On Aug 19, 8:37*pm, Yeff > wrote:

> Years later I'm in a doctors office flipping through a Readers Digest
> and come to "Humor in Uniform". *There is my very joke, under the very
> same circumstances, told from the perspective of someone else. *I'm sure
> they didn't steal the joke from me.


Absolutely, an interesting example. I'm not a pro comic and
wouldn't want to be, although I wouldn't mind being a professional
talk-show guest - no act required, just the right guy asking me the
right questions. But while I am not a pro comic I have done comedy
and have known many of these clowns and believe me they are a
competitive bunch. Some have a more balanced view, but most I've met
think every last thought that enters their brain is theirs - and it
is, in their own brain. At the same time it is nice to be told that
something you've done is creative or unique. Unique is fine with me.

I have a similar one to yours. When I was hanging out at the
poolroom in Hollywood back in the late 60s we were young and sitting
around talking about which ethnic group was the worst cause of our
problems. Everyone had their own pick for worst of the lot. As each
ethnicity was bashed I expressed sentiment with the put-down but added
my own, saying, "Those groups are nothing compared to American
Indians. Why don't they just go back where they came from?"

Now that is not hilarious but I thought so at the time and so did
the others. A few years later I was watching a Marx Brothers movie in
which Groucho was at a socialite party and he said that same thing to
a dime-store indian-looking guy at the affair. Now, maybe I heard
that when I was really young, but more likely the conversation us guys
were having brought it out of me, the way exchanging ideas with other
people is bound to brings new ideas to the heads of all. Sometimes a
guy can say something funny and not even know it's a joke till someone
laughs, at which time he might even think at first that he's being
laughed AT. Then he laughs himself when he realizes the joke he just
told without knowing it was a joke. That means the guy who laughed
was as much the author of the joke as the guy who told it.

TJ