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With the recent high profile kidnappings in Mindanao,
we journalists are living in dangerous times. Granted that I’m a
humorist (yes, I’ve been trying to be funny for years now in case
you didn’t notice) and I would probably never interview a
terrorist unless I was doing research on how to bomb or growing
beards, I have my own hazards that come with my job.
Being edited by unscrupulous
editors is one of the biggest threats that I face everyday is.
Though I’m lucky that Manila Times’ lifestyle editor has a
fantastic sense of humor (yes, I’m sucking up) [Ain’t working on
me.-Ed], some of my work has been modified and cut at the wrong
places, which resulted in disaster. Humor writing is a precise art
that requires very intricate manipulation of words to elicit
laughter. Taking out or changing one word could mean killing the
punch line. For example, spanking the monkey is funny but
“spunking” the monkey doesn’t make sense at all. Spunking
isn’t even a verb or a word. Some words are just innately comical
and cannot be substituted. Case in point, Koreans are funny but
Cambodians are sad, mostly because of landmines.
Other dangers I face are readers
who don’t understand sarcasm. I’ve been accused by a reader of
being an elitist when I suggested that we kill all tricycle drivers
to stop global warming just as the Germans did to clean up their
country. Why do you think there aren’t any tricycles in Germany?
But nobody wants to talk about the Great Trike-olocaust. What the
reader didn’t get was that I was mocking elitism by exaggerating
the solution and at the same time making a social commentary on the
struggle between making a living and keeping the environment clean.
Obviously, I don’t want to have all tricycle drivers killed. Just
kill the ones who drive the 2-stroke engines and use their dead
bodies as fertilizer for trees.
Being quoted out of context is
another peril I have to be on the look out for. For example, a
reporter once asked me how I felt about kids and I said, “I love
kids.” Later on it turned out the reporter was doing an expose on
pedophiles, so I had to go to all my neighbors and explain that I
was not a pervert. But the damage was done and I was banned from
hanging out in the playground.
Despite the risks, I keep writing
my column to bring joy and laughter to my readers. Some people might
call me a hero but for me, it’s just part of the job.
For donations, send your
credit card info to tim@timtayag.com
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