Funny Friday

  

My father in law, Noel, relayed an item that he thought might be suitable for a Funny Friday post.  Noel sets the bar high in both humour and class.  I have revised the joke to make it printable (as I have also done with a couple of the ones below).  It is the first of the following items and it also sets the theme for this week’s Funny Friday: thermometers. . . 

A redneck comes home unexpectedly and finds the doctor in bed with is wife.  “What do you think you’re doin’, Doc?” he asks.  “I’m, er, taking your wife’s temperature,” replied the doctor.  “Well, I don’t know much about doctorin’,” said the redneck as he took his shotgun from the wall, “but that thing better have numbers on it when you take it out.”

A bigshot business man had to spend a couple of days in the hospital. Whilst there, he was a royal pain to the nurses because he bossed them around just like he did his employees. None of the hospital staff wanted to have anything to do with him.

The head nurse was the only one who could stand up to him. She walked into his room and announced, “I have to take your temperature.”

After complaining for several minutes, he finally settled down, crossed his arms and opened his mouth.”No, I’m sorry”, the nurse stated, “but for this reading, I can’t use an oral theremometer.”

This started another round of complaining, but eventually he rolled over and bared his behind.

After feeling the nurse insert the thermometer, he heard her announce, “I have to get something. Now you stay JUST LIKE THAT until I get back!”

She leaves the door to his room open on her way out. He curses under his breath as he hears people walking past his door, laughing. After almost an hour, the man’s doctor comes into the room.

“What’s going on here?” asked the doctor.

Angrily, the man answers, “What’s the matter, Doc? Haven’t you ever seen someone having their temperature taken before?”

After a pause, the doctor replies, “Yes, but never with a daffodil!”

Upon arriving home, a husband was met at the door by his sobbing wife.  Tearfully she explained, "It's the druggist - he insulted me terribly this morning on the phone." 

Immediately the husband drove downtown to confront the druggist and demand an apology.

Before he could say more than a word or two, the druggist told him, "Now, just a minute - listen to my side of it. This morning the alarm failed to go off, so I was late getting up. I went without breakfast and hurried out to the car, just to realise that I locked the house with both house and car keys inside."

"I had to break a window to get my keys. Then, driving a little too fast, I got a speeding ticket. Later, when I was about three blocks from the store, I had a flat tire. When I finally got to the store there was a bunch of people waiting for me to open up. I got the store opened and started waiting on these people, and all the time the darn phone was ringing off the hook."

He continued, "Then I had to break a roll of nickels against the cash register drawer to make change, and they spilled all over the floor. I got down on my hands and knees to pick up the nickels - the phone was still ringing - when I came up I cracked my head on the open cash drawer, which made me stagger back against a showcase with a bunch of perfume bottles on it...half of them hit the floor and broke. Meanwhile, the phone is still ringing with no let up, and I finally got back to answer it. It was your wife - she wanted to know how to use a rectal thermometer. and believe me, Mister, I TOLD HER! “

  

A doctor is going about his business, with a rectal thermometer tucked behind his ear.

He goes into a staff meeting to discuss the day’s activities, when a co-worker asks why he has a thermometer behind his ear?

He removes the thermometer, looks at it and exclaims: "Damn, some asshole has my pen!"

Quote Keith Richards

“Sure thing, man.  I used to be a laboratory myself once.”

-       Keith Richards (1943 - ), on being asked to autograph a fan’s school chemistry book.

Robin Williams has commented on Keith Richards:

“I know there's a cure for bio terrorism or whatever it is, and I know it lies within Keith Richards.. He is the only man on the planet who can go ‘Anthrax?’ ”

“We will all be dead and gone, but Keith will still be there with five cockroaches. He'll be going, ‘I smoked your uncle, did ya know that?’ ”

The reference to smoking their uncle comes from Richards admitting that he once smoked his father’s ashes:

“The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father.  He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow.  My dad wouldn't have cared - he didn't give a shit. It went down pretty well. And I'm still alive.”

Following public criticism, he said a few days later that it had been a misunderstanding:

 "The complete story is lost in the usual slanting.  The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak. I took the ... ashes [and sprinkled them beneath the tree], and he is now growing oak trees and he would love me for it!”

As for the ashes-and-cocaine-snorting story, "I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were — that tight!"

