Working on ideas for some standup. (Have done in the past, informally.)
“I was whacking off to the women’s Olympic downhill skiing championship, and suddenly I realized I’m a character in a John Irving novel.”
I almost want to say “I was whacking off to the women’s Olympic downhill skiing championship, and Austria finished first, and then the skier got eaten by a bear, and I then I realized that I was a character in a John Irving novel.”
I try to avoid doing ‘blue’, honestly, even about something like masturbary practices, and
Is John Irving too obscure for this joke to generate more than an awkward silence?
I’ve read a lot of Irving and I didn’t get it. Maybe because I read him 40 years ago.
And talking about masturbating to women’s athletics, joke or no joke, is like hanging a giant “Kick Me” sign on your ass. Why would you even post that here, now?
Talking about outright abusing them (which was indeed in the news recently, unfortunately) would be way over the line, but just talking about thinking they were hot…and I’m talking about Olympic Downhill Skiing here, not gymnastics or something…
Actually, saying “I was whacking off to the men’s Olympic wrestling championship in Austria” would be better than bringing up the women, considering the constent homoerotic undertones of Irving’s work.
Speaking only for myself: I don’t mind crude humor. I don’t mind blue material. I don’t mind jokes about masturbation.
If it’s funny.
I sort of get your joke, in that I figure you’re trying to bring to mind the randomly specific weirdness and light surrealism one might find in a John Irving novel. But frankly, I don’t think it quite lands, and I doubt enough people would recognize the reference for it to fly in a standup routine.
Unless there’s something else I’m missing, in which case I guess I don’t get the joke at all.
I think you have to be an avid John Irving reader to get it, maybe.
Irving’s novels and short stories primarily focus on some combination of the following archetypes that he seems to have created:
A weird neurotic guy who is always having issues related to sex and his penis,
Sports, specifically Alpine sports like skiing and the like, and wrestling,
Bears
Austria
New Hampshire (not referenced in any version of the joke)
I’m not kidding, these are the literally the elements that make up his ‘ouvre’.
I’m thinking the train of thought on this one is just too baroque to work well as a joke, on top of Irving being not culturally relevant enough to be recognized readily.
Maybe change it a bit so that it’s a bit less… whatever.
“I caught someone whacking off to the women’s Olympic downhill skiing championship, but when he was eaten by a bear, I suddenly realized I was living in a John Irving novel.”
I’ve read a fair amount of John Irving, but I don’t know that I would really get anything more specific than his characters tend to both act in a fairly surreal fashion, and also seem to have things happen to them that are a bit surreal as well.
The same concept of weird things happening to me, even weird cheeky things, and then feeling like I’m a character in a work by some author or director who is known for having those things be recurring themes in his work, would apply better to someone with wider name recognition than John Irving.
Also, being stoned when I’m thinking of ideas brings a lot of influence to bear on whether or not the joke will fly…or ski, as the case may be. I’m not exactly wrestling with this decision. It’s not like I’m gonna get my wiener chopped off if I bomb…hey, you know who else bombed? Someone from Austria.
The only reason that my own so-called jokes aren’t “off the wall” is that they miss the wall entirely and reconstitute the baboon instead. I’ve read Hotel New Hampshire more than once, and one or two others once each, and I didn’t get it.
I’ve seen a lot of standup (I have family members that do it). My problem with your joke is that you’re basically saying “I’m not at all like you, but here’s what I think is funny…”
What you’re not saying is “I’m like you, and here’s something you’ll think is funny.” And then you can all laugh together.
So, instead of making a connection with the audience, you’re setting yourself up as “other”, as a creepy character (played in your biopic by Steve Buscemi, or Tom Green?). Because most of your audience would not discuss their masturbating in public (let alone go into detail about who they “whack off to”).
And I’m afraid they’d be squirming enough at the first part of the joke, that I don’t think they’d even notice the Irving line. But, hey, if you’re going for a “make everyone uncomfortable but that’s ok because you’ll never see them again”, you may have nailed it. Or, if you’ve somehow found an audience made up of people that would discuss their masturbation in public, and the girls/ladies/boys/koalas/whatever they fantasize about, then it might work…
The only person who could play me in anything is apparently Brian Wilson, because I get told I look like him so often I’m actually starting to get sick of it (although I guess it means I associate with people who have good taste in music.) But something tells me Wilson has no desire to play the part in that movie, no matter how much they paid him if somehow it ever came to pass. I think he’s also a bit over the hill to play someone who’s 31. Also, can he even act?
What this joke reminds me of, more than anything, is Family Guy’s parody of Dennis Miller. A string of words ending in an obscure-ish reference, that feel like they should be a coherent thought, but just don’t tie together any particularly obvious way.
I got the joke immediately, but 1) it’s way too obscure (how many people in the audience could identify John Irving quickly enough to laugh at the punchline) and 2) it’s poorly structured (is it supposed to be funny that you’re whacking off, or that you’re doing it while watching an athletic event, or specifically because it’s women’s downhill skiing, and which one of those relates to John Irving?)
My knowledge of John Irving extends as far as “He’s a novelist”. And also “One of his books is called A Prayer for Owen Meany”, but I had to Google that just now to double-check. The content of any of those books? No clue.
I don’t know, maybe a fan of Irving would find that hilarious, but that’s usually going to be a pretty small slice of your audience.