Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1991
Abstract
Back about eight or ten years ago, when Punk hit the American youth scene, there was a joke floating around. It went something like this: How did the dead baby get across the road? [Answer: Safety-pinned to the chicken.] Of course, in order to "get" the joke, you have to understand the Punk mentality and be able to recall instantly the joke that (as far as I can tell) has floated around children's playgrounds for the past several decades: Why did the chicken cross the road? [Answer: To get to the other side.] For Punks, the philosophically probing "why" is displaced by the methodologically curious "how" in the conjugation of humor over time and as history moves even more steadfastly toward the absurd.
Comments
Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 11:3 (Summer 1991). Copyright © 1991 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.