He subsequently denied his denial, admitting that he really had snorted his dad’s ashes, just not with cocaine.

“The cocaine bit was rubbish. I said I chopped him up like cocaine, not with. I pulled the lid off (my father's urn) and out comes a bit of dad on the dining room table. I'm going, 'I can't use the brush and dustpan for this'. What I found out is that ingesting your ancestors is a very respectable way of ... y'know, he went down a treat.”

Last Words: Countess Di Vercellis

“Well! A woman that can fart is not yet dead!”

-       La Contessa Therese Di Vercellis

Madame di Vercellis (1670-1728), the wife of Count Hippolyte Vercellis, a Sardinian army officer, married at age 20 and was a childless widow 6 years later. In 1728, when she was aged 58, she employed 16 year old Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had run away from Geneva, as a footman. 

Rousseau would later find fame as a philosopher, writer and composer of 18^th century French Romanticism.  His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution  as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.

In 1728 such fame was still a long way away.  His employer, Madame di Vicellis, was dying of breast cancer.  Becoming increasingly unable to write, she utilised the young Rousseau to take down dictation and look after her correspondence. 

Rousseau was with her at her death and recorded her last words in his posthumously published  autobiography, Confessions:

At length we lost her--I saw her expire. She had lived like a woman of sense and virtue, her death was that of a philosopher. I can truly say, she rendered the Catholic religion amiable to me by the serenity with which she fulfilled its dictates, without any mixture of negligence or affectation. She was naturally serious, but towards the end of her illness she possessed a kind of gayety, too regular to be assumed, which served as a counterpoise to the melancholy of her situation. She only kept her bed two days, continuing to discourse cheerfully with those about her to the very last. At last, when she could hardly speak, and in her death agony, she let a big wind escape.  “Well!” said she, turning around, “a woman that can fart is not yet dead!” These were her last words.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Pics are back

I have my pics function back.  The computer chap didn't find the problem that was preventing me importing images, he simply arranged things so that I am now using a different browser.  From what I gather, it is the equivalent of catching the train, instead of the bus, to travel to the city.  What counts is that I can again post pics, so that today's post is a visual feast: another collection of amazing street and public art, and a contribution from Byter Leo...

Public and Street Art -

and Leo's item:

After receiving numerous customer complaints,
about their employees, "plumber crack"....a
German plumbing firm bought their plumbers a
new t-shirt, designed to make their employees more
attractive to the customers...

No Pics?

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Last week I posted a quote without pics.  Yesterday’s post on the Pulitzer did not include a pic of the photographer, Nat Fein, as I had originally intended.  The reason is that I am having trouble with my computer in uploading pics to the blog.  I thought the problem had been fixed by the computer geek our office uses but it has come back, so I will need him to look at my computer again.  Because I can’t upload pics at the moment, I will be posting items that don’t require visuals.

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More on Jimmy Sharman

 

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Byter Arthur sent me an email in respect of the Jimmy Sharman post: “Very interesting.  I remember them quite well, I must be getting old. Or older.” 

Byter Jon sent me an email saying that he was surprised that I hadn’t mentioned the Midnight Oils song.  Jon is correct about the Oils' reference.  When I had posted the item I had decided to omit the Oils' aspect for reasons of length.  From hindsight I should have included it.  The comments on that issue are below.

For the benefit of overseas visitors, Midnight Oil was an Australian rock band whose music  prominently focused on social issues, especially environmental matters and matters relating to indigenous people.  Lead singer Peter Garrett has been a Member of the Australian Parliament since 2004. 

The lyrics of the Midnight Oil song Jimmy Sharman’s Boxers suggest that Sharman exploited the aboriginal boxers that were part of his troupe.  In Sharman’s defence, I have not found any evidence of exploitation of black boxers to any greater extent than exploitation of white boxers.  If he was an exploiter (which we can argue for ages), then he was an equal opportunity exploiter. 

See the song performed at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0OPPUGJAj4

The lyrics of Jimmy Sharman's Boxers are:

 

From the red dust north of Dalmore Downs Sharman's tents roll into town
Twelve will face the auctioneer
Sharman's boxers stand their ground

Their days are darker than your nights
But they won't be the first to fall
Children broken from their dreams
But they won't be the first to fall [ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/m/midnight_oil/jimmy_sharmans_boxers.html ]
Fighting in the spotlight
Eyes turn blacker than their skin
For Jimmy Sharman's boxers
It's no better if you win
Standing in the darkness
Lined up waiting for the bell
The days are wasted drinking
At the first and last hotel

Why are we fighting for this?
Why are you paying for this?
You pay to see me fall like shrapnel to the floor
What is the reason for this?
There is a reason for this?
What is the reason they keeping coming back for more?

