Tag Archives: humour

Sausage

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Morris Plains, NJ, USA
Language: English

It is a men-only post-show tradition that was invented at the local high school theater and celebrated between grade meshing as well as the seniors’ final shows. 

“I didn’t join theater till my sophomore year which had [J] and [C] as the ring leaders of the seniors. They introduced me and the freshman to sausage. It was crazy at first, but a ton of fun. There’s the song sausage, but its cool because there are a lot of singers who have their own verses that all end with ‘but I still get sausage’. All the seniors make their own verses and we[all the male members of theater] all jump around and have fun in there. For closing night, both guys and girls come in and all the seniors get a voice. We would also put a freshman in a safe and bang a beat on it as like an initiation. It was a fun thing to look forward to.”

The ritual reminds me of a fraternity initiation(with less danger). They all sing and jump around in an exclusively male space, singing a song that is an allusion to sex. It can also be very inclusive because theaters are a LGBTQ dominated space, and they allow trans men to be included in Sausage. It’s also a fun tradition to pass down to other generations and a good, safe way to celebrate after a show. It creates community between the younger years and celebrates the graduating Senior class.

Michael This, Michael That

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Morris Plains, NJ, USA
Language: English

Text:

Michael is a member of the Appalachia Outreach program that runs through the Catholic church. All members of the trip had chores to do because they had to pull their weight, but some people had different skills than others. One day, Michael was asked to do more than others. As he was walking away with another task, the leader was apologizing, and sarcastically he goes, “Michael this, Michael that, anything else I need to do,” and everyone laughed. For the rest of the trip, anytime someone was called more than once, they would say, “Michael this, Michael that”.

Analysis:

A large part of this trip was both tasks and community. The closer the community was, the more fun it was to do the task and the quicker and better they got done. The jokes shared commonly amongst this community create an environment that opens people’s minds to learning and acceptance. The purpose of the trip was to grow, and laughing, jokes, and community are the largest parts of that. 

The Oogli Boogli Man

Nationality: Zimbabwean-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: United States
Performance Date: April 10th
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

This is the transcription of a story told by the informant.

There is an old old woman and she lives all alone in the hills and every single night when she goes to be she takes her boots off and puts them on the ground and tries to go to sleep in the middle of the night the boots wedge themselves on her feet making her do chores all night long and then right as the sun starts to rise the walk her back to her bed and slip back off her feet. So she is becoming really really exhausted and doesn’t know what to do. So she finally takes a trip to the Oogli Boogli Man. He lives even deeper in the hills than the old woman. So when she has to go and walk over to him she takes her time and as she approaches his house a stench comes into the air. She stands far from the porch and screams “Oogli Boogli man” and there’s nothing. She screams again and then out comes the most stinky, farty, old crusty man that you have ever seen. He has icicle boogers coming from his nose and rat poop in his hair because the Oogli Boogli man does not like to clean himself. But he is magic. So the old lady says that her boots are exhausting her until the day breaks then she can go to sleep. The man says all right I will help you. Tonight when you go to sleep the boots won’t hurt you anymore. That night the boots jump back on her feet only this time the boots are taking her all over the town. She is absolutely exhausted and she knows a trick has been played on her. This next time the old lady decides she is going to take matters into her own hands. She makes jam for the Oogli Boogli man and puts some choice ingredients like cat turds, snot, whatever she can find. The concoction is a deep icky brown. She pours it into a jar and seals it shut. Then when she walks over to the man this time there is no reply, but she says all she wanted to do was thank him. That night when she is walking back to her house she hears a scream from the Oogli Boogli man’s house. “Damn you old lady, I’m gonna come get you” that night she is scared shitless, obviously. She hears a knock on her door and she does not know what to do so she stays nice and quiet. The man says “old lady I know you are in there, I just wanted to thank you for that jam that you gave me” and she stays nice and quiet. Then all of the sudden there is a creak and the door opens, so she is freaked out. Then the boots start walking towards the door that’s just opened and the Oogli Boogli man pops right into the boots and walks out the door cursing the old lady’s name. And that’s it, she gets to sleep after that. 

