Stereo-types and Satire

Enclosed below are some relatively stereo-typical, satirical haikus and Buddhist sayings infused with a Jewish perspective. As you know, stereo-types sometimes have a grain of truth, and satire often plays upon these stereo-types for humor. As long as stereo-types are not taken to the horrible level of propaganda, I think that, for satirical purposes, they can be exaggerated.
By the way, a professor friend of mine forwarded these to me after they were sent to him by a literary agent, so I cannot attribute them to a direct source nor can I cite where this e-mailed information originated.

Here they are:
JEWISH HAIKU:

Lacking fins or tail
the gefilte fish swims with
great difficulty.

Beyond Valium,
peace is knowing one's child
is an internist.

On Passover we
opened the door for Elijah.
Now our cat is gone.

After the warm rain
the sweet smell of camellias.
Did you wipe your feet?

Her lips near my ear,
Aunt Sadie whispers the name
of her friend's disease.

Today I am a man.
Tomorrow I will return
to the seventh grade.

Testing the warm milk
on her wrist, she sighs softly.
But her son is forty.

The sparkling blue sea
reminds me to wait an hour
after my sandwich.

Like a bonsai tree,
is your terrible posture
at my dinner table.

Jews on safari --
map, compass, elephant gun,
hard sucking candies.

The same kimono
the top geishas are wearing:
I got it at Loehmann's.

The shivah visit:
so sorry about your loss.
Now back to my problems.

Mom, please! There is no
need to put that dinner roll
in your pocketbook.

Sorry I'm not home
to take your call. At the tone
please state your bad news.

Is one Nobel Prize
so much to ask from a child
after all I've done?

Today, mild shvitzing.
Tomorrow, so hot you'll plotz.
Five-day forecast: feh

Yenta. Shmeer. Gevalt.
Shlemiel. Shlimazl. Meshuganah
Oy! To be fluent!

Quietly murmured
at Saturday Synagogue services,
Yanks 5, Red Sox 3.

A lovely nose ring,
excuse me while I put my
head in the oven.

Hard to tell under the lights.
White Yarmulke or
male-pattern baldness.

And since we're in an Eastern mode, here's some Jewish Buddhism for you (please excuse the formatting with the cut and paste):

If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

Be here now.Be someplace else later.Is that so complicated?

Drink tea and nourish life;with the first sip, joy;with the second sip, satisfaction;with the third sip, peace;with the fourth, a Danish.

Wherever you go, there you are.Your luggage is another story.

Accept misfortune as a blessing.Do not wish for perfect health, or a life withoutproblems.What would you talk about?

The journey of a thousand miles begins with asingle Oy.

There is no escaping karma.In a previous life,you never called,you never wrote,you never visited.And whose fault was that?

Zen is not easy.It takes effort to attain nothingness.And then what do you have?Bupkis.

The Tao does not speak.The Tao does not blame.The Tao does not take sides.The Tao has no expectations.TheTao demands nothing of others.The Tao is not Jewish.

Breathe in.Breathe out.Breathe in.Breathe out.Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be theleast of your problems.

Let your mind be as a floating cloud.Let your stillness be as a wooded glen.And sit up straight.You'll never meet the Buddha with such rounded shoulders.

Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers.Each flower blossoms ten thousand times.Each blossom has ten thousand petals.You might want to see a specialist.Be aware of your body.Be aware of your perceptions.Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is asymptom of a terminal illness.The Torah says,Love your neighbor as yourself.The Buddha says,There is no self.So, maybe we're off the hook.

Now on to something not so completely different...

Within “The Rocket to the Soon,” a novella that I wrote and included within Joe Fraccalvieri’s and my anthology “Extra! Extra-terrestrial!,” I included a sub-plot in which some aliens conform to stereo-types of Jewish Hollywood agents because of reading Internet propaganda. I was concerned that people would think I was advocating the stereo-type or the propaganda itself, yet I know that my smart readers will know that I am satirizing those stereo-types.

Here is the excerpt from “The Rocket to the Soon” from “Extra! Extra-terrestrial!” (available on http://www.amazon.com/Extra-Extra-terrestrial-RonBaxley/dp/1419646982/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205795815&sr=8-1 or so an intra-site search for Baxley and Extra on Amazon.com):

"...And with this, A-1 got the attention of his colleagues who were looking at alien toys, and they set off for the textile plant. They could not go as aliens and visit “Fireball” Chelder, who the “Interplanetary Ambassador” had said to see. They realized not all of the Earthlings knew about them after so many mentions of costumes. They decided it best to go incognito.

They poured over showbiz Internet research on agents, which they hacked into using temporary cyborg micro-implants. They could ask for the information from their own supplemented memory and have everything they needed. Unfortunately, A-1 (who could have been called Arian 1 after this mistake had the alien even known the gravity of the mistake) found mostly Neo-Nazi propaganda on Jews along with some indictments of “Hollywood Jews” from various right-wing columnists. Of course, some Jews were agents — kind of like how some Caucasians really were as cold-hearted and up-tight as reported and some African-Americans were thugs. –Just not all. However, to show that all agents were Jews and to see it as a conspiracy was an anti-Semitic, dangerous idea. Yet the Martians could not discern what information was trash. They thought their portrayal was anything but inaccurate.
When the alpha-numeric aliens showed up at Fireball Chelder’s office with slightly large prosthetic noses, slick suits, slicker than their hair, glasses, and whiny accents with an occasional Yiddish word thrown in for good measure, Fireball didn’t move an eyelash.
He had been in showbiz and had seen some true Jews of all varieties but not these walking stereo-types. Being from the South and having less exposure to Jewish people, “Fireball” could embrace stereo-types. These short, walking mimicking misconceptions fit his bill.
Fireball mopped his forehead and his artificial gumball red hair with a hand, wiped it on his pants, and showed a gap in his smile the size of that between the teeth of a novelty clown comb and stuck out his ham-hock hand.
A-1 shook it:
“A-1 here... I’d like to book you in engagements in outer-space. I can makeyou money;plus, you can present that concert you’ve always wanted to, you mis’-shoo’-gana, you.”

“You’re A-1, a number one, I’ll say,” Fireball barked, “So they’re doing concerts at the space station, now, are they? —Knew they’d started letting citizens live up there, but...”

A-1 said, “You could say that . . . an, er, under-ground space station on Mars. We’re all fa’-klemp’t about the possibilities.”
Fireball didn’t enjoy appearing foolish or not in the know. So he said, “Well, I hadn’t heard about that, but I’m sure it’s exciting. –Knew the moment you all walked in you was agents. –COULD... JUST... TELL. Me and my buddies have been tryin’ to get the band back together for a while. We fizzled out years ago.”

Cont’s in the anthology…