Stereotypes have traditionally cheered us up, and served to identify broadstroke characteristics. "How do you know when a lawyer is lying?" ... "You can see his lips move". This is an example of useful stereotypes. We know that all lawyers do not lie (all the time), but this joke guides the naive in their legal proceedings.
There are very few groups left to ridicule. The extremely old, politicians, and one's immediate family (if you're not famous). Lepers! Hell, nowadays you can't even tell the joke about the guy with no arms and no legs hanging on a wall (his name was "Art").
The best joke you can't tell anymore is "What's the difference between heaven and hell?" ... "In heaven, the Italians do the cooking, the Swiss do the accounting, the German fix the cars, the French are the lovers, and the British are the police. In hell, the English do the cooking, the Italians do the accounting, the French fix the cars, the Swiss are the are the lovers, and the Germans are the police". Here's enough information to save yourself a trip to Europe.
Try to be funny in your personal life and get crucified. The other day my friend asked me to let in his cable TV repairman. Being the Good Samaritan I said, "What's in it for me?" And he said, "I can't offer to let you watch TV ... (I was supposed to laugh) ... You can have anything you want in the fridge". So I took everything. And he got angry!
"What have you done with my FOOD??", he screamed into the phone, pronouncing "food" as if it were some vital part of his anatomy.
"You said I could take anything as my payment. Hey, I value my time".
"It's my FOOD and I want it back. And why did you take the bulb??"
"You didn't need it--there was nothing to see".
He didn't think it was funny. I haven't heard from him since he stormed away with his FOOD.
My girlfriend's father had this "my birthday's only four months from today" (two months, one week, etc.) thing he does. So I put an ad in the Village Voice saying, "Norman Cramer will be alone on his 60th birthday if you don't send him a card." So what's he feeling on his birthday? Rage. The phone's ringing off the hook with do-gooders who looked up his number. Women won't let him pretend he's not lonely. The postman's complaining about sacks of deliveries, three Christian neighbors have dropped by, Norman's yelling something about morals, blah, blah, blah. What happened to good fun?
Where will it end?? Will it get so college students can't pull pranks? Like at Harvard, where a fraternity bought a barber pole with the stipulation they pick it up at one in the morning. Two boys pick up the pole, start walking down the street with it and, of course, a cop stops them. He calls the station, station calls the barber, barber says the kids bought the barber pole, cop let the boys go.
Ten minutes later, the police station gets another call from another car a few blocks away and tells them, "It's all right, the boys bought the barber pole." Ten minutes later, station gets another call and sends out an APB: "Attention ALL CARS: The boys with the barber pole are OK, they bought it." That night every barber pole in the town of Cambridge vanished.
Will humor be so distorted in the future that we can't laugh at the New York subway story? The new mayor swore to stop the vandalism and graffiti of the subway cars. The damage was being done in Flushing, where they park the trains for the night. So they erected a twelve-foot barbed wire fence, six feet closer than the 10 foot fence the vandals were climbing. They had a ribbon-cutting press conference announcing the purchase of ten German shepherd attack dogs at a cost of $4000 per dog to prowl between the two huge fences. These subway trains were safe. The new mayor had put his foot down. First night--someone stole the dogs.
You have got to laugh. The stress of life is too great and the smile instinct too strong. There's no culture that has trained infants to frown when happy. OK, with the possible exception of the Japanese.
Can't we learn and smile from the exaggeration of our foibles? I've heard Irish jokes. Lost Tourist: "Pardon me, what's the best way Kildare?" Irish Guy: "Well, I wouldn't be leavin' from here".
"How many Irishmen does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" Fifty. One to hold the bulb and forty-nine to drink till the room spins.
Why do Irish women have red hair? Because their... hey, never mind. My mother was Irish. Besides, the Irish people are not thick-headed, overly fertile or intrinsically alcoholic. Irish jokes are not really funny. They're cruel and unfair. I'm thinking of suing myself just to make my point.
The story I'll See Me in Court is Copyright 1998 by Dennis Lamour.
The collection of works called Fish Eggs For The Soul is Copyright 1998 by Brian Rickman.
Copy edited by
Sara Fawbush,
editor of The
Young Writer's Collection.