williebaz said:
I just wrote this a few minutes ago, what do you think:
A joke I wrote:
Karl Marx got dumped by his girlfriend and he was feeling a bit depressed, so he went to his friend Mao to talk to him about it. After being told about it Mao said ?Sorry man what a bummer, hey I know, we should go to a bar and get hammer?d, you?ll forget all about it in the morning?. So they went to a bar. When they got there, Karl noticed an attractive woman in an expensive fur coat sitting across the room, but he was too nervous to say anything about it. He mentioned it to Mao, he told him to buy her a drink. Karl was too nervous though. A few drinks later however he felt confident and he decided he would go speak to her. She was a pretty looking lady wearing a nice expensive looking coat. Karl went up to her and said, ?Hey, are you?sh a burshwaushie, ?caush I?m shenshing an uprising in my lower clash?.
Copyright of Willis Peterson
Edit: burshwaushie = bourgeoisie
So Karl Marx went to a bar one night, got pissed drunk, walks up to a woman and says "Hey, are you bourgeoisie? Cause I'm sensing an uprising in my lower class..."
Your setup is way the fuck too long for the punchline. Doing "long setup" jokes is extremely difficult to do right. Not only do you need to keep the setup itself interesting enough for people to stay with it, but the punchline has to be totally worth it. A good technique to use when you're trying to do a long setup joke is to sneak in "smaller" jokes. In your setup there's no reason for a lot of stuff. What does his wife leaving him contribute to the joke? Why Mao? Cause he was a commie? "ahah"... Your joke comes down to a one liner, so your setup needs to be adequate. For the long setup to work those things had to mean something. For instances:
So Karl Marx got divorced one day. His wife wanted him to privatize his privates while he argued she was just being materialistic and he needed to explore his force of production. So anyways, he calls Mao Tze-Tung, tells him he's feeling blue. Mao says he's feeling a bit red himself so they should hang out. They go to a bar, they get pissed drunk. Suddenly Marx sees a very sexy woman, dressed in red, he turns to Mao and says "Oh man... Look at that". Mao says "Why don't you go talk to her". "Oh I dunno...". Mao turns and goes "Stop! Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole", and then passed out on the counter. Marx figured he had one too many drinks, but figured he'd go for it anyways. He walks up to the lady, puts on his best 19th century philosopher charm and says "Hey... Are you bourgeoisie? Cause I'm sensing an uprising in my lower class!"
Keep in mind that a joke like this relies heavily on delivery. This was just an example though, and in this specific case I think the one liner works best, but you get the picture.
That said, this kind of humor will always be very restricted and specific.
Leave out the drunk talk cos it's hard to read, and don't you dare dumb it down. Just shorten it, as others have said.
