Rad Nauseam · David Cole

The menu I created for the dinner my wife and I are hosting tonight. If it seems pretentious that's entirely my fault; my wife's cooking is absolutely superb and certainly doesn't require my meddling, but I insisted on breaking it apart and adding drink pairings so that I could A) mix drinks and B) have a reason to design a menu which are two of my favorite things to do. I can't wait!

As most of you surely know, I just got married about three weeks ago (pictures of which will eventually surface — I hope). For our honeymoon we just went down to southern California. On the way, we stopped at a "famous" pea-soupery named Andersen's. It was just outside of Solvang, which is our favorite recreation Dutch village to get real drunk in and feel like less-thans.

Eventually we made it to the Queen Mary which is where we stayed the first night.

After that, we took off on a ferry to Catalina.

On our return back to the mainland, our instant camera ran out of batteries. We visited Mexico, which was TERRIFIC mind you, and a few other areas in SoCal before we came back home unexpectedly due to family matters (the show Family Matters — there was a marathon). We're going to go on a second round of Honeymoonage when the time and finances are right. Despite that, we had a killer time and are already planning an unrelated third trip down south to go to Mexico again.

The late 30's was not a great period for comedy. Vaudeville was dead and the sitcom hadn't yet arrived. Even still, there's not really much justification for the bizarre notions expressed in Milton Wright's What's Funny and Why of 1939. Let's just dive right in; here's the second joke they tell (the first was about a hi-larious negro minister that is actually a tick funnier than this--in that it's actually somewhat funny):

There was a young lady from Wales
Who was keen about quarter-tone scales,
But she gave Dr. Boult
A most horrible jolt
When she asked him, "What are octoroons?"

Right. Okay. Check out their explanation:

And what's so funny about that? Hm! A very difficult question.

Well, you see, the humor lies in what happens to you. You skim through that limerick quickly — as you always do with limericks — and when you come to the finish, you sort of blink your eyes and say, "I don't get it."

...so far so good...

Then you read it again, more slowly this time. Then you try to analyze it: "Let's see. Quarter-tone scales. Octoroons. Oh, yes! Octoroons are people who are only one-eighth colored. Their skin is an eighth tone. So, if quarter-tone scales are quarter-tone scales, what — ? But no! There isn't any point at all to it. The joke's on me for thinking there was a point." So then you laugh--maybe.

So the reason it's funny is because it's not funny the first time or the second time. We're off to a strong start. After a number of admittedly solid quotes about the definition of humor, Wright takes his own stab at it:

Humor is a state of affairs that is enjoyably incongruous.

I actually think this is a dandy definition, though including "enjoyably" gives it an absurd amount of wiggle room. This inability to make concrete statements about comedy permeates the book. I don't blame them, it's an extremely intangible subject, but why bother even trying? Here are some non-statement diamonds:

Everybody has his own standards of humor, and these standards constantly are changing. That means, of course, that the standards don't amount to very much.

There is one feature common to every joke. That feature is the joke.

Suppose we see a man with a large nose. There is nothing particularly funny about that. Suppose, however, that the nose in size and shape looks something like a ripe tomato. It's funny.

I'll wait for you to catch your breath after laughing at that last one.

...ready? No, still need more time? I understand, it's pretty fucking funny. Tomato nose! Okay, let's go. After a few more unsettling examples of humor, including a joke about a thieving negro and another about a six year old who hangs his sister, we arrive at my favorite part of the book so far: lists! The first is a list of the three kinds of surprise one feels when they hear a joke:

• How right!
• How wrong!
• How silly!

