Author Archives: Belton McMurrey

About Belton McMurrey

ANTH 333

Professor of Logic Joke

The following is a narrative joke told to me by a friend, informally called ‘The Professor of Logic.’ On asking me if I had heard it, which I hadn’t, he insisted on telling it.

He proceeded to tell it as such:

“This guy Chuck goes over to his neighbor, who’s just moved in. He tells him the usual,

“Hi, just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood, what’s your name?”

The guy’s like “Hi, I’m Jerry.”

Eventually they get to what they do. Chuck goes “I’m a plumber.”

The other guy says he’s a professor of logic at a university.

Chuck asks him,

“What do you teach?”

“I’m a professor of logic.”

“What do you mean by that?”

And the professor says,

“Let me give you an example. Do you have a doghouse?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well, then I’d assume you have a dog.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you know, when dogs have dog houses, and they live in them, that means you have a few kids, and it’s theirs and they take care of it.”

“I do have kids. Two of ‘em actually.”

“Alright, you got kids. That usually means you’re married. To a woman, in most cases.”

“Yeah, I’m married to a woman.

“Well, then you’re a heterosexual male.”

“I am, that’s right.”

“Now you see. Just by asking you if you have a doghouse, I was able to determine you’re a heterosexual male.”

Chuck just goes, “Wow! That’s unbelievable.” And he leaves, impressed.

The next day, our guy Chuck, the main one, not the professor, he’s hustling to get to the bus stop.

So, he gets there. Sees this guy next to him, he asks him if the bus has already come.

“No, it hasn’t.”

Chuck says oh, guess we’ll just have to wait a few minutes, then.

And, uh, the other guy lights up a cigarette and jokingly says “As soon as I light this cigarette, I bet the bus is gonna show up.”

Sure enough, he lights it, and the bus comes around the corner.

Chuck, amazed again, asks him if he’s a professor of logic. The guy with the cigarette doesn’t know what that means, he asks Chuck to explain.

Chuck doesn’t quite know how, and he says,

“Here, let me give you an example.”

“Sure, what”

“You have a doghouse?”

“No.”

“Oh, you must be one of them gays!”

This joke is interesting in its mix of initially intriguing intelligence (regarding the professor of logic’s deductive reasoning) that is later subverted by the stupidity of a person who has completely misinterpreted the meaning of what he’s learned, made only clear with the last line. Given its relative lengthiness in needing to be told over the course of one or two full minutes, the building leading into the final punchline is provided a greater level of anticipation given the relative lack of humorous bits leading up to it. This serves to create a complex, but highly example of a classic punchline-based joke where the sum of the humor is comprised of an ending that only works as a result of the lines that come before it.

Finland Sauna Preparation

The steps listed outline the methods for preparing a traditional Finnish sauna, something I observed from a local guide and later performed myself multiple times during a 7-day excursion in the Lapland area of northern Finland during the winter months.

The excursion itself centered around driving teams of dogs from point to point over a 200+ km journey, with stopping points each night at small cabins. This being the wilderness, there is no running water or electricity.

At each cabin there would be a small adjoining building housing a sauna. In place of showering, the sauna is used to clean oneself before retiring to bed.

Preparing the sauna for use involves gathering small bits of wood, often required to be split from logs supplied from a woodshed and using them to fire up the sauna’s stove. The heat from the stove subsequently heats up coals that, when water is poured over them, feed steam into the sauna. Given that the coals take approximately 45 minutes to heat properly, water is then gathered from an adjacent source, typically a lake (Finland’s marshy, water-dotted landscape provides ideal terrain for this).

By winter, however, this water is frozen many inches thick and covered in feet of snow. Therefore, retrieving the necessary amounts of water takes considerable effort:

A sled bearing three large buckets (around 3ft tall) is brought to a large hole in the ice that is left covered when not in use, preserving the hole from freezing shut. A heavy wooden pick with a metallic end (overall resembling a spear) is used to clear whatever thin layer of ice is in the way. The three buckets are then filled bit by bit (using smaller buckets) until full. Two buckets are brought to the sauna, the other to the cabin to be used for drinking water.

In the sauna, the two buckets of freezing lake water are set aside as sources for the coals and for personal washing. A metal kettle sitting over the stove is then filled to be brought to a boil.

The sauna itself is constructed almost entirely from wood, with the floorboards evenly spaced out as to allow water to seep through and be funneled outside. Two tiers of wooden benches line one side. Considering that hot air rises, choosing the higher or lower bench is a matter of heat preference. Water is then poured onto the now-hot coals using a wooden ladle. The more water is poured, the more steam is produced. And therefore, the room becomes hotter, prompting greater amounts of sweat from the body. How much water is poured is another matter of preference.