The blows now bring him to his knees
But still the crowd calls out for more
The drums are burning in his ears
The man keeps counting out the score

Cold Chisel, another Oz rock group, also made reference to Jimmy Sharman’s boxing tents in their song Yesterdays:

Baby, that's ok, I'll live to fight another day
Black man, on the ropes
At Jimmy Sharman's fighting ring
I've seen a lot of things before I had the time to sort them through
I'm takin' time for you

Yesterdays are gone, we don't need them now

After all is said and never done
Take a long term view
Everybody blows a few
It's a game, it's a game, it's a game and it's the only one

Maybe  black fighters in a white man’s boxing tent simply makes a good metaphor for indigenous issues.

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Quote: Bill Clinton

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“The divide of race has been America's constant curse. Each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction, are no different. They have nearly destroyed us in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. They torment the lives of millions in fractured nations around the world. These obsessions cripple both those who are hated and, of course, those who hate, robbing both of what they might become.”

-          Bill Clinton

 

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (1946 - ) served as the 42^nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, the third youngest president, he is the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. president since World War II and has continued to achieve high ratings in public opinion polls.

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Pulitzer Prize for Photography: Nat Fein, 1949

 

Year:  1949 

Award:  Pulitzer Prize for Photography 

Photographer:  Nathaniel Fein of the Herald Tribune 

Photograph:  “Babe Ruth Bows Out”

Comments: 

George Herman Ruth, Jr (1895-1948), best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American baseball player who spent 22 seasons in Major League Baseball, playing for three teams (1914–1935). Known for his hitting brilliance, Ruth is credited with changing baseball itself. The popularity of the game exploded in the 1920s, largely due to his influence. Ruth ushered in the “live-ball era”, as his big swing led to escalating home run totals that not only excited fans, but helped baseball evolve from a low-scoring, speed-dominated game to a high-scoring power game. He has since become regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture.  Ruth's legendary power and charismatic personality made him a larger than life figure in the “Roaring Twenties” and he is now regarded as the first true American sports celebrity superstar whose fame transcended baseball.  Off the field he was famous for his charity, but also was noted for his often reckless lifestyle.  Ruth has been named the greatest baseball player of all time in various surveys and rankings. 

Following his retirement in 1935 he attempted coaching but without success.  He assisted with the American legions youth baseball program and appeared on radio, both as a guest and as host of his own shows.

From 1946 he was in poor health.  Cancer treatments failed to eradicate the cancers from which he was suffering.   In ill health with throat cancer, he nonetheless attended the 25th anniversary celebration of the opening of Yankee Stadium in 1948. He was reunited with old teammates from the 1923 Yankee team and posed for photographs.  

Nathaniel Fein’s photo of Ruth taken from behind, showing Ruth leaning on his baseball bat as a cane, standing apart from the other players and facing "Ruthville" (right field) became one of baseball's most famous and widely circulated photographs.  

The celebration also honoured Ruth by retiring his Number 3 to the Bseball Hall of Fame in New York, that number not to be used again by the Yankees.  His speech and bow to the crowd was not only a farewell to baseball, but a farewell to life.  

The fans watched and cheered as Ruth slowly made his way onto the field.  Fifty thousand had attended to pay their respects to one of baseball’s greats. 

Two months after the photograph was taken he was dead. 

Nat Fein was a photographer of people.  He liked to work out the best viewpoints, the best angles and the most interesting items to emphasise in photographs.  He had Ruth slumped in the dugout, weakened by illness. According to Fein, "He looked tired, very tired; the power that had been his in his youth and manhood was slowly ebbing away.”

''When we were in the dressing room, he sat beside his old No. 3 locker and we made a picture there,'' Mr. Fein wrote in an unpublished memoir. ''Then he pulled out the belt showing how much thinner he'd got and I wanted to make a picture then, but they told me he's going to have all he can do to get out there -- he's a very sick man -- and the least bother here as possible because there's going to be a ceremony outside.” 

