Mary Beth Writes

Humor 3/8/2023

I heard this joke in a sermon in 1974. I heard that highly revered minister preach at least a hundred sermons and this is the ONLY thing I remember him saying.  

A guy loses his job and is desperate for a new one with which to support his precious family. Nothing turns up until one day the newspaper Help Wanted Ads (so now you know how old this jokes really is) says the zoo has an opening. Guy applies. The HR person looks worried and then says the zoo changed its mind, the job is too demeaning. Guy says he’s desperate, will take anything.

“Well, okay then. Our famous and beloved ape has died. So many patrons came here to visit him and we can’t afford to lose that audience. So we taxidermized him into a suit and want to hire someone to wear it and pretend to be him”.

Guy says yeah, it’s weird but he will do it. Guy is VERY good at this job. He climbs, dances, hoots, and hums. People attend the zoo like crazy to see the amazing and entertaining ape. Then, one day he’s climbing the tree in his cage, goes too far out on a branch, and FALLS INTO THE LION CAGE!

He yells. “HELP! HELP!!!”

The lion rushes to him, opens his mouth, and whispers, “Shut up or we’ll both get fired.”

….

Humor relaxes the body, gets us to breathe, causes us to smile. For a moment we feel happy. This is probably why the humor (and music) of people who live under oppression is often the best humor. Humor and music are the homelands of people without a safe homeland.

Example: Rios Montt was a brutal military dictator in Guatemala in the early 1980’s; his two years in office were the bloodiest of Guatemala’s long bloody civil war (the US backed Montt in case you were wondering). Anyways, it was said of Montt that he was born with a twin – who was deceased with signs of torture.

The humor of the oppressed can be very pointed.

Humor can provide release and relief in tense or distraught moments and situations.

I learned at my brother’s funeral that for more than a year he had let his hair grow long enough to wear in a pony tail. One night he was out at a bar with friends.   (Well, to be truthful, he was out at a bar most of the nights of his adult life except when he had friends over to the bar in his house.)   Anyways, a guy just visiting his town happened to be at that bar that night and struck up a lively conversation with Paul. (A big part of this joke is that my brother could talk to anyone about anything and make them feel good about themselves in the process.) When Paul went to the restroom the guy asked someone at their table what “her” name was. Paul got a haircut the next day.  

Losing Paul when he was only 51 was awful and yet, that joke brings the best of him back to me every time.

Some humor provides a way to be superior to others. When your life causes you to feel like a loser, its easy to feel superior again by making fun of others.

This is a dangerous humor. Calling women Barbie's or Karen’s is humor until it is a toxic way to disenfranchise the voices of women - as several readers named Barbara and Karen understand.

Trump mimicking reporter Serge Kovaleski who has arthrogryposis in this arm. That year Merely Streep accepted an award at the Golden Globe with this: “That was the one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good; there was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kinda gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose.”   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_F._Kovaleski

Some humor - IMHO the best humor – is just nutty. It’s can be delightfully incongruous and memorable when unrelated ideas are mingled.

Oscar Wilde’s “Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”

Mark Twain on just about any topic. “I was educated once - it took me years to get over it.” “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” “Don’t wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”

Random internet joke: My boss was honest with me today. He pulled up to work with his sweet new car this morning and I complimented him on it. He replied, "Well, if you work hard, set goals, stay determined and put in long hours, I can get an even better one next year."

Len just heard this with which we will end this important essay. “Getting lots of sleep helps prevent the ravages of old age. Especially if you do it while you drive.”

 

 

 

 

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Leonard's picture

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

Much of this made me smile and I laughed out loud at the ape and Lion joke!
Mary Beth's picture

Thank you, KAREN!

Attributed to either Will Rogers or Jack Handy: “When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.” ― Will Rogers

I was reminded again by this essay of Trump's reprehensible behavior when he made fun of the disabled reporter. I really loved what Meryl Streep had to say about Trump because it really was all about him and much less to do with the reporter. It showed us all exactly what he is made of. Ms. Streep put it more elegantly and precisely than I ever probably could, but I do remember my first thought at Trump's "performance": " This is a person stuck in eighth grade." Of course, I mean socially and emotionally. Having him in the most powerful position on this planet was of no comfort and frightening in so many ways. Wish I could come up with a joke to lighten my post up a little. I love jokes. I'm just not so good at remembering and then telling them.
Mary Beth's picture

Yeah, I was astonished so many times during Trump's campaign and administration at the truly ugly things he said and did, or that others in his milieu said and did. It was a wakeup call to the interior lives of many of our fellow citizens. There were and still are some incredible jokes about him, but they don't seem very funny. Maybe in a hundred years.

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Y is for Yellowstone

9/27/2023

Back in February I asked you to give me topics to write about that would correspond to the alphabet. Sometimes several of you sent ideas for one letter and sometimes I wrote about all of them (I’s and S’s) Here we are at letter Y for which your suggestions are Yummy Food and Yawns. The word yawn absolutely makes me yawn; no way I could write about that - I would yawn for hours. I worked on Yummy Food but could only find a scolding voice about Americans eating too much sugar. Bah. True but not interesting.

So, I gave Y a go again. Y is for?

"I was Scott Simon's teller."

9/22/2023

First of all - Thank you to those of you who came to the Wisconsin Writers Association zoom gala last night. I HAD received an email a week ago which said I would be reading my whole story. Cutting it in half while I was reading was awkward! It was still a happy event for me and the other writers. Thanks for being there! 

X is for Xeriscape

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Xeriscape is pronounced ‘zeer-eh-scape’ and it means landscaping with little to no irrigated water. Readers in the west already know about this. Those of us who don’t live in arid or desert places need to wake up to the incredible resource that water is - then begin to accommodate ourselves to “water all around and beneath us all the time” is no longer our reality. Nor is it our right. We’ve got to get smarter and do better.

