News You Can Bruise for 1999 December 31

Every year on New Years Eve, Jim Sjveda plays the operetta Die Fleidermaus (That's probably not spelled right, but it translates literally to "The Flying Mouse", or more accurately to "The Bat"). Now, supposedly Die Fleidermaus is a pretty funny piece of work, as there's a character on The Tick named after the operetta, and I'm pretty sure Jim Sjveda knows what he's doing. But for the life of me I can't figure out what's so funny about it. The plot is ridiculous, but no more so than that of any other operatic work, and except for some noticeable repetition that might be verbal humor, I can't get anything out of the German singing. It perplexes and consterns me (you think that's not a word, but how do you explain "consternation"?).

Fortunately, Spike Jones (not Spike Jonez) is on for the moment. The City Slickers are doing Carmen, it's pretty good. At one point Spike, who is doing the narration, yells at the tenor for missing his cue. To me, that's humor. You give me an incompetent performer and a pissed-off narrator, and I'll give you comedy! Because the thing I stipulated you give me already was comedy, you buffoon! So I just have to spit back the exact same thing you gave me! Hoo-hah!

I've been eating penguin mints all day, as you can tell. I bought a box of 'em yesterday, and I have some old ones that Mae Ling gave me which live in a plastic bag before being transfered to my bloodstream. I'm getting rid of the plastic bag ones because they're a little stale and I want to open the shiny new tin of penguin mints.