I was in the Friars Club gym yesterday pretending to work out. The Friars Club gym is great for the ego because no matter what time of day or night you’re in there, you’re always the youngest guy by 30 years.

As I reclined on the stationary bike, my feet up on the handle bars, watching TV  (the preferred Friars Club method of exercising) I saw something on FOX News that got my blood pumping harder than anything I would be doing in my workout.  Shephard Smith was doing a report on the Octogenarian Neo Nazi (OctoNazi?) who opened fire at the Holocaust Museum. In a breathtakingly oddball blizzard of profundity Shephard:

1) Cited the OctoNazi attack as yet another example of “intolerance and bigotry” by “a certain segment of the population” who simply cannot “accept that a black man has been elected president”!

2) Held this bizarro incident up as proof that – I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! – Homeland Defense Secretary Napolitano was right when she issued the report that claimed returning veterans posed a threat of right-wing terrorism in our country. Because OctoNazi was a returning veteran (granted, he returned six and a half decades ago…).

Maybe Shephard is right? OctoNazi was a World War Two vet, so he had over sixty years to stew over his craziness. Lurking out there somewhere there’s got to be a 130 year old veteran of the Spanish American War, filled with over a century of brooding and plotting, ready to launch a domestic terrorist attack to proove that Napolitano and Shephard are on to something!

As usual, Dick Cheney is right and Barack Obama is wrong.

It’s time to wave the pink flag and drop opposition to gay marriage.

I’ve changed my thinking on this one. Personally, I admit my opposition to gay marriage has always been on the same level as my opposition to the death penalty: I understand and appreciate the arguments against both intellectually – but in actual practice, I simply don’t lose any sleep over either. With the death penalty, I sympathize with moral opposition – but when a Ted Bundy takes that final ride on “Old Sparky” (or that final big sleep on “Old Lethal Injectiony”), my only real objection is that it isn’t televised.

Similarly, with gay marriage, I understand those who have a religious objection to the concept (unlike, say, every single liberal true-believer I’ve ever met in my life, I tend to err on the side of respecting other people’s religious beliefs…that’s how my mother raised me), but in actual practice, my reaction is, well, kind of Zen. It’s like the old philosophy question: if two gay men get married in Vermont, and I’m not invited to the ceremony, are they really making any noise that affects my life one way or the other?

Like most of my deeply held convictions, this one grew out of developments in my show business career (like, say, every single other actor I’ve ever met in my life, I am a remarkably shallow, self-centered individual). Recently, the NY Friars Club had a roasting competition – a series of celebrity roasts held at the club with a bunch of us comics competing for valuable cash and prizes (or a free chicken dinner with Mickey Freeman). The comics’ names were all thrown into a hat and matched up with various celebrity roastees. I got lucky. I could have been roasting Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy – how many more Lisa Lampanelli jokes does the world really need?), Gary Dell’abate from the Howard Stern show (since my own show on Sirius ended I don’t have my free subscription, so I’m not up on the latest Ba Ba Booey in-jokes), or Omarosa (apparently Puck from the 2003 season of MTV’s Real World wasn’t available). I got paired up with George Takei.

Are you kidding? Jackpot! Everybody loves George Takei! And talk about some easy targets for comedy: Japanese, gay, “Star Trek”… If you can’t write a few roast jokes for a gay Japanese Star Fleet navigator, you’re in the wrong business.

The show went great. Very funny stuff from Tom Cotter, Jim David, Cory Kahaney, and Gilbert Gottfried. My contribution to the festivities went well, and all had a good time.

George Takei was funny, charming, and gracious. His longtime companion, (now his, well, husband? Married partner? Mr. Takei?) Brad Altman, was equally charming and gracious.

Watching George and Brad together that night, it was hard to see how they were a threat to the institution of marriage. Oh, the institution is in trouble alright. Welfare policies that give young, poor women a financial incentive not to marry the father of their children (and, in turn, give the fathers an excuse to not take responsibility for their children) have destroyed marriage in the inner cities. The societal acceptance of middle-aged upper-middle class women adopting (or having, or surrogating, or whatevering) babies without bothering to include a father/husband in the picture has been a fiasco for marriage.

