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Transgressive Jokes and Western Civilization
The day that the Challenger blew up, I was sitting in a lounge area adjacent to the cafeteria with some friends when another friend came up.
He said in an obviously joking tone, “Hey, do you know what NASA stands for?”
I bit, “No, what does it stand for?”
“Need Another Seven Astronauts?”
Talk about going from disaster to humor in nothing flat, he had it down to a few hours. These days, I’m sure he would have followed up with, “Too soon?” Of course, that joke had probably been a variant of one from Apollo 1, where it might have been, “Need Another Set of Astronauts,” so the speed came through recycling.
When the subject of the Challenger explosion came up recently, I thought about that moment. If someone today, especially a university student, cracked a tasteless joke like that on the day of a disaster, the authorities would lock him up, clear the building, and provide psychological counseling for all who had been triggered by his obtuseness towards the feelings of the snowflakes around him.
Back at that time, I had a job at the university, and my boss’ boss was a black man with an Irish last name. One day, he announced he had gotten an invitation to attend the World (his surname) Gathering in Ireland.
“Can you see me strutting in there?” he asked while acting out the strut. He imagined he would say, “‘Hi! I’m just here to add a little color to the gathering!’”
Then he looked over at me, “Hey, Charley! You know why white men dress as they do on the golf course?”
“No, Doc, why do they?”
He waved at his outfit, which included bright colors and plaid pants, “So they can dress as cool as black men do every day.”
Can you imagine anyone doing that today? Yes, the target of the humor might be construed as white men, or the target might be seen as black fashion choices.
I grew up with all sorts of transgressive jokes. We learned to laugh. We learned to have humor in horrible situations.
Q. What is Al Qaeda’s favorite football team?
A. The New York Jets.
We were not brittle. Like iron, we were worked hard with a bit of carbon (or manure) thrown our way to make us tough and flexible steel.
Some of that manure thrown our way was in the form of ethnic jokes:
Q. How does a Polack tie his shoe?
A. *The guy puts one foot up on a chair and bends down to tie the shoe on the other foot, which is on the ground.*
Q: How can you tell if a WASP is sexually excited?
A: The stiff upper lip.
Q. How can you tell when a Scotsman is dead?
A. He lets go of his wallet.
We learned to tell dirty jokes without being offended or offensive:
Q. What’s black and white, black and white, black and white, black and white, and green?
A. Four nuns fighting over a pickle.
In many ways, these jokes which would be considered offensive today were the glue that held us together. They were the hammers we were forged with. They were the naughty coals that warmed our hearts. These jokes were the building bricks of a cohesive civilization.
Sure, they could be sick and cruel or even gross:
Q. What’s red and white and hangs from the ceiling?
A. A baby on a meat hook.
Q. What’s green and hangs from the ceiling?
A. Same baby three weeks later.
Or they might make fun of people with disabilities:
Q. What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs when he’s on your porch?
A. Matt.
Q. What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs when he’s in the ocean?
A. Bob.
Hey, did you hear about the hockey game at the leper colony? There was a face off in the corner.
And they certainly made fun of professions:
Q. What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 100?
A. Your Honor.
Q. What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50
A. Senator.
Q. What’s the difference between an accountant and a lawyer?
A. Accountants know they’re boring.
Q. How do you know you’re talking to an extroverted actuary?
A. He looks at your shoes when he talks.
The only way for us to preserve Western Civilization is to get back to joking without worrying about who might be offended. So, give us your best. Disaster jokes? Go for it! Nun jokes? Dead baby jokes? Mommy, mommy jokes? Leper jokes? Quadruple-amputee jokes? Rude limericks? Bring ’em on.
Just remember that we still have a CoC on Ricochet, so clean up your language, you etaoin shrdlus.
Published in Group Writing
Which reminds me:
How many Austrians does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one. But in the grand days of the Empire, thousands of servants would rush to change millions of lightbulbs at our slightest whim.
And there’re these:
Why did the new Polish navy build so many glass-bottom boats? So they could see the old Polish navy.
How can you tell a Russian sailor served in the North Fleet? He glows in the dark.
Well, the best Challenger joke I ever read was not really a joke but math. Our teacher for Organic Chem senior year of high school (1987) gave us the volume of LOX and LH in the Challenger’s tanks and had us calculate the energy released by the reaction at the real atmospheric conditions at their altitude (some function of STP, of course). I got it right and so did two of my friends but I cannot remember the givens or the result.
Did you know that the toothbrush was invented in Arkansas?
If it had been invented anywhere else it would have been called a teethbrush.
How many women does it take to change a lightbulb?
Three; one to change it and two to tell her how much better she did it than a man would have.
How many feminists does it take?
That’s not funny!
How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. “Don’t worry about me, my child. I’ll be fine. I’ll just sit here … Alone … In the dark.”
Explains a lot. Wonder why my mother never told me she was Jewish?
Same goes for my mother-in-law.
The answer is, of course, a good son (-in-law) would have asked.
What did Nicole Brown Simpson scream when she was being stabbed by O.J Simpson.
“It Hertz!! It Hertz!!”
What does a Jewish American Princess make for dinner?
Reservations.
A waiter goes up to a table full of Jewish women. “Is anything alright?”
I might be plagiarizing from Ricochet. If so, I apologize.
I hated this one early and often:
What’s the URL for OJ’s new blog?
Enter, slash, slash, escape.
I hear OJ is now ready for a new relationship. His last one didn’t work out, but he’s going to take another stab at it.
That’s like the one my chiropractor told me today:
Q. Why can’t Ray Charles see his friends?
A. His wife won’t let him.
That reminds me, there was this brunette walking down the road in a finger-snapping strut while chanting, “Eighty-Eight! Eighty-Eight! Eighty-Eight!”
A blonde spots her and asks, “Whatcha doin’?”
“I’m just walking down the road saying, ‘Eighty-Eight!’ It’s fun. Want to join me?”
“Sure!”
So, there are a blonde and brunette strutting down the road snapping their fingers while chanting, “Eighty-Eight! Eighty-Eight! Eighty-Eight!”
A truck roars down the road and the brunette jumps out of the way.
Then there’s this brunette walking down the road in a finger-snapping strut while chanting, “Eighty-Nine! Eighty-Nine! Eighty-Nine!”
Well, seeing as this thread is still a going concern, one I heard today.
Query: How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?
Reply: Zero.
Too soon.
A new post is up about Dad Jokes:
http://ricochet.com/635173/belated-fathers-day-post/
You’d have to remember the mid-80s Celtics to get the joke. A Laker fan once told me that Len Bias and Rock Hudson had something in common: they both died from messing with bad crack.
Which reminds me:
How did AIDS get to San Francisco? In the rear end of an old Hudson.
Irish seven-course meal: A boiled potato and a six pack.