100517- Notice of inactivity

.....As much as I hate walking away from a task, this joke-a-day blog will have to be temporarily suspended so that (a) I can return to my original blog, the analysis of the comic book Doom Patrol, found under the name "LGC: Doom Patrol", also posted as pblfsda... and (b) the launch of a new blog-a-day, "So, What Kind Of Music Do You Listen To?". This new blog is, for the most part, written. Each day will be a description of a track on a sprawling mid-1990's mix tape project. Anyone feeling exceptionally ambitious would be able to track down the individual component parts and reconstruct the tapes,or customize them to their tastes.

.....Coming up with a joke every day was the effective disciplinary exercise I had hoped it would be. Even though I did not make it to the end of the year, 136 jokes in a row is nothing to sneeze at. More importantly, for the first two months at least, it got the Doom Patrol blog back on schedule. And when I needed to delay postings recently in anticipation of additional original materials becoming available, there were the jokes to keep readers coming back (maybe). Now that many (but not all) of those materials are here, the LGC: Doom Patrol blog will return to posting around June 1st. The music blog will begin May 25th. This blog may in fact continue in October, assuming that the music blog is completed on schedule (although November would be a safer bet). In the best case scenario, of course, I would be working full-time again and doing only the Doom Patrol blog, if anything.

.....If you're just stumbling across this blog long after it's become dormant, you're not necessarily wasting your time here. There's bound to be something suitable for public speaking, breaking the ice, etc. Some of it may feel familiar, some of it may feel bizarre, some of it sophomoric, some of it provocative. Remember, it's a strange and dangerous world out there... and you're welcome.

100516- A joke

.....Product placement in Hollywood movies is really getting out of control. Someone just pitched a film about a Chinese concubine who comes to America in the 1930's to open a seafood restaurant. The working title is "Raise The Red Lobster".

100515- A joke

.....Not having grown up in the American South, I find the appeal of the Confederate flag extremely confusing.

[For any readers not from this country, the U.S. began as British colonies on the Atlantic coast. They reacted to exploitation and abuse of power by the then-current regime by breaking their ties to England, but they did it without any specific plans. Even with the snail's pace of communications back then it took less than ten years for everyone to realize that having no standard currency, legal code or even language made them a prime target for invasion by foreign powers. So, after a few years of heated arguments representatives of the former colonies compromised on a basic foundation with provisions built into it to make alterations as the needs arose. It was the Constitution that turned loosely affiliated confederates into a united republic. However, in order to get the cooperation of states that permitted slavery, the states that didn't promised to allow them to count a large fraction of their slave population when calculating their proportionate representation in legislature. Eventually they all had to deal with the obvious 'elephant in the living room': the additional representatives earned by the slaves' numbers weren't really representing the interests of the slaves, and inadequate representation in legislature was the whole reason for breaking away from England in the first place. Those who refused to allow slaves to vote planned to revert to a less structured confederacy. Unfortunately for them, the U.S. had been a single country for decades by that point and the republic had grown to include additional states and territories, complicating matters.]

.....For one thing, "strength through disorganization" isn't an inspiring motto for most of the human race. For another thing, what most people refer to as the Confederate flag was never "the" flag, it was just the last one in a long line of flags and most of the member states in the Confederacy flew their own state flags instead. Some of those states would incorporate small versions of it within their flags, but not all did. (Again, disorganization was a sacred creed for them.) You'd think that anybody in that much of a rush to look like a Caribbean island would be nicer to black people.

.....It doesn't even make sense in terms of underdog appeal. Someone walking around wearing a cap or sweatshirt from a high school team that never made the play-offs can at least imagine next year's team going all the way. There's no 'next year' for the Confederacy. The last possible 'next year' was fifty years before that flag was created. They didn't lose the Civil War because of anyone "cheating" or "being sneaky" or "shameful conduct" of their enemies; they lost for the same reason that they didn't start out as colonies of a druid empire. There was no way England could have become an international power since the Middle Ages without changing its political structure to manage that growth. The same was true for the U.S. It had grown too much since the revolution to throw all semblance of organization out the window. The Confederacy lost because there wasn't anything to win. If the Confederacy had got what they wanted and became a collection of Luxembourgs and Monacos they would have eventually been picked off one by one by European countries looking for sugar and cotton. How is that winning?

