Have you heard the latest joke about Chuck Norris?

"You know what kind of furniture Chuck Norris has in his house?" says Matt Kindred, 18.

"Bowflex."

Matt tells another: "Chuck Norris never blinks his eyes. Never."

Behind him, manager Richard Moody, 22, echoes: "Never!"

Matt executes a pirouette and whips a finger at countermate Evan Heebner, 19. Evan tells the one about how Norris' tears cure cancer. "Too bad Chuck Norris never cries," Evan says.

"Ooooh, good one," everyone says.

A teenage thing

Teenagers all across the country, many of whom have never even seen Norris' "Walker, Texas Ranger" TV series, are telling jokes about Norris.

The jokes are really bad. If you want to blame someone, the guilty party is a Brown University freshman. Since last summer, Ian Spector has been spreading jokes like: "Chuck Norris has already been to Mars; that's why there are no signs of life there."

Spector has collected 40,000 jokes like that. Every day he gets more than a half-million hits on his Web site, The Random Chuck Norris Fact Generator (www.4Q.cc/chuck/). His jokes have been picked up by "Saturday Night Live."

Just joking

Customer walks into the Boston Market.

"How you doing tonight?" says Matt.

"Good."

"You know who else is doing good? Chuck Norris."

The guy browses the selections, asks for turkey.

"We're out of turkey, sir," Matt tells him. "Do you know why we're out of turkey? Chuck Norris."

For starters

When the craze started, Norris was more befuddled than angered or amused. He let his publicist handle the newspapers. He stuck to his Walker persona, which is, you know, brick wall. On his Web site (www.chucknorris.com), he basically took this position: I. Get. It. Ha. Ha.

The phenomenon surprised everyone. Norris' "Ranger" series ended in 2001. You see him now on Total Gym infomercials and reruns. He was old news to kids.

Then last summer, Spector invented his Random Fact Generator. He started with Vin Diesel (www.4Q.cc/vin/). Sample: "When mortals rub two sticks together, we get fire. When Vin Diesel rubs two sticks together, we get Christianity."

It went over modestly well. Spector asked his Web audience to nominate a successor. Norris was the overwhelming favorite.

"It exploded," said Spector. "Since last summer, we've had 50 million hits. We generally get between 500,000 and 800,000 hits a day."

How come? "It's interesting — most of the people don't know his work, but they know his character," said Spector. "He's cool and calm, but he can kick butt."

The jokes are anything but ironic or mean-spirited. They celebrate and enlarge the myth, through the demented lenses of teenage boys. Only a 17-year-old computer geek like Spector could have done it.

Face to face

Recently, Spector looked straight into the flinty eyes of his craggy but still seismic butt-kicking foil at a casino in Connecticut. You might say Spector was staring into the face of death by karate chop.

Spector brought his dad, a business lawyer, to the get-together that Norris had requested. Norris ominously brought his own lawyer, plus his business manager, plus his wife.

"It was all a little surreal," Spector said.

Norris may be 65, but "he looked like the kind of guy who could handle a tough guy," Spector said.

As for Spector, "I'm no eighth-degree black belt by any stretch of the imagination." (Norris is working on his ninth.) Spector looks like what he is, a kid from Rhode Island, studying the supremely esoteric field of "computational biology." He wears glasses. Chuck Norris kills about three computational biologists every day. Then he eats their glasses.

Norris looked Spector up and down. "You look like a young Bill Gates," he said.

The two talked for about an hour. "It was very informal," said Spector. "He asked me about my plans, and he hinted at some promotion of merchandise."

For some reason, Norris decided to let him live. For now.

The one about the steaks

The high school girl at the counter is getting into the spirit of things. She tries to tell the one about Chuck Norris and the steaks. She gets it all wrong.

"Chuck Norris walked into a restaurant, ate four steaks, did five roundabout kicks, and then had sex with a waitress."

Matt: "It's 'roundhouse' kicks."

Girl: "Whatever."

What Chuck Norris has to say

On a recent Thursday afternoon, I tracked down Chuck Norris in Dallas. His publicist said Norris had decided to talk. I figured 1,200 miles was a safe distance. But then, he's Chuck Norris.

"What do you make of this, Mr. Norris?"

"Amazing!"

He sounded jovial. Maybe he'd just ripped out someone's spleen.

He said he now has his personal 20 favorite Chuck Norris jokes. His No. 1: "When the boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris."

At first, he said, he didn't know what to make of the jokes, or Spector and Spector's Web site.

"I don't do computers," Norris said. But he has a 19-year-old stepson who does. Friends have e-mailed jokes to his wife, Gena.

Norris heard about the 50 million hits on the Web site. "I don't know what that means, 50 million hits," he said, "but 50 million of anything is impressive."