Anti jokes

 Why did the chicken cross the road?

That light as green.

How many Germans does it take to change a lightbulb?

One.  

More jokes

 I went out on a blind date the other day. I didn't know what she looked like, but I recognized her by her guide dog. It could have worked out for us, because, frankly, I'm not that good looking. But she wasn't seeing it.  

Arevolo

I used to buy these cassettes of jokes by the Spanish comic Arévolo. That kind of dates me.   

One of them has a little boy saying "'Franco is an idiot. Franco is an idiot." The Guardia Civil stops him and says you can't say that! The little boy says there are a lot of people named Franco!  The Guardia Civil says, "Yes, but only one of them is an idiot!"  

He had jokes about "pasotas" or people were super cool and just said "I pass..." opting out of everything. Gangosos, or people with twangy voices, and some jokes about gays too that haven't aged very well. 

A gangoso is in the police station, and asks why there are pictures on the wall? They explain that those are the most wanted, the people they are looking to arrest. The gangoso say: 'why didn't you arrest them when you were taking their pictures?"  

It was a challenging to understand the jokes and the difference voices that he did. Often times I would understand the entire joke but not be able to hear the punch line. 

More jokes

 I'm kind of interested in the structure of jokes. Here are a few I've seen recently:

The KBG knocks and a guy answers the door. "Does Rabinovitz live here?"  "No." Who are you then?" "Rabinovitz."I thought you said you don't live here?"  "You call this living?"

In the gulag, some guys are talking about why they were sentenced. 

"I got 10 years for defending [insert Russian name]

I got 15 years for attacking [same Russian name.]

I am [same Russian name.]

A drunk in a bar shouts:  all the people on the left hand side of the bars are idiots, and all those on the right are motherfuckers.  A guy stands up and says, hey I'm not a motherfucker! and the drunk shouts back, then go to the other side of the bar!  

The joke has to work by misdirection, but the punch line still has to follow logically, just go in another direction.  

Bumper sticker

 I saw a bumper sticker in my apt complex this morning:  "What would Mary Shelley do?"

and I thought

"Marry Shelley." 

Reversal of expectations

 Some jokes work through reversal of expectations. 

I've been counting calories, in and out, for a week, trying to be more mindful of what I'm eating and how much I'm exercising.   

So far I've gained two pounds.  [I'm not sure it's funny, but it has the structure of that kind of joke at least.] 

Seinfeld says: Pop tarts can't go stale because they were never fresh in the first place.  

***

The famous joke about the restaurant.  Two women are complaining: "The food there is inedible, it tastes like garbage; it makes me sick, etc... " and the other one adds, ",,, and the portions are small!"

A famous musician says: If I don't practice for a week, I know it.  If I don't practice for a month, my audience knows it. If I don't practice for six months, the critics know it.  [Usually found in a less funny version, with the critics second and the audience last.]. 

A pianist friend of my father's had a whole list of things to say to a colleague after a not-so-great performance, like "I've never heard the piece played that way before!" "That was a performance I won't forget any time soon!""I have no words."  I cannot remember what the quips were now, but they all could be said for either a great or godawful concert.  

Lester Young had a joke: "What Lester plays, Stan Getz."  Puns are usually bad, but this one is a zinger. 

Some of my favorite jokes

 Why did they coronate the king in a submarine?

Deep down, he's not so bad.  

I started a club for introverts, but nobody showed up for the meetings.

I wanted to start a club for procrastinators, but I haven't gotten around to scheduling the first meeting.  

The Rabbi got up and said, "you know, you might think I'm a great rabbi, but really I'm nothing special."

A prominent man from the congregation stood up and said, "you know, I've made a lot of money, and contribute a lot to the temple, but really, I'm nothing. I'm no better than anyone else."

A schmuck in the back stood up and said, "you know,  really, I'm nothing..."  Then people started to murmur: "Who does this guy think he is, to say he is nothing?"   

A guy put two glasses by his bed side, one full of water, the other empty.  

"Well, one is for if I'm thirsty, the other is for if I'm not."