.....Variations of the U.S. flag were used when changing the course of two European wars, a Pacific war, winning two gulf wars and claiming the moon. It's also used when delivering foreign aid and participating in disarmament talks. What exactly does the Confederate flag commemorate? If you already have a flag that says "this is what 'E Pluribus Unum' can do for you", why would you knowingly choose one that says, "Oh, yeah? Well we lost. Take that, suckers!" It's like showing up in a stadium with a giant foam rubber hand that has two fingers raised and chanting, "We're Number Two! We're Number Two!... In a field of two!... We're Number Two!..."

.....Maybe I'm completely wrong about this. Maybe the Confederate flag has been around so long because it isn't a relic of history. After all, it wasn't even used that much until the secession attempt escalated to warfare. Maybe it's popular because each generation projects their own meaning onto it. For some it may mean warm memories of entrenched local power strangling employment opportunities, for others the comfort of glaring illiteracy rates and for still others epidemic teen pregnancy and the abstinence-only education policies that caused it. It's just that whenever I notice it flapping in the company of a 70's model Chevy blaring Lynyrd Skynyrd through mono speakers, I don't think of the Center For Disease Control. Well, not at first. I also don't think of the Tuskegee Airmen or Audie Murphy or R.E.M. or Truman Capote or peanut butter or Andy Griffith or gospel choirs or anything remotely commendable or decent or admirable. Well, maybe fritters. Still, if you're going to tip those scales, you're talking about an awful lot of fritters. And then we're back to pulmonary disorders.

.....I can just imagine sometime hundreds of years in the future when the human race is colonizing space. A teacher will be showing a room full of children the symbols of the home world and asking them to identify what part of the culture each symbol represents:

• A caduceus? "Medicine."
• A cross? "Christianity"
• A euro sign? "Money"
• A Confederate flag? "Umm... Wal-Mart?"

The teacher just stares blankly at the holographic image. "Yeah, sure. Sounds good."

100514- A joke

.....When I was a kid, prescription medications were never advertised on television. They were created to treat debilitating conditions and often produced mildly annoying side effects. Now that the invisible hand of market forces have set things right, prescription drugs are created to treat mildly annoying conditions and often produce debilitating side effects.

.....Seriously, as I'm typing this I'm listening to a television commercial for a prescription drug to treat symptoms as vague as "confusion" and lists potential side effects such as "an increased risk of death" or "impaired motor skills". If the drug is meant to treat confusion, maybe the real purpose of the ad is to expand the market.

100513- A joke

.....This month's book selection is a young adult novel about four teenage girls who share a pair of pants. It's called "Sisterhood of the Roving Yeast Infection".

100512- A joke

.....If you are uncomfortable or having difficulty discussing erectile dysfunction with your doctor, gently remind him that his problems really aren't your responsibility and you just want to get that toe looked at.

100511- A joke

.....Shortly after President Obama announced that his nominee for Supreme Court Justice was King Solomon there was harsh criticism on talk radio and the blogsphere, much of it repeating Rush Limbaugh's accusation that the nominee was "a radical-left activist who once tried to socialize a baby."

100510- A joke

.....Hello? I'm calling about the aptitude test I took, the one for job placement? Yeah, that's the one. Anyway, I haven't taken anything like this since high school, so I'm probably a little behind on the terminology. I just got the results back with my... let's see, it says, "Optimal potential occupational field determination" whatever that is. Anyway, under that it just says, "Cautionary tale". I was wondering... is that hourly or salary?

100509- A joke

.....Happy Mothers' Day! The one day when the normally ambiguous phrase "breakfast toast" will never be confused with a testimonial at a morning fund-raiser.

100508- A joke

.....Here's one for long rides: which is larger, the percentage of twenty-somethings who know and use the phrase "dial-tone" without ever having used (or even seen) a rotary phone, or the percentage of forty-somethings who think they understand the subtleties of constitutional law without ever having opened a legal dictionary?

100507- A joke

.....Let me see if I understand the philosophy behind 'free-range chicken'. If you have a choice between killing one animal or the other, you should kill the one that's happy?

