Iamafunny

One of the frequent criticisms that I keep hearing about Iamaphoney is that there is no sense of humor in his work. Although it is a difficult charge to refute, I would like to take a shot at it because I think he does use as much humor as one would expect to get away with considering the confines of the dark subject matter on which his videos are based.

We are not talking huge belly laughs here although I think he came close to that once, possibly in an effort to relieve some tension in the Iamaphoney world. In February of 2008, Iamaphoney dropped the first suitcase in California. In late March, a member of the Nothing Is Real discussion group known only as 65if2007, recovered the suitcase and was extremely cooperative about sharing information about the contents. Then the wheels fell off the cart. MikeyNL1038, who was getting some heat for being such a big fan of Iamaphoney said that he was told that 65if2007 was not telling everything about an important item in the briefcase. There is no point in dredging up old wounds of internet petitions, threats, hate messages, a banished discussion group thread, etc., but let's just say that the atmosphere in the PID world was not good. In a moment of massive frustration, 65if2007 threatened to throw the suitcase into the ocean.

Iamaphoney's hilarious response was emerge from the ocean with a suitcase in his next video:


Now, if he attempted to be that funny all the time, he would lose his core audience [I would stay, but he would lose the other two.] So, I don't expect to see much in the way of humor in these videos. Someone who sees only "Clockwork Orange" and "Full Metal Jacket" may think that Kubrick doesn't ever laugh, but with repeated viewings and exposure to his other work one may begin to detect some subtle humor. The same may be true of Iamaphoney on a much smaller YouTubeish scale.

Sometime around February of 2008, I had read in a discussion group that someone had sent Iamaphoney a picture of John Lennon and Ringo Starr, and that he responded saying that the picture was interesting. In the picture, John was wearing one of those Illuminati Symbol thingy tee shirts. I saved the picture on my hard drive and decided I wanted to do a quick post about it.



My quick post turned into several excruciating hours because I was searching and searching for that newsgroup post where I got the picture. I must have read a thousand threads on several different groups, but could not find it. I posted the picture anyway and just said that Iamaphoney had taken an interest in it. I remember being sternly reprimanded for my lack of journalistic integrity because of my failure to identify the source of the picture. [I think it turned out to be Paul Is Dead Miss Him.] This was the first time it ever occurred to me that journalistic integrity was a consideration when writing a blog. Then some other person on another discussion group said he had lost what little respect he had for Iamaphoney based on my post with the picture.

A few days later the rotten apple - 101 came out and the picture appeared in it about four times. I felt vindicated. I was thinking about that a few months later when I wrote something. I don't know if anyone else got the joke because I am often taken too seriously, but this still makes me laugh out loud.



A couple other good-natured and humorous Iamaphoney moments can be found if you look hard enough. Those who have corresponded with Iamaphoney via his YouTube Channel have discovered that he has a penchant to include the word "really" at the end of a sentence, really. But my very favorite one was when Iamaphoney graciously supplied the new fledgling Rotten Apple Discussion Group with the original lyrics to one of his songs based on a backwards Beatle song. The song "Harmless Game" included the word "shaggily." In context, the line is "man I´m singing now for my fear - will Paul re-live shaggily if someone - that is reality." The word "shaggily" has worked its way into my lexicon. I struggle to resist including it in every article. I use it at home more that I will admit.

So, yes, I believe Iamaphoney does have a sense of humor, but I do understand those who disagree. We are dealing with a dark subject after all. My hope is that we will all eventually arrive at the punchline together and have a good laugh.

UPDATE: Thanks to MikeNL for bringing this to my attention. It is the background of the YouTube site for the user http://www.youtube.com/user/lANIACHIMOE