Irony: the reigning King of Komedy!

Today’s exploration of the “Figures of Speech” will make-up the content of a continuous story involving myself, a colony of hobos and quite possibly extra-terrestrial life. Therefore, read each sentence in sequence, as a story of TRIVIAL SIGNIFICANCE will be revealed!

• asyndeton: Omission of conjunctions between related clauses

Julio Grumbles discovered a 1,000 year-old tent city which was built by hobos, for hobos , with hobos. That’s right; they used the older, weaker hobos as mortar, as brick, as accent walls…

Little did Julio know that, upon his discovery, he would become such a resident, a resident of a land without homes…just tents. Tents made out of homeless people.

• classification (literature & grammar): linking a proper noun and a common noun with an article

It all began, 1,000 years ago, when Frederique the blind hobo, Linda the deaf crack-whore and Upgreyedd the crippled pimp sat around a burning cauldron filled with animal feces.

Though these three street-dwellers had never met, this chance meeting, unbeknownst to them, would change the fate of the Earth, and of Project Julio, forever…

• chiasmus: The word order in one clause is inverted in the other (inverted parallelism).

Soon men of all classes and faiths came to visit their encampment. They looked with the blind hobo, listened with the deaf hobo, and with the crippled hobo, they danced.

• climax: The arrangement of words or sentences in order of increasing importance

Soon, however, unemployment hit all three major cities surrounding the three wise-men, and what was just a humble camp turned into a town, and then into a city, then back into a camp, and finally, and most importantly, it became what it remains to this day: a city of hobos.

• consonance: The repetition of consonant sounds, most commonly within a short passage of verse

The deranged ordeal started on a dark and desolate dirt-road when my 1987 Dodge-Durango ran out of diesel.

• ellipsis: Omission of words

To make matters worse, my cell phone ran out of battery-life, as did my GPS, my HPS (hobo positioning system) and my butt-plug (travel edition ®).

• enallage: The substitution of forms that are grammatically different, but have the same meaning (e.g. isolated use of incorrect grammar; abrupt change in grammatical person; abrupt change in quantitative pronouns)

I was afraid, but determining, when I, Julio, finally exited the car. Then, out of the darknesses, a crafty hobo appeared to me in a flash of bright light! This hobos then shouts to a nearby broken street-lamp, “BOYS…I’VE DONE GOT US’S ANTOHER ONES!”

• enjambment: A breaking of a syntactic unit (a phrase, clause, or sentence) by the end of a line or between two (or more) verses.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by hobos, hobos

who began probing me with their warm,  throbbing rods

(that pierced my

darkness with an eerie glow). These rods, I

later learned, would be repeatedly inserted into

a bright, radioactive dust created by Nuclear-bomb

test which had taken place in the area during the War of 1812

reenactment which occurred sometime during the early 1960’s.

Just then, as Julio realized that he was about to be anally raped by a group of alien hobos wielding removable, glowing penises, something happened…a tiny glowing man, no more than 3 feet tall, walked up to Julio, took his hand, and in it he placed $3.50 in quarters. “E.T. Phone Home,” he said.

• enthymeme: Informal method of presenting a syllogism

“What luck!,” I thought,  as I contemplated my fate. If a hobo, alien or not, gives someone else money, they MUST want something in return…so instead of being RAPED anally by alien hobos wielding removable glowing penises, I’m instead going to be PAID to have consensually anal sex with alien hobos wielding removable glowing penises. Fan-fucking-tabulous!

• epanalepsis: Repetition of the initial word or words of a clause or sentence at the end of the clause or sentence.

I should intervene and let my readers know that I’m okay and unaharmed. My anus, luckily for me, and luckily for my anus, was spared that day. The name of the game was not “shove glowing rods into this guy’s anus.” The integrity of my anus, and all that my anal virginity represents to the integrity of my anus, remained intact.

• epistrophe: The repetition of the same word or group of words at the end of successive clauses. The counterpart of anaphora (also known as antistrophe)

Regardless, this was truly an “Encounter of the Third Kind,” where “the third kind” is defined as “anal rape” and “encounter” is defined as “being surrounded by hobo aliens” and “truly” is defined as “letters I wrote to my attorney in order strengthen my ‘psychological instability’ defense during my first murder trial.”

*Julio’s Note* To be continued…but don’t be homo(cidal)!!! In the next segment, the story continues as we discover what exactly the glowing midget meant when he said “E.T. Phone Home” and why exactly aliens would (or wouldn’t) live in an ancient, 2,000 year old hobo village!

