Arthur D. Hlavaty

In the 60s The Realist interviewed a man who’d been a stand-up comic and became a social worker. He said that much of the night club audience is men who didn’t want to be there but their wives insisted (“You never take me anywhere”) and men sneaking out on their wives. So the comedian would say, “My wife is a piece of shit,” and the men in the audience would laugh in agreement as if it were funny. Anthropologists say that one idea that approaches universality is that jokes about the tribe down the river are funnier. Referring to Puerto Rico as an island of floating garbage is that sort of humor substitute.