100506- A joke

.....A long time ago there two islands in an ocean far away. One island was populated by trolls and the other by tridds. For as long as either people could remember they had always been engaged in some kind of conflict with each other. These conflicts spanned generations and ranged from shouted insults to full-blown warfare. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, these conflicts were seen for what they were: silly wastes of time and resources. There was always much more to be gained from trade and exchange of technology and culture. To this end they built an enormous suspension bridge connecting the islands at their nearest points, a mere hundred feet apart.

.....One day a little tridd set out to meet a friend on the troll island. Merchants from both sides generally used the bridge in the mornings to get in the most peddling time that they could before heading back at night. The little tridd knew that once they left the beach to head towards the villages that he would have the bridge to himself and could enjoy the view of the surf from a height you couldn't get from either side. He was perhaps a quarter of the way across, eyes to the side, when he bumped into something very large. It was a troll, and a big one even by troll standards. "Oh, excuse me," said the tridd, "I hadn't seen you..." which was even more surprising than the troll's size. The bridge was completely bare when the tridd got to it and as great as this troll's stride may be it must have been quite a feat of stealth for him to cover the remaining three quarters of the suspension bridge from the other side that quickly without being heard. "Where do you think you're going?" growled the troll. Uh-oh. "Ahhh... I'm going to visit a troll friend." said the tridd. "He's expecting me this afternoon." "No you're not." growled the troll. The tridd stepped back at first, then tried quickly running around the troll, who just as quickly snatched him up by the collar and swung him around to face the tridd island. The troll then drop-kicked the tridd in a trajectory that looked like the St. Louis Arch and the tridd landed with a whump on the sandy beach.

.....Stunned, and dizzy from having the wind knocked out of him, it was a few moments before the tridd could lift his head and look back to the bridge. By that time the troll had gone. After checking for broken bones he warily approached the bridge and called out for the troll. There was no response. Had the hostilities resurfaced, the tridd wondered? They had ended before he was born, but everyone knew of them. Then he remembered that the merchants from each island passed each other on this same bridge just that morning with no problem. He called out again; no response. Keeping his eyes straight ahead this time the tridd slowly began walking across the bridge. At ten feet he stopped, squinting to see the other beach. It was clearly empty and so he walked ten feet more. Once he had passed thirty feet he realized that he had gone further than he had made it the first time and relaxed a bit. At fifty feet, however, he felt a tug on his arm and was shocked to see the troll standing beside him. "Hey!" shouted the tridd, "what do you think you're doing?" "This," said the troll, who tossed the tridd straight up and on the way down kicked him twice the distance he had before, all the way back to the tridd island.

.....This time the tridd suspected he may have blacked out. He checked both his bones and his teeth. Everything hurt, but was there and in one piece. The troll was gone, the only thing that morning that wasn't surprising. Before getting anywhere near the bridge again, the tridd walked to one side and peered under the bridge. He knew it was an old stereotype of trolls, and he felt a little silly doing it, but he couldn't figure out how the troll could get close enough to grab him so quickly and without warning. There was nothing under the bridge, on the bridge or on the other end. The tridd then had an idea. He rubbed his muscles a bit, splashed some water on his face and otherwise braced himself. Then he dug into the sand inches from the ramp, favoring one side, and bolted as fast as he could across the bridge. At first glad just to know that he could still run so quickly after being so bruised, he soon became giddy with the suspicion that he might just cross the bridge by doing it in less time than it had previously took the troll to appear. He passed the quarter mark, the half mark and was nearing eighty feet in when he felt his feet fly out from under him and his shoulders slam onto the bridge. The troll picked him up by the shirt and once more drop kicked back to the tridd island.

