Smith met Jones in the clubhouse one day and said, "I understand you experienced a great tragedy last week."
Jones sipped his drink and nodded, his eyes growing dark with the memory. "I was playing a twosome with Brown," he said, "and the poor fellow dropped dead at the ninth hole."
Smith said, "I understand you carried him back to the clubhouse. That must have been difficult, considering that he weighed two hundred pounds."
Jones said, "Oh, it wasn't the carrying that was hard. It was putting him down at every stroke, and then picking him up again."
Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor, published in 1971, contains 640 jokes. This is no. 1:
Quote:
Jones was having his first date with Miss Smith and was utterly captivated by her. She was beautiful, and intelligent as well, and as dinner proceeded, he was further impressed by her faultless taste.
As he hesitated over the after-dinner drink, she intervened to say, "Oh, let's have sherry rather than brandy by all means. When I sip sherry, it seems to me that I am transported from the everyday scenes by which I may, at that moment, be surrrounded. The flavor, the aroma, bring to mind irresistibly--for what reason I know not--a kind of faerie bit of nature: a hilly field bathed in soft sunshine, a clump of trees in the middle distance, a small brook curving across the scene, nearly at my feet. This, together with the fancied drowsy sound of insects and distant lowing of cattle, brings to my mind a kind of warmth, peace, and serenity, a sort of dovetailing of the world into a beautifuly entirety. Brandy, on the other hand, makes me burp."
Asimov includes commentary after each joke. In the commentary after joke no. 6 (coming), he confesses to bowdlerizing the jokes to avoid offense--and erring on the side of bowdlerizing to an excessive extent. In joke no. 1, for example, the actual last line should read, "Brandy, on the other hand, makes me fart." I think Asimov should have gone with "fart."
Isaac Asimov joke no. 6 (unbowdlerized, because "kiss my foot" makes no sense):
Quote:
A pompous, well-dressed businessman was encountered on the street by a young urchin who said to him respectfully, "Sir, can you tell me the time?"
The portly man stopped, carefully unbuttoned his coat and jacket, removed a large watch from a vest pocket, regarded it gravely, and said, "It is a quarter to three, young man."
"Fine," said the boy, "and at exactly three o'clock, you may kiss my ass."
With that, the youngster dashed off, and uttering a cry of outrage, the businessman set out in angry pursuit. He had not been running long when an old acquaintance grasped his elbow and brought him to a halt.
"Why are you running this way at your age?" demanded the friend.
Gasping and almost incoherent with fury, the businessman said, "That little brat there asked the time and when I told him it was a quarter to three he told me that at exactly three, I should kiss his ass."
At which the other said, "So what's your hurry? You still have ten minutes."
I could not find a clip. But the gist is sally field and John Goodman the mom and dad had their priest over for dinner. They had kids all gathered around the table for dinner. They were talking about Sally Fields ambition to be a stand up comic. And their little daughter said ‘ I know a joke’ and John Goodman said ‘ tell it honey’. And this little 8 year old girl said……
What did one cocksucker say to the other? In a really innocent voice.
And the scene cut away to the next
__________________
What are sleeping dreams but so much garbage?~ Glen’s homophobic newsletter
At Gladstone's home, guests were engaged in a discussion of the knotty Irish Home Rule problem while waiting for their host to make his appearance. Voices rose and tempers flared to no avail, and one guest said in resigned despair, "Well there is one above who alone understands."
"Yes," said Mrs. Gladstone, brightening, "and the Prime Minister will be right down."
Isaac Asimov joke no. 6 (unbowdlerized, because "kiss my foot" makes no sense):
Quote:
A pompous, well-dressed businessman was encountered on the street by a young urchin who said to him respectfully, "Sir, can you tell me the time?"
The portly man stopped, carefully unbuttoned his coat and jacket, removed a large watch from a vest pocket, regarded it gravely, and said, "It is a quarter to three, young man."
"Fine," said the boy, "and at exactly three o'clock, you may kiss my ass."
With that, the youngster dashed off, and uttering a cry of outrage, the businessman set out in angry pursuit. He had not been running long when an old acquaintance grasped his elbow and brought him to a halt.
"Why are you running this way at your age?" demanded the friend.
Gasping and almost incoherent with fury, the businessman said, "That little brat there asked the time and when I told him it was a quarter to three he told me that at exactly three, I should kiss his ass."
At which the other said, "So what's your hurry? You still have ten minutes."
The best of the first 7, by far.
__________________
You always beat the system somehow
Now the rats return to take their bow
Moskowitz was retiring from business, and it occurred to him that he ought to take up golf as a means of diversion. One morning, therefore, he was out at a club bright and early, with a new bag of clubs and a caddy.
"Caddy," he said, "I know nothing about the game. What am I supposed to do?"
The caddy, sighing softly, said, "You take this club; you hold it at the end; you hit the ball with the other."
"And where do I hit it?"
"To the green over there. Do you see the little flag? There's a small hole under it and you have to get the ball into the hole."
