BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)

Subject: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Cluin
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:17 PM

Think!

Think of how hard it is to be a stand-up comedian in the Age of the Internet.

His/her jokes get heard once and then are forwarded to everyone around the world within days and then people are finishing his/her punchlines every time he/she performs his/her hard-worked-upon bit thereafter.

Besides, many of these jokes are retold in e-mails by people with tragically limited joke-telling skills and are thus ruined before being heard properly from a trained and experienced professional.

So please stop forwarding jokes around by e-mail.

And if you get a joke in your inbox, just do yourself a favour and delete it, unread. Save the experience of hearing the joke from someone who can tell it right. It will be all the sweeter in the end.

Thank you for your time.

Signed,
A concerned citizen with e-mail.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Bassic
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:21 PM

Did you hear the one about........

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:30 PM

But what if you never get to see any comedians.....? By the time they appear on TV they're old hat and I never get to comedy clubs...

Besides.. my joke relays keep me in touch with a whole bunch of people I'd not have excuses to contact otherwise. I'll keep emailing jokes if it's all the same to you.


I strongly suspect that 'concerned citizen' is a comedian who has had a bum concert. Maybe you should learn some new material instead of stealing it all off the Net.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Peace
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:32 PM

So this guy walks into a bar and says, "

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Bassic
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:34 PM

Why the long face?

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Bassic
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:35 PM

Truth is.....the old `uns are the best :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Gedpipes
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:35 PM

....and so the moral of the story is....

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Peace
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:35 PM

That's what I keep tellin' her, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 07:12 PM

Not only do I not go to "comedy clubs" (because when I did in the past they were NOT comic), but I almost never watch TV. And certainly not standup comedy programs, if I do.

A really good standup comic isn't just telling jokes, anyway. (S)he is projecting a comic personality and/or worldview. A talented storyteller can tell an old joke and make it seem new and fresh. By the same token, a talented comic can fill an entire gig with fresh humor, and never a joke told in the whole shootin' match.

And in any case, sad as it may be for a standup to find himself "technologically unemployable" because others are engaging in the humor enterprise, that's the way of the world. You have to look out for yourself, and if somebody steals your lunch, that's your trouble, not mine. The times, they are a-changin' !!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 07:19 PM

A lawyer defending a man accused of burglary tried a creative defense:

"My client merely inserted his arm into the window and removed a few trifling articles. His arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offense committed by his limb."

"Well put," the judge replied. "Using your logic, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he chooses."

The defendant smiled. With his lawyer's assistance he detached his artificial limb, laid it on the bench, and walked out.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 09:58 PM

I've never emailed a joke to anyone, nor have I ever experienced a burning desire to do so. Am I missing a gene or something?

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: JennyO
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 10:25 PM

So two white-ants walk into a bar......

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 12:02 AM

You know, if somebody sends one joke, expecially if it's in a personal e-mail and not a forwarded multi-message, I often almost enjoy it. What bugs me is the long lists of jokes or putatively humorous items, the ones I get twenty times in e-mails and then see half-a-dozen times posted at Mudcat.
If you get a list of jokes by e-mail, do your best to avoid the temptation to post them at Mudcat. If you simply must post, be sure to search for a distinctive phrase from the list first, to see if you're duplicating something that's been posted here before. Most of the lists seem to be posted here many times, and the people who post them the third, fourth, and seventeenth times, really look dumb.
This thread (click) is a typical example.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 03:24 AM

I personally enjoy receiving jokes by E-mail...what I am not enamoured with is the "Instruction" I often get to pass it on to others. Not of course just joke ones but other E-mails as well...some of which I would never send to friends anyway (and I do not particularly feel like sending them to enemies).
Jokes are to be shared yes but as and when people chose.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: MBSLynne
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 04:05 AM

I've long believed that joke-telling is a neglected folk-art very closely related to story telling. People send song via the internet, there are places you can go to find songs, but they aren't the full thing until someone actually SINGS them. A joke is the same, and it's the telling of it that brings it to life. I've been in some really good joke sessions in bars and pubs at folk-festivals (notably the bar at the National) And, like songs, joke-tellers have to aquire their material from somewhere...they don't make them all up themselves.

In general I can't abide watching comedians, so like a couple of the other posters, I wouldn't hear the jokes from them anyway.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 08:13 AM

The real problem with round robins is that your email address is usually visible and the first person with a virus broadcasts not only the virus but the email address to many more people and most probably to the virus instigator who is really trawling for email addresses. Send the jokes by all means but have you not heard of Blind Copies (see the Bc box in your e-mail client).

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Beer
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 08:53 AM

Couldn't agree with you more Mr. Red. I blind copy all the time and I send instructions to friends who don't know how to send blind copies. I also delete all incomming e-mail attachments when I send to friends.
Jokes? Went to a folk club two weeks past and this fellow gets up and for about 10 minutes I listened to jokes that I had received via e-mail.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 08:56 AM

I don't go to comedy clubs and "folk clubs" around here are...well, there's one or two, but they're music.

