago, just recovering now.

The kid cleaned up though. I got:

• a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship
• the Lynton Fellowship in Book Writing
• the Sackett Graduate Award
• and graduated with honors

Oh, you my Master now?! ;-)

Thanks, fam & friends for an awesome two years at Columbia Journalism School.

Love, D

Since I'm To Busy Graduating To Write About All This Post-Imus Stuff, Let Me Paint You A Picture...

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Sat, 05 May 2007 22:55:00 +0000

Not That I Hold A Grudge Or Anything...

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:43:00 +0000

From The Man Who Brought You The Only Movie Worse Than Soul Plane

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 02:48:00 +0000

Alerted by the ever-vigilant Reggie Dennis to this today.

Ladies and Gentlemen, John Ridley, young auteur, has taken Chris Rock’s famous-but-obviously-ironic comedy routine seriously, and added his own fascist, classist, bougie spin.

And then he does something even more stunning:

Ridley posits the week-or-so that W left Condi and Colin’s in charge of the Big House during a minor diplomatic crisis as the apex of all African-American achievement.

Hey, he might be right. Maybe the building of the foundation of the entire American economy, American theatre, dance and musical culture, the American dialect, a huge body of literature, and a non-violent Civil Rights movement ain’t shit. Oh yeah, blood transfusions and peanut butter too.

I can say one thing, though: The zenith of Black achievement definitely wasn’t “Undercover Brother.”

I’m not going to say too much more about this. I’m just going to sit sort of on the sidelines, watch the shit storm, and listen to W.E.B. DuBois roll in his grave.

Pac, Me and Chi

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:17:00 +0000

Reviewed the new Tupac for the Post today.

Another uncreative, depressing dead rapper rehash.

At times, I can get a little mean in my reviews. Part of it, I think, is that when I do get some bandwidth in this crowded communications soup, I want my words to have some impact, even if it means a little hyperbole.

In fact, it reminds me of what an old friend of mine used to do with his own writing. Except when he tangled with Tupac, it was for real.

* * * * *

I met a lot of artists in the course of my two decades in the music business, but I never met Tupac Shakur.

I didn’t think much of him. When it became fashionable to compare him with Big, for instance, there was no question in my mind. One of them could rhyme, one couldn’t. My approach was that of an East Coast snob, for sure. It took me many years to really understand why people adored Tupac so, and why that worship has only increased since his death, dwarfing Big.

Ironically, the person who taught me the value and genius of Tupac was Chino XL.

Of course, Chino XL is probably best known for his celebrated beef with Tupac, having said some things about him on his first album that caused Tupac to fire back on the last song he released before his death, “Hit ‘Em Up.” So this requires some explaining.

Here’s what Chino said about Tupac. He said it on one of the last songs he recorded for “Here To Save You All,” a collaboration with Ras Kass called “Riiiot”:

“By this industry/ I’m trying not to get f**ked/ Like Tupac in jail.”

For the record, Chino has always maintained that what he meant by this line was that Tupac was “trying NOT to get f**ked” in jail, not that Tupac was “GETTING f**ked” in jail.

But anyway, the line is ambiguous, and knowing Chino’s mind state at the time, he probably didn’t give a f**k.

It was 1995. Chino XL was lyrically untouchable, in my opinion. Chino’s too. So it caused him no end of frustration that, after being signed for four years to Rick Rubin’s American Recordings, he had yet to make an impact. His stuff with Art of Origin got very little play. After his partner Kerri went AWOL, Chino had to record his own material on a shoestring. When Chino turned in the demo of “No Complex,” it was with no help from me.

As tired of fighting as I was — both with the label for resources and with Chino for a single — “No Complex” was one of those songs where something finally clicked. It was as if Chino XL coalesced suddenly into who he was meant to be: He found his voice, his image, his style in one fell swoop.

Chino was angry. Angry at me, angry at Rick, angry at Kerri, at Warner Bros., at radio DJs who wouldn’t play his stuff, at mediocre MCs who got on simply by being hype man to the next man. Not to say Chino hadn’t always possessed an acid tongue. This was, after all, the guy who said, while still with Art of Origin, “I’m throwin’ your sh*t out the window/Like Eric Clapton’s son.”

But “No Complex” was Chino’s last straw. Chino made a vow to himself: If no one is listening, he seemed to say, then f**k it, I am going to say what I want to say about anyone and anything. I will say the things that everybody thinks but are afraid to say. Anybody who has crossed me is going to get theirs, double. And in the small bandwidth that I have in this industry filled with so much bullsh*t, I will scream it at the top of my lungs so that, at the very least, I can emerge feeling like I’ve accomplished something for myself.

On the strength of “No Complex,” I got some money from Rick to fly Chino and his producer B-Wiz out to L.A. It was enough to keep them up in a cheap motel in Glendale, record the rest of the album on two ADAT machines in my apartment, and mix the tracks in a small studio in Hollywood. That became Chino’s first album, “Here To Save You All.”

“No Complex,” the first single, was an absolute non-stop tirade. Nobody had done anything so expansive, been so willing to make so many enemies. It was, I think, the hip-hop equivalent of a suicide bombing. The shrapnel went everywhere. I think it was King Tech, after hearing this song, who dubbed him “The King Of Ill-Lines and Punchlines.”

Still, getting Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown upset at you doesn’t carry with it quite the same consequences as hitting a guy who’s about to emerge from prison backed by the most notorious gangster in the music business.

I’m not sure when Tupac became aware of this one little line in Chino’s song. “Riiiot” was, after all, the #1 requested song on the Sway and King Tech Wake Up Show months before his album’s release in the spring of 1996. At some point, Sway interviewed Tupac for the show, and Tupac made it clear to Sway that Chino was fair game.

