Advice King: I Don't Care About the Queen

Comedian, musician, host of Chris Crofton's Advice King Podcast and former Nashvillian Chris Crofton asked the Scene for an advice column, so we gave him one. Crowning himself the “Advice King,” Crofton will share his hard-won wisdom with whosoever seeks it. Follow Crofton on Facebook and Twitter, and to submit a question for the Advice King, email bestofbread[at]gmail[dot]com or editor[at]nashvillescene[dot]com.

Dear Advice King,

I'm not sad at all about the Queen's recent death, and in fact I'm a little resentful that it got so much media attention when there are more important things going on in the world. Am I being callous and insensitive? Why should I care about this?

—Jeffrey in St. Paul, Minn.

OK, I’ll bite. Who’s “the Queen”?

SETTLE DOWN I KNOW WHO SHE IS. Stop throwing stuff.

Ah yes, Queen Elizabeth. To paraphrase Monty Python: “I didn’t vote for her!”

I don’t know exactly how the British monarchy was established, but I think I have a pretty good idea: Sometime around the year 1200 the biggest creep in England beat everybody up and took their land, and then sat on a huge chair in the middle of it. He threatened to kick anybody’s ass if they came too close to the big chair. And he made a law that only his relatives can sit in the big chair. Forever. 

Then he ate gold and velvet and complained 24/7 that the chair wasn’t big enough. Then his relatives started marrying each other so that no non-relatives could get near the chair. That’s it. Oh, also, they took a lot of the land they stole and leased it back to the previous owners. They used the money to buy crazy hats, air conditioning and food for Corgis.

No wonder everybody loves that family! So fun.

I agree with you, Jeffrey. The Royal Family are wealth-hoarding egotists, and they do not deserve any of this. They hung around with Jimmy Savile, for chrissakes. However, most of the world’s biggest news outlets are owned by billionaires, so the over-the-top media coverage is no coincidence. Billionaires buy news outlets, and as a result those outlets normalize resource-hoarders. Not just normalize them, but try to trick regular people into ADMIRING them. The same regular people whose stolen land and wages fund their empty pomp and circumstance. 

I made a couple of jokes on Twitter about Her Majesty. Not even good ones! I said she had Corgi pallbearers. And that a Corgi gave her eulogy. The eulogy was, “She was weird.” Somebody yelled at me about that. They said it was in bad taste. You wanna know what’s in worse taste? COLONIZING THE WORLD. I’m allowed to be mad at Queen Elizabeth if I want. And so are you, Jeffrey. The Queen never did a damn thing for me. And she hogged all the air conditioning.

You know who I’m going to miss when he goes? Jonathan Richman. In a just world, Jonathan Richman would get a weeklong funeral. But he never amassed riches, he just wrote songs that made the world a better place. He didn’t violate labor laws to launch rockets, he just helped keep me sane. He’ll get a few paragraphs if he’s lucky. 

I’ll leave you with a quote from some real royals, Public Enemy: “Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps.”