Labor Day Gets No Respect

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Raging Moderate

Let us take a few minutes to talk about the most underrated holiday of them all: Labor Day.

Poor baby. It gets less respect than a MAGA hat at a Bernie Sanders rally. Like a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie in the Great British Bake Off. Or a Super Soaker at a Northern Idaho gun show. The trailer for a Pauly Shore movie at the Tribeca Film Festival.

We treat it as the runt of the holiday litter without any proscribed traditions. Every year we wing it. No fireworks or clock-watching countdowns. No designated animal to eat or steal chocolate eggs from. No piece of vegetation to kill and either trim or gut. Maybe a couple parades so that politicians can get some waving-from-a-convertible exposure two months before the election. But that’s about it.

Probably got something to do with being the seasonal signpost for closing the door on summer and staring down that long cold hallway to the deep dark heart of winter. The First Monday of September means the fun has expired and a big dollup of dreary is in the offing. The darkening of the light is nigh. The dividing line between wanton abandon and studious application. Raking dead leaves versus cutting verdant lawns.

The last pair of swim trunks has been worn outdoors and corduroy jackets are being pulled out of boxes from the basement. Time to take down the screens and chop a big cord of wood. Watermelons are replaced with pumpkins on the floor next to the produce bins. And holy moley catfish, there will be pumpkin. Spices, pies, dental floss, yogurt, vodka and Smashed Pumpkins marathons on the radio.

What we tend to forget is the meaning of Labor Day. Twenty- four hours we set aside to honor not the dead, but the living. This is not a paean to grieving heroes who have left us, but rather rejoicing at being a part of a larger functioning whole. Because when Americans pull together, we can accomplish anything. Even estimating the timing of the coals for a perfect medium rare Porterhouse.

It’s a calendaric conundrum. To celebrate what it is we do for a living by taking the day off. Just one day out of 365 for the nine to five heroes that keep this country humming so they can sit back, relax and enjoy that unique moment where it’s okay to toss around both the baseball and the football.

To hang with families and friends before squaring our shoulders and getting back to the job of earning a living and carving out the future. Democracy isn’t easy. Takes a strong back and an indomitable will. And pumpkin spiced lattes.

So Happy Labor Day everybody. Have a great one. Wear your flip-flops. Tap a keg. Char some hot dogs. Because this ain’t no patent leather shoes, champagne and caviar kind of holiday. This is the real red, white and blue deal.

A quick vacation for all of us; blue collar, white collar, clergy collar, no collar, dog collar. For anyone who’s ever busted their butt to put some food on the table and cover a mortgage with maybe a little left over for a 10 year-old’s birthday party featuring an appearance by some college student dressed as Spiderman.

Hey, a gig’s a gig.

Copyright 2018, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate.

Will Durst is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comic and former sod farmer in New Berlin, Wisconsin. For a calendar of personal appearances, including his new one-man show, “Durst Case Scenario,” please visit willdurst.com.

Comedy For People Who Read Or Know Someone Who Does

As the sacred cows set themselves up for slaughter each night at six, America cries out for a man with the aim, strength and style to swat the partisan political piƱatas upside their heads. Will Durst is that man. Sweeping both sides of the aisle with a quiver full of barbs sharpened by a keen wit and dipped into the same ink as the day's headlines, Durst transcends political ties, performing at events featuring Vice President Al Gore and former President George H.W. Bush, also speaking at the Governors Conference and the Mayors Convention cementing his claim as the nation's ultimate equal opportunity offender. Outraged and outrageous, Durst may mock and scoff and taunt, but he does it with taste.

A Midwestern baby boomer with a media-induced identity crisis, Durst has been called "a modern day Will Rogers" by The L.A. Times while the S. F. Chronicle hails him as "heir apparent to Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory." The Chicago Tribune argues he's a "hysterical hybrid of Hunter Thompson and Charles Osgood," although The Washington Post portrays him as "the dark Prince of doubt." All agree Durst is America's premier political comic.

As American as a bottomless cup of coffee, this former Milwaukeean is cherished by critics and audiences alike for the common sense he brings to his surgical skewering of the hype and hypocrisies engulfing us on a daily basis. Busier than a blind squirrel neck deep in an almond sorting warehouse, Durst writes a weekly column, was a contributing editor to both National Lampoon and George magazines and continues to pen frequent contributions to various periodicals such as The New York Times and his hometown San Francisco Chronicle.

This five-time Emmy nominee and host/co-producer of the ongoing award winning PBS series "Livelyhood" is also a regular commentator on NPR and CNN, and has appeared on every comedy show featuring a brick wall including Letterman, Comedy Central, HBO and Showtime, receiving 7 consecutive nominations for the American Comedy Awards Stand Up of the Year. Hobbies include the never-ending search for the perfect cheeseburger, while his heroes remain the same from when he was twelve: Thomas Jefferson and Bugs Bunny.

Look for Will's new book "The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing" at bookstores and Amazon.com.

Will Durst's performances and columns are made possible by the First Amendment.