Guest Opinion: Laffing and free expression

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

By Judd Grossman

My family took to me to the Black Box Theater in the Center for the Arts for the Laff Staff show on Saturday. Quite a scene - sold out (if something that is free can be sold out). Here’s some capitalist-pig advice: start charging money! The rules for improv, which I read in last week’s cover story are now my new creed for living, especially “Never enter a scene unless you are needed,” and “Save your fellow actor.”  The Laff Staff’s bits ranged from brilliantly clever to embarrassingly juvenile, but overall the quality was very impressive.

On the way out of the show, we heard a song and a half from Calle Mambo down in the Center Theater. It’s very ambitious to present a 14-piece Latin-Afro-Cuban-Tetonian band. The general feeling was of a vibrant local arts scene churning away at the Center for the Arts.  I briefly set aside my envious cynicism and actually felt a twinge of communal pride.

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 My wife, Mary, and I finished the night at The Virginian. As my friend Scott says it’s, “Jackson’s most authentic scene.”  We partied with the “dangerous redneck” and the “bad-ass Latino” - not-so-endangered species that are alive, well and thriving in their natural habitat at the “Virg.”  Kole Moulton rocked it hard. A real band playing for real people in real cigarette smoke. How refreshing!

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I’m proud of Ben Cannon’s article on the tragic teen suicides in Teton Valley. The media has to be sensitive when exposing personal tragedies to the public, but in this case the media has a duty to help a community come to grips with a devastating problem. Sweeping it under the rug is no solution.

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 Now that election season is fast approaching, we are starting to hear more griping that JH Weekly is too conservative or that it’s too liberal. Let’s be clear. JH Weekly is neither conservative nor liberal.  It is a forum for opinions that represent the pulse of our community. Unfortunately there are an alarming number of people who aren’t interested in dialogue and the free exchange of opinion. They are only interested in propagandizing for their point of view. JHW


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