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January 8, 2007 | 1 Comment

Dear Garrison:
I've been surprised if not flabbergasted at the people who took offense at "Don't Scratch Your Butt" and the "Imagine" parody. These are people who obviously watch absolutely no television, because "Don't Scratch Your Butt" sounds like a recitation from a Sunday School primer compared to what routinely runs even on the regular networks in prime time. I see things on cable that I wish my 16-year-old wasn't seeing or hearing, but I know there's very little to stop her, since every network and practically every show seems to drip with sexual innuendo and cheap scatological references. I've waited years for the general public, especially parents, to get outraged about this to no avail. And yet some self-righteous wags can get their knickers in a clump over a reference to scratching one's butt. Amazing.

And anybody who objects to a parody of "Imagine" has certainly never paid much attention to John Lennon's music, in which he skewers a herd of sacred cows from head to tail. Nor, probably, have they read "In His Own Write" or "A Spaniard in the Works." He'd no doubt be the first to tell these people to bugger off -- or at least go somewhere and scratch their butts.

Sincerely,

Beaufort Cranford
Dearborn, Michigan

The host thanks you for your gallant defense, Mr. Cranford. If I am caught skipping around St. Paul in a lace dress and a paper parasol and am held up for public ridicule and need to wage a p.r. campaign in my own defense, the name of BEAUFORT CRANFORD will spring to mind. And thanks for mentioning John Lennon's two books. He was a witty man, for sure. I saw a documentary on him once, shot at his estate in Sussex, I believe, with footage of him alone playing the piano and singing, and he struck me as very light-hearted and given to verbal hijinks. So the Lennon of the primal screaming was bewildering to me. I guess I preferred "Julia" and "In My Life" and "I Am The Walrus".