I'll buy it, but it's not like they do anything practical with this definition. Then they try to categorize the main kinds of jokes, which they've decided count to seven:

1. The pun.
2. The insult.
3. Sex.
4. Family life.
5. The turning table.
6. The odd combination.
7. News.

This list strangely combines joke mechanics with joke topics with joke set ups. But, it's nothing compared to this next list, yet another set of joke types. There's no reason given for having two different lists, but check it out and tell me it's not worth your time:

1. The old maid
2. The bride
3. The mother-in-law
4. The cute kiddie
5. Whiskers
6. The fat man
7. The excuse
8. The boardinghouse
9. The smart farmer
10. The talkative lady
11. The effects of alcohol
12. Seasickness
13. Thrift
14. Married life
15. Death

They nail all the classics! Oh, you're not familiar? Well, let's run through some of their examples for your stupid little brain. Whiskers is, of course, barber jokes. Here's a conversation between a whiskerman and his customer:

Haven't I shaved you before, sir?
No. I got that scar in France.

Zing! Now, "The Fat Man":

Head waiter: Where's the large party you made reservations for, sir?
350-pound Diner: Here I am.

I like any joke that relies on the name of the character in order to make sense. The Boardinghouse:

How did you find your steak, Mr. Smithers?
I just looked under a slice of fried potato, and there it was.

Hahaha... boardinghouses. Now my personal favorite, a perennial type of joke if there ever was one, Seasickness:

The seasickness joke can be summed up in the motto hanging on the wall of the ship's cabin:

You cannot eat your cake and have it, too.

They do try to defend this list, with an amazing fictional story:

And so, with the greatest of ease, the humor man reels off his roster of the fifteen standard jokes.

"That's all there is; there isn't anymore," he declares.

"But what about the bald-headed man and ghosts and dumb dames and tramps and other people and things that are supposed to be funny?" we protest.

It is a question that bothers him not at all. He has three answers.

"In the first place," he says, "why must you bring that up?

"In the second place, any other jokes are merely variations of one of the fifteen. The bald head, round, smooth, and prominent, is very similar, for joke-making purposes, to the round, smooth, and prominent exposure of the fat man. Ghosts, of course, are part of the joke about death. Anything the dumb dame says, you could put in the mouth of the bride the cute kiddie, the talkative lady or the wife, and never notice the difference. The tramp doesn't exist anymore as a joke; he has gone on relief.

"In the third place, the list of fifteen includes not all the jokes that could be, but only all the jokes that are. You might, in a sudden spasm of merriment, make a joke about something else — and occasionally somebody does — but those fifteen veterans are of such ancient lineage, and they do such universal service, that any other joke is a mere upstart and not to be taken seriously."

An example of one such spasm is cuckoo clock humor, which they do, in fact, take some time to discuss:

...in jokes involving cuckoo clocks, the cuckoo always cuckoos exactly twelve times, no more, no less. If the cuckoo doesn't, somebody else completes the count.

If cuckoo clock jokes seem too obscure or dated for you, then try on this baby:

President Taft's eyes closed and his head dropped forward over his massive torso as Senator Jim Watson was speaking. "Mr. President!" shouted the Senator. "You are the largest audience I have ever put entirely to sleep."

Still doesn't fit? Here's a timeless laugher. Says a man at the department store:

I want to buy a nice toy for a small boy whose father is very corpulent and unable to do any kneeling.

Yes, that's the entire joke. "Sure, talking theory is great," I hear you saying at your computer screen hours after I've written this. "But what can I do with it?" Well, they have some practical tips about "Making Fun" in a special section. Here's the first tip:

...it is wholly possible to think up something funny any time we desire. The process is simple. Just take a normal, reasonable statement and twist it a little bit. If your hearer can see the absurd incongruity between the true situation and the askew one you have conjured up, then you have said something funny — we hope.

I totally love all the self doubt that runs through this material. A book that needs to be apologized for repeatedly is definitely a book worth writing.

To be fair, there's still 250 pages of this book that I have yet to read. Those pages appear to be a comprehensive run through of every single type of joke they can think of with hundreds of examples. My hopes aren't high, though, as I didn't see any more of Seasickness, which is all I really want. There's a section on how to avoid being dull, however, which should be pretty terrific. I'll keep you updated.

To conclude, here's a joke of my very own, admittedly not too much better than the ones I've highlighted, but then again I didn't write a freaking book about it:

How do you get a mummy turned on?
Pharaoh moans!