"Une Hobo," a source either of the joy on our dim city streets and/or of my anal warts.

According to Wikipedia, a figure of speech is defined as “a use of a word that diverges from its normal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it such as a metaphor, simile, or personification.” As you can cleary see in the list below, there are nearly 100 such twists of language, and believe it or not, these are the building blocks of humor as we know it. They are broken up into two categories: Schemes and Tropes. For the sake of entertainment, I will demonstate each of these with the focus being on hobos.

The overall goal of this project is to increase public awareness that comedy is in fact an art form. Perhaps if they themselves can produce and understand comedic material, comedians such as ourselves won’t have to watch cliched sit-coms or listen to their pathetic attempts at conversational improv. (Hint: When applicable, I will underline the figure of speech within each corresponding sentence, like so.)

Schemes:

§ alliteration: A series of words that begin with the same letter or sound alike

Hidden hobos housed in huts hurriedly hustle to help androgynous homosexuals hide their HIV.

§ anacoluthon: A change in the syntax within a sentence

Hobos, though filthy and dumb creatures — are they not of much amusement to us in their drunken and/or crack-cocaine feuled stupors?

§ anadiplosis: Repetition of a word at the end of a clause at the beginning of another

Homelessness leads to desperation, desperation leads to crime and crime leads back to home. Home, though for you it may actually be prison, nonetheless provides warmth and sustenance whereas sidewalks do not.

§ anaphora: The repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses

A hobo might smell (badly)
A hobo might light (a cigarette)
A hobo might smell (another hobo)
A hobo might fight (another hobo)
A hobo might sleep (on the sidewalk)
A hobo might write (on a cardboard box)
A hobo might weep (on the sidewalk)
A hobo might right (the wrongs)

A hobo might, tonight,
sleep upright.

§ anastrophe: Inversion of the usual word order

Yoda: Smells of urine, hobos do.

§ anticlimax: the arrangement of words in order of decreasing importance

Hobos provide city streets with the most beautiful displays of public nudity, as well as unique personalities and outrageos drunkenness. And though their bat-shit hallucination-filled insanity knows no equal, their public urination and attempts to pass as stranded motorists in need of gasoline money are also priceslessly entertaining…though not AS entertaining as the drunken conversations with mailboxes, as mentioned earlier under “bad-shit hullucination-filled insanity“.

§ antimetabole: Repetition of words in successive clauses, in reverse order

When a hobo bites, and then defecates upon, a man, that is not news; however, when a man bites, and then defecates upon, a hobo, that IS news.

§ antithesis: The juxtaposition of opposing or contrasting ideas

If the homeless are hobos, does that make homeowners homos?

§ aphorismus: statement that calls into question the definition of a word

If the homeless are hobos, does that make homeowners homos?

§ aposiopesis: Breaking off or pausing speech for dramatic or emotional effect

Is he doing what I think he’s…yup. That hobo just peed on the cure to Cancer.

§ apostrophe: Directing the attention away from the audience and to a personified abstraction

Dearest hobos! I would, were you not untrustworthy carriers of disease, happily invite you into my home and listen to your eccentric stories of sporadic travel and street dwelling!

§ apposition: The placing of two elements side by side, in which the second defines the first

Hobos, those travelling salesmen of charity, provide a positive boost of self-esteem to all those (of higher status) that they encounter!

§ assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds, most commonly within a short passage of verse

Old, ordinary hobos obtain kudos from over-obsessed observers and enthusiasts of the obsolescent pastime of hobo-ing.

*Julio’s note: That’s all for now, but don’t worry — part II of “Figures of Speech as Inspired by Hobos” will continue tomorrow! (to view the entire list of Figures of Speech, click here)

Get it? He's happy because he's got a GIANT BALL OF FIRE to put out!...or maybe it's the 300 dead fire-fighters. Who knows?

Can 9/11 be parodied in good taste? It seems the very notion of combining comedy and 9/11 is doomed to failure. However, George Carlin famously stated that “…anything can be funny. It is just a matter of emphasis.” What he means by that is, for example, poking fun at the VICTIMS of 9/11 is emphasizing the tragic, which is exactly what you would want to de-emphasize.  If you’re looking for a large list of attempts at 9/11 humor, visit this site. If you’re looking for a structural analysis of how these jokes can be composed with a high degree of success, finish reading this article. Both sites, however, are best viewed in tandem.

