Tag Archives: humor

Said the Blind Man to the Deaf Monkey

Nationality: African American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 25, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant H is 19 years old and was born in Inglewood CA, and moved to a place near Valencia just outside of LA soon after she was born. After 5 years, her little sister was born, then her little brother, and then her youngest sister. The family then moved to Bakersfield. H homeschooled for many years and then transitioned into a public high school.

So my Dad always says this thing, ‘Said the blind man to the deaf monkey’. And I don’t know where it comes from, he might have even made it up, but you can really use it in any case. He says that all the time and we have this running joke because I’m always like ‘that doesn’t make any sense, the man he blind…the monkey is deaf…’ You use it when you tell someone you like see, like you understand them. So you’re talking to someone and they’re like, ‘Oh I see’ and then you’d say ‘Said the blind man to the deaf monkey’. He uses it mostly to be facetious I think. I guess it’s supposed to be like when you understand but you don’t really. And he always says it with this wink and a smile. At this point he just says it to be funny, just him being himself.

 

Analysis:

This proverb is a family specific one that helps to bring the family together in a funny and lighthearted way. The informant H always laughs when she hears her Dad say it and thinks of him fondly when she tells of this proverb.   Although this proverb doesn’t teach much of a lesson, it helps to bring H and her Dad closer together through this unique and silly proverb.

“You Swallow a Knife and It Explodes.” – Jokes on Critical Failure

Nationality: White American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Torrence, CA
Performance Date: 4/6/2014
Primary Language: English

About the Interviewed: Max is a twenty year old college student at Pasadena City College studying Architecture and Fashion Design. His ethnic background is remotely Swedish, though his family has been in America for a couple generations.

My subject, Max, plays tabletop Role-Playing Games (RPGs) . He discussed a joke tradition with me among RPG gamers that I found quite humorous.

Max: “When you play D&D [Dungeons and Dragons, popular tabletop RPG] you get into a lot of situations where you get stuck and have to make a “Skill Check”. In a “Skill Check” you roll a die and check your result to see if you overcome the challenge. It’s a twenty sided die, a d20 for short. You roll your die, and the number you get determines the outcome. 20 is the best. If you roll a twenty, that’s called a critical success, a critical hit. That’s really good. But if you get a 1, if you get the lowest number, that’s bad. Really, bad. That’s called a Critical Failure. When you land one of those, something really bad has to happen.”

I ask what that is.

Max: “Critical Failure means that not only does the opposite of your goal happen, it happens so badly it screws you over. Players like to think of creative ways for the screwing to happen, but most times people just get silly.”

“For example”, he goes on:

“Let’s say your character is fighting a wizard. Like, an evil wizard. And he summons a rain of knives to fall upon you. You’d have to make a Dexterity Check [type of skill check] to see if you dodge. You roll the dice and OOP. You got a 1. So what happens?”

“You swallow a knife and it explodes. You die forever. Game over. (laughs) Your character may not actually die, he’d probably just get stabbed a little. But the joke is the same. You miss. Bad thing happens.”

“There’s a ton of examples of these. They just sort of come-up during games.”

A short time after this meeting, I met with my D&D group and asked them to come up with/ remember their best crit. fail stories. Here’s what I got:

1. You try to unlock a door

>CRIT FAIL

– You miss and the door unlocks you instead.

2. You try to slay a vicious goblin.

>CRIT FAIL

– You miss and stab yourself. Multiple times.

3. You scan the darkness to search for traps.

>CRIT FAIL

– The darkness sees you and gets very angry.

4. You try to climb a rope.

>CRIT FAIL

-The rope is now 500 snakes.

(and etc.)

Summary:

Players of the game “Dungeons and Dragons”, as well as similar RPGs have a tradition of jokes surrounding the concept of the “Critical Fail”, the worst outcome of a single dice-roll.

I find that a lot of these jokes take a form of dark comedy, which can reflect the overall mood of failing a crucial roll. Taking something serious and making it silly may seem trivial, but they’re a way that players enrich in the fun of the game. This is a trend that has been observable since the dawn of pen and paper RPG’s in the mid 1970’s.

You can find more of them here and here:

What is your funniest Critical Failure story?
byu/JPNerd inrpg

http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=26674

 

Surfer Slang

Nationality: American
Age: Late 20's -early 30's
Occupation: Surfing Instructor
Residence: Lahaina, HI
Performance Date: March 18, 2014
Primary Language: English

I had signed up for a surfing lesson while on Spring Break in Maui with my parents. When we were learning about how to stand on the surfboard – on the beach of course; we started on dry land learning how to get on the board and how to stand up once we were on it, as well as the proper stance when on the board – when the instructor noticed that I was in a stance for a lefty. He then called out and said something along the lines of, “You’re a goofy foot!”

 

Of course, I asked them what the term meant. “Goofy foot” is a blason populaire term used by surfers for left-handed (-footed?) surfers. It is not all that surprising that surfers would have their own term for lefties, since lefties are much less common than right-handed/-footed people. Most of the human population is right-handed/-footed, and in the West at least (Europe, America) left-handedness was considered to be negative, unlucky, incompetent, socially wrong, etc. So, to a population that was 9/10ths right-handed, being among the 1/10th of the population that was left-handed/-footed would look awfully weird, and thus “goofy,” to the “normal,” right-handed/footed people. Furthermore, since handedness in surfing is shown through the stance, the let-handed surfing stance – meaning the feet – would be “goofy footed” to a right-handed surfer.

Forsee Did It

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Gardener/Substitute Teacher
Residence: Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Performance Date: April 21, 2014
Primary Language: English

The informant is one of five children. He has two older sisters (one of which is now deceased), one older brother, and one younger brother. His mother is in her 80’s, and his father has been deceased for many years. The family has been in southern California since the children were born. The family frequently gets together at his mother’s house for holidays like Easter and Christmas and family jokes present themselves often.

