Honolulu Lite
The general consensus by readers is that being bitten by a shark is not funny. Biting back over
shark attackThat's what I gathered from letters and phone calls regarding my column last week discussing the recent spate of shark attacks in Florida. I mentioned that several surfers were nipped during a surfing meet and reported that one of them said, "Dude, where's my foot?" I said another guy who was bitten but not seriously injured has hired Johnnie Cochran to sue someone for him. And I mentioned the kid who had his arm bitten off was doing fine since his arm was reattached.
Some readers were shocked that the newspaper would let me make jokes about shark attacks. All I can say is that I was as shocked as they were. There's no accounting for taste in newspapers these days.
But I have to admit that I might have glossed over a few of the details of the shark attacks. (And just to clear the air, the surfer never actually said, "Dude, where's my foot?" I don't know what he said, but it probably was something like "Aiiiaiiyaiiiiaaaiiayaaiyaaiiii!!!!")
Breezy Barksdale from Florida e-mailed: "The Florida-Hawaii piece is very humorous except for the part about the little Mississippi boy who was attacked on my favorite stretch of beach."
She pointed out that not only is little Jesse not "doing fine," but is in fact in a light coma.
A caller pointed out to me that the man who I said was not seriously injured actually had his leg bitten off.
Look, I don't want to quibble here, but some people will say you're not seriously injured until you have both legs chomped off. I didn't want to mention that the guy's leg had been bitten off because I was afraid I might accidentally say that his planned lawsuit will fail because he doesn't have a leg to stand on. That would have been wrong, so I ought to get points for restraint.
As far as the boy, he didn't go into the light coma until after press time and up until then had been doing as fine as anyone can do after having an arm bitten off and then reattached.
The hardest thing about writing humor is dealing with death and dismemberment in a funny way. You apparently have to have a knack for it.
Take Jim Toomey, the cartoonist who draws the "Sherman's Lagoon" panels that run in this paper. It's a hilarious comic strip, even though the main character, Sherman, is a shark that eats people all the time. How does Toomey pull it off? I crack a couple of jokes about people who weren't even killed by sharks and I get hammered by readers.
Toomey's got three books out entitled "Shark Etiquette," "Ate That, What's Next" and "Poodle: The Other White Meat." How does he get away with that? I'd never make a joke about a poodle being eaten by a shark. A wiener dog, maybe, but never a poodle.
I plan to contact Mr. Toomey to get some instruction on the finer points of writing in a humorous manner about savage ocean predators ripping the limbs off of innocent beach-goers. Obviously, I still have a lot to learn.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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