.....When the troll regained consciousness it was only because he heard a voice. It was a rabbi standing over him with a worried look. "Thank God you're alive!" said the rabbi. "How did you come to be so hurt?" "I didn't come to be hurt," mumbled the tridd, "I came to cross the bridge." "Were you robbed?" asked the rabbi. "No," said the tridd, "if anything, I earned frequent flyer miles." He then proceeded to explain to the rabbi his three failed attempts to cross the bridge, each ending with the troll drop-kicking him back to the tridd island. Frustrated by reliving it, he burst into hysterical sobs. The rabbi looked up and shielded his eyes as he peered across the bridge. "I don't see any troll there now. In fact, I don't see anybody. It should be safe for you to cross now, if you're up to it." The tridd began waving his arms, frantic. "He's never there! He just appears out of nowhere! I never see him, and then he gets me!" screamed the tridd. "Okay, okay, calm down, I believe you," said the rabbi. "Should I talk to him for you? I find that many people tell a stranger things they won't say to each other. Couples, business partners... or maybe I just got that kind of face? Who knows? It's worth a shot." "Look out! Be careful!" shouted the tridd as the rabbi stepped onto the bridge, "He's really big... and really mean!" The rabbi smiled reassuringly to the tridd, but he was a little worried. He wasn't exactly sure what he was walking into; he wasn't exactly sure that the tridd wasn't crazy or lying. All he knew is that he was committed to answering questions and right now he had a few of his own.

.....When the rabbi got to the center of the bridge he stopped and looked around. He called out, "Yoo-hoo! Mr. Troll! Can you hear me?" There was no response, no noise or movement at all. "I'd really like to speak to you," continued the rabbi. "I could hear from you or hear about you, it's your choice." Still nothing.The rabbi kept walking and kept calling out until he found himself on the troll island. A passing troll fisherman waved to the rabbi, the rabbi waved back. It seemed like a normal day. The rabbi walked to the beach so that the tridd could see him, then shrugged his shoulders and threw up his arms. The tridd couldn't believe it. The rabbi then walked back to the tridd island, occasionally looking from side to side. When he stood before the tridd, he held his palms up. "Perhaps he's ashamed. Or perhaps he thought you were dead. You didn't look all that great when I found you. Whatever the reason, the troll seems to have left. You should be able to see your friend now; he may be worried about you." With the rabbi watching him from the beach the tridd gingerly began walking across the suspension bridge. He winced at shadows and stopped once or twice until he seemed to grow comfortable just walking as had first done that morning. But before he made it halfway across, the troll appeared from nowhere and grabbed him. The astonished rabbi watched as the troll drop-kicked the tridd back across the bridge just as the tridd had described to him earlier. The tridd landed in a spray of sand, alive but sniffling, crying and giggling maniacally. It looked as though his mind had snapped. "You there!" shouted the rabbi to the troll before he could disappear again, "What does this mean? Why would you do such a thing? Just moments ago I crossed that bridge myself, two times in fact! You didn't kick me or lay a hand on me or even show yourself at all! This poor tridd could have done nothing to earn such treatment. Why would you not treat him as you treated me?" The troll smiled dementedly. "Silly rabbi," he said, "kicks are for tridds."

100505- A joke

.....Politically, you can divide people into groups according to how they watch nature documentaries. There are those who are willing to sit through the hunt-and-kill segments in order to get to the courtship-and-mating segments (on the left), those who sit through the courtship-and-mating in order to get to the hunt-and-kill (on the right) and those who make a point of reading the credits (Ralph Nader).

100504- A joke

.....True story: about 20+ years ago I was watching the US broadcast television premiere of the movie "Godzilla: 1985". No, that's not the joke. It was broadcast TV, so there were paid advertisements. One of the ads was for a device that promised to shield your telephone conversations from electronic surveillance. It came complete with actors playing people who seemed to have serious anxieties about people listening in on their conversations, then expressed appropriately melodramatic relief and confidence once the device was attached to the receiver. I sat there watching that ad and thinking to myself, "Somebody paid money to run that ad. Somebody paid more money than I'm going to earn this year to run that ad. For what? How many people who could conceivably need this product are likely to see that ad? What are the odds that Henry Kissinger was sitting around snarfing cheese doodles and watching "Godzilla: 1985" that night? "He-e-e-ey, dot vould gome in quvite handy, I tink." The whole point of ads like that is that they rely on a certain percentage of the viewers being extremely stupid, or at least too stupid to understand the basics of cost effectiveness analysis. Wiretaps aren't magic. With the technology that existed at the time there would be the cost of the hardware to consider, plus the cost of the installation, plus the cost in man-hours of monitoring any recordings. Now, the only reason someone would fund all of those expenses up front would be if they anticipated that the information culled from the phone conversations would be worth more than the money they invested.

