Last night I watched South Park with my son. The episode, as always, was probably inappropriate for my eleven year old son (hell, it was just plain inappropriate for ANYONE, but funnier than anything). The storyline revolved around museum of tolerance that was encouraging the people of South Park to applaud people who were courageous in being different. Apparently, however, there had recently been a lawsuit settled that awarded alot of money to a teacher who had been fired because of being gay, so the gay teacher at South Park (Mr Garrison) decided to try to get fired for being gay. He decided to shock his students by inserting the class gerbil into his gay buddies butt. The gerbil ended up having a hobbit type adventure, Mr Garrison ended up being applauded by the people of the town and the museum, and the kids in the school ended up being sent to "tolerance camp". Pretty unsuitable for an 11 year old, right?

So why do I let him watch it? Well......he LOVES South Park. He has a really off-beat sense of humor, like I do, and we truly enjoy watching the show together. Also, after watching these shows, we discuss things like tolerance, gay sex, and yes..even people shoving gerbils up their butts. South Park has allowed me to discuss tolerance, porno, oral rape, hermaphroditism, promiscuity, death, child abuse, handicapped kids and so on with my 11 year old. Those are hard topics to bring up and discuss with ANYONE, especially a pubertic (ya ya...so I made that word up) boy, but South Park has made it much less uncomfortable for us. I mean, how do you start a discussion with a child about strange sex practices? Having just watch a truly sick but hilarious show about these practices makes it not only easy, but kind of fun.

OK, OK...there is a down-side to letting my child watch this stuff. Over the holidays I had to put up with numerous singings of "Hanky, the Christmas Poo, and it is slightly disturbing when my son tightens his hood around his face and mumbles like Kenny.

Oh...and I can't wait. I just ordered a copy of Trey Parker and Matt Stones' musical "Cannibal! The Musical" based on the true story of Alferd Packer (the only person ever convicted of cannibalism in America...his whole story is in another WU). You get to see Matt and Trey dance and sing such tasty numbers as Shpadoinkle]," "Don't Be Stupid," "When I was On Top Of You", "Blame Canada" and "Hang The Bastard". Another quality night with my son!