Tag Archives: occupational folklore

Taxi Lawyer Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Saratoga, CA
Performance Date: 4/15/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

“So, this taxi driver used to be a lawyer, and he was a really successful lawyer until one day he screwed up in court.  For whatever logistical reasons, he lost his lawyership.  He became a taxi driver.  But you know, once you become a lawyer, you get a radar for lawyers.  So every time he sees a lawyer, he tries to run them down with taxi. (He gestured as if he was driving a taxi and running someone over).  One day, a priest got in his car.  He saw a lawyer, and he was getting excited to hit him.  He remembered there was a priest in the car though so he changed his mind, and he swerved at the last minute.  He heard a clunk, and the lawyer was dead.  He turned around and whispered, ‘I’m sorry father.  I didn’t mean to.’  The priest replied, ‘That’s okay. I got him with the door.'”

The informant learned the joke at Boy Scout camp over one summer.   He said it was one of the jokes they would tell around the campfire.  He doesn’t tell the joke regularly, but he was really entertained as he told it to me.

The joke plays to a lot of different groups.  It makes fun of lawyers in a way while also reaching out to taxi drivers and priests.  The joke finds its humor from the fact that the priest who is supposed to be good purposefully hurts the lawyer instead of the ex-lawyer who had previously been bad.  The joke takes on religion and purity in a humorous manner, but it can also just be seen as a good funny narrative joke.  I found the joke funny myself because the ending is so unexpected.

 

Washing the gels for the lights practical joke

Nationality: Caucasian, Irish, German, and Bohemian American
Age: 22
Occupation: Graduate Student in Computer Science
Residence: Minneapolis, MN
Performance Date: 3/25/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese, Spanish

My informant worked in theater during her high school and undergraduate years, specializing in lighting and light designs. She worked in the lighting department at her school for quite some time and she shared with me a story about a trick that she would play on new students working on lighting at the theater. The setting was a casual lunch at a restaurant.

Informant: “We would play this joke on anyone new working on the lights for a show. We used gels made out of gelatin to put over the lights to make them different colors. After a show, they get burnt from the light, so you ask the new kid to go wash them with soap and water. But the gels would disintegrate in the water because they were made out of gelatin! Then they would come back looking all concerned and worried like, “I destroyed them!” And I would just sit there like “Ha-ha-ha.”

Me: Did anyone ever play this trick on you?

Informant: Nope, but I played it on people all the time. It was so funny. Now, gels are not made out of gelatin as commonly so the joke can’t be played anymore.

This story is an example of occupational folklore because only the experienced technical theater workers would know this trick. My informant repeats this because it is funny for her and her coworkers. She also said that it has an element of initiation because once a new person is fooled by this trick, they are then more accepted and assimilated into the group. Once they know about the joke, they can then play it on other new people as a way of showing that they are now more experienced.

Caution: Fencing Ahead

J: So what kind of traditions do you do as a member of the fencing team?

W: When we’re facing our rivals, we basically always dress up in a specific way, but the coaches, about 10 years ago, I think, started this thing where when we’re away – or even when people come to our tournaments at home. Basically, we dress completely in black for that day and put caution tape on us. And, then, we, well, if we don’t have caution tape, we still wear all back, but it’s supposed to show, you know, “Warning, we’re dangerous, we’re gonna take you out.” That type of thing.

J: How’d it get started?

W: Um, it kinda got started, when the people who were in charge were like, “Hey, we should dress up and show the other team how intimidating we are!” So it’s not like, the coach per se, but more so the people who are in charge – the heads, or the captains. And they’re like, “Hey people, this is what we’re doing!” And it’s carried on through the years, even though, some of the captains have left.

 

To mix things up, I wanted to include some occupational folklore into the collection so I decided to ask my suite mate, who is from New Jersey, about one of the traditions of his fencing team back home. It’s very interesting that fencing would be found there, but I suppose the sport is becoming ubiquitous at this point. Also, it is fascinating to note that instead of the traditional garb, caution tape and black outfits are used as a ritual to form team unity and also intimidate the opposing team. I see this amalgamation of a traditional sport, mixed with ingenuity, that is also carried out year to year as an evolution of folklore that the world is going to see more of. People tend to think of folklore as traditions that were started years in the past, but as proven by this collection piece, new traditions can start everyday!

Rule-Breaking Custom in the U.S. Army during World War II

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 86
Occupation: Retired Engineer
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 25, 2012
Primary Language: English

At the end of World War II, U.S. troops in Europe had little to do and were generally restless.  To entertain themselves, soldiers would take leave without permission and—more interestingly—challenge each other to take leave without permission. Here are some examples of this military tradition, from my informant’s wartime experiences:

“During the journey, some of the soldiers came down with Scarlet Fever, so all of the men who had been on our ship were quarantined. After a week or more in quarantine, some of the guys began to get restless.  They noticed that it was possible to sneak out by crawling across the road on one’s belly between the guards when they were marching in opposite directions.  About a dozen of us sneaked out together to explore the countryside.  The Allies had heavily bombed Le Havre to create a diversion from the main D-day landing to the North. Given the resulting ill feeling of the locals towards Americans at that moment, our excursion wasn’t very sensible.  The guys practiced firing their pistols, and after a few hours we sneaked back into camp.  The only other noteworthy event during this period was that one of the idiots in the camp fired off a pistol, making a small hole in the tent about a foot above my head.