.....All I knew was that if I was holding onto information that valuable, I sure as hell wouldn't be spending my evenings sitting around watching edited Godzilla movies. I'd be watching them uncut and subtitled on VHS.

100503- A joke

.....Back in the eighties the Reagan administration did everything they could to prevent the FDA from protecting the American public. The argument was that market forces would tell us what was safe to eat, that experimentation and testing was just a waste of tax dollars. To prove their point, they forced the FDA to sit on their hands while a chemical additive called Olestra, on which they had placed restrictions for fifteen years, was used to make fat-free potato chips. After thousands of people spent far more money going to their doctors than the FDA would have spent in taxes, makers of the chips still didn't pull Olestra products from the market but instead announced that they "forgot" to add a warning which, they felt, would absolve them of any legal responsibility.

.....Now here's the kicker: the disclaimer/warning became a news item when it conceded that products cooked in Olestra "may cause spontaneous rectal bleeding". It should be pointed out that the chemical causes diarrhea in nearly everyone, which only leads to hemorrhaging if you're stupid enough to keep eating a product guaranteed to give you diarrhea until you bleed. Still, it's a phrase that turns heads at parties, I'll give you that. More than that, it's a neat condensation of a personality test. In any sufficiently large sampling of people, if you were to ask each one which word in that phrase they find most alarming, I would wager that most would say "bleeding", as though other forms of spontaneous rectal activity were... uh, negotiable? For others, "rectal" would concern them most; I'll leave the Freudian interpretations of that to yourselves. There would even be others for whom "spontaneous" would cause more anxiety, that a negative side effect would seem more manageable if it were more predictable. Me? The one word in that sentence that I home in on has to be "may". It "may cause spontaneous rectal bleeding". It says, "We had some indication that it might cause spontaneous rectal bleeding but we didn't see any pressing need to nail that down before we made food for you out of it."

100502- A joke

.....Thank you for participating in our Online Psychic Aptitude Test. If you've received this e-mail it means that your check has cleared. Please allot yourself 60 seconds to answer each of the following questions:

1. How many fingers am I holding up? ___________
2. What is my favorite color? ___________
3. On what floor is our office located? ___________
4. In what city is our office located? ___________
5. What is the name of our CEO? ___________
6. Under what US statutes is this business considered fraudulent? __________, _________, _________, and _________

.....For those of you who know whether your answers are correct, congratulations! You are psychics. For those of you who can not ascertain if your answers are correct, please send another check to the same address.

100501- A joke

.....The makers of Camel brand cigarettes have recently begun a U.S. marketing campaign for a smokeless product from Sweden called "Snus". I don't use tobacco, so I have no idea what this product is for or how it's used. I do, however, have a sneaking suspicion that their reason for marketing it in an English speaking country is that people will inevitably ask, "What's Snus?" giving them the perverse satisfaction of replying, "Oh, not much. What's Snus with you?"

100430- A joke

.....I once owned a 1977 Chevy Blazer, one of the original, full-size models. It was mostly a bucket of rust but despite being nearly worthless it had one of most dependable, never-fail anti-theft devices I'd ever seen on any car before or since: the engine. If any thief managed to get that thing to start in a timely fashion, I'd say they deserved each other.

100429- A joke

.....You may occasionally hear or read warnings about identity theft. I think that if someone stole my identity that the most appropriate punishment would be to force them to keep it.

100428- A joke

.....Tomorrow it will have been a week since Earth Day. I don't know about you, but I still hear a little bit every day about ecological efforts, unlike previous years where you got one day of lip service and then it was back to the bad old habits the next day. Everybody seems to be touting 'green' programs. For instance, Comcast seems to be putting all of its efforts into discouraging people from using electricity in any capacity whatsoever.

100427- A joke

.....Today's entry is late. Well, better this silly blog than your girlfriend.

100426- A joke

.....Just a bit of friendly advice: if you're trying to impress someone by ordering in a foreign language at a restaurant you should remember (a) salmonella is not a small fish and (b) the staff can be a teensy bit sensitive about pronunciation, apparently.

100425- A joke

.....A man walks into a doctor's office and says, "Doc, what do you recommend for a hangover?" and the doctor says, "Drinking heavily the night before. That'll be fifty dollars."