Background:

This story was told to the informant by their father and he learned it from his grandmother. The informant’s great-grandmother was from a tough-as-nails farming family that moved from Nebraska to the desert outside of Joshua Tree. The informant is very close with their family so stories are constantly shared as a way to feel close to their relatives.

Context:

The informant explained that this story was told to them by their father as a spooky tale before bed or around a campfire. When I asked the informant to share some of their family’s folklore, this was the first example that jumped to their mind. They were able to recite it completely from memory and with critical detail and description that showed how much this story had impacted them.

Thoughts:

This folktale is very representative of the blue-collar background of the informant’s great-grandmother. The isolation of the mountain town makes this story more scary for those who live in that environment. It also has magic involved but a very dark kind of magic that can control you in a painful way. This again shows the beliefs of people living in isolation. It could perhaps allude to the idea that outsiders could try to control communities they did not understand, just like the shoes control the old woman. Also the shoes never allowed for this woman to rest and in a farming community, rest is one of the few sacred things that you are given to survive. There aren’t luxuries that wealthier communities get access to, but rest is something guaranteed. The woman gets her rest back by standing up to the Oogli Boogli man which highlights the values of tough communities. You have to act for what you want and not expect things to get better without work.

A moth goes to podiatrist’s office

Nationality: Indian
Age: 20
Occupation: Musician
Residence: Pune
Performance Date: April 2020
Primary Language: English

Piece

So a moth goes into a podiatrist’s office and the podiatrist is like “What is the problem, Moth?” and the moth goes “What is the problem? My life’s a mess doc. My son hates me, my marriage is falling apart, and I’m starting to get old fat and bald. I look in the mirror and I see a shell of a man I used to be. I don’t know. Things are not good.”

So the podiatrist is like “ Man that sounds rough. But like why did you come here, why didn’t you go to a psychiatrist’s office?”

And the moth’s like “Cause the lights were on.”

Background

This is a joke narrated by a close friend from my school, N. N has a kind of dry clever humour that you can’t help but laugh at. He told me that this joke was from his uncle’s collection of many similar jokes. 

Context

N sent this joke to me in the form of a whatsapp voice note when I messaged him about my assignment. 

Thoughts

This joke is funny because at first it sets up the idea that the moth is like a human by allowing the audience to anthropomorphize him by describing his life experience. Then, when the audience thinks that he is human, the joke suddenly reminds them that the moth is actually just a moth and a slave to the nature of the moth. It turns the audience’s expectations back to the original which makes anyone chuckle. 

The Language of Ubbi Dubbi

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: St. Louis, Missouri
Performance Date: 4/17/2018
Primary Language: English

Informant Info: The informant is an 18-year-old from St. Louis, Missouri. She is currently a freshman studying Public Policy at USC.

Interview Transcript:

Interviewer: From all of our previous interactions, I know you have a habit of a funky little language. Can you tell me more about it?

 

Interviewee: The language is called ubbi dubbi, and it originated on a show called Zoom, which is a PBS kids show. All you need to do is put ub in front of every vowel when speaking. We started speaking it in middle school and then in high school everyone seemed to be super into it. It got bad enough that at a certain point that teachers had to put “No phones, no calculators, and no ubbi dubbi” on tests because kids would cheat through it. But yeah, I still like to make memes with it or I’ll just randomly speak it for fun to throw people off.

 

Analysis:

You must love the good old forms of variation and multiplicity. This collection is an example of how popular media can influence folklore, particularly through kids. The language was a silly piece of a kids show, yet the humorous sounds inspired the informant to make a hobby out of speaking it.  I’ll give her credit… it’s harder than it seems to speak it successfully. But, nonetheless, it shows popular media being taken and morphed into an actual language.