Spoof On, You Say; the Elite Will Get It

Just when a guy’s about to pack it in, renounce everything he’s done for the last dozen years and consider becoming a wheelwright, you readers come to the rescue.

I wondered aloud in Sunday’s column whether my occasional use of satire had run its course -- in effect, leaving readers begging for less. It was a lament brought on by the unsettling fact that many readers apparently couldn’t tell I was trying to be satirical, such as when I wrote that Los Angeles had a secret plan to take over Orange County beaches and charge local residents to use them while Angelenos got in free.

It struck me that it was somewhat useless to write satires if nobody was getting the point. With all the humility I could borrow, I asked whether the problem lay with me or the people who took the spoofs seriously. And now, you’ve spoken -- and in the process turned on your fellow readers with a force I wouldn’t have imagined but mightily enjoyed reading about.

Tens of thousands of you responded (that’s not satire; just an out-and-out lie to make me feel better), pointing out that some of your fellow citizens just aren’t as bright as you are.

“I think your readership tends toward the dense,” one reader wrote. “Your only course of action is to write for the discerning, perceptive and elite. Not that I place myself in those lofty categories.”

“Your satire is fine,” another woman said. “I hate to say this, and don’t know how to put it delicately, but unfortunately there is always going to be a certain number of people who don’t get things and aren’t as bright. I never used to think so, but my husband and friends have taken years to convince me of that. The more I look around, the more I see it.”

Another longtime reader urged me to continue spoofing but in the next breath advised against using “potty humor for 7- and 8-year-olds.” As if I would ever resort to that.

“Reading you on the Net from Rome,” said one reader, who suggested: ‘Don’t make the mistake of forgetting what you were sure you knew in kindergarten. Most all people use their brains to hold their hair up ... If you try to write down to them, you’ll have to write nothing more interesting than refrigerator-magnet poetry. If you disclaim every obvious thought you scribble, the rest of us (all 5%) will be bored with you.”

Another reader has given the subject much thought: “We seem to have created a society that needs to have it all laid out for us and we can no longer understand the subtlety of innuendo, the nuance of that which is only implied and not thrown at us like a cream pie.”

How many times have I sat my boss down and tried to explain that to him?

Then there was this classic from a gentleman e-mailer: “I remember being hoodwinked by a 1969 Art Buchwald column in which he ‘reported’ that Richard Nixon had made a top-secret trip to the moon. But, hey, I was 7 at the time, so my naivete was excusable.”

Another man writes: “ ... You would wish everybody to be ‘in’ the game. Tall order. At least half the U.S. population believe Saddam was aboard Flight No. 77 back on 9/11.”

And perhaps the most flattering note of all: “Keep up the satire. Your Mensa readers understand and appreciate it.”

Thank you, dear readers. Thank you for making me feel better by insulting others. That happens to be a time-honored credo of mine too. So, spoofs it will be ... but only at appropriate times and, perhaps, when you least expect it.

By the way, I’ve seen a copy of the latest script to land on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk. Arnold would play a fearless action hero who suddenly comes face to face with the most dangerous and unpredictable villains he’s ever encountered: a group of debaters running for office.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.