The glorification of knucklehead celebrities who use marriage as just another publicity stunt for their new movie/CD/reality show (host “Saturday Night Live,” get married, drop by “The View,” get divorced…) hasn’t helped. Neither has no-fault divorce, the all-purpose ripcord for the terminally lazy (because it’s easier to get divorced than to apologize for being such a shmuck).

Our mainstream pop culture doesn’t help. Like reruns of “Friends.” I loved the show, but I’d never let my teenage daughter watch it. Not primarily because of the sex jokes – but because of the way marriage is thrown away as a punch line (everybody on that show was either getting married by mistake, or getting pregnant without getting married, or getting divorced so they could get pregnant with somebody else’s babies, or marrying a baby, or…).

I think a large part of opposition to gay marriage is rooted in a mathematical fallacy: the “fact” that ten percent of the population is gay. There are 300 million Americans. So the concern is that you might be looking at thirty million gays getting married. That’s a lot of gay marriage! The ten percent figure comes from the Kinsey report. But Kinsey was a nut who based a lot of his data on studies of prison populations. The hoosegow in Kinsey’s time, an era of criminalizing homosexuality, by its very nature had a higher percentage of homosexuals than the rest of the world. I’ve lived in New York City my whole life. Even here I’ve always thought that the ten percent number was way high (except when I played Vince Fontaine in the 90’s revival of “Grease” on Broadway – percentage of homosexuals in your average Broadway musical? Ninety two percent. Rama lama lama!).

So let’s say the more accurate figure is five percent. That’s 15 million, as Jim McGreevy would call them, gay Americans. Subtract the very young and the very old. Narrow it down to the gays in their 30s and early 40s – your big marrying years. That’s probably one quarter of our 15, so three or four million. Now, subtract one quarter that isn’t even dating, another quarter that are dating but not seriously involved. Now we’re down to two million. Okay, we’ve got two million gays in committed relationships. How many of them want to actually get married? Maybe half. Now we’re down to one million gays who want to get married. George and Brad are already married, so you can subtract them. That’s just fewer than one million gays who might want to actually get married.

Out of those one million gays, 25 percent will break up over arguments about the wedding plans (The band! The centerpieces!). So it’s really only 750,000 gays. That’s 375,000 gay couples. Mostly in LA and NY. And Provincetown. In a nation of 300 million.

What will happen to those gay married couples? Let’s face it, half of them will get divorced just like everybody else. After the initial novelty wears off, the numbers of new gay marriages will probably drop. The whole thing will eventually (you’ll pardon the expression) blow over.

Conservatives: go libertarian on this one! Let the states decide, call it something else: union, partnership, really really going steady. And to George and Brad, much happiness and a belated “mazel tov” from Dick Cheney and me.

The show we did at the club the other night was for an equally momentous, but slightly less altruistic, purpose: it was Mickey Freeman’s birthday. Mickey is an octogenarian, possibly nonagenarian, borscht belt comedian, forever beloved as Private Zimmerman on Phil Silver’s old “Sgt Bilko” show. Mickey is a delightful little guy, if he’s even five foot tall he’s a very short five foot tall, and he can still reel off the rapid-fire classic one liners like a comedy machine (“I worked one hotel that was such a dump, the beds were unmade on the postcard!”). Everybody loves Mickey, and the show was a classic Friars affair: great older comics (like Eddie Lawrence, The Ol’ Philosopher: “What’s the matter, Bunky? Life getting you down?”) mixed in with comics like Ross Bennett, Jackie the Jokeman Martling, and those like me who are, if not quite young, are at least younger. With the younger Friars, our prostates are only slightly enlarged.

It was a purely fun show business night. No agenda, no politics, no axe to grind, just shtick. I roasted Mickey (“Mickey’s got a movie coming out this summer with Freddy Roman. It’s a western. It’s called Brokeback Catskill Mountain. They play two aging homosexual Jewish cowboys…”). Ross Bennett did a hilarious routine about how he’s reached the point of middle age where, “…you make noises you don’t want to make, then you make noises after the noises…I sit in a chair, I grunt. Then comes the sigh after the grunt….” Jackie Martling did what Jackie Martling does: he got laughs and told old jokes.

