posted
While most people remember Gandhi for his legacy of activism, those close to him share anecdotes that show he, too is human. One friend noted that his hunger strikes, in addition to leaving him frail also caused unbearable bad breath, Another remembers that the long walks he sometimes took led to very hard bunions on his feet.
In short, Gandhi wasn't just a great political leader, he was also a super, callused, fragile mystic hexed with halitosis.
Posts: 368 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: What's brown and sticky?
What is orange and sounds like a parrot?
If we're borrowing jokes from Alan Davies, I don't know why this one amuses me so much more than it should:
Two beekeepers are talking, and the first one says, "How many bees have you got?" The second one says, "I've got ten thousand bees." "How many hives have you got?" "I've got twenty hives." "Twenty hives, ten thousand bees?" "Yeah. How many have you got?" "I've got a million bees." "A million bees? How many hives have you got?" "One." "One million bees in one hive!?" "Yeah, screw 'em, they're only bees."
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posted
Oh, they all have. I don't claim he made them up. But he told the stick one and the carrot one on the same episode of "QI", so it just amused me to see them posted here by the same person. It kind of put me in an Alan Davies mood. Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Verily the Younger: Oh, they all have. I don't claim he made them up. But he told the stick one and the carrot one on the same episode of "QI", so it just amused me to see them posted here by the same person. It kind of put me in an Alan Davies mood.
Ah. I was telling the stick one at cub scout pack meetings long before I ever heard of Davies, and the carrot one goes along with it so well that when I heard them together (which must have been from Davies), I kept them together.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
(Warning, this is absurdly long but it is my favorite awful joke)
A man grew up his entire life without ever going to a circus, though he dearly wanted to. Finally, when he was in his 40s, he saw posters put up all over town about the great traveling circus that would be there next week. He spent the week in great anticipation and when the night finally came he threw himself into the circus with abandon. From the midway, to the food booths, to the games, to the sideshows, he loved it all. As a capper for the night, he went to the clown show in the big top and got a seat near the front.
It was glorious. He rolled with laughter and delight through the show. And then, the clowns stopped the show and asked for a volunteer from the audience. He leapt out of his chair and wave his hand frantically, begging to be picked. And he was.
The head clown directed the spot light on him and proceeded to ask him questions.
-"Sir, can I ask you...are you a horse's ear?" -"What?" he replied, "No...no I'm not a horse's ear." -"Well then, are you a horse's leg?" -"No, I'm not a horse's leg." -"Ahh...then you must be a horse's back." -"No. I am not." "I see. That must be because you are a horse's ass!" the head clown exclaimed as he and the rest of the clowns mocked the man.
Upon which he fled from the tent and from the circus, his earlier delight crushed.
He vowed revenge and looked for a way to get it. He came across an ad for a school promising to teach you how to use insults to tear anyone down and bring them to tears and immediately signed up. For the rest of the year, he proceeded from a basic insult class to intermediate and advanced. He learned the psychology of insults and how to pick up people's vulnerabilities. He participated in field exercises in attempts to hone his mockery.
And then, the circus came back to town and of course he went. He skipped through all the things that so captivated him before and went directly to the big top. While watching the show, she feigned the abandoned cavorting that he now understand made him a target for the clowns and was again chosen as a volunteer from the audience, with the same conversations as before:
-"Sir, can I ask you...are you a horse's ear?" -"No" he replied, contemptuously, "I'm not a horse's ear." -"Well then, are you a horse's leg?" -"No, I'm not a horse's leg." -"Ahh...then you must be a horse's back." -"No. I am not." "I see. That must be because you are a horse's ass!" and again the clowns exploded in laughter as did the people around the man.
However, this time he remained in the spot light and waited for the laughter to die down. When he felt he had everyone's attention, he said "Oh yeah...well...screw you, clown!" and stormed off triumphantly.
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posted
A man was waiting for his wife to give birth. The doctor came and informed the dad that his son was born without a torso, arms, or legs. The son was just a head!