Finnish custom involves entering the sauna nude, often times with a beer. Sharing the space with others, men or women, is not considered a taboo, and conversation between occupants is a typical tool to pass the time more easily. However, communal occupancy is not entirely expected, as one may request individual privacy in the sauna to no insult.

When one is finished, often known once the body is completely covered in sweat (a process that generally takes 30 minutes), one then stands over the drainage floorboards and douses themselves with a mixture of the adjacent freezing lake water and boiling kettle water. Once the sweat is completely washed away, it is time to dry off, re-dress and return to the cabin. However, it is also another alternative Finnish custom to either jump in the lake (if safe and if there is a place to enter) or roll around in the snow, as opposed to dousing oneself with water.

Although the prevalence of the sauna is a mainstay of outsider’s perceptions of Finnish culture, understanding it as a substitute for showers/running water in wilderness areas illustrates a purpose originally rooted in practical function, not mere leisure (as the sauna’s centrality to luxurious spas in the Western hemisphere might initially lead one to believe). However, with the custom of drinking a beer or holding conversations while steaming, one could argue that the Finns have allowed a distinct concession of leisure to their system of bathing.

SAE Fraternity Memorial Celebration

At the University of the South (informally known as Sewanee) in rural Tennessee, I witnessed and participated in a large informal celebration held in memory of my late brother, with the university his alma mater. The celebration was preceded by a more formal memorial charity golf tournament held earlier in the day. The party detailed below followed not long after at the university’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE for short, also my late brother’s fraternity). The fraternity also arranged the golf tournament itself and arranged for a recreational social gathering to follow. The entirety of my late brother’s former fraternity members (known as a pledge class) were present, along with former classmates.

Earlier in the evening, a small concert led by popular local musicians was held on the porch, along with barbequed food consisting of brisket, sausage, and potato salad (among others).

Following the departure of the band and caterers, the approach of the crowd in the building shifted as higher levels of activity (and intoxication) became acceptable now that the night had progressed, and daylight had passed completely into night.

A crowd of around 50 to 75 remaining partygoers congregated completely into a large corner room of the building, an area adjacent to the kitchen where food is typically served for similar events. For such functions, there is a large rectangular table centered in the room bearing the yellow and purple colors of the house along with their coat of arms and titular house letters.

With large speakers taking the place of the band and copious amounts of beer taking place of the caterers, the entire crowd then gathered around the center table to the tune of a pre-arranged musical playlist of Harry’s favorite songs, occasionally breaking up any potential melancholy brought about by the playlist with popular dancing songs in order to keep energy levels consistent.

In tandem with the music starting, people in pairs or trios came to take turns dancing on the tabletop for a few minutes at a time, usually remaining for the duration of two to three songs before excusing themselves from the center of attention and being helped down, to be quickly followed by another pair or trio hopping up.

The entire party lasted until the hours between 12am and 1am, when large activities are legally required to shut down. Given that the gathering in the table-centered area began around 9:30 to 10:00 pm, this particular activity therefore extended for roughly 2 to 2.5 hours in total.

Although this congregation of friends and family came about in remembrance of tragic circumstances (ie someone’s untimely death), the resulting proximity of so many at once where they may have otherwise not been brought together in such a way prompts not only a celebration of the life of he who passed, but also a celebration of the many lives that have continued on.

Such a situation goes to show how happiness in large groups is capable of wholly overwhelming any notions of sadness, and that such celebrations in the wake of tragedies can be considered appropriate when such an effect is properly achieved and initially intended.

Calera Pens Severed Testicles Prank

Tres, a cowboy that has worked on my family’s ancestral ranch for nearly twenty years, illustrated a commonly-occurring prank that occurs during the process of castrating and ear-tagging young cattle (calves) during the summer months.

To provide locational context:

The calera pens, where the prank is most likely to take place, is an octagonal dirt arena where calves are let in three to five at a time from an adjacent pen holding around 100 calves in total.

At any given time, there tend to be around ten cowboys occupying the pens as to make quick work of the calves that are let in. Clearing out the total queue of calves takes a matter of what usually amounts to three hours.

Each round of calves that enters is quickly and methodically dispatched with a combination of lasso-ropes thrown around the calves’ hind legs (preventing them from running and compromising their balance) and a ‘mugger’ who turns the animal on its side and holds it in place. A third cowboy then approaches with a knife to sever the calves’ testicles (since breeding is designated for carefully-selected bulls, clipping young calves keeps both genetics and numbers in check). An ear clipper is then used punches a hole in the calves’ ear that will then be used for placing a plastic numeric identification tag on the calf in a permanent manner.

