Kickin' Rocks

with Don Pennington

Sometimes You Just Can't Make 'em Laugh

Just about everything connected with hot rods is cool. The cars are cool, almost all of the people are cool, and all those jokes we come across are cool too. Maybe the best thing about this new internet deal is that we can all now get more cool jokes and better yet... they come with pictures! Somehow these jokes seem to be mixed in with pictures of stuff your mother told you would make you go blind if you looked at them. Apparently not true, either that or it takes a long time to take effect, mine is still 20-20. So far. What this joke thing boils down to is that people need humor to get past all the daily trash.

Looking back on those perfect school days there didn't seem to be that much funny stuff going on, there was the occasional class clown, but not much really funny stuff. Most of the time was spent worrying about grades and playing the social games that the few foisted upon us. What humor there was seemed to be the result of a good time stealing hub caps or cutting valve stems. Teachers didn't really appreciate what the wise guys brought to the table, they saw the monkey business as an assault on their power, which of course was true. The most memorable screwy stuff was usually at the expense of a teacher we didn't like because they dared to make us learn stuff, who did these people think they were? They had it coming! The wise guys as they were known back then, went on to become writers and show promoters and late night talk show hosts. Look at Truman Capote, now there's a real class cut up if there ever was one, that book "In Cold Blood" sounds like a kick back from a bad Algebra teacher.  

You gotta have humor, or al least look at stuff in a funny way. A couple of years ago at the L.A. Roadsters deal, some guy put his fanny back down in the can and walked away when nature's call was quieted. The problem was that he had a bunch of money in there, looking to buy a car. People heard about that and said "oh... that's funny". That's funny? Well it may be funny to some but that guy probably wasn't smiling much. The humor test here is that if he got his money back, and the word spread once again, how many felt that getting the money bach is funny, or even a good thing? Not many, most would utter the hot rodders oofda cry, "oh schucks (or something like that), he got his money back". So I don't know if the funny side of losing a coupla thousand bucks is a good thing. I guess it is if the guy can accept his bad fortune, but if we laugh at it... well that's good too, after all it ain't our money!

Some people do funny things and can tell a really good joke, some don't and can't. I like a good joke as much as the next guy. As I get older and start to tell a great joke I've heard, I embellish a bit as I go, the joke get's longer, and as I approach the end, panic begins to set in. I'll be dammed if I haven't forgot the punch line. I get to the end of the joke, and it's a really good joke, I have the audience in the palm of my hand, and.... nothing... blank. This is not a good thing. If life has taught us anything it is to keep our eye on the punch line. Funny people jab screw drivers in the things in life that have beat us up a bit, that's why we think it's so funny. So I guess the back pack guy will think his loss funny... sooner or later. A really good rule in making people feel good  is telling others about a really embarrassing thing that has happened to someone w all know. This is true. So the back pack guy's friends are having a good time, but usually behind the guy's back! Which of course makes it funnier.  