100424- A joke

.....They say that God never closes a door without somewhere opening a window. That would explain why he's never been successfully served a subpoena.

100423- A joke

.....I enjoy puns and you may see some occasionally on this blog. I understand that not everyone appreciates them as I do. Alexander Pope once said that the pun is the lowest form of humor. I don't know if anyone ever pointed this out to him, but somebody who had to go through junior high school with the last name "Pope" probably isn't going to be the most objective voice in this matter. Having to put up with "How'd you do on the test, Mr. Infallible?" and "Hey, I got a ring you can kiss!" is bound to influence your opinions. I'm just saying.

100422- A joke

.....Today is Earth Day. I usually go all out for it. This year I'm going to spend the entire day there.

100421- A joke

.....[Okay, here's another old favorite.]

.....A man walks into the bar of a Las Vegas casino looking exhausted and despondent. When he slumps onto a stool, the bartender approaches. The man looks at him sadly and orders a domestic beer. "Just the one." he adds. A well dressed woman takes the adjacent stool and smiles, saying "I can't believe there's anybody in this town who's actually not having fun. You look like you could use a little help. Want me to call a cop? How about an ambulance?" The man relaxed a bit. "No, it's nothing like that," he said. The woman laughed, "Well, I ought to be able to help you with anything else, sugar, I'm having a great time tonight. What's the matter? You lose a lot of money at the tables?"

.....The man rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, that's part of it I guess. Actually, I wasn't really expecting to win big. If I broke even it would have all been the same to me. As long as I kept playing I didn't care if the pot went up and down. The thing is..., look, I get two weeks vacation a year and I spent last year's vacation watching TV. The whole time just blew by. I promised myself that next time would be different. The first week back I started saving every dime I could. I bagged lunch, I put off home improvements, I took public transportation whenever possible, the whole deal. I didn't even know what I wanted to spend the money on when I started. Then after four months I realized that I wanted to spend it in Vegas. I figured, everything's within walking distance: the shows, the casinos, the stores. It cuts down on travel time. I didn't even have to put together a schedule. If I change my mind in the middle of one activity I can just drift to another."

....."That sounds pretty smart. So why aren't you drifting right now?" the woman asked. "Because it's like you said before, I lost a lot of money," said the man. "I got here yesterday afternoon with $5000 and promised myself I'd spend the whole thing. After depriving myself for a year I was going to spend it on what ever I wanted for two weeks. I got a room, had dinner, saw the sights and went to sleep. This morning I decided to try the casinos, and except for getting a sandwich I've been here all day. I lost everything." "You're kidding me," said the woman, "everything?" "Might as well. I got $200 left but that's not going to last two weeks. As it is I'm putting the room on my card tonight and heading home in the morning. I guess I'll spend the rest of the time working around the house."

....."Well, that's about the saddest thing I've ever heard, I don't mind telling you," the woman said. "You deserve more than that. I'm sorry I can't do anything about the rest of the week, but if you're going to be here tonight you should do something to make the trip worthwhile. And for $200 I can make you happier than a week of sight-seeing." The man wasn't sure what she was talking about, and he didn't want to make any embarrassing assumptions. While he was trying to size up the situation, he suddenly realized that in the entire time they had been talking, the bartender never once asked the woman about ordering a drink. That would be odd, unless of course the bartender recognized her as someone who was here often and had others buy drinks for her. Which would mean-- "Oh, I-- uh, I wasn't really-- I mean, I don't think that's something I'd really be comfortable with," he stuttered. "That's the whole point, silly," she replied, "you get whatever you want. I'm a professional. You call the shots. And for someone who just had all their plans pulled out from under them that's a bargain at any price. You get whatever makes you comfortable, whatever makes you happy, all for $200."

....."Anything I want?" he asked.

....."Anything at all."

....."For $200?"

....."For $200. Whatever makes you happy."

.....The man mulled this over for a few seconds.

....."Okay," he said, "paint my house."