Mickey was wonderful, and having Eddie Lawrence on the bill was a surprise kick for everyone (“What’s the matter, Bunky? You say your petite Aunt Minnie fell into the discount rack at TJ Maxx and was sold for $3.99? Well, lift yourself up! Take a walk in the sun! And never give up, never give up that ship!”). The other big surprise was a return to the stage of a comedy act from the 70’s that hadn’t performed in ages (let’s just call this person: 70’s Comedy Act) got up, was very funny, and did a variation on the type of shtick that 70’s Comedy Act was known for on Merv and Mike: funny, but safe. Nothing political, nothing edgy, just funny.

After the show I approached 70’s Comedy Act to say what a kick it was for me to be on the same bill. That’s when I found out that 70’s Comedy Act was stuck in the 70’s in more ways than one. The following is an annotated verbatim transcript.

DAVE KONIG: It was really great to see you up there!

70’s COMEDY ACT: Really? Why?

DAVE KONIG: Well, I was a fan going back to the days when you were on Merv and Mike.

70’s COMEDY ACT: Uh, huh. I hate this place!

DAVE KONIG: Okay.

70’s COMEDY ACT: The Catskills are dead! You guys are young – don’t you know that? The Catskills are dead!

(TRANSLATION: 70’s Comedy Act is letting me know that my act was not edgy enough, didn’t make a statement, was too jokey, too “Catskills.” Not hip. Squaresville.)

DAVE KONIG: Okay.

70’s COMEDY ACT: Sarah Silverman wouldn’t set foot in this place!

(TRANSLATION: Sarah Silverman is the epitome of hip. Dave Konig is not. Dave Konig is a sap.)

DAVE KONIG: Okay.

70’s COMEDY ACT: And I love Sarah Silverman!

(TRANSLATION: And therefore, I, 70’s Comedy Act, am hip by proxy. Unlike Dave Konig, who is not hip by proxy or in any other way.)

DAVE KONIG: Okay.

70’s COMEDY ACT: What’s the matter, you don’t love Sarah Silverman!?!

(TRANSLATION: Because, mathematically, the measure of a man’s worth is roughly equivalent to the intensity of his appreciation for the comedy of Sarah Silverman.)

DAVE KONIG: I have been known to appreciate the ribald gags and bawdy humor of Miss Silverman.

70’s COMEDY ACT: Harumph!

(TRANSLATION: Harumph!)

Then 70’s Comedy Act took leave of hopelessly unhip Dave Konig. While safe and non political on the stage (70’s Comedy Act is not the late George Carlin or the late Richard Pryor or Mort Sahl or Dick Gregory or the late Lenny Bruce…trust me, 70’s Comedy Act’s act is as controversial as Red Skelton), off the stage, 70’s Comedy Act is a firebrand, a bomb thrower, a feisty, angry, radical…true believer. And to the true believer, nothing’s funny – not even comedy.

The true believer sees a great Utopia off in the distance, and everything – everything – is either taking us closer or further away from that Utopia. Nothing escapes the attention of the True Believer: that piece of paper you could recycle, that lump of garbage you should be composting, that trans fat you shouldn’t be eating, that patriotic tax you should be paying, that handicapped parking space you shouldn’t be parking in, that radio show you shouldn’t be listening to, that joke you should – or should not – be making.  It is a tremendous, all encompassing, time consuming obsession to be the arbiter of everything that either takes us closer to – or further away from – Utopia every minute of every day. It’s exhausting!

No wonder True Believers like 70’s Comedy Act have no sense of humor.

There’s all kinds of jokes, There’s great jokes that make great political points (Lenny Bruce, George Carlin), there’s great jokes that are steeped in borscht (Mickey, Freddy, Stewie, Jackie and many other comics whose names end in “ie” or “y”), there’s even great jokes about poop (Sarah Silverman). America is a great, big country – loaded with trans fats. There’s room for all kinds of jokes.

True Believers of America: lighten up! Sometimes a joke is just a joke.