But the dad loved his son and raised him as well as he could. Eighteen years later, the son was old enough for his first drink. The dad took him to a bar, tearfully told him he was proud of him, and ordered the biggest, strongest drink for his boy. With all the bar patrons looking on curiously, the boy took his first sip of alcohol.
Swoooop! A torso popped out!
The bar was dead silent, then burst into a whoop of joy. The father, shocked, begged his son to drink again. The patrons chanted, "Take another drink! Take another drink!" The bartender shook his head in dismay.
Swoooop! Two arms popped out!
The bar went wild. The father, crying and wailing, begged his son to drink again. The patrons chanted, "Take another drink! Take another drink!" But the bartender ignored the whole affair.
By this time, the boy was getting tipsy. With his new hands, he reached down, grabbed the drink, and guzzled the last of it.
Swoooop! Two legs popped out.
The bar was in chaos. The father wept with joy. The boy stood up on his new legs. He stumbled to the left. He stumbled to the right. Then he stumbled through the front door and into the street, where a truck ran him over.
The bar fell silent. The father moaned with grief. The bartender merely sighed and said, "He should have quit while he was a head."
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posted
There once was a king who lived in two-story grass hut. Every holiday the king demanded to be given a new throne as a gift. As soon as a new throne arrived, he would store the old throne on the second level of his hut and use the new one instead. But one day the hut collapsed from the weight of all the thrones, and everyone was crushed and killed.
The moral of this story? Those who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones.
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posted
My father had a favorite bad joke that was repeated, somewhat ad naseum, by each of the six kids in my family, usually around the dinner table:
Q: Why did they put up a fence around the cemetery? A: Because people were just dying to get in!
Years went by and this joke was told scores of times. Then one evening my older sister starts in:
Q: Why did they put up a fence around the cemetery? Greek Chorus: Why? A: Because people were just dying to get *out*!
We all sat in silence for a few seconds until someone said, "Umm...Jane, don't you mean dying to get in?" To which Jane paused, thought hard, and said, "Oh, it's much more funny that way."
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
See, we told the same joke, thanks to a great grandfather, but it was only brought up when you drove by a cemetary.
Person (in Car) 1: See that cemetary? Person 2: Yeah? Person 1: People are just dying to get in there.
Edit: Of course, two of the three routes out of our neighborhood took you by two different cemetaries. Posts: 691 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Rene Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender asks him, "Will you have a beer?" "No," says Descartes, who promptly disappears.
Shouldn't that be "I think not"?
<wince> A sign of how tired I am.
I kind of liked Lisa's version.
Lisa's version made me think the punchline was supposed to be, "I drink, therefore I am", and since he wasn't drinking, well...
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Artemisia Tridentata: So the guy was visiting the Zoo. He spots a sign on the Llama pen that says "Beware the Llama spits"
And he was.
That took me about four rereadings, including two out loud. It elicited a nice chuckle in the end, though.
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posted
Okay, I give up. Can someone please explain? (Don't have time to conduct a thorough enough google search to figure it out, and I was always dreadful at that Madgab game.) Posts: 691 | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
Bah, you people haven't seen bad jokes until you've seen literal translations of puns from other languages!
Q: Why is the retirement home by a lake? A: So the old people might rest.
Two American ladies were vacationing in Sweden; on seeing their young bus driver, one of them exclaims, "Oh, what a handsome face!" The driver scowls and replies, "I did not fart!"
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posted
I also like jokes that are actually bilingual in and of themselves:
Q: According to Sigmund Freud, what comes between fear and sex? A: Fünf.
I think this one is fairly well-known, but I present it anyway:
A Spanish-speaking visitor to an English-speaking city is trying to purchase a certain type of garment, but he isn't sure what the English word is. The clerk brings out garment after garment, but none of them are what the man is looking for. Finally the clerk shows him a pair of socks, to which the man replies, "ˇEso sí que es!" The exasperated clerk responds, "Well, if you could spell it all along, then why didn't you?"
These next two are entirely in English, but there are dialects involved:
Just as he was getting ready to begin a battle against some Indians, General Custer could hear the sounds of drumming echoing across the landscape. He turned to a Geordie soldier and said, "You hear that? They got war drums." The soldier answers, "The thievin' bastards!"