Fein took several photographs but was not satisfied with what he had.  He walked to the other side and was behind Ruth.  "I saw Ruth standing there with his uniform, No. 3, the number that would be retired, and knew that was the shot. It was a dull day, and most photographers were using flash bulbs, but I slowed the shutter and took the picture without a flash." 

The photograph was initially published in the Herald Tribune sports section but was later moved to the front page, eventually becoming one of America’s best known sports photograph, an icon of an icon.

Fein (1914-2000) worked for the New York Herald Tribune for 33 years.  He won more press photo awards than any of his contemporaries and was considered to be one of the greatest human interest photographers in journalism.

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Five Minutes of History: Jimmy Sharman

 

Bob Marchant, Jimmy Sharman’s boxing troupe (1996) 

During a conversation with my wife, the name “Sharman” was mentioned. I wondered whether that person was related to Jimmy Sharman, which prompted the response “Who’s that?”  It made me realise once again that the passing of time causes moments in history, experiences and memories to fade and become lost.   

I remember going to the annual local show when I was a youngster and later to the Sydney Royal Easter Show where I was captivated by Sideshow Alley, not throwing balls at stacked cylinders or  putting ping pong balls in the mouths of clowns that moved from side to side, but the tents that would be non-PC today: the half man, half woman; the ghost train;  the mermaid; the sword swallower. . . and Jimmy Sharman’s boxing tent. 

Mind you, I never went inside the tent, I was too young initially and not allowed by my parents.  When I was older I didn’t want to but a feeling of threat and brutality was apparent from the signs and displays, the fighters and the thugs from the audience who wanted to take them on. 

Jimmy Sharman Snr (1887-1965) found at a very young age that he could make money by fighting in the boxing tents in the district shows. After running away from home and engaging in fights with crude rings and equipment, he established his own boxing troupe that travelled to about 50 shows a year, the largest being the Sydney Royal Easter Show.   

By 1915 his Sharman Troupe was well established, his gravelly voice yelling out his catchcry invitations to the public to enter the tent and fight against one of the Sharman stable of fighters:  “Who’ll take a glove?” and “A round or two for a pound or two.”  (“Pound” was the then form of currency).    For the next 40 years he remained a fixture of sideshow alley, customers paying their two bob (two shillings) to view fights. 

By today’s standards such a display would be barbaric and dangerous;  by the standards of the day it was quite acceptable. 

Sharman maintained a strict code:  no consumption of alcohol by fighters or spectators; no mismatched fights; no punchy fighters, and no race discrimination, a progressive position considering the nature of the would-be fighters (usually the local thugs and brawlers) with whom he was dealing, the attitudes of the period and that quite a number of his fighters were black.   

Jimmy Sharman Jnr (1912-2006) was born a year after his father set up his first boxing tent and began working in his father’s tents as a teenager.  His interest however was not in boxing but in rugby league football, captaining Wests and playing 7 seasons as fullback between 1934-1940.  He was unable to serve during World War 11 because of ulcers, being ruled medically unfit.   

In 1955 he took over the boxing tent from his father and toured until 1971, when regulations were introduced prohibiting boxers having more than one fight per week.  That was the end of the Sharman Boxing Troupe. 

For six decades the Sharman tent had followed the show circuit in 4 states for 11 months each year.  Today it is a memory. 

Jimmy Sharman did not leave the shows, instead he became involved in the dodgem cars with his mate, TV mogul Reg Grundy. 

Jimmy Sharman Jnr also had one son, like his father named James.  James is commonly also known as Jim and, although not involved in fighting, he is also a showman of sort.  A director and writer of film and stage, he is internationally best known as the co-writer and director of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. 

Some Sharman pics:

 Jimmy Sharman Snr refereeing a boxing match in 1910

Jimmy Sharman’s boxing tent, outside display (note the drums and megaphones) in Ballarat, Victoria, 1934

A similar outside enticement of the crowd

 Albury Showgrounds, 1930’s

 Jimmy Sharman Jnr playing for Wests

 Jimmy Sharman Jnr, aged 92, not long before his death in 2006.

 Jimmy Sharman Jnr with members of his boxing troupe, 1971

 Jimmy Sharman on the set of Rocky Horror

Funny Friday

 

Last week’s Funny Friday had a cow theme.  So as to not be sexist, today’s Bytes features some jokes about bulls.   

