Herb Hoffman – Page 5 – HUMOR IS NO FUN UNLESS YOU LAUGH

What I Did In The War

When the budding young painter in Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited declares that he plans to go to Venice and study the works of Bellini haughty Lord Marchmain nonplusses him by asking: “Which one; there are two.” Likewise, when young people ask me what I did “In the war” I can stop them cold by asking: “Which one; there were three.” My war, of course, is the one that ended 74 years ago, now named World War II. I was still young then, but I was in that war, indeed.

The question is what I did. If my inquirer is old enough to understand the meaning of the term “absurd,” my answer is simple: absurd stuff. Absurdity is the nature of war. I had a gun. My job was to shoot at American airplanes. A man whom I know was a pilot. I shot him down (remember: that was my job. His job was to burn down our house). His entire crew died except him. His parachute saved him. I was then a German, speaking German. He, of course, was American. Now we are both old, both are US citizens speaking English. And we are the best of friends. That, I think is absurd. As I said above: nothing made sense. Everything I did, great or small, was in one way or another absurd.

I could give many small examples. One shall suffice. For breakfast we got a brew called “coffee.” It consisted of roasted oats and barley, ground into a black powder and boiled in water. Our unit commander was a reserve officer, a colonel recalled from retirement. He was a stickler for regulations. Which required that we get breakfast. When the colonel found out that some of us poured this liquid called coffee down the sink instead of drinking it we were all summoned to a lecture. I do not remember the rest of his harangue except the memorable phrase: “He who does not drink his morning coffee is a traitor.”

So what did I do in the war? Nothing heroical, I am afraid. I did what I was ordered to do: shoot off my trusty 88mm gun and drink that awful coffee.

On Driving with an Affliction

Driving is not difficult for me. But due to an affliction I find it difficult to get out of my car, and to stand up and walk once I am out. That is why I sport a blue placard on my rearview mirror. It allows me to park in a spot where I can open the door wide and swing my stiff legs out. Parking close to my destination also helps as I stalk ahead like a man on stilts.

All this sounds good and simple. But there are complications. I am not the only handicapped one in town. There are at least four others that buy their groceries in the same supermarket where I shop, and all four shop at the same time and occupy the four available slots. It does not matter what time I arrive: my four nemesises are at their stations. They are a well-organized team, probably retired marines that know how to synchronize watches. It is possible that they are not always the same four people. They may come in sets of four, many such sets. This may explain why I never get a chance.

So far my placard has been merely an embellishment. The blue color goes well with my car’s white exterior. One day when I have more time I shall cruise as long as it takes. At least one of them, I figure, must eventually finish his grocery shopping trip and come out. But then, he will probably just put his shopping bags in the trunk, leave the car where it is, and proceed to the pharmacy, and after that to the bank. And then, having reloaded his wallet, he will probably walk over to the hardware store. It could take me a long time to inherit his parking space.

Yesterday I had some business at the hospital. The hospital complex has hundreds of parking slots. They are all narrow, unsuitable for me, and they were, I swear, all occupied anyway. No sweat, I thought. This is a hospital where nothing but sick people go in and out. They must be prepared for this and have rows upon rows of “handicapped only” parking spaces. And I was right. They do. But guess what? Not a single open one for me. Cruising around, I finally located a parking lot for doctors only. There was one blue space left and I took it. I remembered that I was told that I could park in any such space, no matter where. And I figured that doctors, if attacked by a crippling affliction, would cure themselves anyway. They would not need my purloined slot.

Obviously a solution for the blue placard parking problem is needed. I suggest a generous reward program. “If you relinquish this parking space within twenty minutes,” the sign at the drug store for example might say, “you are eligible for a free enema. Apply within.”

Schadenfreude

Humor takes many shapes. If it bends, says Woody Allen, it’s funny; if it breaks, it’s not. We were students enrolled in English Literature. One day a farmer stopped by, soliciting orders for his fine clover honey. Our fellow student Ann ordered a gallon. The man delivered it the next day, in a plastic container. She paid the man and he left. Ann picked up the container. The container slipped out of her hands, fell to the floor, broke open, and soaked the carpet with grade A yellow honey.

You could have heard Ann wail from a block away. “Don’t fret too much about it,” we consoled her. “Let it go. Think Shakespeare: parting is such sweet sorrow.” We did not really laugh at Ann. But inside we all thought it hilariously funny. Now that is schadenfreude, joie mauvaise, there is no English word for the nasty joy of snickering at your neighbor’s more or less harmless mishaps.