“We finally arrived in Namur [in Belgium] and were taken to the kaserne (a barracks surrounded by a 10- or 12-foot high brick wall). During the first few days at the kaserne, only soldiers who had arrived earlier were granted passes to go into town.  There was, however, a section of the wall that was blocked from view by other buildings in the kaserne.  By having one person climb onto another’s shoulders, and a third scramble over the two of them, it was possible to form a chain and scale the wall.  The third guy climbed on top of the wall, assisted the second to get up, and then lowered him by the ankles so that the last could be pulled up.  It was difficult and painful, especially for the man on the bottom.  We went into town and had a great time drinking beer, but somehow it was more difficult to climb back into the kaserne.  We managed to accomplish it without anyone getting hurt.

“The next time that I got a pass [to take leave], Foti had forgotten to get on the request list, and did not have a pass.  There was only a single guard who stood opposite the entrance to the main gate.  I noticed that some of the men would just wave their pass at the guard and say that they were going to turn it in at the orderly room, and that he let them go by without checking.  I convinced Foti that he should come out with me and that we would do the same thing.  When we came back at about 2 AM, I waved my pass at the guard, but he lowered his carbine and said: ‘Soldiers—You’ll turn in your passes here.’  So, I handed him my pass, and told him: ‘That’s his pass—I’ll look for mine.’  To give Foti time to get back to the barracks and into bed, I proceeded to leisurely go through every pocket in my overcoat, jacket, and pants, and then turned over every piece of paper in my wallet four times.  The guard finally started to lose patience with me, demanded my dog tags, and took down my name and Army serial number.  He said: ‘We’ll find out whether or not you had a pass’ and he let me go.  At the next morning’s roll call, with about 1,000 men standing at attention, the Colonel called out my name and told me to march front and center; I did so and saluted him.  He shouted at me: ‘NO ONE MAKES A MONKEY OUT OF MY M.P.’S.  I’M GOING TO COURT MARTIAL YOU IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO!’  The following day we were ordered to move to Germany, and the Colonel told me that he was going to let me off.

“I suppose that my involvement in these escapades reflected annoyance at the seemingly arbitrary regimentation and restrictions of the Army.  In retrospect, resentment and boredom overcame common sense; it’s fortunate that no one was harmed by any of this.”

Analysis: Aside from providing the soldiers an outlet with which to escape from their boredom, this tradition forces soldiers to demonstrate their guts, thereby reaffirming their manliness. By taking leave without permission, soldiers could prove themselves to the group and gain acceptance through the process. Especially in a high-risk, wartime environment, it seems reasonable that young men would search for ways in which to establish themselves as courageous amongst their peers. Thus, this practice reflects the pressurized situation of war.

Similarly, in Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, which is based upon the author’s experience of fighting in the Vietnam War, the soldiers’ behavior to one another often tends to be characterized by false bravado—the men endeavor to mask their fears so that they can appear braver than they feel in actuality. For instance, Tim O’Brien portrays a soldier named Curt Lemon, who initiates such dangerous games as “pass the smoke grenade” as he endeavors to exhibit a total lack of fear. (Tragically, he steps upon a mine while playing one of these games, and in this way meets his end.)

O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1990. Print.

 

F*** Sound

Nationality: Caucasian American
Age: 21
Occupation: Film Student (Director of Photography, Assistant Cameraman)
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/6/12
Primary Language: English

Informant Bio/Context

My informant attends the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts’ film production program. She is primarily focused on camera and lighting work and works often as a director of photography (crew member in charge of lighting scenes and composing shots in the camera). On a recent student film set she told the following joke while waiting for the director to finish rehearsing with an actor. The camera was already set and ready to go, and she reflected that it was a good thing that on this project they didn’t need to worry about recording sound.

Transcript of Joke

So this actress comes to Hollywood, right, and she’s having trouble you know, um, getting in. So she decides to sleep with a sound guy. And afterwards everyone’s all like, why’d you sleep with a sound guy? You should sleep with the director. Sleep with the director. And she says, well everyone’s always saying, fuck sound! Fuck sound!

Analysis and Background

After telling the joke the informant told a brief anecdote about a set experience she had where the assistant director (set manager) needed to find the production mixer (crew member who records sound on the set) in order to shoot a shot because in between shots the production mixer had fallen asleep and was not responding to calls. The informant herself took the joke as a humorous comment on the fact that the sound department has a lot of down time on sets. Like the actors, they are really only needed just before and through the recording of takes. Much of the rest of the time spent on a set changing lighting and re-dressing set pieces is time during which the sound department has nothing to do which gives them, according to my informant, the appearance of having an easy job and being lazy workers.

My reading of this joke however is more focused on the gender and position of power of the subjects in the joke. The main character in the joke is an actress who is portrayed as naive and desperate for fame. The joke plays upon a general belief that sex will help one, especially a woman with little experience, to get ahead in the film industry. The joke assumes a “green-ness” to actresses in Hollywood. The laugh comes from the understanding by film crews of  the truth behind the statement that “everyone’s always saying, fuck sound” and that newcomers to Hollywood would not understand why that is and would misinterpret the meaning. The actress who is new to town can hardly be expected to know the perception of sound technicians with film crews.

Also notice the use of the term sound “guy.” Rarely in the film industry does one refer to a crew member using a female pronoun – often the word “person” is substituted for “guy” or “man” if one is attempting to be politically correct, or even to refer to a female crew member. The gender dynamics of this joke indicate that it is young, naive girls who seek fame and fortune in a male-dominated work environment, where sex appeal is their only power. The desperation of the actress to break into the film business also hints at the brief shelf life of actresses, who seem to age quicker (and lose that sex appeal) in the public eye than male actors. This reveals not so much a gender bias among film workers as a tradition of acceptance of the fact that many roles in the film industry have historically been filled by men – particularly skilled crew roles.

The fact that the gender dynamics of the joke held even when being told by a female director of photography reveals that while the dynamics of film crews and the business itself may change, a stereotypical image of the film industry planted in the 1920s still holds in the public consciousness, and is source of ironic amusement even to modern film workers.