The prank in question involves the cowboy who has just performed the business of cutting off a cow’s testicles, which he now holds in his hands as two bloody balls of flesh.

With these in hand, the cowboy will put away his knife and nonchalantly walk up to an unsuspecting co-worker, placing the severed testicles either on their shoulder, in their front pocket, or, in particularly biting cases, down the back of their shirt.

The sight of a co-worker reeling in disgust or groaning as they flap the back of a rapidly-untucked shirt is can prompt immediate laughter from bystanders who may not have even seen the perpetrator’s approach, a clear illustration of its familiarity within the pens and a helpful outlet of humor and fun in a workplace that can very quickly become physically punishing and demanding in terms of both high heat indexes and the unpredictability of handling large, frightened animals.

Longest Joke in the World

Told over the entire span of a four-hour car ride, the so-called Longest Joke in the World was re to myself and two others by a friend as a means to pass the time.

On asking us if we would like to hear the joke, given the large expanse of time before us, we declined to listen. However, the friend insisted on the worthiness of its ending. Sold on the promise of a hard-earned ending, we agreed. And he told the story.

Because outlining the story line-by-line and beat-by-beat would understandably occupy too much space, I have compressed it into a greatly abridged format. It should be re-noted that the story was originally told over the course of four hours, with the friend continually reiterating the quality of its ending:

A man becomes lost in the desert after a compulsive, possibly suicide-oriented weekend vacation, spending days wandering the sand to no concluding avail and eventually running out of food and water.

After seven days, nearing death, the man stumbles upon a massive array of what appear to be solar panels, although ancient in appearance. Arranged in a circular pattern and spanning what must be miles, he makes his way to the center. There at the center sits a simple lever. Curled around the lever, a snake named Nate.

The snake speaks to the man, offering comfort. Billions of years old, the snake is the same age as the Earth, his sole duty since the planet’s beginning being the protection of the lever. To turn the lever would be to end the planet.

The snake, being an all-powerful entity, grants the man passage out of the desert. Before the man leaves, the snake asks that he come back and visit for the sake of providing company and conversation. After all, billions of years can become quite lonely.

The man returns home, and given a new passion for life, becomes very financially successful over the years. And each year, he does not fail to return and visit Nate the snake. The two become best friends over a matter of decades. Eventually, Nate explains that his time on Earth is coming to an end and introduces his young son, Daniel.

Since Nate will be gone soon and the man is the only connection to the outside world, Nate asks the man to show Daniel the wonders of the planet before he is required to be confined around the lever for potentially billions of years.

The man obliges and takes Daniel on a journey around the world (made possible by his financial success) that lasts a number of years. Soon, the man grows to see Daniel as comparable to a son of his own. When the time comes to return to the desert, the man gets a car and drives the two back to the array and Nate (as opposed to flying a plane, helicopter, etc.) in order to extend just as much time as they can until it’s time to leave each other to their respective lives.

On arriving to the array, the car stops at the top of a large hill. Down at the bottom sits Nate, waiting for them. The man and Daniel lament the end of their time together, proceeding down the hill in the car. Suddenly, the brakes give out and the car, going through the sand, is unable to be steered.

Having gained full speed, the car heads straight for Nate and the lever. The man and Daniel are horrified but cannot change the course of the car to miss either one. The man is now faced with the unavoidable outcome of hitting either his best friend or a lever that destroy the world.

The man turns to Daniel and says, “better Nate than lever.”

And hits Nate.

On the first experience of hearing this joke, one might initially assume that it falls under the category of ‘shaggy dog’ jokes, where a story/joke/etc. intentionally goes on indefinitely, with the humor being derived from an audience member eventually having to cut off the speaker in order to formally bring a halt to a performance that technically has no end.

The fact that this ‘Longest Joke in the World’ indeed has an end would seem to disqualify it from this category. While it is true that the story does go on for a greatly extended period of time, the emotionally engaging (ie non-joking) bulk of the story is meant to subtly disarm the listener from comedic anticipation, abruptly switching gears for a hilariously and frustratingly simple grammatical joke that comprises the ending. The effectiveness of the story as a whole would be greatly reduced if the hours of oral recitation did not precede it.

This being said, the length of performance can conceivably vary greatly to a couple of hours or even a mere 45 minutes. The time spent telling it relies on a number of factors, including how much time is presently available, the patience of the listeners, and the ability of the performer to recount the details in their entirety. However, an extended period of time spent telling the joke is the primary tool that contributes to its effectiveness.

USC Digital Folklore Archives

A database of folklore performances