Monday, March 14, 2005
You Got Some Jokes for Us? Why Don't You Start Crankin' 'Em Out...
Why does Snoop Dogg carry an umbrella?
Fo' Drizzle.
I remember reading in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten that everyone should know three clean jokes. I can honestly say at this very moment that I couldn't recite one joke -- clean or dirty -- all the way through. Sure, there are hundreds of jokes about people of various nationalities arriving in heaven or being granted varying numbers of wishes, countless tales of guys walking into bars, and even that one elusive off-color limerick about the guy from Nantucket that everybody references, but few people know. Somehow, I've heard them all before, but they seem to be jumbled into one big, unfunny mass of knowledge in my head.
When was the last time somebody told you a joke? It seems to be a lost art. I get jokes via email all the time, but I can't remember the last time somebody said "Hey Brian, I've got a good joke for you". Maybe it's a generational thing. I'd be willing to say that my Dad knows a solid amount of jokes. I remember him telling me a variation of one about a "diesel fitter" when I was around 6 years old, but my comic genius had yet to develop (still waiting...), forcing my Dad into a joke-tellers worst-case scenario: explaining the punch line. In fact, as recetly as last year, Steve had to explain this joke to me: Did you hear about the Irish homosexuals? Michael Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzmichael. "What about them?" I asked. "That's the joke. That's it," he explained, disappointed in me. This was, of course, how Steve selected his dentist, Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick.
Even stand-up comedy itself has strayed from jokes into observational humor. The reigning comics of this generation (Seinfeld, Chris Rock, etc) use almost exclusively observational humor ("Have you ever noticed..." "Don't you hate it when...") in lieu of jokes with punch lines a la Rodney Dangerfield (I don't get no respect. I joined Gambler's Anonymous. They gave me two to one I don't make it.) or even one-liners like Bob Hope ("Dan Quayle thinks Roe vs. Wade are two ways to cross the Potomac.") During a Seinfeld or Chris Rock routine, some parts are funnier than others, but it's sometimes difficult to define the parts of their "jokes".
After all this rambling, I'm still not sure if true joke-telling has disappeared or if I'm just not privy to it. Either way, I'm inclined to take the advice of Robert Fulgham and have a few jokes up my sleeve just in case. If I could only remember that joke my sister once told me about there being "no 'F' in 'weigh' "...
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Fo' Drizzle.
I remember reading in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten that everyone should know three clean jokes. I can honestly say at this very moment that I couldn't recite one joke -- clean or dirty -- all the way through. Sure, there are hundreds of jokes about people of various nationalities arriving in heaven or being granted varying numbers of wishes, countless tales of guys walking into bars, and even that one elusive off-color limerick about the guy from Nantucket that everybody references, but few people know. Somehow, I've heard them all before, but they seem to be jumbled into one big, unfunny mass of knowledge in my head.
When was the last time somebody told you a joke? It seems to be a lost art. I get jokes via email all the time, but I can't remember the last time somebody said "Hey Brian, I've got a good joke for you". Maybe it's a generational thing. I'd be willing to say that my Dad knows a solid amount of jokes. I remember him telling me a variation of one about a "diesel fitter" when I was around 6 years old, but my comic genius had yet to develop (still waiting...), forcing my Dad into a joke-tellers worst-case scenario: explaining the punch line. In fact, as recetly as last year, Steve had to explain this joke to me: Did you hear about the Irish homosexuals? Michael Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzmichael. "What about them?" I asked. "That's the joke. That's it," he explained, disappointed in me. This was, of course, how Steve selected his dentist, Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick.
Even stand-up comedy itself has strayed from jokes into observational humor. The reigning comics of this generation (Seinfeld, Chris Rock, etc) use almost exclusively observational humor ("Have you ever noticed..." "Don't you hate it when...") in lieu of jokes with punch lines a la Rodney Dangerfield (I don't get no respect. I joined Gambler's Anonymous. They gave me two to one I don't make it.) or even one-liners like Bob Hope ("Dan Quayle thinks Roe vs. Wade are two ways to cross the Potomac.") During a Seinfeld or Chris Rock routine, some parts are funnier than others, but it's sometimes difficult to define the parts of their "jokes".
After all this rambling, I'm still not sure if true joke-telling has disappeared or if I'm just not privy to it. Either way, I'm inclined to take the advice of Robert Fulgham and have a few jokes up my sleeve just in case. If I could only remember that joke my sister once told me about there being "no 'F' in 'weigh' "...
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