Today on Talking With Famous Bob we welcome best-selling author Knute Knudeknick.

His last book “God Made The World Flat So It’s Easier to Vacuum,” tells of a boy growing up poor on a throw-rug farm in North Dakota. When his father, a third generation rug planter, loses a crop of room-sized rugs to an infestation of rug rats, he advises his son to go into hardwood flooring. Instead, the boy makes it big in the cutthroat world of indoor-outdoor carpeting.

Mr. Knudeknick’s current bestseller ranges far afield from the warp and weft of carpet husbandry. It’s called “God Wants Funnier Jokes.” But while topping the bestseller list, it also has sparked bitter controversy.

In religious sects that espouse self-flagellation and the practice known as “Walking around with a stick up your sigmoid colon,” the telling of a joke is considered the immoral equivalent to having sex in the same room as your partner.

Last week, The Rev. Tindal Melancholy, Pompatus of the Church of God the Frowner, condemned Mr. Knudeknick’s book. “What God really wants,” he said, “is no laughing matter.”

Famous Bob: Mr. Knudeknick, do we really want a God with a sense of humor?
Knute Knudeknicker: It’s funny you should ask.

FB: Oh? In what way.
KK: Um…that was a joke.

FB: Yes?
KK: You asked about humor and I said funny. Just a little, um, play on the title.

FB: Aha.
KK: Oh, and my name is actually Knudeknicker.

FB: Of course it is. It’s right here on the book jacket.
KK: You left the e and the r off the end.

FB: What are you saying?
KK: You left the e and the r off the end.

FB: You mean…oh the end of your name. Aha. Yes, I see it. Knudeknicker. You’re absolutely right. Which is to say you are no Knudeknick.
KK: No.

FB: Although you do look just a little…
KK: It would be like me calling you famous Bo.

FB: Come again?
KK: Famous Bo.

FB: And who would that be?
KK: That would be you without the b at the end of Bob.

FB: I’m sorry. I don’t follow
KK: I was trying to make a comparison to your mixing up my name…

FB: With what?
KK: With Knudeknick. Which is not a real name.

FB: You mean Knudeknick is what authors would call a gnome doubloon?
KK: No, it’s just not my name.

FB: And what is your gnome?
KK: Knudeknicker.

FB: Of course it is. It’s right here on the book jacket.
KK: And spelled correctly.

FB: So tells us, Mr. Knuderknickle, how do you know that God wants funnier jokes?
KK: He’s been watching a lot of cable and doesn’t find those comedian specials funny. Too much reliance on the F-bomb, the MOFO-bomb and the D-Head bomb.

FB: You’d think God would have the Dish.
KK: Oh, they’ve got everything up there. Cable, The Dish, FIOS.

FB: When you say up there…
KK: The main control room. Unbelievable gizmo stuff. Those techies up there are in heaven. Literally.

FB: So God wants funnier jokes–funnier than what exactly?
KK: Funnier than hell. He thinks our collective sense of humor is declining and that we need to laugh more, stop taking ourselves so seriously. He thinks comedy should be a vocational calling like the priesthood. But with women as well as men.

FB: In such a brave new world would there be a Pope of comedy?
KK: Nothing that formal. But comedians would have to wear funny hats.

FB: Does God really have a sense of humor?
KK: He allowed Joel Sweeney to invent the five-string banjo, didn’t he?

FB: I mean, is he funny?
KK: Oh, God, he’s funny. He loves jokes about animals that walk into bars, especially when two bears walk into a bar. I’ve seen him laugh so hard that amazing grace came out his nose.

FB: Does he tell jokes himself?
KK: Oh sure. Here’s one: Say, Bo, where does the milk of human kindness come from?

FB: Did you call me Bo?
KK: From holy cows. Sha-boom! Hey, you’ve been great. I’ll be here all week.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2014, all rights reserved.