While the U.S. and European Union antitrust authorities have been concentrating their attention first on Microsoft and more recently Google, a much more insidious monopoly has been threatening the world: Steve Martin. Steve Martin is even now writing e-mails to himself outlining his plan to monopolize humor in the United States. To make matters worse, they are probably witty, well-written e-mails. Don’t be fooled by the fact that the e-mails read better than Bill Gates’ or contain French phrases like garrote and references to literary works like The Cask of Amontillado. This man has a big imagination, a big vocabulary, and a big thesaurus. He is really thinking just like Bill Gates and Google about bullying competitors and cutting off their air supplies.
Similarities between Steve Martin and Microsoft and Google abound. They all originated on the West Coast somewhere. While we were still using typewriters and chuckling at comic strips in printed newspapers, they metamorphosed from the category of the vaguely nerdy into being better known than you or me, richer than you or me, smarter than you or me, and, to really rub it in, younger than you and me — or at least me.
Despite their similarities, Martin is consistently funnier than Microsoft or Google except when Microsoft or Google is explaining what a good day it had in being fined hundreds of millions of dollars or euros in one court or another. In fact, Martin is funnier than almost anyone except perhaps Dave Barry, if Dave Barry should try explaining complicated legal questions. Certainly Steve Martin is funnier than you or me, or at least me. This is really an unfair advantage in the humor business.
People still complain about Microsoft’s operating system monopoly, Google’s search engine and their effect on browsers. Martin does not, in all probability, even have an operating system, and yet he is already on the verge of monopolizing humor awards, as well as the humor sections of the New Yorker and other prestigious magazines. This is having a deleterious effect on at least one dedicated browser, me. Now, in addition to the Shouts and Murmur pages, what other parts in the New Yorker are there to browse? The cartoons, half of which I do not understand? Or the ads, on the off chance, realized perhaps once per decade, that they might feature a kinky lingerie spread rather than blurbs for Tilley hats and Poke boats?
Martin is funny on TV, funny in movies, funny in clubs and funny on paper. He can act, write plays and play the banjo. He gives paintings to art museums. He hasn’t gotten Oprah Winfrey’s blessing to do any of this. The man clearly must be stopped.
There are many possible solutions to the Steve Martin problem. For example, Vladimir Putin could engage someone to burn Martin’s writing paper, break his pens and pencils, smash his keyboard, blow up his mouse and mouse pad, tear apart his dictionary and thesaurus, and stomp on his hands, all while playing tapes of Adam Sandler movies. Or, as was once proposed for Microsoft, Martin could be dismembered into smaller, rather awkward versions of his various selves. Then the antic Steve Martin, the sentimental Steve Martin and the literary Steve Martin would be forced to compete on more equal, if rather messy, terms with Carol Burnett, Garrison Keilor and Tina Fey, respectively. (Any Steve Martin parts that were left over would be performance art.)
Another solution would be to require that as soon as Martin thought of a clever conceit or trenchant bon mot (assuming he is allowed to keep possession of his big thesaurus), he be forced to grant equal access to complete it to Jackie Mason, Howard Stern and Amy Poehler. Then again Steve Martin could be forced to do community service by being locked in a room full of blocked writers, locked in a marriage with Woody Allen, or forced to watch every future amateur theater company performance of Picasso at the L’Apine Argyle.
The best solution, however, would be easier than any of these and would kill two birds with one stone: It would be to have Steve Martin trade places with Bill Gates and Google. That should stop both companies in their digitized tracks, and pretty much garrote the humor page of the New Yorker as well. A virtue of this remedy is that everyone keeps their fingers, other body parts, mouse pads, and thesauri. Everyone stays relatively young, wealthy and well known. Everyone, that is, except you and me. Or at least me.