Blankisms

I’ve been meaning to post this all term: a collection of things Professor Blank has said. Always with perfect deadpan.

He opened the first class with some guidelines: “Take notes, look like you’re staying awake…”

“I come from the US, where we like to execute people.”

Describing a gang from when he grew up, in Milwaukee in the ’50s: “They did nasty things, like spray-painting and bending the aerials on cars.”

On the Branch Davidians: “Since it was in the US, it would probably be difficult to nuke their own country. Even the US probably wouldn’t do that.”

True story: “I passed my Russian exam by hitting all C’s.”

“I left high school and didn’t speak to any of those pepole ever again. Well, not on purpose. I just left the state. And the country.”

On moving away from a bad neighborhood as a child, because his parents didn’t want the bad influence: “I guess it worked, because I turned out as boring as you can possibly imagine.”

He was in a taxidermy club in high school; Jeff Dahmer was in the taxidermy club in the next school district over.

“If you really want to confuse a baby, when they start walking, put a mirror on the floor. It’s fun!”

On the development of legal systems: “What happens if people break the law? What if they kill someone? Well, in the US, you wanna kill them. What if they steal? Well, in the US, you wanna kill them. What if they run a red light? Well, in the US, you wanna kill them. But eventually it gets to the point where you can’t kill everybody…”

“Well, I believe the sun revolves around the earth, and anyone who disagrees with me, the best they can get in this class is a C.”

After taking a quick poll of the class? “Really, you don’t like parties?…I don’t like parties. Unless there’s free liquor.”

“I like that! Good questions in this class. –Not many, but…”

On supermarket trolleys: “At least you don’t live in Florida. Old people there hit you on purpose! I mean, I know I’m old, but these are really old.”

After half a dozen rants on express lanes in supermarkets: “All my kids tell me to let it go. Nobody’ll go shopping with me anymore…”

“I’ll give you a story, that you will remember ’cause it’s so pathetic.”

“I fed the ducks. I like ducks. If I could be anything else, I’d be a duck.”

On the AARP: “A lot of old people don’t know they’re members. They don’t know they’re paying $10 a year. They don’t even know where they’re driving!”

To demonstrate how useless the job of the US Vice President was, he told a story from when he was a young political aide. He had to get several signatures, one of them being Hubert Humphrey. Most of the signatories had him in and out in a couple of minutes. Humphrey offered him a drink (“Coffee? Diet Coke?”) and ended up talking – about his family, about whatever – for several hours. The VP had absolutely nothing else to do. (How far we’ve come…)