Monthly Archives: May 2011

Midget Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: February 13, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: French, Hebrew

Have you ever worn a turtleneck with a backpack?

It’s like getting choked by a really weak midget.

Alex is 24 years old; he was born in New Jersey, but was raised and lived the majority of his childhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He arrived in California for the first time when he was moving into his dorm room at USC in Los Angeles, California.  Currently, Alex is an alumni from USC with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.

Alex told me that he heard this joke recently from a friend while hanging out one night.  He said that he does not remember the context of the joke, but that his friend referenced Mitch Hedberg when he said it.

When Mitch Hedberg said this joke, he said, “Wearing a turtle neck is like being strangled by a really weak guy.  All day.. Like if you wear a turtle neck and a backpack, it’s like a weak midget trying to bring you down.”

This joke is very derogatory and insults small people. Alex says that he had never heard this joke before his friend told it to him, and he said he found it hilarious and true.

I had never heard this joke before Alex told it to me and thought it was extremely funny but mean.  It’s a funny joke, but would probably be considered offensive by those the joke referred to.  I also found it interesting how his friend had paraphrased the joke from where he heard it from and how conspicuous the variation of the folklore already is with just one transfer.

Hedgberg, M. (1999, January 04). Turtlenecks. Retrieved from http://comedians.jokes.com/mitch-hedberg/videos/mitch-hedberg—turtlenecks/

Lawyer Joke – American

Nationality: American - Caucasian
Age: 22
Occupation: Student, International Relations/Pre-Law
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 12 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: French, German

“So this lawyer is cross-examining this doctor and he says, ‘Doctor, so you’re the one who did the autopsy.’

“And he said, ‘Yes.’

“And he’s like, ‘Well where was the victim when you did the autopsy report?’

“He’s like, ‘On the table.’

“‘Well, what were you looking at particularly?’

“He’s like, ‘The brain. The brain was, you know out of the victim’s head on my table.’

“And he said, ‘Oh, okay. So the victim was dead.’

“‘Yes, there was no way he could be anywhere else. Well I suppose he could be practicing law somewhere else, but other than that, probably dead.'”

Friend showed it to her online. The informant is a Pre-Law student and she was actually accepted into a Law school for the coming year. This joke came up after we had talked about her recent acceptance to a Law school and when we started talking about jokes. She later went and looked up lots of other jokes about lawyers and went through them laughing hysterically. When she told the joke she told it at a pretty speedy pace, somewhat characteristic of someone who has to make detailed verbal reports often. There was not a lot of emotional changes in her voice as she told the joke – it was a fairly dry account. The informant said the that the joke was funny to her because it reminded her of some people that she knew, most likely from her years of participating in Mock Trial.

The informant has, in fact, been on Mock Trial since her freshman year and has know about the inner workings of law for a long time, which meant that she understood the allusions and situational comedy in lawyer jokes very intimately. I in no way doubt that she was thinking about someone she knew as she laughed, but she didn’t initially tell me she knew someone like the lawyer in the joke when she told me that joke. In this way, the joke was somewhat self-disparaging. This may be a case where a person has taken up an occupational stereotype in order to take some of the sting out of it, or to say somehow, “Hey, I can see this joke and I can laugh about it – I’m not some straight-laced, condescending lawyer like the lawyer in this joke.”

Chinese Shrines

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Savannah, GA and Hong Kong, China
Performance Date: April 15, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

Suzanne is currently spending a quarter abroad in Hong Kong, China. She heard about these shrines from her professor who said the shrines were there for the Gods to watch over shops for their owners.  She took these pictures in  the area of Sham Shui Po, where there are a lot of shrines

“The one with the tree next to it was next to a security guard’s booth at Lippo Centre, in Admiralty. Best guess says that it’s to the gods of guardians, asking him/her/them to watch over them, not necessarily or pertaining only to their protection.

Second one was a couple streets off Temple Street, outside of what I think was a mechanic’s shop. You can see a couple large stacks of tires in the background, a bicycle’s front wheel and handlebar basket in front of them. From what I can gather, the characters ask for finance to be brought to their door.
It seems that there are more shrines in areas where there are lots of local shops, definitely haven’t seen any in more western areas. In my opinion, it may either be due to big name companies not wanting the shrines in front of their shops, creating a connection between the two, or maybe because religion is fading from the “more well-to-do” areas because they think they don’t need it while the owner of a non-chain store still believes that his god(s) still have power over his life.”
Often the Buddist and Toaist people of Hong Kong worship dieties and ancestors of both religions.  Shrines of ancestors are usually inside the home, while shrines to gods are placed outside.  Each profession has their own god, consequently, different stores have their own unique shrine to their god.  And these shrines are often small, and placed directly by the entrance to a store.  This makes it easy to pay homage and worship the shrine to the god while entering and leaving.  By worshipping the gods, it is hoped that one will reap the benefits of the god’s help. 

