Communicating Humor
By: Gabriel Goldberg Source: AARP.org Date Posted: 2004-08-19 00:00:00-04:00
Gabriel Goldberg
My father was a lifelong newspaper reporter (he covered the Lindbergh trial) and an author. He emphasized that no matter what profession I chose, I'd need to be able to communicate. So this story about courtroom communication amused me. It's from Charles Stough's newsletter, the Burned-Out Newspapercreatures Guild, and is published with permission. If you're interested in the newspaper business — or just like funny stories about it — BONG-L is always a fun and interesting read — though sometimes not for children.
At the libel trial, the defense calls a prim local society matron in lace-collared velvet and pillbox hat with veil. After she is sworn in, the publisher's attorney asks, "Good morning, Mrs. Feebish. Do you know me?"
"I certainly do," Mrs. Feebish testifies. "I've known you since you were a little boy. And I know you to be a lazy no-account brat who grew up to become a louse, a drinker and a gambler, who cheats on his wife and doesn't support his three children from his first marriage."
The courtroom stirs with gasps and muttered exclamations. Stunned, the publisher's attorney stutters, "W-well, then. Do you know my learned adversary, the attorney for the plaintiffs?"
"I certainly do!" Mrs. Feebish pronounces. "He is a liar, a cheat and a thief, the secret partner in the local pornography shop, two years behind in his taxes, and a window-peeper!"
The courtroom dissolves in raucous laughter. As the judge gavels for quiet without success, the publisher leans over and tugs on his lawyer's sleeve. "If you ask her if she knows me," the publisher says, "you're fired!"
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Randy Cassingham is another funny guy. He has a journalism degree but never "practiced," since he couldn't handle asking dumb questions of people who were in awful situations, and couldn't keep from laughing at much of what passes for news. His free This is True [www.thisistrue.com] email newsletter and newspaper column demonstrate that reality is much stranger than anything invented by Rod Serling.
Randy takes news items — some mainstream, many small-town happenings — crafts a paragraph about them, cites the original story source, and (the best part) adds a tagline that brings a smile. For example:
Sent Packing: Charles D. McKinley, 25, of Brooklyn, N.Y., had four weeks of vacation coming, so he decided to visit his parents in DeSoto, Texas. Rather than buy a plane ticket for $320, McKinley, a shipping clerk, packed himself into a shipping crate and air-expressed himself home, charging the fees to his employer. When the crate was delivered to his parents' front step, McKinley pushed out of the box and shook hands with the "shaken and frightened" delivery driver. The driver called the police. After an investigation by the FBI, the U.S. attorney, postal inspectors, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration, McKinley was charged as a stowaway, a federal misdemeanor. (Dallas Morning News) …If he had only waited for the driver to leave, he would have been home free.
Disquieting: Librarians are protesting a new "action figure" being released by Archie McPhee and Co. of Seattle, Wash. The $8.95 doll, complete with "amazing push-button shushing action!", is "a lovely idea and a lovely tribute to my chosen profession," says librarian Nancy Pearl, 58, after whom the doll is modeled. But other librarians don't like it one bit. "The shushing thing just put me right over the edge," says Diane DuBois of the Caribou (Me.) Public Library. "It's so stereotypical I could scream." (AP) …Hey! What part of "shush" don't you understand?
Another story described two robbers being in the process of their crime when one changed his mind and arrested the other.
The newsletter offers more than humor. Randy comments on timely issues such as spam and school zero-tolerance policies. He welcomes dissenting opinions and shares them in the newsletter. But woe unto anyone who accuses him — unfairly, I think — of bias in his humor, since he simply notes foolishness wherever it occurs.
Also in the newsletter, Honorary Unsubscribe items celebrate the lives of very cool people who died mostly unknown. Bonzer Web Sites of the Week are similarly valuable-but-obscure resources. He publishes collected items in a series of "This is True" books, and offers a premium version of the newsletter for about $20/year (a bargain for the laughs provided).
And lest you dispair at the state of humanity, two sister newsletters provide stories to restore your faith in humanity and reviews of ridiculous lawsuits and their aftermaths.
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