Inside the Orpheum Theater at Jon Stewart's standup show, I'm sitting behind a "loud laugher"-you know the type: the unsettling and boisterous cackle in the awkward pauses between jokes that makes you wonder what triggered the rumble. The crowd is eclectic: ages, races, families and couples, random, yet bound by some immeasurable combination of cynicism and optimism. The crowd seems learned, eager for intellectual stimulation by way of intravenous injection of ribald humor, a couple of f-bombs and an ever-sharp wit. And the air is static with anticipation; for all I know Jon Stewart is the best America gets: erudite, charming and alternately self-deprecating, he is Banana Republic and the New Yorker mixed with The Onion and Curb Your Enthusiasm.The Daily Show centers on mocking our political institutions and personalities; Stewart's standup carries this satire over into most aspects of American culture. He touched all the bases, from an opening tirade on Boston to religion, terrorism, sex, technology and the always-entertaining American popular culture. His method is unique; when talking about Boston he casually throws around Ben Franklin trivia like the articulately nonchalant nerd he is, all the while drawing connections to the present state of things.

In the normative Daily Show political territory, he is less restrained and more free-spoken. He attacks our own apathy and failure to see through rhetorical idiocy; he exposes Bush's "War on Terror" for what it really is: a war on the emotional feeling of fear. To counter it our homeland defense has taken two years to formulate a grand color-coded system ... to tell us what level of fear we should maintain, "It's like a yellow feeling of terror." The illustrious solution: "They took the colors off a stop-light and added two more."

The beauty of Stewart's banter is that at its core, it urges us to become informed, to maintain our cynicism and see through the absurdity that envelopes and submerges the important issues of today. He even defends Bush, noting that the president is by no means stupid as he is often portrayed, but rather, by the tone and simplicity of his addresses to the public that indeed we are the idiots. Stewart exaggerates Bush's constant and repetitive defense of "freedom-loving people who love freedom and liberty," and yet notes that each delivery should be concluded with an appropriate, "Now, run along" that is so clearly implied.

My personal favorite is when Stewart speaks frankly about the way he lives his life. I find him to be one of the most worthy candidates for respect in the public eye that we have today, despite a reputation for high-voiced impressions, sound effects and a few pot-head allusions. His dominating rationality and straight-forwardness is utterly refreshing; he admits that for him, and for much of America, religion isn't the only way to maintain a high plateau of morality. He refutes the religious zeal of one Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains) if it is based upon a religion that does not allow Ghandi to enter his same heaven, although I am not sure Ghandi would want to (you've seen Growing Pains.)

And Stewart is just as animated and reasonable, if a little mocking, about most religion, including his own. The three rules-almost non-rules-in Judaism: don't commit murder, don't commit adultery and don't eat pork. His biggest beef with Catholicism: no masturbation. And mostly he takes rationality right to the edge of satire; if God created us in his image then why does Jon Stewart have ass hair (his words, not mine). And more importantly why does that still turn me on.
Stewart is absolutely ingenuous outside of the normal format of the Daily Show. It is his history of stand-up that is exemplified here; he maintains the stature of a true pro, despite the fact that most of his audience knows him as host of a highly respected and increasingly legitimate news/comedy program. He parlays with the stuffy political elite just as easily as he has mastered the beauty of low-brow humor-hand jobs, piSata fetishes, feline heat, canine explosive diarrhea and vomiting-you name it he's provided the sound effects. And in our minds he is none the lesser for it. In fact he exemplifies the beauty of America-that he can bounce between the low and the high, the intelligent and the inane and still garner our respect, our adoration, and our laughs. Which is more than I can say for our president... except for that last one.

Stewart closed his show with a tirade on the absurd melodrama that so many Americans play into. To most, he simply said, as he does in moments of genuine sincerity, "Accept who you are and what you are." Applicable to Christians, amounting to 80 percent of America, his advice, not quite so sincere but still playfull, was, "Shut the fuck up." To Jews whose towns have a Christmas tree as its epicenter center and they think they need a menorah, he candidly reiterates, "Shut the fuck up." The pattern continues, the serious supplemented with the absurd. He finishes with a most telling anecdote, "After 9/11 I thought we would never be the same. But two weeks afterwards I walked out of my apartment to find a man jerking off on my stoop." And we laugh, because he has captured a moment of clarity for us-that we could use a good laugh directed at ourselves and the situations around us. We can laugh at the absurdity of our nation and our icons, of our religious institutions and our cultural obsessions, and yet on some level find them deeply humanistic and hopeful. It is our appreciation for satire in satirical times that legitimizes Stewart's magnetism and why we hope he never shuts the fuck up.