Humor allows us to get past a lot of stuff. Road rage seems to be in the forefront lately. We can put a lot of that rage stuff in the burn barrel if we just laugh at those folks who are invading our highway space. There are some people that should not be on the highway. We constantly see these creatures doing lane changes that in most countries, and some neighborhoods around here, would be considered  a turf war infringement with accompanying armed feedback. Did you know that in many communities in the US that road rage is illegal? What is this world coming to. You can't even mess with those weirdos any more. Where's the fun in that, these politicians need to use a little humor when they come up with these new laws. The down side is that the crash bumper industry will take a hit, but it's all for the good of mankind, I guess. Don't these people realize hot rodders own the road, we just let other people use it so they will burn up gas, buy more which will generate highway tax dollars to make "us" more roads to places we didn't know existed and don't care if we ever see. That makes you wonder how these people get through life? Who put them here, why are they here and when are they leaving? Generally we can deal with the "I'll signal later" lane changes, and three lane changer highway antics with a smile, but then you realize that these people probably have kids, so there are more of them to come! Sometimes you think  the driver actuated grill mounted grenade launcher wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Humor is a knee jerk reaction to bad things that we are glad has happened to someone else. In fact it may be an underground industry all it's own. Apparently there are people sitting in an office somewhere coming up with phrases that are intended to soften the blow of the tornado wiping out the homestead. Things like... "if you get lemons, make lemonade". I'm sure who ever came up with that gem meant well, or they got paid by the greeting card company to come up with it, but let's get real. If someone throws a lemon at you, don't you want to schmoosh him in the face with a bigger lemon, mostly rotten? And then there is "bad things happen to make room for good things". Come on... it's all about getting even... now that's funny! Just about every thing humorous is based on bad stuff. Even Big Bird makes fun of his fellow C-Streeters, hell his very existence is based on a funny looking bird. Humor is one thing and cutesy little quotes are one thing, but there are some things that can never be overcome by humor, like 9-11. People are really concerned that there are large numbers of these suicide freaks out there that want to kill us. Maybe humor can at least soften the blow of 9-11 and put a little light on where we are going.  I received an internet joke recently, which isn't the most PC to our native American or mid-eastern brothers, but the end result is worth the risk of being tattooed insensitive, and I of course apologize in advance. Besides if we wiped out all the non-PC jokes that would cut our best jokes by 98%. Here we go... Three guys were standing around a burn barrel, a cowboy, an indian and a mid-eastern gentleman. The Arab says, "I've noticed that there are a lot more cowboys in this world than indians, but there are many times more Arabs than there are indians. Why do you think this is?" There was silence for a bit, then the cowboy spit a particularly nasty glob of tabackee on the nearest sandal and began to speak in his typical thought-out slow western drawl, "I spoze that's cuz we ain't played cowboys and A-rabs yet". I think that's funny, even in the face of the 2749 lost in the towers, because it reinforces our resolve that we will get even.

With all the off the wall car stuff we do around the house, the surprises we continue to spring on the wife and the things we try to hide from her (which she usually knows about all the time), humor at home is really important. "Hey honey look at the new ‘32 five window front lawn art I bought you". If she isn't on board, this of course could force the ever popular 50-50 split of all your stuff, maybe worse. You can play the funny card only so many times before that kinda fades away and the blue papers aren't far behind. Just because you think something is funny, doesn't mean she will think it's funny too. Having a sense of humor about something can have two sides. When your car rolls out of the paint booth and it's not quite the color you wanted, or the hood now has a hood scoop that in it's previous life was the bottom half of your wife's trash compactor, somehow you just can't laugh about that one even though the painter is wettin' his pants. It's always a good thing when you are planning a new acquisition to think ahead and dial in the wife. Pump up her hobby, or better yet get her to make your hobby... her hobby! Two players, twice as much stuff, what fun! Many times when you think something is funny, she does not, so the partner thing fixes most of that problem.

All this funny stuff brings us to the people who have no sense of humor about anything. We all know them, most of the people who lived on my street throughout the high school years didn't seem to have a funny bone in their bodies. They got all pissy for no real reason. They put up a fuss about the burn outs, which back then we called laying rubber, and the 3 AM open header new motor fire-ups. Never did understand that one, it only happened three or four times a year. When we graduated to a dragster and had to push start the car in the street these people even called the cops. Usually it's hard to find two people with the exact same opinion about something, but the cop and neighbor Joe were charter members of the club. Did you know that a Noise Nuisance Ticket in 1959 Pasadena was $24? (Never paid any of them). Then there was the beer can tossing contests. We'd sit on the curb and toss beer cans until they formed a line across the street. Since you had to drink a beer before you could enter the game, as the night went on the aim seemed to change in direct proportion to the cans needed to stay in the game, so soon it looked more like the city dump. The best part was when some neighbor would come home and drive through the cans, it made one hell of a noise, especially in the stillness of a late summer evening, not to mention scattering those cans the length of the block.

Some guys just can't take a joke!