An Englishman went to a restaurant after watching the local corrida. Whilst waiting for the menu he sees a waiter approaching a table close by, carrying a plate with some large, steaming meatballs. When a waiter finally arrives to take his order he points to the other table and asks for similar meal. The waiter explains that they were the last portion but, if he wanted to make a reservation for the following evening then the restaurant would keep a portion aside for him. 

The following evening the Englishman returned to the restaurant and placed his order. After about half an hour the waiter approaches with a plate with some small, steaming meatballs.  

The Englishman protested that yesterday the adjacent table got large meatballs whilst today he has been served small meatballs. 

The waiter replied “Si, senor, sometimes the matador wins, sometimes the bulls wins''

A big-city lawyer was representing the railroad in a lawsuit filed by an old rancher. The rancher's prize bull was missing from the section through which the railroad passed. The rancher only wanted to be paid the fair value of the bull. The case was scheduled to be tried before the justice of the peace in the back room of the general store. The city-slicker attorney for the railroad immediately cornered the rancher and tried to get him to settle out of court. He did his best selling job, and finally the rancher agreed to take half of what he was asking. After the rancher had signed the release and took the check, the young lawyer couldn't resist gloating a little over his success, telling the rancher, "You are really a country hick, old man, but I put one over on you in there. I couldn't have won the case. The engineer was asleep and the fireman was in the caboose when the train went through your ranch that morning. I didn't have one witness to put on the stand. I bluffed you!" The old rancher replied, "Well, I'll tell you young feller, I was a little worried about winning that case myself, because that durned bull came home this morning."

Old man BillyBob goes and gets a loan from the bank to buy a high priced bull. A few days later, the banker comes along and asks, "How's our bull doing?" BillyBob says, "Our bull ain't doing too good. I got him out there in the pasture with a bunch of young cows and he don't want nothing to do with them." The banker says, "You better call the veterinarian." A couple of days later, the banker comes along again and says, "How's our bull doing now?" BillyBob says, "Plenty darn good. He has done serviced all of my cows, jumped the fence, and is working on the neighbors' cows." The banker says, "Wow! What did the Vet give him?" BillyBob says, "He gave him some pills." The banker says, "What kind of pills?" BillyBob says, "I don't know, but they tasted sort of like peppermint." 

A town in Poland had only one cow and it stopped giving milk. The townspeople did a little research and discovered they could get a cow from Moscow for 2000 rubles - or one from Minsk for only 1000 rubles. So, naturally, --- they got the cow from Minsk.It was a great cow: had a wonderful disposition, and gave lots of milk and lots of cream. Everybody loved it dearly. The people decided they would mate the cow and get more cows like it, and then they would never have to worry about their milk supply again. So they got a bull and led the cow and the bull into the pasture. When the bull came in from the right to mount the cow, the cow moved to the left. When the bull moved in to mount the cow from the left, the cow moved to the right. This went on all day. Finally, in desperation, the people decided to go ask the rabbi what to do. After all he was very wise. They told him the story. "Rabbi, we've tried all day to mate our cow. When the bull moves in from the right the cow moves left and when the bull moves in from the left the cow moves to the right. What do we do?" The Rabbi thought a moment and asked, "Did you buy this cow from Minsk?" "Rabbi!" they replied as one, "You are so wise! We never said we bought the cow from Minsk. How did you know that?" The Rabbi said, sadly, "My wife is from Minsk."

Corn Corner: 

Two bulls were sitting on a hill, overlooking a herd of heifers below.

The young bull says, "Hey, what's say we run down there and screw a few of those heifers, eh?"

The old, wise bull shakes his head and says, "Nah, why don't we walk down there and screw all of them?



Quote: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Remember, you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.” 

-          Franklin D Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt  (1882 – 1945), also known by his initials, FDR was the 32^nd President ogf the United States (1933–1945) and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. The only American president elected to more than two terms, he facilitated a durable coalition that realigned American politics for decades. With the bouncy popular song “happy days are Here Again” as his campaign theme, FDR defeated incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover in  November 1932, at the depth of the Great Depression. Energized by his personal victory over paralytic illness, FDR's unfailing optimism and activism contributed to a renewal of the national spirit. He worked closely with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in leading the Allies against Germany and Japan in World War 11, but died just as victory was in sight.