Proverb – American

Nationality: Caucasian American
Age: 34
Occupation: Waiter and tobacconist
Residence: Huntington Beach, CA
Performance Date: April 17, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Conversational German, Latin

The informant learned the following proverb from his father:

“You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

The informant interprets it to mean that “you can’t, you know, you can’t produce greatness out of nothing. No, you have to have the basic ingredients to create what you are attempting to make.” The informant recalls that his father often said the proverb to his mother when she complained about his cutting corners: “Since he was a very handy person, he—y—he, um, he jury-rigged whenever he could, but he understood that there were limitations to doing so. And when it was brought up that there were limitations—which it generally was, because my mother was a very nitpicky person—uh, his response was invariably, ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’” The informant himself occasionally uses the proverb when it seems relevant, but only when he feels that the person he’s speaking to will understand him: “Most people don’no [sic] what a sow is any more.”

When asked what he thinks of the proverb, the informant says, “I feel that it’s, uh, it’s terminology is pretty out of date, but t’lesson is soun’.”

A sow is, of course, a female pig, and the proverb most likely is a remnant of times when farming was the major occupation in America. The comparison between the silk purse and the sow’s ear seems likely to stem from the delicacy of the ear and the way the light shines through it as through silk. A full-grown sow is very large and its ear could conceivably be large enough to use as a purse. The fact that the informant’s father addressed it to his mother is telling and could even be considered sexist; of course, it would be a woman who would want a silk purse and be foolish enough to think that it was possible to make one out of the ear of a pig.

AP Chemistry Initiation – Arlington, Virginia

Nationality: Mexican American/ Slovenian American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student - Neuroscience
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 18 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“This is like a piece of I guess tradition from my high school and I’m from Arlington, Virginia but I don’t really know if that has to do with it necessarily but just in my high school uh, so uh you know you have your regular classes and I took chemistry in tenth grade, I think – yeah – and in eleventh grade I decided to take AP Chemistry and of course AP classes are always, AP sciences are always hard for high schoolers so I took it and uh, before, like in ah spring before the end of my sophomore year, so when I was gonna go into my junior year and starting it we had like this initiation ceremony. So like it was really funny like I didn’t know what was going on there was just like this list that the teacher sent out to all of us that were going to be in the class the next year and there were like all these random things like three tins of cat food and a bikini and like a, like fishhooks and like, uh, it was really random and uh, people like knew not to bring that stuff ‘cause it was so ridiculous but one guy actually did bring all that stuff. It was really funny. So uh we all got together at the school and like I had no idea what it was. Like uh, my friend before had done it but he wouldn’t tell me what it was because it was like this secret. So we all got in the uh, the, like the students who had already taken AP Chem, we all got into their cars and then we drove and we drove and we drove and we drove and we drove in like half an hour into D.C. – ‘cause Arlington’s really close to D.C. and it’s kinda northern D.C. area and it was actually a, ah, swing dance thing. Like I guess they have these every once and a while in D.C. like they just really like swing dancing so we did that for like four hours at night. And like everybody was having a good time and it was really hot because it was like 95 degrees. And the guy with the – the poor guy with the ti-cat food. No it was really fun. So yeah, that was our initiation.”

The informant is a 20-year-old Neuroscience student at the University of Southern California. Her mother is Slovenian and her father is Mexican. She is from Arlington, Virginia.

When asked about what she thought of this initiation she thought the random random, crazy fun quality of it was typical of her school, which was basically run by 30- and 40-something-year-old hippies. The atmosphere of the school was fun while still being academically rigorous. As mentioned in her description of the initiation itself is that an initiation for AP Chemistry was reasonably appropriate because she and her other rising-AP Chemistry peers were entering a time of grueling academics that represented a new intensity of schooling.

I surmise that this initiation is as much an expression of school identity as much as it was a rite of passage. Not only were these rising juniors about to enter the grueling world of Advanced Placement classes but also entering these classes at this particular school with a unique balance of idiosyncratic fun and academics.