It is always fun when such things happen to someone else. But the night I brought the giant pizza home, lifting it out of the car holding the carton with both hands, and the pizza-juice soaked bottom gave way, dropping the precious pie — sausage, anchovies, mushrooms, bacon, olives and all — on the garage floor, that was tragic, not funny. Yet my children found it necessary to roll on the floor laughing.

Just a week ago or so I had a little mishap that laid me open to schadenfreude. I was going to paint a shelf black. I decided to use a spray can, not my familiar brush technique. I shook the can thirty-one times as directed, then aimed at the shelf, I thought, and hit the trigger. A burst of black paint hit my chin and I instantly morphed into a vaudeville blackface. I was alone at the time and thus had to force myself to laugh at myself. Ridi pagliaccio came to mind. But I shouldn’t make light of Leonvavallo’s gripping opera. As Woody Allen would say, it breaks.

Miau in E flat Major

“A person who loves animals cannot be all bad.” We hope the saying holds up on the day of judgement. At any rate, when an abandoned cat was found in our neighborhood we felt obliged to take her in. She was beautiful and we gave her an appropriate name: Bella. We took her to the veterinarian for a first checkup. The veterinarian examined the cat and instructed us. We took him home an hour later, renamed Bello. It soon became obvious that Bello was born without a shred of ambition to do anything but rest, except perhaps to win a prize should there ever be a contest in the art of dolce far niente. I must say, however, that he is a cat like no other. Promptly at 9:15 every evening – he must have a clock in his head – he parks himself in front of my piano. I must then play a few pieces until 9:30, the bedtime he determined for himself. At this point he usually gives me a signal, a short miau. I know I am in danger of losing my mind, but this actually happens every night, give five minutes early or late. I have reached the stage where I talk to him like a person. On days when I don’t feel like playing I apologize and explain to him that I am too tired to read the music. Sometimes I have the impression that he isn’t even a cat but some mysterious messenger, a cat-alyst sent by Euterpe to stimulate my tired brain and to make sure that my fingers don’t forget how to find the C major 7. He has a Dionysian streak as well, that strange cat, for he tears into his cat food pellets as if they were ambrosia.

Premature Cremature

A letter arrived a few weeks ago,addressed to me, bearing a first class stamp. I opened it of course. The message inside read “Time stands still for no one.” A few lines below I was invited to “take the time to make my cremation prearrangements.” In red ink!

No harm done, of course. But it made me think about how weird that actually is: the mortuary industry has discovered that at a certain age we all become persons of interest to them, fish waiting to be caught. Nothing I can do about it. They got me. What should I say tot hem, assuming I want to reply? I shall say that I am not ready. And I will add R.I.P. (Really. I Pass). Maybe that will get me off.

The Falcons

For a small town we have a splendid team, the Falcons. I myself am not much of a sports fan but my wife understands the game and has been known to assure players that “they can do it” from her couch.

But that is alright. We are solid fans, nevertheless. The Falcons are “our” team. When our team is playing we are tuned in. When the team is doing well we are exstatic, especially when Crawfit does his his famous two three pointers in a row. Pendergrast and Voykovitch on the attack, handing the ball to each other in such quick succession that just watching makes you dizzy. And then the groan when the ball hits the rim and the other team gets the rebound. Ah, the joys and the agonies of living with your team. Right or wrong, it is your team. Not just Crawfit and Pendergrast and Voykovitch but Jared Browne as well, and Ishmael N’Bakuba, this other great talent the commentators talk about a lot. Those men, and a few others not named here are our team, “a number of persons associated in some joint action”, as the dictionary defines the term. Those men as a group were the ones we rooted for.

But the season ended and Browne retired. He was the oldest. Crawfit was traded. Voykovitch went to Miami. Pendergrast ended up in Oklahoma. They were obviously no longer “associated in some joint action .” I forgot what happened to N’Bakuba. Does not matter, though. One man can hardly be called a team. In other words, our team had ceased to exist.

We had never considered that “our team” and “Falcons” were not identical, not one and the same thing. But actually the Falcons are a separate, a different “team,” an abstract corporate entity, a club called Falcons. The Club is a business entity, a corporation. It never shoots anything, let alone baskets. It may shoot itself in the foot by trading the wrong player. I cannot get myself to root for an abstraction. Some will now accuse me of lacking this imponderable thing, the team spirit. But then I never rooted for the abstract entity called Falcons. I rooted for the team of players I admired. And that team is gone, dissolved. And with it goes my team spirit.

It seems, though, that I was taking trivial things too seriously. Because the Falcons club is still alive. Like a damaged lizard that grows a new tail the Club is growing a new team. They are working on it. To give up on them now would be untimely. And I was just unteamely uprooted.

