How the English made me ignorant about, the English. A.K.A. Your accent makes me chuckle, but it's not my fault.

At the very moment I clicked "publish" on a recent blog of mine I felt a rumbling within myself and exclaimed a quick "DOH" in realization that I had forgotten one friend from my Chicago childhood.

His name was Stewart and he wasn't as much of a friend as he was an occasional acquaintance.  The levels of friendship are pretty easy to quantify as a child.  You have a "Best Friend" and then a "Next Best Friend" and so on and so on.  Stewart did not qualify as any sort of "Best" at any level.  It's not that he was a bad guy at all, it's just that he was only my friend because his older brother and my older brother were friends and when my brother would go over to Stewart's house to hang out with his brother my Mother would send me with him if she had happened to have had it with me "this much" that particular day.  He was no part of the planned underground fort me and my "gang" wanted to build under the bushes.  Still following?

Stewart, and more so his brother, had an impact on me that still haunts me to this very day.  Going to his house on Sunday afternoons we would watch PBS.  Please keep in mind that in the 70's there were FOUR NETWORKS and some independent UHF stations if you lived in a large enough city.  I did, but their programming on the weekends was quite boring.  So, on a Sunday afternoon you had ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS.  If you watched one of the "BIG THREE" on a Sunday afternoon you had your choice of  Wide World of Sports, which was awesome and then garbage mostly structured around the whole kung fu/ karate genre; also known as Jack Slap Theater!

If you weren't into any of these shows on Sunday afternoon, you watched PBS.  Of course all of this is based on you being either too hot or too cold  or simply too exhausted to play outside.  There were no video games other than Pong and that could only go on for so long.

So, back to Stewart's place and PBS.

MONTY PYTHON!  There, I said it.

At Stewart's house we were allowed to watch Monty Python.  These guys were HILARIOUS what with their prancing about as soldiers and walking funny and slapping each other with fish and returning parrots...  I wasn't entirely sure at first if I was supposed to laugh, but everything these guys did was funny and all the while their accent drove it home for me!  It wasn't that the English accent was a funny accent, per se, it's just that it seems to lend itself quite well to comic timing. You just couldn't scream "I DON'T LIKE SPAM" like a woman with an American accent. It sounds too threatening.

As the years went on in my life, I found I'd become some sort of an "anglo-humor-phile."  I'm sure there were others just like me but we stayed very quite much like a cheese fetishist trying to make the transition into mouse culture.  I was ruined.

It wasn't just Monty Python though, it was also Dudley Moore and Rowan Atkinson and Marty Feldman and then spun off to the Kinks and Douglas Adams and even James Bond what with his sly wit.  Anything British came across to me as funny!  Even Peter Cook still makes me laugh to this very day.  He's the guy who canned Dudley Moore from their comedy duo so that he could have a better solo career sans Dudley.  Then Dudley Moore had a brilliant career and Peter Cook disappeared until he showed up on film and said, "Mawiage.... Twooo Wuvvvv!"  BRILLIANT!

The English accent had created a Pavlovian effect within me.  I laughed at almost everything I heard or could imagine being said in a British accent. 

"I'm sorry, but I seem to have run over your dog..." said the Englishman.
"........BWAH HAH HA HAH HAHHHHH." said I.

This was not out of disrespect by any means.  This was out of pure fascination and the comfort that this accent had provided me for so many years.  Granted, I did not laugh at all the Brits on the Death Star.  They were evil Brits and they were hardly funny.  Although, that Gran Moff Tarkin could have taken his comedic Darth Vader one liners on the road for a second career, that is, if he hadn't been blown up so.

As the years went by, I pretty much only had movies and television to keep me informed as to what humorous things were being said in a British accent.  Then, fate delivered a British person to my high school.  For the sake of this blog, I will refer to him as "Will" for that is nothing like his real name. Yes, Will is an enigma!

Oh yeah, and on a side note, the movie U-571 was a complete farce.  The British recovered the Germans Enigma code machine and not the Americans.  The movie would have been much better had it been made with British actors, albeit a little funnier.

Anyway, Will actually was hilarious!  He really is a funny guy and a complete joy to talk to.  However, he did help my immature mind realize that there was much more to the Brits than just humor and history.  They had real life issues just like any of us.  Knowing this almost ruined entirely the entertainment value that I had come to find in the comedic qualities of the British accent.  He was a real person and if he was trying to be funny he was milk squirting out of your nose funny, but if he was upset or even sad, he was much less funny.  I'm sure I may have snickered or chuckled from time to time as he may have been telling me about something that made him sad, but I'm sure he would've punched me square in the face had I laughed out loud at his pain. But I don't really recall him ever being overly disappointed with anything.

So, spending some time getting to know him helped me mature and realize how I was type-casting an entire nationality and that was wrong.  Then he moved back home to England.

I still managed to laugh whenever I heard the accent, but not to the foolish extent I had in my early youth.  I think I became a little more responsible and a little more respectable of a beautiful culture with great historical impact on the world.  Then, in the mid-90s, in the States, we got Absolutely Fabulous and The Young One's!

AWWWWW C'MON!!!!!  Just when I was starting to realize I was rude for laughing at anything with an English Accent you sent me more comedy?  AND MR. BEAN!!!!!  The British were doing this to me on purpose.  They wanted to tap into my Catholic guilt.

"Here boy... laugh at whatever I say with an English accent"  The British dared say.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" I replied.
"YOU EVIL SOD!!!!  We're people you know!"  they'd catch me off guard.
"I'm so sorry... I'm weak."  I would beg for forgiveness.
"HAH!!!! FOOLED YOU!!!" Damn cunning of you, British.

So, I will allow myself to laugh.  You have confused me enough to the point where I will follow my primal instincts and I shall let out my guffaws of joy!  You cannot stop me.  I will laugh as Eddie Izzard brings me to hysterics whilst still teaching me something.  I will laugh when Rowan Atkinson says nothing but mumbles and falls down.  I will laugh when Phil Ligget calls the Tour de France and I WILL BE IN HYSTERICS WATCHING THE OLYMPICS!!!!

Ohhhhh and what Monty Python and Mr. Bean and Peter Cook have done to my soul, and any experience one could ever have in a church, may be my ultimate downfall.  But I will still laugh!

As it turns out, we have an English Priest at one of the Churches in my town.  I am simply amazed that I have not been struck by lightning right where I sit in my pew as I listen to him deliver the Mass. 

HE... IS... HILARIOUS!

I made to Ireland a few years back.  I know that that is not England by any means, but it's the closest I've ever gotten.  The people there seemed to have a good time laughing at my accent. 

Apparently, I talk funny?

I apologize if I've offended any of my followers in England.  That was not my intent.  Please feel free to smite me.