Bear in mind that jokelore is a recognized academic study area, a subset of folklore. And that it's not humanly possible to keep "a good one" to yourself -- jokes seem to have a need to be shared.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 11:11 AM

Storytellers hold privileged positions in all cultures, because storytelling is didactic as well as entertaining. Stories pass along useful information and values, even if they're the hilarious trickster variety. Those performers who tell jokes, if they're part of good stories, may be able to segue into that position of respect (Bill Cosby for example). Those comedians who tell jokes as a way to comment on society (Dick Gregory and George Carlin come to mind) hold a place all their own. There was a very special group of comedians/satirists/storytellers on the Smothers Brothers programs who I would welcome with open arms if they came to perform or did a broadcast program along those lines.

Most of the rest I don't give the time of day. There are too many of them who have a juvenile sense of humor, probably aimed at a slightly underage audience. Everyone has to be "edgy" these days, because they have no imagination and are kowtowing to advertisers. You get tired of it after a while.

I tend to get my humor today at some of those intersections of society and humor, on the radio, through NPR. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!, What Do You Know?, and others that are occasionally funny like This American Life.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 12:08 PM

I enjoy some jokes I receive. However, I don't like it when relatives send me jokes which are vulgar or mean-spirited. It makes me sad to think that they don't know the real me any better than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 12:54 PM

Ever hear the one about the dyslexic that walked into a bra?

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Cluin
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 01:32 PM

Of course, the first post was made as a jest.

But I also hate getting the same joke again and again with a slighgt variation thrown in to fit the sender's political or philosophical outlook.

That one about the puppies or kittens being born with eyes closed and now they're open; they used to be Democrats/Republicans, now they're Republicans/Democrats, blah blah blah...

Or the ones where nothing in the stupid joke is changed but the name of the current President/Prime Minister to make it seem like a current joke, though we've all heard the same jokes through the last 3 or 4 administrations. Lazy!

If you ARE going to forward jokes, CLEAN the effing things up! Remove all the spaces, arrows, inappropriate line breaks and old addresses. If you expect me to take my time reading it, take the time to make it readable. And use the BCC if you figure it's going to be forwarded on by some other twit you've sent it to.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Beer
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 03:31 PM

The following is something I received a few years ago and I send to folks who send other peoples e-mails around.

This excellent message ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us
who send E-mail. A message can be forwarded to your friends,
with anywhere from 10 to 40 e-mail addresses on it! Read the
text below. See how much better it appears? Also, it protects
your privacy by NOT delineating your (and everybody else's)
E-mail address!!!

Do you really know how to forward E-mail?
50% of you do; 50% do NOT.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do
youhate it?

Every time you forward an e-mail there is
information left over from the people that got the message
before you, namely their e-mail addresses.

As the messages get forwarded along, the list
of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is
for some poor soul to get a virus and his computer can send
that virus to every e-mail address that has come across his
computer.

Or, someone can take all of those addresses and
sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will
go to the site and he will make five cents.
That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel!


How do you stop it?

Well, there are two easy steps:

1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the
other addresses that appear in the body of the message.
That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete
them, backspace them, cut them. It only takes asecond.

2) Whenever you send an e-mail, don't use the "To:" or
"Cc:" columns for adding e-mail address. Always use the
"BCC:" (blind carbon copy) column for listing thee-mail
addresses. This way the people that you send to only see their
own e-mail address.

If you don't see your "BCC:" option click on where it says
To:" and your address list will appear. Highlight the address
and choose BCC and that's it ... it's that easy.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 04:50 PM

Toulouse-Cruise...I believe it was an IRON-BRA

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 08:02 AM

Why did Disreili wear red white and blue braces (suspenders y'all)




















to keep his trousers (pants y'all) up.

AND I bet that wasn't the original version but I think Blair would fit perfectly if you added yellow and orange to the rainbow.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 10:00 AM

Has no one noticed the subtle satire in the original post? It lies in the analogy between jokes and music.

Lynne made the analogy, as if it weren't implicit in the original post.

I think the whole thing was written to satirize the idea that one shouldn't download music from the Internet.

It's not a perfect analogy, but it makes a point.

If I have spoiled the joke by explaining it, I apologize, but it seems no one was getting it anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Cluin
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 02:42 AM

That was so subtle even I didn't notice it myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 11:35 AM

I think you're reading more into it than was intended, Jim.

Subject: RE: BS: Please!... (regarding e-mail)
From: Leadfingers
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 12:29 PM

But dont forget that before the advent of radio , an entertainer could work all his life with the same act ! After radio it was harder and post Television its even worse ! Jasper Carrott used up ten years of material in his first television show !! It wont make any difference to the 'good' comedians , and probably wont affect the Bad'uns much either .