"The Aristocrats"

"The Aristocrats" from 6ershon Legman's "Rationale Of The Dirty Joke, An Analysis Of Sexual Humor Series Two: No Laughing Matter" from page 987.. One cannot fail to observe the intrusion of the children in these disaster scenes, since there is really no story without them. One can endure, perhaps, the explosion of the outside world. But when one's inner island or jealously dark-held tower...home, family, cave-in-the- woods, or what have you?...is collapsing as well, and in a particularly scataphoric way; then everything has really gone to smash. Like the jokes of the first chapter in the First Series here, on "Children," these jokes are the revenge of the child who has grown up, and can now tell his own stories. The final and pointed indictment puts the finger on the purulent seat of the disease: lying and cruelty to children, and their abnormalization to suit the parents' and society's sick needs. No story has been encountered, in the thirty-five or more years of this research, that makes this point so absolutely frankly, yet with what worlds of unspoken sardonic criticism, as the following: A vaudeville performer is describing his act to a skeptical booking agent. "It's very simple. My wife and I shit on the stage, and then the kids come out and wallow in it" Agent, thunderstruck: "What kind of an act do you call that?" Vaudevillian, polishing his fingernails on his lapel: "We call it... 'The Aristocrats'!" EFTA01142655 This was told, as his favorite joke, by a young man whose parents lived a hideous life of continuous fighting and screaming at each other, but who would not consider divorce. They were 'keeping the home together for the sake of the children.' Gershon Legman Spring 1934-Winter 1975 ********************** That comes and goes as my favorite joke. I've been penpals with Legman since I blindly wrote to the address in Valbonnes, France, given at the end of the preface of this book, desperately trying to locate a copy of Series One. He immediately wrote back, and sold me one of his two copies. It actually has his corrections in it for the second printing. Over the years we have exchanged all kinds of jokes and joke garbage. He of course has distributed my crap throughout the South of France. If you see a hot babe in an "I Stumped Jackie The Joke Man" tank top on The Riviera, ask her if she knows Legman. He is now very old and frail, and I hope he is well as I write this. His name is legendary, and rightly so, in dirty joke circles. Imagine my glee to find another nut, and a brilliant one, who does a lot of the same crap as me... Jackie Martling Spring 1997 *************************** The Aristocrats, from Page Two EFTA01142656 The next joke is incredibly infamous in the Show Business community... Gershon Legman is the acknowledged and world-renowned Master of Erotic Folklore and Dirty Jokes. He published a huge two-volume series on filthy jokes, and this next joke was the last joke on the last page of Volume Two, "Rationale Of The Dirty Joke, Series Two." I write about it here because the other night I went to see Robert Schimmel at Governor's Comedy Shop in Levittown on Long Island. Schimmel is hysterical and filthy. He's old friend...we appeared together in Montreal in the late night dirty shows at The 1993 Montreal "Just For Laughs" Festival, and back in 1985 worked together in Redd Foxx's "Dirty, Dirty Jokes," the video that made Andrew "Dice" Clay a star, and did shit for the rest of us. (That's the video with the infamous "Everybody's Going To Dallas" joke on it.) Schimmel just released an album, "Robert Schimmel Comes Clean." It's incredibly dirty and incredibly funny. Of course, like everybody, he tried to tell me a joke, and he started this next one. He told me he had spoken at length to Rodney Dangerfield and others about it, and I told him how one night at "The Funny Bone" in Nashville it took me twenty minutes to tell it, sliding across the filthy barroom floor for the finale. It's funny, wild, and deep... Plankton goes into the tiny, dingy little office of Stanley Schwartz, a disreputable, snaky, lowlife show business booking agent. He says, "I want you to look at an act." EFTA01142657 Stanley Schwartz says, "Okay. Step out into the halt" They wa/k out into the hall, and Stanley Schwartz says to Plankton, "All right, let's see what you've got." Plankton starts to undress. He gets totally naked, and then shits on the floor. As he's finishing a nice pile, his sister comes around the corner and dives into the muck. He starts undressing her as his father and brother, both naked, come around the corner yanking on their huge hard-ohs. They both piss on the sister and take shits themselves, and then they sing a little song and do a little dance in the mess. Then their mother appears in drag, and starts sucking off the brother and waddling in the crap as the sister barfs and the father leads them in a little song and a little dance. Then they all meet heads together in the thick of it, and come up dripping and smiling with a loud, "Hooray." Plankton says to Stanley Schwartz, "Well, what do you think?" Stanley Schwartz says, "It's very different. What do you call yourselves?" Plankton says, "The Aristocrats." EFTA01142658