Moskowitz nodded. He stepped in front of the ball, took a mighty swing, and hoisted the ball high in the air. Straight and true it winged its way toward the green in a graceful parabola.
The caddy, eyes wide and face a mask of astonishment, hastened out to the green and there, nestling in the cup, was Moskowitz's indubitable ball. It was a hole in one.
Moskowitz came trudging up, picked up the ball, and said calmly, "What next?"
The caddy could only gasp. "You go on to the next hole."
Moskowitz did so. Another swing, another mighty heave. This time the ball hooked somewhat, hit a tree, rebounded sharply, and rolled onto the green in the direction of the hole.
Heart in mouth, the caddy ran to the green and there in the cup--you guessed it: another hole in one.
Moskowitz, utterly unperturbed, scooped up the ball and advanced to the third hole. The caddy, much too far gone for words, accompanied him.
A third swing and once again the ball went flying. This time it fell a trifle short, but bounded briskly forward across the green, aiming straight at the hole. Slowly and more slowly it went and finally halted--at the very lip of the cup.
Moskowitz came up at last, looked at the ball, turned to the caddy, shrugged, and said, "Oh, well, a beginner's a beginner."
The scene in the bar was even more stereotypical than usual, with hard-as-nails westerners coming up to the bar, and giving orders like: "Let me have a shot of redeye," and "Give me a slug of rotgut."
In the midst of all this, Bob Hope entered rather daintily, advanced to the bar, and said in a mild voice, "I'll have a sarsaparilla, please."
A dead silence of stunned astonishment fell over the roughnecks in the bar. All eyes turned on Bob, who became aware of the unfavorable attention and quickly added in a throaty growl, "--but in a dirty glass."
The scene in the bar was even more stereotypical than usual, with hard-as-nails westerners coming up to the bar, and giving orders like: "Let me have a shot of redeye," and "Give me a slug of rotgut."
In the midst of all this, Bob Hope entered rather daintily, advanced to the bar, and said in a mild voice, "I'll have a sarsaparilla, please."
A dead silence of stunned astonishment fell over the roughnecks in the bar. All eyes turned on Bob, who became aware of the unfavorable attention and quickly added in a throaty growl, "--but in a dirty glass."
This appears to be (loosely) based on a scene in one of the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road" films:
Moskowitz was having his teeth examined and the dentist shook his head sadly. He said, "I am terribly sorry, Mr. Moskowitz, but you need a complete mouth job from wisdom tooth to wisdom tooth, both top and bottom, and this will cost you $3500."
Moskowitz looked glum indeed. He said, "I'll be frank with you, doctor. I'm afraid that $3500 is more than I can possibly afford. Is there no way of making the price more reasonable?"
"Not with me, I'm afraid. I could not do it for less. However, I can recommend another dentist, a younger man, who might possibly be able to give you a better price." Moskowitz went to the younger man, who, after the examination, said, "I'm afraid, sir, that you require a complete mouth job and that will cost you $1700." Moskowitz, however, was cautious. Saving money was one thing, but the condition of his teeth was also important. With some hesitation, he said, "Doctor, I'll be frank. You're a young man and perhaps you have insufficient experience. My regular dentist asked for considerably more money, and while I don't object to saving money, I don't want to do so at the expense of my teeth."
The young dentist said, "That is a very sensible attitude on your part, sir. I am indeed young and I am trying to establish a practice. That is why I am offering lower prices. As to my competence, I did precisely this sort of job on a Mr. Cohen two years ago. I will give you his telephone number and you may ask him if he is satisfied.
If he says he is, we can talk further." "Thank you," said Moskowitz. And that evening, he called Cohenand presented his problem.
Cohen, having listened, began politely, "As it happens, Mr. Moskowitz, I have a hobby-"
Moskowitz interrupted at once. "Yes, Mr. Cohen, but we can talk about that later. Right now, I am inquiring about your teeth."
"I quite realize that," said Cohen coldly, "but if you don't mind I will answer your question in my own fashion. As I said, I have a hobby. It consists of swimming in the nude. Every morning, except when the weather is too cold or too stormy, I go down to an isolated part of Jones Beach at 6 A.M. when I know I will be completely un- disturbed. Taking off all my clothes, I venture into the sea and have half an hour of delicious enjoyment."
Moskowitz interrupted again, "I am delighted you have so entertaining a hobby, Mr. Cohen, but really it is your teeth I am interested in."
"Do you mind," responded Cohen, even more coldly than before. "Now one morning last week, after having disported myself in the water as is my wont, I emerged to dry myself and dress when I noticed a young lady approaching me who apparently had the same hobby I had. She was beautiful and had no clothes on, not a stitch. Naturally, I was horribly embarrassed and didn't know what to do or where to turn. The young lady, however, seemed not the least put out. She smiled in most friendly fashion and came closer and closer till our bodies touched. And for the first time in two years, my teeth stopped hurting."
Technological "Eureka!" moment this morning: Google Lens can convert the book's text into a format that I can email to myself for easy cut-and-pasting, instead of my having to type the entire joke.
