The Roast...An Oral Setting

Where can I find a truly oral setting, if one still exists, in today's textual culture, I wonder? I need a setting in which there are participants rather than objective observers, so a speech by a president, though it may harken to the oral tradition, is not what I'm looking for. I want something fun, agonistically toned, and definitely with some flyting, clusters of insults, old jokes that are still funny, and maybe a little stychomythia. Aside from Kevin Costner sitting around the tepee smoking a peace pipe in Dances With Wolves,the best thing I could think of is a roast. I'm sure we're all familiar with the roasting concept (and not that of pork). Roasting somebody involves the friends and colleagues of an honoree to spend a laughable evening insulting him or her, often being insulted in return, all in the spirit of good faith and camaraderie. It's a fun way to give people a chance to say what you really feel, because, "If you're going to tell people the truth, you had better make 'em laugh or they'll kill you for it." Celebrity icons are roasted on Comedy Central all the time. They are usually older and wasted up celebrities in their senescence, like William Shatner and Bob Saget, but this seems to make for the perfect combination. They are old enough to honor, but young enough to take a joke...because that is what they have made of their career. Politicians often roast each other for the fun of it...they are all doddering old fools anyways. The word senescence, from above, is from the Latin "senex" which means doddering old fool. Also where the word senate and senator, as a senate is a council of elders and a senex is someone who is old.

I just recently learned how to put movies on my blog, so bare with me while my excitement lasts. This clip is Don Rickles roasting Bob Hope on the Dean Martin Show. It's a live haranguing and the people laughing remind me of groundlings in a Shakespeare comedy. I much prefer the sense of humor of the 1960's and 70's than the vulgar lasciviousness of the roasts today. Anyways, here is an oral setting that might be worth contemplating.