100420- A joke

.....Okay, I'll admit it, I'm stuck for a snarky one-liner again. If nobody minds, I'm going to retell a favorite old joke of mine instead:

.....Three men wake up surrounded by clouds. There's a long line of people stretching out on either side of them. As ridiculous as it appears to them, every indication is that they've died and gone to heaven. Everything around them conforms to every corny movie and comic strip cliche they've ever seen. Cherubs are floating around, there's harp music coming from somewhere and off in the distance they can see walls of precious jewels and gates of pearl. "If we're really in heaven," said the first man, "that means we must have died". "Yeah," said the second man, "that makes sense. But I don't remember dying. In fact, I can't remember how I got here at all." The third man shrugged and said, "I can't remember either. But that would kind of make sense. None of us look as old as the people just before and after us. If we died at our age it was probably due to some accident. The mind has a way of protecting itself from traumas. Whatever's too hard to deal with, it just blanks out." "Hey, yeah," said the first man. "I heard about stuff like that. Multiple personalities and obsessions and junk. You don't think we got any of that?" The second man rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't worry about any of that. I mean, I've never met either of you guys, but we all seem to be pretty lucid, considering the circumstances... whatever they were."

.....The third man brightened up. "You know, we could probably help each other. If we're all here together, that may mean that we died within moments of each other. If our deaths were related in any way, we might only be blocking out our own deaths. We might still remember something about each other's." "That's kind of a longshot," said the second man, "since we could have died in different cities." "Well, we'll never know if we don't try.' said the first. " I don't mind going first. Even if it doesn't work, we've got nothing else to do while we're waiting in line."

.....The first man tries to recall: "I don't remember just which day I died, but for a couple of weeks, I had been suspecting that my wife was cheating on me. There were all kinds of hints, but nothing that was really proof, you know? Somebody else's shirt comes back from the dry cleaner, food missing from the fridge, dumb stuff like that. There could have been a bunch of reasons. Then one day I come home and notice an ashtray with a crushed cigarette in the living room. We don't smoke. I ask my wife about it and she said her friend Helen was over that day. She was really defensive about it. But, see, I know Helen and she's been over a lot and that wasn't her brand. And there wasn't any lipstick on this cigarette. I didn't say anything. I just let it go. But it was eating at me, every day. I kept wondering who it could be; was it somebody I knew? did she go looking for somebody? It was driving me nuts. One day, I couldn't stand it. I left work early and went home. When I got to the apartment, I took the stairs up and used my key on the door. The chain was on, but through the door I could hear voices suddenly stop. I called out that it was me, that she left the chain on and I needed her to open the door. Suddenly I heard a lot of scuffling and clattering. I asked her if she was alright, if there was somebody in there. She told me she'd be right there but it must have been at least another five minutes before she opened the door, wearing a towel and looking really guilty. 'What d'you want? I was taking a shower.' she said. I told her her hair wasn't wet and asked her if I checked the bathtub if that would be dry too? She looked pretty shocked. I guess she thought I was pretty stupid just because she'd been getting away with this so far. I demanded to know where he was. She kept pretending she didn't know what I was talking about. That's when I really lost it. I started tearing through the apartment checking every room, every closet, pulling out drawers, raving like a maniac. I kept screaming, 'Where is he? Where is he?' Then I noticed the sliding glass door that leads to the fire escape was open. It's right between the kitchen area and the living room. I rushed to it and looked down and sure enough, there was a guy sneaking down the stairs! I freaked out! The nearest thing to me was the refrigerator, so I grabbed it and started pushing. I was just burning adrenaline, my wife was screaming at me but I couldn't hear anything... and then... and then... I must have blacked out. I don't think you can die from a hernia, but pushing that fridge onto the fire escape must have given me a heart attack. Hey, I figured out how I died!"

.....The first man was so happy to have worked out the mystery he forgot how angry he had gotten remembering his wife's infidelity. The second man, however, looked angry enough for both of them. "What's wrong with you?" asked the first man. "Oh, I'll tell you what's wrong" said the second man. "I used to work as a meter reader. I used to hate reading meters in the city because you're supposed to be able to go into a building's basement and read every unit's meter at once. That would make it easy, but there's always someone tapping a line, trying to get free juice. So I gotta go up and down the fire escapes looking for illegal splices. One day, I hear some idiot screaming so I stop and look up. The next thing I know, a giant black rectangle comes zooming at me and... bang! Nothing. That's the last thing I remember before I wound up here. With you."