How do you make 5 million in publishing? 

Start with 15 mil.  

Some Jokes to Lighten the Mood

 I saw a suggestion on facebook for cutting onions underwater to avoid your eyes tearing up. Then I thought I wouldn't be able to hold my breath for that long. 

A friend said they were going to do something they rarely do: eat meat for dinner. I said, oh, some rare meat.

 

some jokes

Kierkegaard tells of this one:  A man taking a walk sees a sign in a store: "We press pants." He goes home gets his pants and brings them there and they look at him quizzically.  He wants his pants pressed.  They tell him, no: "We sell the sign."

***

"My husband and I decided we don't want children.

We are going to tell them tomorrow after school."

***

Ben is pacing the house. His wife asks him why.  "I owe Saul $20,000 dollars, The note comes due tomorrow and I can't pay him."

 His wife calls Saul:  "Ben can't pay you the money he owes you. Maybe you should be pacing the house instead of him."

Franco and transition jokes

How is it to live in Spain?  --We can't complain... that is... we can't complain.

Why did they coronate the king in a submarine?  --Deep down he's not so bad.

We lived better against Franco.  [Vivimos major contra Franco; variation on "Vivimos mejor con Franco.].

A little boy is muttering to himself on the street, "Franco is a monkey, Franco is a monkey..."  He is stopped by the police, and offers as an excuse, that there are many people named Franco.  The Guardia Civil says, "Yes, but only one of them is a monkey."  

Franco's wife wakes up horny and tells him, "let's fuck," so he gets up and signs five death sentences.

Dumb joke

I saw this headline about "Elephants' low cancer rate explained" and I thought, well when was the last time you saw an elephant smoking a cigarette?

Jokes

I remember when Riffaterre gave a lecture one that I heard at Ohio State possibly, he said that jokes were not really ambiguous. He told a kind of sexist joke, like

"Steve makes love to his wife twice a week. So does his neighbor John."

It's only a joke if you understand it a certain way. If you think John makes love to his own wife, then you won't laugh.

But isn't it also true that it's only a joke because you sense the "straight" reading intended?

So joking about second amendment people dealing with Hillary is only a joke if you are talking about them shooting her. Trump's audience wouldn't laugh if they didn't understand that. If he meant that 2nd amendment gun nuts would take care of her by organizing politically against her, it makes no sense. What makes it a joke (unfunny to me of course) is not the ambiguity, but the vagueness. He doesn't even have to complete the thought because it's understood.

It also seems like you can't be provocative and then have a right to complain that people are being provoked. It's a fundamentally dishonest strategy.

Hilarity

I once gave a talk in Spain on Ullán's visual poetry. I had the audience laughing uproariously at several junctures in my brief talk, and the talk went over extremely well. I was told that Ullán (who had died a year before) would have liked it.

I am now writing another article about Ullán's visual poetry. I went back and read my talk, and there is nothing at all funny about it. It doesn't even attempt to be humorous. Some of the laughter was evoked by my spontaneous witticisms, which didn't make it into the talk, but some remarks were just taken as humorous by the audience, a small group of people who were friends of the poet and/or specialists in his work. Once I realized I was having this effect, of course, I played into it and became even more witty. I think the main reason was that my style of presentation is different from what is expected in that context. I made jokes that I didn't even know were jokes, or that were slightly above my own actual linguistic competence in Spanish. I didn't plan any of my wit, that's why it is wit. I am not good at telling jokes and in fact abhor them.* True wit is contextual, the response that is relevant to that particular moment.

I can only remember one of my jokes that day, in which I dedicated my talk "y la afición..." This quotes a poem by Jaime Gil de Biedma, which in turn cites a phrase used in bull-fighting, I think. It is funny contextually, because we aren't in a bull ring, I guess.

__

*There are some jokes I do like, individually. Yet I don't like the joke as a genre, or else I don't like people sitting me down and telling me a joke.

One joke I like is that there are two idiots on opposite sides of the river. One yells to the other: "how do I get to the other side?" and the other yells back "You're already on the other side!" I like jokes that are metaphysical.

