Monthly Archives: May 2011

Blonde Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, CA, USA
Performance Date: April 25, 2011
Primary Language: English

My friend, who is a blonde female, told me this joke: “So, uh, one day A blonde walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer.  She says she’s going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000.  The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan, so the blonde hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce.  The car is parked on the street in front of the bank, and she has the title and everything is all good.  The bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.  The bank’s president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the blonde for using a $250,000 Rolls as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then goes to drive the Rolls Royce into the bank’s underground garage to park it.

Two weeks later, the blonde returns, repays the $5,000 and interest, which is about $15.  The loan officer says, ‘Miss, we are very happy to have your business, and this  has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled.  While you were away, we checked you and found that you are a multimillionaire.  What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?’

The blonde replies, ‘Where else in the city can I park my car for two weeks for only $15 and expect it to be there when I return?’

My friend and I both agree that this a counter-current to the general trend of blonde jokes. Usually demeaning (playfully) of blondes and depicting them as naive, ignorant, or the like, this one conversely shows the blonde winning out over the bank employees (even the president). We see yet another example of the common person triumphing over those who traditionally would have come out on top. It is very much a “Legally Blonde” moment, an instance when the once-oppressed rise above any previously constricted confines to challenge and negotiate their place in society.

The Bronze Cat

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 14 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

Although Morgan’s narrative is first person, this story clearly contains intrinsic folkloric value and that is how I will analyze it.

“When I was about thirteen or so, I was in a corner store in Wildwood, New Jersey (where I’ve always spent my summers) when a little metal cat caught my eye. I couldn’t look away from it; I was utterly enchanted. I had to have that cat. I had to buy it no matter what. It wasn’t that it was cute; it wasn’t. It didn’t have pupils. It was misshapen. It was bronze and smelled like money. I couldn’t put it down, though–it was like it was begging me to take it home.

When we got home, though, it felt totally different. I looked into its face, which had looked so sweet in the store, and suddenly it looked malicious. It made chills run up and down my spine to be anywhere near it, and I could hardly stand touching it. I felt nauseous and scared. So I left it upstairs and came down to the TV room–it was waiting for me. I rounded on my sister, demanding to know why she’d brought it down, but she hadn’t touched it. Its pupil-less eyes followed us around the room.

We both agreed that it was evil, so we sealed it in a little box with a rubber band and a note that said DO NOT TOUCH, DO NOT OPEN, along with a short story that I made up about its origins. We took it to the attic, where there was a floorboard that, when struck in a certain corner, could be pried open to reveal a hidden compartment. We put the box in there, sealed it, and climbed down the ladder.

It was waiting in our bedroom.

We ran, crying, to our parents, who promptly sealed it in a plastic bag with salt in the fridge while they determined what to do with it. Eventually, they decided that–since no returns were allowed–we would have to donate it. I protested, saying that I couldn’t bear the thought of passing it on to someone else and leaving them stuck with it, and this is what they told me:

“Donating it removes the curse,” they said. “By doing a good deed, you erase it.”

It never came back for us.”

I asked Morgan how her parents knew how to deal with the bronze cat, and she said that among other superstitions she had grown up with, her parents raised her with the idea that salt and cold neutralizes bad luck and curses. “We do this fairly systematically; if we’ve identified an object as being unlucky, it often gets thrown in a baggy with sea salt and put in the fridge. I once did this with the names of the people who were bullying me, and they left me alone until someone threw out the paper.”

Research revealed that this superstition is present in some form in several cultures. In the Jewish tradition, salt- because it was a pure substance- was believed to have a potency to ward off evil spirits. In the Bible, Ezekial 16:4 briefly mentions the practice of rubbing newborn babies with salt.
Among Scottish and English fisherman, touching cold iron was believed to neutralize the evil eye and protect one from demons (possibly because confronting the metal in its safer form neutralized the power that the evil could send into it).

There seems to be a dual lesson to be learned from this story. The first is the age old idea of “Be careful what you wish for.” It cautions both against the desire for material possessions and against engaging with supernatural elements whose purpose one might not know. Although there was not the traditional “wish” in this story, there was the desire for the statue, which ultimately led to the revelation of its malevolent nature. This sentiment can be found in many pieces of classic and popular culture- the Faust legend in both its incarnation as Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and as Goethe’s Faust in which an intellectual makes a deal with the devil and more recently (and more irreverently) the American film Bedazzled (2000) in which the main character sell his soul for seven wishes, but uses the last one to wish someone else a happy life. His selfless act negates the contract and allows him to keep his soul.

The information about salt in Jewish folk tradition can be found in Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion by Joshua Trachtenberg (Forgotten Books, 2008) on page 162.
“Touch cold iron” can be found in Evil Eye the Origins and Practices of Superstition by Frederick Thomas Elworthy (Kessinger Publishing, 2003) on page 222.
Full texts of Dr. Faustus and Faust can be found at Project Gutenberg.

