Some people are funny intentionally, some accidentally, and some somnambulantly, totally without “getting it.” The Room, for example, is today billed as a “dark comedy,” thought it was obviously a very serious investigation of romance (I guess?) and, uh, cancer (?) when it first sloughed dreadfully out of the mental womb of its creator, auteur Tommy Wiseau.
Likewise, I thought, I thought—Insane Clown Posse must be an in-joke that has no out. How can they possibly “get it,” I asked, and still be or do “it,” whatever it is?
The answer finally came when ICP’s hilarious new video about miracles crossed that invisible, difficult-to-pinpoint memetic threshhold and became a megahit on the internet, which is to say, a true megahit, not one manufactured by advertising. (Remember Chinese Democracy, anyone? I don’t.)
ICP had to face up to their essential paradox: A. Are they so counter-culture and, well, insane that they deny that “it” (their steez) is all some bizarre joke? B. Or are they aware of the joke—in on the joke? C. Or can they have it both ways?
This Dave Itzkoff article in the New York Times pretty much answers this in favor of C. I never paid much attention to ICP (I’m not a big goofy clown rap enthusiast, personally), but damn, I do like magnets and giraffes… (My emphasis.)
SHAGGY 2 DOPE, INSANE CLOWN POSSE: In 1999 we made a movie called “Big Money Hu$tla$,” and that went over great. Then we started kicking around the idea we should make a prequel: “Big Money Rustlas.” It’s the main characters’ ancestors in the Wild West. It’s a satire.
VIOLENT J, INSANE CLOWN POSSE: When we’re talking to the Juggalos, it’s not always about chop-chop, kill-’em-up, you know? I guess some of it might come from having kids over the last five years, looking at everything from that perspective. I mean, a rainbow can be explained. But who doesn’t say, “Wow, look at the rainbow?”
SHAGGY 2 DOPE: If Celine Dion would have come out with that song, people would have been, like, “Oh, that’s a beautiful song.” But because it’s coming out of our mouths, all of a sudden, we’re retards.
VIOLENT: J I think we might have misused the word miracle. These things we mentioned in the song, they can all be explained. But what we’re doing is appreciating them. Even the infamous line “Magnets, how do they work?” I mean, yeah, we know how magnets work. But they’re still incredible. You can push something across the table without touching it.
SHAGGY 2 DOPE: Come on, man. The North and South Pole makes a rock magnetic, and if you touch a piece of metal with it, that becomes magnetic? That’s crazy.
VIOLENT J: I grew up in Detroit. We don’t have pelicans on every corner. We don’t have giraffes walking down the street. I’d rather be the dumbed-down guy appreciating everything than the guy who knows everything and doesn’t appreciate [anything].
[But...]
VIOLENT J: Two clowns floating around in space, swearing, rapping about wonderful things. I get that that’s funny to an outsider.
VIOLENT J: I know this sounds crazy, but I’m being as honest as I can: We planned all this out. Our tour starts in May. And then we have our nuclear weapon, which is the movie “Big Money Rustlas.” That comes out in August. This is all happening so perfectly for us.
As a friend of mine pointed out, they are funny not because they are stupid, but because their list of miracles is incongruous. Magnets are cool. But how do you filter your list of miracles down to a few aspects of science and some animals uncommon to Detroit? I love this song because it spins the miraculous in a totally unexpected direction. Miracles are now neither religious nor scientific, human nor divine. They’re… insane.
So how does this miraculous incongruity work, literarily? ICP’s list of wonders is what Borges terms a Chinese encyclopedia—a list that cannot ever be coordinated, made sense of, or indexed, as a totality, even if each component makes total sense. So, yes, those things are all dope as fuck. Magnets, seabirds, long-necked mammals, optical effects, a pet cat (?), etc. But they can never really live on the same plane, in our minds. Hence hilarity.
The song is also an ultra-dope example of systrophe, or indirect definition, such as definition by an exhaustive list rather than by… a definition. This technique works, every time. People don’t respond as well to logical definitions (such as I just gave of 2 literary terms); people like examples, especially hilarious, exhaustive examples given to them by clowns with mental health concerns.
A miracle. Photograph by Keven Law.
