Comedy moment

In LA the first time we saw some great stand up.
And in LA last night there was a moment of great humour.

Best joke from the Comedy Store, courtesy of Carlos from Honduras, speaking on 'beaners' the self-prescribed nickname for all peoples lookig the slightest bit Latin (read Mexican) in LA. It goes something like this, and it is rude, so look away now:

"So God and his angels are in the process of handing the defining qualities and characteristics to the different human races. The Asian delegation pause for a while and request to be given the defining trait of academic excellence. So the lord gives the Asians good grades but in celestial balance makes their sexual organs and feminine physical features diminutive. The Afro-Anmerican contigent see this and immediately request big asses and big schlongs. The heavenly committee of course temper this by giving them the trait of poor literacy and terrible school attendance.

Meanwhile the Hispanic delegation are debating what they should request, when from the back of the pack a diminutive voice squeals out "pointy shoes". Amid the sighs, scolds, disbelieving recoil and general incredulity of the attendent beaners ("no, not the pointy shoes), God and his mighty host grant them their wish.

Now centuries have passed and beaners far and wide can see the benefit of divine wisdom as the pointy shoes are perfect to enable them to climb the fence into the USA."

Thanks Carlos.

And last night one of our American hostel-mates suggested that Bolivia was rife with indiscriminate shootings, terrible multi-bus pile ups and more more than one case of gunmen boarding buses only indescriminantly shoot dead every passenger, including women and children.

MC Delicatessen countered by suggesting that that was a lot different from the USA where they waste no time by having the gunmen enter school classes to indescriminantly blow everyone away.

Thanks Bush.

On a related theme, we have been reasonably active in searching out Native American contexts on our travels. We did find amazing rock art near the Lava Beds and, though we haven't been painstaking, we are pretty shocked at how (unklike say Australia) there is basically nothing on the tourist trail celebrating or informing native culture. There are the Indian casinos and the lakes have Indian names but you are more likely to find a memorial glorifying another Indian massacre or displacement than anything even trying to explain Native American life. Or the end of it.