Some Things I Just Don't Get

After ten years of fooling people with his outrageous alter egos, Sacha Baron Cohen, the British comedy actor, is to switch from stunts to conventional roles.

Baron Cohen, who created Ali G, the deluded rapper, and Borat, the Kazakh television reporter, is to start by playing Sherlock Holmes, with Will Ferrell as Watson.

The actor realized his jokes were wearing thin while he was in America making his latest movie in which he plays Brüno, a gay Austrian fashion presenter.

Recently, he fooled the Alabama national guard into posing with him while he wore a camouflaged thong. But then he tried to dupe a club of septuagenarian ballroom dancers–who had already seen Borat. As Baron Cohen, in black waistcoat over a sleeveless white shirt, ended a tango by kissing his male partner on the lips, the dancers turned off the lights and ejected him from the hall.

Murray Echols, 75, said: “We gave them more than they planned for. We called the police who told his crew never to show their face in town again.”

You know, good comedy I normally get. Bad comedy, well, most of the time I understand it as well—I just don’t like bad comedy. But then, there’s Cohen. I have to admit. I don’t get his comedy at all. Not funny. Not even remotely funny. How many times can you pull the same joke on people and expect the rest of us to laugh.

We’ll see how well he does in doing “regular” comedy now.

Church Boo-Boos

Do you remember Grady Nutt? Maybe. More than likely, probably not.

Grady Nutt was a preacher turned comedian. And man, was he funny. He made countless appearances on the old TV show Hee-Haw. He was a writer. He travelled the countryside sharing "church" stories. He made people laugh and cry.

I had the opportunity to hear Grady Nutt when he came to Samford University, when I was in college.

To this day, I still believe he was one of the funniest men to ever live. Maybe, that's because I was a preacher too. It was great seeing a preacher laugh and have fun--I had seen so little of that growing up! But, Grady knew how to tell a joke and he knew how to laugh. He often couldn't continue his routine because he was laughing so hard.

Grady Nutt's life ended way too soon. He died in a plane crash after entertaining thousands of people. At the time, he was only 47 or 48 years old. Way too young. And, our world lost so much humor that night.

As you focus on church today and worship the King of kings and Lord of lords, take a moment to listen to this great recording by Grady Nutt. I hope you will be smiling as much as I have listening to him once again. And, I hope you don't have any church boo-boos today! Well, even if you do--go ahead, laugh and smile--I promise, it will be okay!