A man in Coventry has just installed a set of bay windows in his house and is showing them off to a friend who says, "What sort of windas am them?" The man says, "They'm bay windas." His friend replies, "Well, if they bay windas, wot bin them?"
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posted
What does it say that I had no trouble with (and in fact found quite amusing) the German and Spanish jokes, but cannot decode the dialect ones at all?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Doesn't say anything, really. The dialects used were from England. The first was Newcastle-upon-Tyne (a person from Newcastle is called a Geordie), and the second was the West Midlands.
For anyone who's dying to know what they meant:
In Newcastle speech, the word for "our" is pronounced "war". I heard that joke on an episode of QI, a British comedy quiz show, and the deeply educated, posh-accented Cambridge man Stephen Fry didn't get it at all. They explained it to him, which is why I get it.
Here is the clip of that segment. (Warning: Some slightly suggestive dialogue when Stephen mishears the word "canny".)
The West Midlands bit is even odder, and I only get that one because I found it on the internet years ago right along with the explanation. To a person from Coventry, "bay" means "are not" while "bin" means "are". So when the man said they're bay windows, the friend thought he meant, "They're not windows". And the friend's reply, translated into Standard English, was, "Well, if they're not windows, what are they?"
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Speed: Nice thread. Here is the most masterful telling of a terrible joke I've ever heard.
You aren't kidding. That was hilarious. I mean, not funny at all, really, but it had me laughing out loud.
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posted
A certain doctor made it his habit to stop off at the same bar on the way home from work every day and order a hazelnut daiquiri. He did this so regularly that eventually, the bartender simply got accustomed to it and started having the daiquiri ready for the doctor when he showed up.
One day, when it was getting to be about that time, the bartender found that he had run out of hazelnut extract. There wasn't time to send anyone to buy more before the doctor arrived, so he decided he'd just have to improvise. He grabbed a bottle of hickory nut extract and proceeded to mix the drink.
The doctor showed up, right on time, and took a sip of the drink he had been handed. Then he turned to the bartender and said, "What's this? This isn't a hazelnut daiquiri."
"No," said the bartender, "I'm sorry. It's a hickory daiquiri, doc."
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posted
Here's a pretty dumb joke that I vaguely recall. I tried looking it up and couldn't find it, so it's reconstructed to the best of my memory.
***
A man dies and goes to heaven at which point he's met by St. Peter. St. Peter welcomes the man and judges him welcome to enter the pearly gates. The man happily steps forward and looks about himself in awe. There were dozens of paths set before him with a podium set in the center of an intersection. An angel was behind the podium and bid the man to him. The man walked slowly to the angel, taking care to notice every detail about him. The landscape of heaven was covered with a frothy blanket of clouds sitting on top of emerald green hills that gently parted the low-lying fog. Butterflies flew about in a wonderous show of color and pattern. One thing he took note of, however, is that there was no one around.
"Tell me, angel. Where are all the people?" "Ah," The angel replied, "this is where you choose which form your personal heaven you will take." "Personal heaven?" The man asks. "Why yes, we understand that your individual tastes may not be suited by others and you may not care for theirs, so to accommodate your needs we've created dozens of possibilities for you to choose from so that you can truly have eternal happiness. I am to be your guide." "Thank you."
They walked down a path, and the man filled out a check-form that was used to most closely identify what form of heaven he'd best fit into. As it turns out, this man had a deep love for food and could only be served a form of eternal happiness by eating everything and anything he desired.
The angel brought him to his destination where there were hundreds of other people. They were in the middle of a fast plain and in the middle of the group was a large banquet table. Mountains of food rested on the table but there was not a bug or pest in sight. The table itself seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see in either direction. There was so much food, the man wondered how he could walk the entirety of the length of the table.
