DEAR BEN SHAPIRO — Thank you, sir, for testifying, with Cyrano-like elan, before Congress recently about liberal censorship. You and I point out the Emperor Has No Clothes. No surprise. Half (our guys) the House of Representatives toothily agree. Half swear our very eyes lie, our mooncalf mini-emperors are goofily grinning, high-stepping butt-bare naked before cameras in full-dress homecoming band gear.
I grew up in this relatively peaceful albeit quirky ranch community of Santa Clarita, watched it grow from village to sea of Taco Bell planned urban yuppie concentration camp condos. For more than a century, we’ve been blessed with a swashbuckling and unique newspaper, The Signal (661-259-1000, in case you don’t have a subscription yet, Ben). Its motto is “Vigilance Forever.” I started working for The Mighty Signal at 14. That was in 1964. I know. That makes me flirting with middle age today. Pretty much, this heroic periodical let me get away with poetic murder. I’ve pointed out that because of their cloven hooves, it’s hard to buy shoes for Democrats. I’ve noted one elected official should be, “… sandpapered, lightly salted and fed to cannibals.” So much for my powers of persuasion. Last I looked, he’s still not inside a cannibal’s digestive tract.
Years ago, I was buying a pair of jeans at a local ranch supply outlet. The clerk mentioned my name from my credit card. A little old lady — I shall add, “bent, wizened, smelling of cat urine and talcum powder” — poked me in the kidneys. She snarled and asked if I was that “A-double dollar signs/center of a doughnut” newspaper guy.
She said I had no business making fun of Democrats or living in America. I cut her off. Lying that I wasn’t THAT John Boston, just had the misfortune of sharing his name, I conspiratorially whispered my own disgust for this community’s award-winning (119 for me, 1.3 for Signal Editor Tim Whyte) beloved daily columnist, me.
Relieved, she warmed. She shared what a complete leaking paper sack of chimpanzee diarrhea that OTHER John Boston fellow was and someone should, “… take him out back.” Sigh. Hopeless romantic, me, Ben? Perhaps she was finally coming around to Our People’s viewpoint.
Not being a liberal, I didn’t blow a whistle in her face, scream how her words were violence and I was being pulled apart by plow horses, nor did I glue my hands to her in protest. Besides. It’s actually quite liberating to call yourself names, con gusto, especially in a feed store.
While I am afforded wide leeway in my armpit frapping sounds posing as commentary, it’s not the same in the outside world. I’ve battled with social media and mostly, lost. Over the years, I’ve launched a few business ventures on the web. I began noticing. If I wrote a piece that made fun of a Hillary or Obama, it would shrink to microscopic reach on social media. I had a few thousand Facebook pals years ago for my mildly conservative humor offering, FooF Magazine. I’d post and articles were getting out to less than 50 souls. During the 2016 election, I penned a piece on “37 Great Reasons to Vote for Hillary!” Actually, there’s nary a single reason. It was satire. My tech guru phoned. Had I seen the daily demographics? From a flatline of a few dozen, my reach on Facebook skyrocketed to nearly 100,000 souls. Seems The Left’s greasy little minions misread the piece as being positive to Mrs. Clinton, the only presidential candidate to come with a 4-foot-long red slithering tail.
I’ve been demonetized, cancelled, expelled, put in social media jail. I wasn’t calling for a boycott of Barbra Streisand or oat milk products at Starbucks. I didn’t come out against the WNBA. Well. In so many words. Kickstarter, the fundraising site for art projects, wouldn’t let me join to plug my magazine, noting they “… didn’t fund magazines.” I pointed out to a snooty 20-something rep they had a list, proudly displayed on their website, of magazines they had funded. He said they weren’t actually “Magazines,” despite the word, “Magazine” appearing prominently on their covers.
Liberal censorship. It lives with us. Recently, I started my own publishing company. Latest book was “The Unauthorized Autobiography of Joe Biden.” It traces Joe’s career, from medical school in Alaska at 4 to being a teen professional wrestler in Delaware who was seriously injured in his first match fighting an empty gorilla suit. It goes on to chart his internship in Communist China to being terribly afraid of being in the same room with Michelle Obama. Just got a note from Amazon. They pulled the book.
The Democratic Party can sit in front of freeway traffic, burn tennis shoe outlets, spray paint priceless works of art, assure us that gas and groceries are at January White Sale happy face prices not seen since 1932 and explain away why Kamala Harris is giggling like Dracula’s fly-eating BFF, Renfield. But — make a solitary circle around your temple with an index finger and point at The Establishment?
That’s hate speech.
I don’t have a million viewers or a gazillion likes. I’d like to. I’d like to make a few people laugh, throw a few small cream pies at the rich, powerful and insufferable. I’d like the American Dream, to have a chance — a chance — to make a buck at what I’m good at. Thanks, Ben, for going to bat for what used to be taken for granted: Free Speech.
Oh. Small, unasked-for advice?
Just in case you run into more “coincidental” censorship from The Left, you might consider hyphenating. If you started identifying as “Ben-Shapiro,” or, better, “Abou Ben-Shapiro,” like the protagonist in Leigh Hunt’s famous poem, “Abou Ben-Adhem,” you might confuse the hungry little censor robots into thinking your opinions are more Lawrence of Arabia-esque …
Santa Clarita’s John Boston is the most prolific satirist in world history. Barring more censorship, he’s launching a new multimedia website, johnlovesamerica.com, soon. You can still visit johnbostonbooks.com and buy some fun summer reading …