Navy Shellback Initiation

Nationality: Irish/Italian
Age: 49
Occupation: Military Contractor
Residence: Calabsasas, CA
Performance Date: 1989/1994
Primary Language: English

My father recalls two different ceremonies he learned in the Navy while away at sea. The two ceremonies are performed when a sailor first crosses the equator and/or the international date line. He remembers, “When I was finally on a Navy ship, they had different ceremonies, one for crossing the equator, from the northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere, and the other is for crossing the international date line, which is in the middle of the Pacific ocean, goes vertical.  They were called initiation ceremonies. I think it was called the Shellback initiation ceremony, or Order of the Shellback. I was 27 for Shellback and 33 for the other. This is something that used to get wild in the old days, they used to paddle guys butts and make them carry apples in their mouths and stupid stuff like that, kind of akin to entering a fraternity.  The guys who had already done it get to administer to the guys who haven’t done it. Now, they probably just lecture them or something, or make them read a poem or something not physical [laughs]. I think I had to drink a bowl of melted butter.”

I researched these ceremonies, and found a website which describes the Shellback Initiation ceremony as much more humiliating than what my father told me. I wonder if perhaps he censored his story for my sake, even though I asked for the brutal truth, or if things have just changed as time goes on to become less brutal (both are likely accurate). The website also mentioned a card, or certificate one would receive after going through the initiation, to carry on him at all times, lest he lose it and have to go through the ceremony again for a new card. The Golden Shellback is the name for the ceremony performed when one has crossed the international date line.

When I asked my father what he thought about the initiations, he said, “It was all pretty silly, and it’s probably not that way anymore, but that’s how it was when I was there.” Either way, with or without the humiliating activities, the ceremony goes on, honoring the men at sea who have crossed a liminal line.

Naval Academy Herndon Monument Initiation

Nationality: Irish/Italian
Age: 49
Occupation: Military Contractor
Residence: Calabsasas, CA
Performance Date: 1980
Primary Language: English

My father, Brian, recalls an initiation ceremony he learned from the upperclassmen at Annapolis Naval Academy. He was 18 attending school in Annapolis, Maryland, when he experienced this activity forced on Freshman finishing their first year.

Brian recalls, “At the end of freshman year, and the beginning of the grad week ceremonies, the senior class would – well, the Herndon Monument is like a small version of the Washington monument. And the senior class covers it in grease and then they put a small sailors cap at the top of the monument. And the freshman class has to get the cap off the top of the monument. They have to build sort of a human pyramid, they have to get five or six levels high. They have to use teamwork to get the hat down. It usually takes a couple of hours. I think the fastest it’s been done is an hour and five minutes, and once they get the hat down, that’s the end of being a Phebe, a freshman, who has to do a lot of extra work, be uncomfortable, being harassed, its like the end of their hard times.” The fact that this ceremony is performed at the end of the freshman’s first year is significant, they should have learned how to work as a team by then, and getting the cap should be easy. This freshman ceremony seems to be more about hoping they achieve their goal than humiliating them for sport, which perhaps is why it seems to be a less resented ceremony (the fact that it signifies the end of freshman duties must also be a sweet victory).

When I asked my dad what he thought about the ceremony, he said, “It’s a really fond memory, it adds a sense of finality to a long arduous journey.” I can’t imagine interpreting it any differently, the relief of knowing your worst year is over must be sweet.

Boarding School Initiation

Nationality: Cauacasian American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student, USC
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 2003
Primary Language: English

Jonathan recalls a boarding school initiation ceremony that he learned from the upperclassmen while an underclassman, about 15 years old, at Lawrenceville Preparatory in Princeton, NJ. This ceremony took place at the beginning of the year, when everyone was placed in their houses.

Jonathan remembers, “In boarding school, for initiation into one of the dorm houses – there was a bunch of them, mine was Woodhull – all I can remember is that the younger kids would get a five-star on the back. Like an open handed slap on the back, done hard enough to make an imprint. It was about humiliation, making camaraderie among people because you’re all suffering through the same thing.” The ability to suffer with your companions, knowing one day you’ll be on the other side of the ceremony, in my opinion, is likely the only reason the tradition remains to this day.

When I asked him what he thought of the initiation ceremony, however, he said, “It’s a silly old tradition that kind of alienates people, because it wasn’t mandatory. You didn’t have to do it. Then the people who didn’t want to be a part of it were out of the camaraderie of the house.“ This tradition was most likely brought to fruition for the first time when hazing wasn’t such a taboo hot topic and young schoolboys could be pressured into participating from the inside. However, nowadays, hazing is hardly tolerated. The traditions still exist, as does the peer pressure, even if they now have the imagined option to opt out without consequence.