He brought the impossibility of getting the food he might want to the angel, to which the angel replied, "Worry not, sir. This is heaven, and we've made the table keep moving until a person sees something they like and they may grab it. But this is heaven, so each course is delectable and you'll often get a small, but manageable line for the food." "How can this be heaven if I must wait on others for food?" "It allows you to appreciate the good by forcing you to experience the wait." "I see, so this is my heaven?" "It is indeed. Enjoy your time here, sir." The angel parted with the man at this point and the man returned to the table.
It went by slowly, revealing a smorgasbord of choices. There were baked potatoes loaded with sour cream, butter, chives, bacon, and cheese. The cheese melted across the potato and the butter dribbled out onto the plate. Salt and pepper speckled on the potatoes, demonstrating the perfect blend of starch and flavor. A line quickly formed and the man got in. It took a few minutes to get through the line, and the man did become awfully hungry while waiting. But the first bite of the potato made every moment of waiting worth it. His tongue danced with the symphony of flavor and his eyes flittered to the back of his head in pure culinary ecstasy. He savored each bite until there was no longer a potato in front of him.
He decided to rejoin the group waiting for food, and as if by magic, felt hungry once more. This time the meals were steaks. The man was worried that the steak wouldn't be cooked to his particular liking being as he hadn't spoken with a waiter, but upon getting through the line and grabbing his plate, the aroma of seared beef filled his nostrils. His mouth flooded with saliva and he knew that by some miracle the steak would be just right. He grabbed the knife which was attached to the plate and it slid through the steak as though it were butter itself. To top off the steaks there was a side salad made with spinach, lettuce, and a pear vinaigrette. Each bite tantalized his taste buds and he the food lolled seamlessly down his throat. Juice oozed out of the steak with each stab and the seasoning was just perfect.
Upon finishing this plate, the man stood up and suddenly felt hungry once more and a little bit thirsty. He rejoined the group around the table and quickly the group formed into a single-file line like the days of elementary school. There were a few stragglers, however, that didn't join the line. But, feeling hungry, the man decided to ignore them and get his next course.
This time it was spaghetti with spaghetti with mizithra cheese and browned butter. The smooth slippery noodles swirled around his fork and were just long enough to allow him the delight of twirling his fork but not so long that they brought the entire load of spaghetti up with each bite. On the side there was a crispy, aromic slice of garlic bread. He bit into the bread only to feel the immaculate glory of the flaky goodness enter his mouth. He finished off this course as well and rejoined the group.
Quickly a line of people formed again and the man joined. But more people didn't enter the line this time, and it became unsettling to the man being as he was hungry and this concerned him as to whether there was something wrong with the food. Unfortunately he was drawn away from his concerns by the smell of a chocolate cake. How could he resist? He walked through the line and waited his turn, his stomach growling for more. He reached the cake and it was as moist as it was dry. A perfect combination of chocolate and sprinkles adorned the top of the cake. With each bite he remembered the joys of his childhood, returning home after a long-hard day's playing to be treated to a slice of homemade cake by his mother. He finished his dessert and felt hungry once again.
He rejoined the group and people formed a line. But again, more people stayed out this time. Feeling too concerned, he left the line and asked one of the people if there was a problem.
"Oh, you must be new." "I am. Is there something wrong with the food?" "Of course not, this IS heaven." "Then why aren't you in line enjoying the food?" "Because this isn't the line we're we want." "What are you waiting for?" "The punch line."
***
The perk of this joke is that you can make it as long or short as you like, just adding or subtracting courses of food. The downside is when you're an audience member and can't escape the sadistic hold of the teller.
ETA: Changing between past-tense and present-tense is up to you.
posted
A similar kind of joke was told to me by my father when I was a kid, though this one is much simpler.
A man is riding a mule through the desert. After walking for several hours, the mule turns to its rider and says, "Master, I am thirsty. When will we be stopping for water?" The man replies, "Be patient, jackass, be patient."
They continue a little further, and eventually the mule again turns to its rider and says, "Master, I am thirsty. When will we be stopping for water?" The man replies, "Be patient, jackass, be patient."
-- Repeat ad nauseum, until a member of your audience complains about how long it's taking, to which you reply, "Be patient, jackass, be patient."
When my father told it to me, it went on a looooong time before I finally spoke up.
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