Saaaaalute!

Is cornpone humor acceptable if we pretend it isn't cornpone humor? I ask having attended the "Red Green Wit & Wisdom Tour" show on Saturday night. We were in the $10 balcony cheap seats, but that was OK -- no seat in the Scottish Rite is that far away from the stage. It wasn't necessary to see Red that clearly anyway; if you've ever seen his PBS show, you can easily fill in the facial-expression blanks somewhere below the hunting hat and above the plaid shirt.

I had to keep reminding myself that the Red Green character created by humorist Steve Smith is a creature of Public Television, not some lowbrow, common denominator private network that regular people watch. Some of the humor is insightful, including this observation, which should be everybody's goal at work if not in life:

He talked about how the original show was assembled and funded saying he asked for just enough money to get the show started but not enough money that the network would care and get involved.

But mostly he talked about manly stuff like tools and duct tape and the differences between men and women -- you know, just like Tim Allen --  in a hick, countrified style that most pledge-making, ecology-minded WFWA watchers would sniff at in another context. But "Red Green" is Canadian and doesn't speak in a hillbilly accent, so the Scottish Rite was full, and the audience laughed heartily in all the right places. I swear what I thought of afterwards was, this is the Canadian "Hee-Haw."

Am I sounding like a reverse snob here?

Good.

I did enjoy the show, though, by the way. I actually like cornpone humor, even when it has a Canadian accent. The only glitch was the cliched flub at the end when Green thanked WFWA and all the wonderul folks in Fort Meyer. Haven't those "rock bands that welcome Cleveland fans to their shows in Pittsburgh" stories been around long enough to make performers especially careful not to make such goofs? Guess not.