I am sure this was both blessing and curse for Chino XL. On the one hand, Chino had absolutely no beef with Tupac. Like I said, the lyric was written with haste, not with disrespect. On the other, Chino had been waiting for a chance to test his skills in the open, and now here it was. If Tupac wanted a fight, so be it.

Lyrically, it wasn’t going to be a contest. Chino and I got along, I think, because I had a mean streak too. We were in the car and the instrumental for Tupac’s “Dear Mama” came on. I started rapping, “Dear Mama/I wish I was born with two voices...” at which point Chino began coughing up a lung. It was a joke only Chino could have gotten, a play on the fact that Tupac always double tracked his vocals. The subtle implication being, of course, that he needed to.

But I think Chino understood that Tupac wasn’t an emcee, but a poet of certain eloquence. Because Chino had studied Tupac so well, because he respected him, liked him, he could begin to stockpile some lyrical weapons of mass destruction, should it ever come to that.

It became clear, though, that the fight wouldn’t be verbal. When we’d go places in California, we’d hear whispers as we entered a club, always some dude muttering “Tupac” under his breath. Chino, from what I recall, began to hear ominous threats from the Death Row camp. Then came “Hit Em Up,” the last song that Tupac released alive, where he followed up his “Chino XL, f**k you too” with the statement, “My .44 make sure all y’all kids don’t grow.”

Chino XL, father of three, took that shit very seriously, and proceeded to squash the sh*t with Tupac through some backchannel communication that was, and is, none of my business. To this day, Chino says that he and Pac had peaced things up before Pac’s death.

I think there was a part of Chino that missed being able to verbally joust with a worthy opponent. After all, he had saved up nearly a year’s worth of comeback rhymes that never saw the light of day, and that’s hard for an emcee to hold back. To his credit, Chino never recorded a response to “Hit Em Up.” The only time I ever heard of him let some slip was at a live performance at New York’s Wetlands in the fall of 1996, which began:

“Ni**a you ain’t never seeeeeeeeeen drama/
F**k you and your dope fieeeeeeeeeeend mama.”

A few days later, Tupac was shot in Vegas. I had flown back to Los Angeles, and remember, a few days later, the voice of Rick’s assistant echoing through the office.

“He’s dead,” she said.

I got the call a few hours later from Chino as he traveled by car from New York to Philly. He was crying.

“You know I loved that dude, Charnas,” he said. I told him that I did.

A few months later, we were in Vegas. The Makaveli album has just come out, and in the wee hours of the morning, when the rest of us went up to the hotel rooms to sleep, Chino stayed behind in the car to listen to the whole thing, alone.

In 1997, Chino narrowly escaped death when several gunmen shot through his SUV outside a house party in Jersey. There was some talk, I remember, of this coming from some of Pac’s people who didn’t know that shit had been squashed, and were looking for revenge. But I’m not sure if Chino even knows.

Are You Really That Surprised?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Charnas) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 01:02:00 +0000

Very sad. But in a way, it makes perfect sense.

Seeing Michael Richards have his racial meltdown in the Laugh Factory, and then make things worse on Letterman was, to me, a case of chickens coming home to roost.

Don’t get me wrong: I love “Seinfeld,” adore Kramer’s character, and think that Michael Richards is a comedic genius.

But I harbor no illusions: The construct for “Seinfeld,” like so many other comic teleplays and films, is a monochromatic world where White People are central, and people of color — if they appear at all — are simply used as accessories, as added “color” for a scene.

When you think about “Seinfeld,” and you realize the only recurring Black characters were either there because they made our white heroes uncomfortable simply by being Black (like George’s nemesis Mr. Morgan at the Yankees); or to parody a Black celebrity (like Kramer’s erstwhile lawyer Jackie Chiles doing his best Johnnie Cochran), you get a peek inside the archaic white psyche. It’s a headspace where white people simply do not know how to deal with a world that is slowly become not their own. So they literally ignore it. “Seinfeld” is Ralph Ellison’s argument made visual.

Many of my friends live in this space. Many of your friends do too. They’re the white friends who giggle when hip-hop comes on, rather than bob their heads to it. It’s not that we can’t be friends with them. It’s just that we choose to live multiculturally and they don’t... either because they don’t know how, don’t want to, don’t have to, or they are afraid to.

When white folks are brought out of this space, they can have a number of reactions. Some take kindly to reality. Others snap.

I’m sure that Michael Richards doesn’t believe he is a racist. I’m sure, on an intellectual level, believes in equal rights for all. But we never find the truth until we get cornered. When Black folks are pushing his buttons, Richards’ response, apparently, is to tell Black people they have no right to push his buttons because they’re Black. That is the very definition of deep-seated, latent racism. Sorry.

Jerry Seinfeld’s reaction was encouraging. He still loves his friend, but made no excuses for him. Still, it’s a bit hypocritical: Seinfeld was the guy who created and reveled in that whitebread world. I live on the Upper West Side. (Ok, the Upper, Upper West Side). If I suddenly woke up one day and walked out into Seinfeld’s all-white fiction, I’d have to shoot myself.

I’d like to think about this someday as the death-knell for that kind of anachronism: Woody Allen, “Seinfeld,” “Friends.” Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. You had your day. Even Larry David, to a certain degree, left that monochromatic world when he graduated to “Curb.” Perhaps this will be a turning point to more multicultural, more race-conscious humor. That humor certainly is more uncomfortable for white people, less safe: from Chris Rock to Bernie Mack to Borat. But it’s humor that’s transformative because it has reality on its side.