Some Jokes

This began as a post on the notion of "the real world" as opposed to academia, but then degenerated into a series of asinine jokes. Stop me if you've heard this one.

"Sure, it works fine in practice, if you like, but will it work in theory?"

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? [practice / theory]

How do you make $1,000,000 in publishing? Start with $10,000,000.

67% of statistics are made-up...

A guy with a split personality went out to eat alone--and asked for separate checks.

All of use are strong enough to withstand the misfortunes of other people. (La Rochefoucauld).

"What do you get if you play a country song backwards?" -- "You get your wife back, you get your dog back, you get your truck back ..."

An old guy is on his death bed, and asks his wife, tell me one thing, were you every unfaithful to me? "Well, you remember the time you needed a loan for your business, and I went to visit the banker?" Yes... Was that the only time? "Well, you remember when you were running for the president of the condominium association, and you were twenty votes short..."

A linguistics grad student from MIT was moonlighting as cab driver in Boston and picked up a fare at the airport. "Where to, buddy?" "Someplace I can get scrod." 'Huh?" What, haven't you heard that word before." "Sure... but not in perfect subjunctive."

In a linguistics lecture the speaker said "Some languages use a double negative to express a positive, but no language uses a double positive to express a negative." From the back of the lecture hall rose a sarcastic voice saying "Yeah, right."

A guy from [ethnic group deleted] kept a full glass of water and and empty glass beside his bed at night. "One for if I'm thirsty; the other for if I'm not."

How many jazz singers does it take to sing "Summertime"? --All of them.

A guy goes to launder counterfeit money in a small hillbilly town and says, "Do you have change for a 24 dollar bill?" "Sure, do you want 4 sixes or 6 fours?"

A new prisoner arrives at the Gulag and is asked, "What are in for? " "Nothing, can you believe that? Nothing, and I get 15 years." "No that can't be right, you must have done something: nothing is 10 years."

LIttle Ivan is asked in school for the definition of Capitalism. "The exploitation of man by man." And communism? "The reverse."

The owner of a small country store was known for quoting a bible verse whenever a customer came in. If some children came in to buy candy he would say "Suffer the little children to come unto me." A man came in from out of town and aksed for some blankets. "These here are a dollar a piece," he said, showing the stranger some blue blankets. "Do you have any better ones?" he asked. Just a minute, he said, and came back with some green blankets from the back room, identical to the first in everything but color. "These are five dollars a piece," he said. "Gee, I don't know, don't you have some better quality blankets?" So he went back and got some purple ones: "These are the best I have, at $20 a piece, just for you." After he made the sale and the out-of-towner left, the regulars at the store wondered what bible verse he would quote. The store-keeper said: "I saw a stranger, and I took him in."

"You told me when I met you / that your life was pretty tame. / Well I took you to a nightclub / and the the whole band knew your name."

There was tenor named Guido Nazzo. A witty critic said that he sang "Nazzo guido."

Written on a student paper: "You have a future in literary criticism; unfortunately, literary criticism has no future."

The Pope and the Head Religious Official of Israel decide to make a bet about golf. It will be the Pope and his golf partner, chosen from among the Vatican officials, against the Head Rabbi of the Jewish state and whomever he chooses in similar fashion. So the Pope convinces Phil Mickelson convert to Catholicism and brings him to the golf course. "I'd like you to meet Honorary Cardinal Mickelson." "And I'd like you to meet Rabbi Tiger Woods."

You don't want to be operated on by a surgeon whose nickname is "Zorro."

An Orthodox Rabbi, a Catholic Priest, and Imam, and a Protestant minister walk into a bar, and the bartender says, What is this, a joke?

A rabbi, a minisetr, and a priest die all around the same time and arrived at the pearly gates. St. Peter says: "What is this, a joke?"

What's after Assistant Professor? Associate Professor. What's after Associate Professor? Full Professor. What's after Full Professor? God.

The Duke English Department: a group of people united only by their common hatred of literature.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Knock knock.
Who's there?

Philip Glass.