Newspapers

Newspapers report on important matters, of course, as one cannot help but infer from this stern warning I read in the Sunday paper: “Different points of few are critical in our democracy.” Ahem. But hard as the editors may try to remain serious, they cannot avoid being funny at times. Usually this happens when double meanings creep into a text. The other day I read a traveler’s evaluation of a trip in our local newspaper: “We had a lovely time. Stayed at Casa las Tortugas, ate many meals at its restaurant and also at Milpa; my husband had the octopus.” Sorry to hear about that. Thank God it was not the Flu. I also learned that cannibalism is apparently in vogue again. Netflix says nearly 60% of its subscribers consume kids and family content every month. Shades of A Modest Proposal, I thought. And I am not even Irish.

Some of these bloopers are not so much humorous as they are challenging. A notice announcing an upcoming local election in Laguna Beach, California, reads like a test question for Math 101: “Each of seven applicants will seek one of four spots on the Arts Commission. With the Housing and Human Services Committee increasing its membership to nine members, six candidates are expected to fill six eligible spots. Each of four applicants will seek one of two spots on the Planning Commission. Eight applicants will vie for one of five spots on the Emergency/Disaster Preparedness Committee. Three candidates will vie for three spots on the Personnel Board.” Here is the question: If each winner gets 8 oz of champagne, how many bottles of bubbly must the commissioner order? Good luck!

Newport Beach, my home town, is home to many boats and boat-related enterprises. People on boats still get seasick from time to time. To prevent that from happening some engineering company recently demonstrated a new type of device that would eliminate sea sickness. An ad in the paper warned that the device was “the size of a chest freezer.” I had to read this twice to understand that this device was a gyroscope about the size of a freezer chest. Good thing. I was a little worried about my already damaged lungs and that on my planned excursion to Catalina Island I might have to sit in the cooler.

In nearby Temecula, I found out, “Food aficionados can try unlimited samples from local wineries.” I thought I would wait till they bring out the limited stuff!

Editors often have to carefully tiptoe around delicate matters. A review of the new Honda CR-V praises the improvements to the front seats. They are more adjustable and they come now with heating and ventilating options. I could not think of a more tactful way of saying this. Puts the Beano ads to shame.

A jailbreak in California was blamed on the plumbing system “which the inmates used to gain access to the roof.” Don’t try this at home, I would say. Those guys were super thin! In the report on a burglary the get-away car was “believed to be a black Mercedes R-class SUV with paper plates.” Thank God they left us the napkins.

And thanks be to the Old Man for having added laughter to his creation.

Plastics

The car we drive looks as if it were made of nothing but steel and glass. But that is not true. A significant part of an automobile is plastic. What we wear may look like wool or cotton or silk. But it is not. My fine Calvin Klein raincoat is made of polyester, 100 % as the label explains. Polyester fiber is indestructible. That used to be a virtue. We now understand that indestructible means that the material is not biodegradable, hence may be a menace to the environment. My coat will not be forgotten. It will be around for a long, long time. There is something ominous about that thought.

In my youth we always bought a bouquet of flowers along with the food for the dinner table. Decorating one’s home with fake flowers, while cheaper in the long run, was a decided no-no, considered the epitome of bad taste. It just was not done. Not so any more. Artificial flowers are now so perfectly crafted that at first glance you cannot tell fake from real unless you touch. In bank lobbies, hospital corridors, restaurants, and other public places fake greens and flowers are normal decor these days. One often sees signs posted that warn housekeeping staff not to water “the plants.” Artificial flowers, being made of polyester, are of course also indestructible. They are a good investment. They keep a long time.

Somehow this makes me think of cemeteries. Never was there a sadder sight than a new grave covered with wilted and rotten flowers. I will leave instructions that I want a huge arrangement of polyester flowers on my grave. They will last 100 years, they say. Cemetery strollers-by will stop and look who is buried in that indestructible grave. My way to intimate immortality.

Some plastics, Teflon for example, are particularly useful in my daily life. I no longer burn as much of what I cook as I did before I got my Teflon pots and pans. I have now advanced to the next level of culinary expertise. I found out that I can melt plastic spoons and other utensils into humorous shapes simply by leaning them against hot burner elements.

Plastics are so common in our lives that even children understand their many uses. On a road trip with friends the three women in the front seat were discussing the merits of different fabrics for women’s intimate wear. Eight year old Mike in the back seat was following the conversation with great interest. One of the women said that she liked silk best. No, said the second, it has to be cotton. Before his mother had a chance to declare her preference little Mike felt obliged to join the debate: “We got plastic!” he informed the party.

