... The following year, the couple returned to the hospital for the birth of their second child. The same nurse was attending the delivery and again went out to congratulate the old gentleman. She said, "Sir, you are something else. How do you manage it?" Grinning, the old man said, "You gotta keep the old motor running"...
... A year later, the couple returned to the hospital for the birth of their third child. The same nurse was there for this birth also and, after the delivery, she once again approached the old gentleman, smiled, and said, "Well, you surely are something else! How do you do it?" The old man replied, "It's like I've told you before, you gotta keep the old motor running" ...
... The nurse, still smiling, patted him on the back and said "Well, I guess it's time to change the oil. This one's black" ....
* * *
... this is one of those frequently forwarded, text-only funnies that circulate in cyberspace or get retold at workplace water coolers ... if you've heard it you may have cracked a smile or cranked out a chuckle ... chances are you didn't bust a gut ... taken simply as a piece of humor there's a certain inconspicuousness about it ... a standard set-up, a good rhythmic build-up ... and a snappy punchline to sum-up ... painting a vivid picture in the mind ...
... Methuselah breeds with twenty-something, again! ... plenty room for humor here ... yet, hardly had the second chortle escaped from my throat, when I questioned why the ending proved so unexpected and effective ... had I subconsciously defaulted to the assumption the subjects were white? ... with ages being the only descriptives the very first indicator that they were indeed white was the very last word in the joke ... hence the racial assumption was made to the common default ... white, unless otherwise specified ... if not, why the bada-bing?
... don't feel no way ... I am not re-publishing this joke here to daisychain the humor but instead to explore themes of race, racism and racialism ... words as powerful as we make them ...
... in this dispensation of time, as the eloquence of Peter Tosh might refer to the here-and-now, while we are experiencing a re-invigorated bangarang around race issues, it is important to consider variables in perspectives ... so ... while it's true that the joke could be re-tooled to apply in other demographic circumstances, it is also true that this version wouldn't work without some basic assumptions ...
... comedy must always have been a medium for testing public resistance to race talk ... I am remembering the mid-seventies spotlight on Richard Pryor and his in-yo-face challenges to society's ostrich approach to racisms ... I'm certain the influential comic who gave us 1974's "That Nigger's Crazy" would have had something to add to the joke of the old cracker cuckold and the bastard tarbaby ...... the revolution is being televised and it will be blogged too ... conventional and virtual media carry power to balance out the default eurocentricities in the collective subconscious ... comedy and a sense of humor is a must ... compulsory ... jokes release tensions, sometimes after raising them ... one time sweet, next time salt another time bitter as gall ...
... I will peep more jokes and laugh at more foolishness ... maybe generate some of both on my own ... this picture of an elderly gent and his companion came in my e-mail a week before the joke did ... I couldn't resist associating the two ... a judiciously-juxtaposed visual can aid a story ... to this end I'll take it upon myself to suggest posting the image with the joke for the remainder of its shelf-life as humor-of-the-day ... it doesn't prefigure the punchline nor does it require a default assumption ...
... and somehow still ...
in the end,
bottom line ...
Gramps has got himself a brand new bag ... and Ellie-Mae got a whole lotta 'splainin' to do! ...
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