The joke explained here is one that started in the 1960’s by the informant’s maternal grandfather. In addition to asking the informant and his siblings questions like “Are you married yet?” and “So where are you working?” when they were children much too young to have a spouse or a job, he would also tap their shoulders and say “Forsee did it!” Forsee was the grandfather’s wife. Other small things like accidentally bumping into something or dropping something would also be explained by saying that Forsee did it. This was done in a teasing manner, not a mean-spirited manner. My informant remembers his family talking about his grandfather saying this joke moreso than remembering specific incidences where he witnessed his father saying that Forsee did something. This continued long after the grandfather and grandmother had passed away. Though the frequency of the joke has lessened in the last few years, the informant also tells the joke even when he is not at an extended family gathering and is just in his own home with his own wife and children, though he does so rarely. Though the joke is told relatively often at family gatherings, it is almost always followed by a discussion of how that joke started with the grandfather, even though it is discussed at almost every family gathering. I think it is explained mainly for the benefit of whatever new friend or boyfriend one of the younger generation has brought to the gathering, to bring them “into the family” just a little bit.

This joke speaks to the relaxed nature of this family. Joking around is encouraged, even by the older generation and many family dinners end with loud laughter. There is also a lot of teasing that goes on, both by younger members and older members of the family. Family gatherings are never formal, and the younger cousins often eat on the couch in the living room instead of bothering to get a folding chair out of the closet. Overall, the jokes like the one focused on here and the informal nature of the events really show the relaxed and comfortable nature of the family relationships.

Akbar and Birbal: The Ten Fools

Nationality: Indian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Claremont, California
Performance Date: 3/22/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, German

Item:

“Emperors seem to be really whimsical people, who also have a lot of time on their hands. Actually, I don’t know if it’s all emperors or just Akbar. Anyway, one day, on a whim, Akbar decided that he wanted to find the ten biggest fools in his kingdom, because he’d had enough of being surrounded by clever and scholarly men. What a novel idea, don’t you think? So he sends his incredibly smart and witty minister Birbal, solver of every problem in his kingdom, out to retrieve these ten foolish men. He eventually returned with eight men, among whom some were supremely idiotic. Let me enlighten you. One of these guys was carrying a bale of hay while riding a horse. So Birbal goes up to this dude and asks him why he’s carrying the hay when he’s riding a horse, and so the guy replies that it’s because his horse is really, really old and weak and that he doesn’t want to burden him any further. I know, right? Now listen to this. Another guy was running down the road really fast and he collided with Birbal. The minister asks the guy where he’s off to in such a hurry and you won’t believe what the guy says. He says that he was saying his prayers in the mosque that morning and wanted to see how far his voice reached. So, duh, the first thought that came to his mind was chasing his voice. And okay, okay, last one. This third genius is looking for something in the street at night, and he can’t seem to find it. He’s looking under a streetlamp.  Birbal stumbles across him, quite literally, and asks him what he’s looking for so frantically. He explains that he lost his wedding ring in a dark galli (alley) a short ways away. So obviously, Birbal is confused and asks him why he isn’t looking in the alley, and in the street instead. Get this. This brilliant guy says that he’s looking in the main road because there’s more light there. Isn’t that hilarious? And so he takes these supremely stupid eight guys back to Akbar, who is upset that there’s only eight of them. So Birbal says, quite frankly, that Akbar is the ninth fool for thinking of such a pointless task. Offended, the Emperor demands who the tenth one is, to which Birbal just deadpans: ‘Me, of course, for agreeing to carry out such a pointless task.’ Ha ha ha!”

Context:

I was told the background of this story in due time: “There are several versions of this story, but the one with Birbal and the Ten Fools is the most popular. There’s a few other ones, though, like The Four Fools and Birbal, and also one that’s more or less the same as the one I just told you, except that the Rajput Birbal is replaced with a South Indian clever minister figure called Tenali Rama and the Emperor Akbar is replaced by the corresponding king – Raja Krishnadevaraya. I just chose this one because I like Birbal more than Tenali Rama and it’s funnier, because there are more idiots. I think the point that’s proven here is that a person who chooses to record the number of idiots in his vicinity is a bigger idiot than all of them combined, because there is no end to the idiots in any given part of the world.”

Analysis:

The notable point here is that the active participant, who is relating the legend, acknowledges that there are several versions and variants of this story, making the main frame of the story a taletype, and the multiple specimens of this story, told all over India, oikotypes. He also relates the story in a very humorous manner and involves the audience directly by laughing with them and asking them rhetorical, “Am I right?”-type questions to keep them engaged. In addition to this, he mentions two different (in region) but very similar (in character) elements to the story – the half-historical and half-legendary characters of Birbal and Tenali Rama, who are well-known all over the Indian subcontinent and are vehicles for many similar stories. Another point to be noted is the presence of a wedding ring in the story. The wedding ring is a traditionally Western and Christian concept that is a modern introduction into Indian culture, where a mangalsutra (wedding necklace) is more prevalent. It’s interesting because this variation in the story must have been quite recent, and also must have been engineered for the story to appeal to a wider audience.

Finally, this story is, essentially, a joke, but also a legend, because it takes place in the real world and may well have happened. Its humor mainly relies in the supreme stupidity of the people Birbal encounters, and the punchline, in which both the minister and the emperor realize that they were pretty idiotic themselves by wasting a week on such a nonsensical quest. The narrative poses the idea that one may have one’s moments of sheer brilliance, but no matter a person’s stature, an emperor, a clever minister, or a mere pauper, everyone has their own unique quirks, whims, and the capacity to be almost mind-numbingly idiotic when given the opportunity.