W is for Wonder

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To whomever suggested Wonder - Thank You!  ‘Wonder’ has been bobbing in my mind like a frog in a pond.

However, I have FOUR suggestions from you guys for X - but I do not want to write four X essays. These are the suggestions:

1.) X signature substitution

2.) xylophone on a string pulled by a toddler

3.) xenophobia

4.) Xmas. 

If you have an opinion respond with the one you would like me to attempt. I will choose whichever X gets the most comments.

There will be no gerrymandering in this election.

GNTL - NAMI

9/7/2023

Grownups Noticing Their Lives

NAMI

Most of you know about my former weird and lovely job of coordinating an employability skills program for Huber-qualified inmates in the Racine County Jail (that’s a mouthful). Early on I realized that most of the people I would work with were people with 1.) huge addiction problems, and 2.) underlying and over-the-top and to-the-side just lying around mental health issues.

V is for Vocabulary

9/6/2023 

For those who are new here - This year I am writing about topics, in alphabetical order, that were suggested to me by readers. Sometimes this is hard! 

IRTNOG

My cousin-in-law Dave has some powerfully thorough avocations (for fun and profit he earned a PhD in biochemistry; you will notice this in his list). This year, among other pursuits, he has been collecting words which have appeared in our culture since 1945, which was the year he also appeared in our culture.

Tag Cloud

9/11 17 minutes 500 Words A-Z AARPtaxes AAUW abortion Acadia accident Accountable Advent aging Alaska anniversary antibiotics antlers apples appointments Arrows art Ashland August Augustine aunts baby Badlands balance Baldwin Barbara Barkskins Beauty Becky Becoming Esther Berry birthday bistro BLM Blue BookReport books boy scout Bread BrokenDays BuyAngry Cabeza de Vaca Cahokia calendars Canada canoe cat romance cats cello Chicago China Choosing Christmas cilantro Cinnabuns circus climate change clouds Clowns clutter Colonialism comet ComfortZone CommonSense community consumerism Cops Corvid-19 Courage Covid-19 Crazy creditreport creosote CrimeShows danger DarkRiver death Debate December DecisionFatigue decluttering democracy dentist depression Destination Today Detroit Didion disasterprep dogs dollhouse Dreams Duty Easter eBay Echoes Eclipse election EmilyDickinson eschatology Esquipulas exit polls eyes Fable FairTrade family farmer Fata Morgana ferns firealarm Fitness Five Flatbread Flexible flu Food Pantry Fort de Chartres frame Franc FrancGarcia friends frugal FrugalHacks Frugality frustration Ft.Ticonderoga fungi fusion Galena Gannets Garden GarfieldParkConservatory Gaspe genius geode GeorgeFloyd gerrymandering ghosts gifts girls GNTL gorgons goulash GovernorThompsonStatePark Graduation grandkids granola groceries Guatemala gum guns Hair happiness HaveYouEver? hawks healthcare Healthinsurance hearings heart heaven HelleKBerry heroes hike History home HomeRepair Honduras Hope HowCrowGotOutofJail humor hurricane Ice Cream idiosyncrasy igloos impeachment Innkeeper Instincts integrity InternetPrivacy Interview InviteMe2Speak James Baldwin Jan 6 Janus jewelry JoyceAndrews Judy JulianofNorwich Jump justice Karen kites ladder Lady Lamb LangstonHuges LaphamPeak laundry LeeLeeMcKnight lemming Len Light Lincoln Little Women LockedOut Loki loneliness LouisArmstrong Love Ludington Macaw macho Manitoulin MargaretFuller Maria Hamilton Marquette marriage Marsden Hartley masks Mayan MayaWorks meme Memories men Middlemarch MilesWallyDiego MindfulChickens Mistakes MLK moon Mother MothersDay mounds mouser movies museums must-haves Mustapha NAMI Nancy Drew Newfoundland New Mexico New York City Nomadland nope observation OBUUC Ocotillo OnaJudge ordinary OscarRomero osprey Outside oximeter Parade mayhem PastorBettyRendon Paul Hessert PDQ Penny persimmon photos Pi Pies pineapples poetry Preaching privacy procrastination Protest QE2 Quern quest Questions Rabbit holes racism reading recipe recipes recommendations Remember RepresentationMatters Reruns responsetoKapenga Retirement rhubarb Ricky rime RitesofPassage romance Rosemary Ruether Roses Roti Ruth SamaritanWoman Sanctuary Sandhillcranes Santuario de Chimayo SaraKurtz SaraRodriguez satellites ScottSimon sculpture Seasons Sermon ServantsoftheQuest sewing Shepherd Shontay ShortStory shoulder sick sickness Slower snow Social Security SofritoBandito solstice South Dakota SpaceShuttle spirituality spring square feet staining stars stele Stereotypes stories StoryStarts stream monitoring stress Survival swim Talent taxes teenager thankgsgiving Thanksgiving TheBridge TheMaid ThePerpetualYou therapy ThreeBillBoards Three Thing ThreeThings Three Things TidalBore TimeBeing toddler Tom tortillas Trains travel Traveler Tubing turtle Twilight Bark Tyrone Ukraine Ulysses Grant Umbrella UnrelatedObservations Up North urgency vacation vaccine Valentines vanilla Vietnam vision VivianWokeUpDrowning Vocabulary vole volunteer WalkingAndSeeing Wampanaog war WarsanShire weather weaving Webs wedding whines WhyAttendChurch Wiley Willa WillaCather Wisteria Won! Wonder words Xeriscape Yellowstone
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