The Denier

This man we knew had a sharp mind. Unlike many other old men he had kept his youthful and optimistic outlook. Although he understood that the world was full of problems he was not going to let that bother him. There had been fears of worldwide tuberculosis outbreaks, for example. He maintained that a remedy would be found and he was right. Though not completely eradicated, the disease was eventually controlled. When it became obvious that our cities were going to be choked by exhaust fumes he predicted that within years cleaner engines would be developed and he was right on that, too. In time he convinced himself that most, if not all, our fears and problems were in our minds, not anchored in reality.

This attitude of seeing no evil, hearing no evil made life easy for him. If you brought up the subject of, say, water shortage he would say that it was nonsense, that there was plenty of water, that the problem was government overregulation. If you told him that sea levels were rising he would laugh and tell you that comparative data collected over the last hundred years show nothing of the sort. Forests dying on account of acid rain? Yeah, that’s a problem he might admit. All it takes to correct that, he would suggest, was tougher enforcement of existing regulations. The corals are dying? Well, that is nature’s effort to balance things out in the face of ocean water changes. The Pink Eyed Squirrel faces extinction? So what? As Darwin has told us their place will be taken up by the Grey Eyed Squirrel, which is a much stronger species. The Sahel is drying out? Not to worry. He had the figures back to the sixteen hundreds which prove that the Sahel was then and still is a dry region, hence not a problem. Hurricanes are getting more severe? Not so. We have always been getting four or five every year. We just hear more about them because of television. It is probably a conspiracy, he claimed, to cash in on increased viewership which translates into advertising revenue. People love to see catastrophes.

Invariably of course the topic of global warming would come up. Sure the glaciers are melting, he would say. They do that every summer. Then we have a cold winter again, and the balances is restored. The North Pole is melting? Rubbish. Polar ice is five meters thick, he happened to know. You can build a house on it.

By coincidence an old college friend of his was involved in a scientific project in the Arctic. This friend invited him to come and see the station. True enough, he found himself vindicated: there were not only houses on the ice, there even was a runway for aircraft. Triumphant, he set out for a long hike into that bleak majestic blinding white landscape. Two or three miles or so from the station, the sun still shining bright, the ice cracked and moved under his feet. He was just about to deny this event as well but it was too late.

As he arrived at the Pearly Gates the friendly Saint on duty handed him a towel: “Here, dry yourself first. I bet that water was cold.” “Oh, I did not get wet,” he replied. “I am just perspiring a little.”

On Infinity and the Universe

The Cosmos is not fully understood as of today.
Let me explore what is. I think that we can truly say
The world exists. That fact is absolutely clear.
Were it not so we could not possibly be here.

Since it exists the world must surely have a history.
But even that, it seems, is something of a mystery.
Our universe is very old, so some folks say,
But even then our world must have begun one day.

No matter what, it’s infinite to some, world without end.
We can’t be sure of that, some say, believing it must still expand.
Some see a universe that comes and goes. Some think
That it will stop expanding, then will cool and shrink.

This wide, wide universe may seem to be a lonely one,
But probably it’s not at all the only one.
Why should it be unique, some ask. as sure as any
There could be plural universes, even many.

Another question is: how big a world, how far
Is it from galaxy to galaxy, from star to star?
In early days we thought in terms of miles, by millions.
Today we count in light years which add up to trillions.

Some stars we think are helium that’s very, very hot.
There is much hydrogen around, but water surely not.
What swirls between the stars, some say, is nothingness and just
The right amount of rock and ice and dust.

An older theory proposed a stuff called ether.
Seems there is no such thing. It’s different all together.
We talk of protons, neutrons, electrons, and things,
Of energy in particles, in waves, in quanta, braids, and strings.

We hear of trillions of neutrinos, particles that have no weight,
As well as Bosons, things Professor Hicks has found of late.
Then there is stuff we cannot see, called dark and heavy matter.
New theories, alas, pop up that don’t inform us laymen any better.

How long, we ask, did all this take to come about?
More than a billion years, there can be little doubt.
Of course some still believe God made the All from dirt
In just six days. Not likely, after all we’ve heard.

In fact, some scientists now speculate the universe just always was;
No Big Bang there, and no primordial crater,
And by extension, if there’s logic, no creation, no creator.

The problem is: how can a thing just be, yet not begin, and have no end?
The Faithful have a simple out: “Why don’t we leave all that to God?”
Does that explain the riddle of infinity? To my mind, not.