Yo, Tech Answer Guy,
In a recent column, you mentioned Standing and Yapping. Were you aware that they were a comedy team in the 1920s?
Sincerely,
Stan from Kyrgyz
Yo, Kyrgyz Stan,
At first, I thought this was a joke. If I remember my recent column correctly (the details can sometimes get a little fuzzy on The Tech Answer Guy), I was referring to the fully erect posture and incessant speaking that characterize people who run overpriced three day seminars at hotels near the airport during the off-season. Standing and yapping. However, because I like to give my readers the benefit of the doubt, I looked it up on Wiwipedia. And, guess what?
According to that august (it can only be trusted in the summer) source, Lionel Standing and Lee Ya-Ping, sometimes billed as “the Chomping Chinaman,” were a British Vaudeville comedy duo. Their act consisted mostly of Standing telling what we would now consider racist jokes (but which, at the time, was considered “good clean funne for the familye entire”) as Ya-Ping gnashed his teeth in increasing seethiness.
This was occasionally punctuated by Standing hitting Ya-Ping about the head and shoulders (sensitive to the depictions of Asians in the popular media, Ya-Ping always carried shampoo with him wherever they performed) with a bladder filled with creamed corn. Standing and Ya-Ping were considered “progressive” for their time because, in most mixed-race comedy acts, the Caucasian would hit the ethnic character with a bladder filled with scalding hot tea and three day old scones (which, for all intents and purposes, were like stones).
The act broke up in 1928 with the advent of sound film, which was odd because they never actually appeared in any movies. Ya-Ping tried to succeed as a solo act, but nobody wanted to spend their hard-earned dollars to watch an Asian man grind his teeth on stage for 40 minutes (and they were busy spending their easy-earned dollars on direct from the factory gruel). Standing died in Obscurity (a suburb of Chicago) in 1943, while Ya-Ping died in Penury (a Chinese Canton) in 1960.
I’m sorry I ever doubted you.
The Tech Answer Guy
Yo, Tech Answer Guy,
Hee hee. You said “fully erect!”
Sincerely,
Juvenile from Jersey
Yo, Juve,
As a licensed adult, I am obligated by law to say: “Oh, grow up!” As somebody who adheres to the Macho Code of Manliness, I am obligated by tradition to say: “Hee hee!” You figure it out.
The Tech Answer Guy
Yo, Tech Answer Guy,
Are you sure about this whole standing and yapping thing? I did a Booble search on the so-called comedy team and came up with nothing. I borrowed my Uncle Betty’s History of Vaudeville in 27 Volumes, but they weren’t mentioned there, either. (Okay, I skimmed volume 22, but I wanted to write you before the sun turned nova.) So, I went back to Wiwipedia to try and find the page you quoted, but all that came up was a message that read: “The page you are looking for is not available, pending review by somebody who is older than 13 years.” I think Stan may have played you, The Tech Answer Guy.
Sincerely,
Helpful from Hamilton
Yo, Helpy,
Maybe you didn’t search Wiwipedia properly. All you have to do is…what the – I didn’t see that when – carry the two…but, that didn’t – wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!
But, no! No, that can’t be! I distinctly remember seeing grainy black and white photos that were either of a white man hitting an Asian man with a bladder or a sperm whale falling through clouds next to a potted plant. And, okay, a couple of years ago I was burned by the photo that its owner claimed to be of Bigfoot eating a foot-long sub with Horton Foote on a football field – turns out it was a picture of the Rolling Stones on their Death Minus One and Counting Tour. Still, I believe in the evidentiary value of photography, dammit!
The Tech Answer Guy
Yo, Tech Answer Guy,
Hee hee. You said “evidentiary!”
Sincerely,
Juvenile from Jersey
Hey, Juve,
Don’t make it bad. Take a sad word, and make it better. Okay? Okay?
The Tech Answer Guy
If you are a dude with a question about the latest technology, ask The Tech Answer Guy by sending it to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Just remember: it takes somebody secure in his masculinity to make an obscure and generally gratuitous Beatles reference.