Google Lens uses "optical character recognition" technology, which can locate textual material in an image and identify the individual characters in it, and produce a text representation.
This allows ShottleBop to save a considerable amount of time which would otherwise be spent manually retyping the text.
A ship, cruising in northern waters, was in terrible trouble, and the captain called in one of the passengers.
"You are, I know," he said, " a professional magician and I need your help badly. The ship is at this moment heading for an iceberg and there is something wrong with the rudder so we cannot steer past it. There is no real cause for alarm, however, because several ships are steaming rapidly to the rescue and aircraft already have us in view. All that is necessary is to keep the passengers from destruc-tive panic. Please put on a show for them and rescue will reach us before we strike, perhaps. If, however, there is danger of an actual strike, I shall signal you and you must instantly announce that for pas- your next trick you will break the ship in two. By the time the sengers gather that this is not a clever illusion and begin to panic, we will be saved."
The magician followed instructions exactly and for nearly half an hour transfixed his audience with disappearing canes, multiplying eggs, lighted candles that appeared out of nowhere, and cards that seemed to do everything but make love. Then the magician noted the captain waving at him frantically.
So the magician said, "And for my final illusion, ladies and gentlemen, I shall make the ship crash into an iceberg."
And as his hands spread wide in an impressive gesture, there was an awful rending crash and in no time at all everyone found himself on an eerily tipped vessel, with lifeboats being launched. Fortunately other ships were butting through the choppy seas on rescue missions, and the passengers were too confused by what had happened to be frightened. The magician himself clung to the railing, watching a lifeboat being lowered. One of the passengers in the lifeboat called to him,"Hey, aren't you the magician whose final trick was to make the ship crash into an iceberg?" "Yes, sir," said the magician, teeth chattering in the cold, "I'm the one."
The passenger shook his head. "So what was so smart about that?"
This whole first chapter of the book is about jokes with an anticlimatic punchline, and this one left me (as did "Brandy, on the other hand, makes me burp") puzzled--it just seemed off. And Asimov, who spends a fair amount of time after a joke discussing what makes it funny, what he likes about it, and challenges faced when telling it (with recommendations for addressing those challenges), explains that this joke was originally in Yiddish, and that the punchline, translated here to "So what was so smart about that?!", cannot be accurately translated into English. He writes:
Quote:
The fecklessness of the Yiddish protest, its utter inadequacy to meet the situation, is not quite reproduced in any English translation that I can think of, with the result that I can never get the roar of response in English that I can in Yiddish.
With that for context, my guess at a translation that would give a reaction closer to the one elicited from listeners in Yiddish would be, "What the FUCK were you thinking?!"
(I did try online translators, but they tend to just repeat the Yiddish--Asimov appears to be right that there's no adequate translation of that phrase into English.)
It would have been funnier, if, when the captain was thanking the magician for distracting the passengers, the magician had said, "I thought a simpler and better option would be for me to make the iceberg disappear - but you're the captain!"
It all goes back to, "If I have to explain it, you wouldn't understand."
A line I heard a lot from the Old Jewish Guy at the truck stop when I was growing up in Florida.
__________________
Owning the libs turns out to be a terrible business model.
And once again, as a metaphor, it's a lousy way to run America.
It would have been funnier, if, when the captain was thanking the magician for distracting the passengers, the magician had said, "I thought a simpler and better option would be for me to make the iceberg disappear - but you're the captain!"
During and after World War II, Pearl Harbor came to be synony mous with treachery and disaster.
Having heard Pearl Harbor used in this fashion about one hundred thousand times too often (and no cliché is so mercilessly overused as one that appeals to the politician), I finally said to a friend out of sheer cantankerousness, "You'd think the navy would have had better sense than to moor all those ships in a place with a bad-luck name like Pearl Harbor."
All I was searching for was a mild chuckle at my attempt at whimsy, but I was floored when my friend said in all seriousness, "You'd sure think so, wouldn't you?"
It was the end of a typically hot, dank, completely miserable New York summer afternoon, and the two psychiatrists, coming down in the elevator, their day's work done, were a study in contrasts.
The younger man was utterly wilted and worn out. His hair was rumpled, his cheeks were drawn, his clothing was wrinkled. The older man was natty and, apparently, completely at ease, from the part in his hair, through the starch in his collar, to the shine on his shoes.
The younger man said, "How do you manage it, for heaven's sake, Rumpelmayer? On a hot day like this, how do "With air-conditioning," began Rumpelmayer. you end up so cool?"
"I have air-conditioning, too," interrupted the younger psychiatrist, "but the patients seem to bring the sultry misery of the New York weather in with them. As I listen to their problems, their eternal whining, their maladjustments, their neuroses, their unhappiness, it is as though the summer blast unmans me and leaves me a wreck. Doesn't it bother you when you listen to your patients?" "Ah," said Rumpelmayer. "There's the secret. Who listens?"
Re: Somebody Tell A Joke
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