Suppress jQuery event handling temporarily

Is there an elegant way to temporarily suppress jQuery events? I use code like this:

$(element).unbind(event, function1).unbind(event, function2);
// code for which the event is suppressed
$(element).bind(event, function1).bind(event, function2);

but I find it a bit clumsy and not very scalable to many events. Why do I want to suppress events temporarily? I use BlockUI plugin to block UI during Ajax access. This is done with: $().ajaxStart($.blockUI).ajaxStop($.unblockUI) as proposed by BlockUI.

However, one Ajax access is special, so I need a different message. The ajaxStart and ajaxStop events interfere with the message code (nothing is shown):

function message(text, callback) {
  if (text == undefined) {
     $.unblockUI();
     return;
  }

  // $().unbind('ajaxStop', $.unblockUI).unbind('ajaxStart', $.blockUI);
  $("#message_text").html(text);
  $.blockUI({message: $("#message")});
  $("#message_ok").click(function() { 
    // $().bind('ajaxStop', $.unblockUI).bind('ajaxStart', $.blockUI);
    $.unblockUI();
    if (callback != undefined) callback();
  });
}

Only if I uncomment the unbind() and the bind() lines, it is working.