PLEASE DON'T POKE ATTHE ARTICHOKE JOKES

This column is from my newspaper days back in California. I think the satire was published around 1997 or so, but you will see that nothing has really changed in the Reverend Jackson type world. Jena 6 proves that wherever people are offended there is someone trying to create hatred between the classes


Stardate, June 14, 1980. After a long night of driving through thick fog and narrow two lane highways, I pulled into Kingtree, South Carolina. After backing up to the dock, a lanky southern lad unloaded my 53 foot trailer full of dog food. By the time he finished pulling off the pallets and breaking them down it was time for lunch, though my Minnesota timepiece said breakfast.

Being a stranger in town, as so it was everyplace I delivered, I asked the young gentleman where a lady might get a bite to eat.

"Oh," he replied, "Ya'll gotta go out to the highway. You don't wanna eat here in town, It's full of, ya know, black people (politically correct wording placed here.) The best place to get eats is the motel just outside town, cuz they put up a buffet every noon."

I jumped into the cab of my beautiful red International Eagle and headed down Highway 52 searching for this buffet where white people ate. I pulled my empty truck into the dusty lot and shut ‘er down. As I opened the truck door the humidity hit me in the face like a jug of sorghum.

From the outside, the restaurant looked like any other American roadside eating establishment, but the food didn't quite look like Midwestern food. The steam table had large trays of "good ol' boy" food; catfish, hushpuppies, fried chicken necks and backs, white rice and of course, slimy cooked greens. After consuming what we stupid Yankees call knockers and a plate of greasy fried potatoes I left, thinking I should drive back into town to see just exactly what the black folks ate that he warned me about.

Now all you southern ladies and gents of notable respect who consume slimy green-pond-scum type food and eat bottom feeding fish who live in murky water (Yankee talk), let it be known those foods have now been placed on the things you can no longer joke about in public without being accused of hate speech. Another big step in political correctness, another small step for mankind.

Allow me to explain. It seems like this white-golfer-guy, Fuzzy Zoeller, repeated a bad food joke about collards. Now K-Mart, who sells a lot of nasty junk food products like Rice Krispie sticky stuff loaded with white sugary marshmallow, and artificial chocolate breakfast cereal designed to launch your children into explosive fits of attention deficit disorders, stated Fuzzy could no longer remain a sponsor of sporting goods because he said the "SF" word. (Southern Food). Unlike Dennis Rohdman, Fuzzy is no longer a good role model for American couch potato children, which, by the way, are inedible.

Now I rarely shop at K-Mart after they built a store on my ecologically sensitive childhood home in Ohio. I'm sure thousands of bullfrogs and pollywogs, not to even mention butterflies and fireflies, which are also inedible inasmuch as to ensure good taste you need to cook them in highly saturated oils. The above innocent critters were massacred at the hands of K-Mart developers, not Fuzzy Zoeller.

Protectors of sensitivity gaged when Fuzzy made collard jokes. Collards are, by the way, consumed by white folk who won't let black folk know they eat the leafy organic matter, because black folk have to eat in town while white-butt-honkies eat out on the highway.

Remember now, Tiger Woods never fell to the ground in a fitful rage over collard jokes because he is a golfer with a bit of class. As far as I know, no other black athlete appeared on television to voice their rage over collards.

Now you executives at K-Mart, sit down. That's right, pull up a chair and let Micheala explain something to you. We don't need your steeenkin' cheap Blue Light politically retentive group to stop endorsing Fuzzy in order for you to endorse another group of crybaby rejects like People Against Nasty Food Remarks Yo'. PANFRY has to be stopped and K-Mart, you need to get a life.

All around the globe humanity laughs at the consumption habits of others with no shame. Jewish people are razzed for chicken soup and Matzo balls. How many Jewish chicken soup jokes are out there? Millions at last count.

Italians are not getting off that easy, the little spaghetti benders anyhow. The Russian potato jokes, man are they bad, but the one about blintzes really crack me up.

By the way did you ever hear the one about two guys from Austria who ordered Gans Leber. Irealize. That is not as humorous as the little lady from Tunisia with amnesia who fed her dying husband a big plate of Chachouka. All right, that is an old joke, it's still funny though.

My Japanese roommate in nursing school used to tell me a joke about two dragons, a virgin and a take-out-order of Take No Ko No Unani. Had something to do with fingernails, never did get the punch line.

One of my all time favorites is the blond who ordered Borju Vagy Dizno Paprikasszelet in a Hungarian cafe, thinking she ordered Transylvanian Tokany, what she got was Boszorkanyhab. She wiped out the whole experience with a jar of White Out.

Yes sir, my friends, food jokes can really bring us together as one, give us peace and harmony amongst all people in all nations. Food witticisms are somewhat like singing, "I want to give the world a German Apfelsinebiscuittorte Ungefult in perfect harmony, it's the real thing."

Of course there are a few off color jokes. Just mention Lutefisk to any second generation Norwegian or Swede and see what happens. I don't recommend doing so if your ears are easily offended.

Meanwhile K-Mart, you purveyors of junk food, dump the PANFRY whiners. We don't want Fuzzy back on your Chinese manufactured sporting goods–he is way better than that.

Oh, and I know you heard the joke about the first words red-neck children learn to say. "Attention K-Mart shoppers."