But my Mac is giving me the message "Must have Symbol font installed" when I try loading the file. So my question is: what fucking symbol do I need to read about wolves? God dammit, Macs piss me off. Anyway, according to some Geocities site (which gives me Javascript errors):

"Wolves do bark, but not very often. When they do bark, it is very quiet, and they do not bark repeatedly like dogs."

Well, who's to question a Geocities site? Not me.

Anyway. Back to Jackass.

I know, a perfectly normal response to Jackass is one of the following:

1. Disgusting!

2. Fucking jackasses!

My initial response was the latter. (I hadn't seen the goldfish scene yet.) I think the first scene I saw was one with a guy pushing another guy in a shopping cart across a parking lot right into a curb, at which point the guy in the cart went flying into a bush.

You know what my other reaction was (besides "Fucking jackasses!") when I saw these jackasses flying into bushes?

Laughter. Lots of it. You know why? Because it was damn funny.

Now, let's go a step beyond the knee-jerk reaction. Can you do it? I bet you can, since you made it this far.

Why is it funny? No, forget that question. Let's ask a more important one. Why do some people shake their heads upon hearing certain jokes, or seeing certain kinds of gags, even while they're laughing? Why do these people shake their heads, then promptly repress their laughter, as if to say "that's funny, but I don't approve of it"?

My friends, this is what we call the prude.

Prudes are misunderstood. It's not that prudes don't enjoy the same things as everyone else. It's that they hate themselves for liking those things. Ask a prude if they've ever toked up. Or had sex with someone they didn't know. Or hummed along to a song by Poison or Motley Crüe. Or looked at someone's cleavage and/or ass and/or crotch during a discussion about the meaning of life.

Prudes fall into two categories: those who feel guilty about doing what they've done, and those who feel guilty about wanting to do what they haven't done. (Thanks to a friend for making a similar observation. But she'll never read this anyway, she's a prude. Just kidding...)

A prude will react before thinking. No, let's be specific. Everyone reacts before thinking. What the prude does is to hold that reaction as their final summation of their values and opinions. A prude isn't much different than a hippie. But at least hippies don't repress their feelings.

But back to Jackass. Let's go beyond reactions and evaluate the actual show, not just vomit out our reactions like proverbial goldfish.

I think on its deepest level, Jackass consists of people doing stupid things. (Got that? That was some deep shit.)

Sometimes, the show consists of people doing amazing things. If you've ever seen those guys skateboard, you know what I'm talking about. What they do with a skateboard might actually make you pick up your head out of the trash can, wipe the vomit off your face, and look up. As in: up in a look of respect.

But let's cut the crap. I don't want to glorify Jackass for anything except what it is. It's one of the only shows on television that it unexpected, entertaining, and - here's the point of the show for all you goddamn prudes - it's damn funny.

So the question at hand is: what's funny?

Humor is absurdity. It's that which diverges with reality, along its own line of logic. Maybe I'll write a whole essay on it at some point, but not now. For now, let's just boil it down - humor is the answer to the following question:

Wouldn't it be funny if...

Now, let's try some answers:

• ...someone bent over and played the target for professional Jai-Alai players intent on improving their skills by whipping oranges into a human ass?

• ...someone "bobbed for jellyfish" and purposely got his own head stung?

• ...someone attempted to jump over a stream in a kiddie bicycle - in the freezing cold - and failed miserably?

• ...someone with absolutely no bear-wrestling experience tried to wrestle a bear wearing only a bear costume?

• ...someone did an exotic dance wearing only a jockstrap while a bull-rider bucked his way into the arena, and then had to run like a madman and jump over the barrier like a flailing idiot to escape from getting gored?

These are hypothetical situations which are funny. And the stuntmen on Jackass enact each and every one. And take a wild guess as to whether they're funny or not. I dare say you're right. They are damn funny.

Am I trying to raise Jackass to the level of an art? Hell no. Most art I've seen either bores me or makes me want to puke. I'm just trying to get it through some thick heads what the point of this show is. It's half-comedy, half-stunt, half-fucking stupidity. And it's all half-fucking entertaining.

And at least when Jackass makes me want to puke, I know I can just turn my head and see something entertaining five seconds later. No matter how long I look at a Jackson Pollock, it's never entertaining.

In fact, Jackson Pollock makes me think I did puke and I'm looking right at it.