In 1967 legendary comedian Groucho Marx (1890-1977) appeared on conservative pundit William F Buckley’s TV show “Firing Line”. Buckley brought up the subject of minstrel shows, a form of entertainment developed in the early 19th century that consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people of African descent. The shows were performed by mostly white people in make-up or blackface for the purpose of playing the role of black people, often portraying them as lazy and dim-witted.
A lot of people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don’t realize that there’s this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you’re thinkin’ about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, “plate,” or “shrimp,” or “plate of shrimp” out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin’ for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.
There ain’t no difference between a flying saucer and a time machine. People get so hung up on specifics they miss out on seeing the whole thing. Take South America for example. Im South America, thousands of people go missing every year. Nobody knows where they go, they just, like, disappear. But if you think about it for a minute, you realize something. There had to be a time when there was no people, right? Well where did all these people come from, huh? I’ll tell you where. The future. And where did all these people disappear to? Yeah, that’s right, the past. And how did they get there? Flying saucers. Which are actually? You guessed it: Time machines.
I think a lot about this kind of stuff. I do my best thinking on the bus. That’s how come I don’t drive, see. I don’t know how and I don’t ever wanna learn. The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.