When making a joke about 9/11, a skilled humorist would want to abstract as far as possible from the actual tragic events themselves, where 9/11 is in any other way (as the punchline [change in expectations], for example] rather than the premise (or main idea) of the joke. One clear example of this can be seen in a 9/11 joke on Family Guy when Brian, after traveling back in time, decides to settle an argument in a bar by asking his opponent to meet him at the “top of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.” The reason this joke is tasteful (as tasteful as you can be about 9/11) is because, though you feel awful about how 9/11 was used for humor, you also realize (at least subconsciously) that the joke’s premise is “Brian will trick the guy into arriving at a place in the future at an unopportune time,” which just-so-happens to be the Twin-Towers on 9/11, rather than the far more offensive premise of “9/11 was HILARIOUS! All those people died…rofl!”

Here’s another example that I crafted during a recent trip I made to California while carrying 100 lbs of Mexican cocaine!

Example 1: The events of 9/11 were nothing short of tragic. On my favorite Soap Opera, General Hospital, Billy was just about to kiss his brother’s ex-husband’s ex-wife’s husband when ANNOYING NEWS COVERAGE interrupted my “regularly scheduled programming!” How rude of you, Saddam Hussein…you ruined my day!

The joke here is regarding my character’s insensitivity regarding the tragic events of 9/11 by emphasizing his prioritization of his own trivial inconveniences, as well as the well-being of the characters in his Soap Opera, over and above the actual suffering of actual human beings. This clue appears when my character refers to 9/11 as a “tragedy” and then immediately goes on to describe the contents of the tragedy…NOT in terms of the actual suffering of the actual victims, but in terms of how his life of staying-at-home and watching Soap Operas is being interrupted.

As you can clearly see, though this joke comes awfully close to being ABOUT 9/11, it is actually about how someone else views OF 9/11 presented in a way contrary to that which is expected by the set-up of the joke. Essentially, this joke dodges a bullet because the main idea of the joke is to parody the lack of intelligence (shown by how he blames Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11) of someone who is insensitive about 9/11 rather than to parody 9/11 itself. The offensive version of this joke would be as follows:

Antithesis 1:  The events of 9/11 were nothing short of…entertaining! You see, the T.V. remote was broken, and I was too lazy to change the channel. Then, an awful Soap Opera, General Hospital, came on when HEROIC NEWS COVERAGE interrupted my regularly scheduled programming and provided me with hours of explosions which climaxed with the demolition of the Twin Towers and the death of 3,000+ innocent citizens! Thanks, Osama Bin Laden, you made my day!

It's like "Where's Waldo," except Waldo is the one being stoned to death for being gay.

This joke is far more offensive than the first because:

1. It fails to abstract from the details of the event and instead lists them explicitly (e.g.  explosions; demolition of Twin Towers; 3000+ deaths)

2. It says that Soap Operas are WORSE than 9/11 (e.g. HEROIC news coverage)

3. It PRAISES the tragedy and turns it into a positive (e.g. …entertaining; Thanks Bin laden, you made my day)

In addition, this “joke” uses an individual who is knowledgable about the 9/11 attacks, as shown by his  consistent use of well-accepted facts thereof. This is contrary to the previous joke which uses clear example of an individual with an obviously distorted view of reality. As a result, the lesson learned here is that in order to make a joke about an offensive subject is to ensure that the main character of the joke is made out to have a distorted worldview or be absurd in some way.

Counter-Point:

Or maybe, just maybe…maybe emphasis doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s like the Aristocrat joke, a joke which defies these normal conventions of “tact” through its flagrant discussion on child molestation, incest AND fecal lubricants. Maybe “tastefulness” is not a quality inherent of humor, but rather artificially inserted by social norms. Or maybe…maybe tastelessness is ENHANCES humor. Maybe the uncertainty of whether the content is acceptable or not increases the little-understood mechanism that causes laughter. I should warn you, however, that if a joke is ONLY offensive and contains no other comedic structures or elements, it will NOT be funny. Examples of these can be found throughout the internet. But I can assure you, we at Project Julio would NEVER sink to that level. Ever.

Or maybe sometimes making something that’s offensive EVEN MORE OFFENSIVE will be so deliberately offensive that it’s funny. Such as those located throughout this article.

The only thing that could make this worse would be...uhm...I don't know!

Why is this wrong? You mean other than how it generalizes the entire Muslim community as terrorists?

CONCLUSION: This attempt to explain 9/11 humor is inconclusive. The tastefulness of humor has been called into question and, therefore, Project Julio is unable to justify or distinguish “polite” humor from “impolite.” I will search my soul (which I stole from a blind Pakistani child named “Paula Abdulla“) to see if I can discover the source of this uncertainty.

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