.....The first man looked furious. "You mean it was you?!?" The second man screamed back, "Me? You're the one who--" and the two began throwing punches and clawing at each other. An angel came swooping in from somewhere nearby and pleaded, "Oooh, stop! You must stop at once!" but the two men were absorbed in their scuffle. "You simply can't do this! There's no fighting in Heaven! It isn't allowed." The third man looked back and forth between the angel and the brawl until the angel sighed and pulled a lever only it could see. The clouds dropped out from under the fighting men and they plummeted downward and downward, their yelling gradually fading for what seemed like several minutes, punctuated by a tiny pinhole of flame below. "Oh, I so wished that wouldn't be necessary." pined the angel. "I tried to warn them. What a senseless, needless waste. They were even within sight of the gates! What could possibly make someone throw all that away?" The third man cleared his throat. "Well, we were all trying to recall the events that led us here. It must have brought up some bad memories for them. They didn't even get to hear how I died." "I've heard so many over the ages," said the angel, "I can't imagine how one more would surprise me." The third man chuckled, "Well, this is going to sound weird, but the last thing I remember is, I was hiding in a refrigerator."

100419- A joke

.....No animals were harmed during the making of this motion picture. The wrap party, on the other hand, is a different story altogether.

100418- A joke

.....Q: What walks on four legs at dawn, two legs at midday and three legs at twilight?

.....A: With modern prosthetics that could anybody. And they could throw in a tummy tuck while they're at it.

100417- A joke

.....For the modern guy looking to connect with women, remember that the key is to ask yourself, "What does she want?" Empathy is the thing to keep in mind. Always take her feelings into consideration. For instance, "Is there any particular way you'd prefer to be stalked?" could be a great conversation starter.

100416- A joke

.....I'd hate to work in the R&D department of a bakery. Where's the motivation? I mean, let's say you finally managed to create a genuinely innovative, revolutionary development in sliced bread; how do you brag about it? "It's the greatest thing since..., um,... uh, never mind."

100415- A joke

.....Today the Tea Party Express (a private company created to siphon resources off from Ron Paul's group) ends its tour in Washington, D.C. They traveled around the country recently, making speeches about how they support "the troops" (paid for, fed, clothed, housed, armed, transported and hospitalized with tax dollars), how they want want the federal government to "keep their hands off our Medicare" (paid for, administrated and distributed with tax dollars), how they want to strengthen national borders (supervised with tax dollars) and how much they love Scott Brown (recently elected in an off-season special election requiring extra tax dollars and salaried with tax dollars) as they roll their large trucks over the nation's highways (surveyed, built and regularly maintained and policed with tax dollars) by burning cheap American gas (subsidized by tax dollars) to tell everyone how bad taxes are.

.....Because it's the rest of us who "just don't get it", and other meaningful phrases.

100414- A joke

.....This month's book selection will be "A Porpoise Driven Life: The Porter Ricks Story".

100413- A joke

.....No, I'm sorry, we don't arrange walking tours of Finnish lakeside cities, we just sell mattresses. The sign says, "tempurpedic", not "Tampere-pedic".

100412- A joke

.....No, I'm sorry, we don't sell egg-yolk based paint products, just mattresses. The sign says, 'tempurpedic', not 'tempera-pedic'.

100411- A joke

.....No, I'm sorry, we don't sell batter-fried seafood, just mattresses. Yes, the sign says, "tempurpedic", not "tempura-pedic".

100410- A joke

.....This post is in fact the one hundredth consecutive daily post on this blog. As it becomes increasingly difficult to come up with original ideas on demand, I've noticed that since the fifty day mark that I've been using more long stories and topical jokes. Attributable quotes would be next, I guess, followed by cribbing Bazooka Joe comics and Snapple lids. Of course, I'm even more embarrassed that I haven't used the past seven weeks to nail down these tricky daily anniversary commemorations. For instance, a one hundred year anniversary would be celebrated with a gift of platinum (I think), seventy-fifth with diamond, fiftieth with gold, etc. Of course, once you get below the fortieth (rubies), the traditional list and modern list become radically different. That's because the modern list is a shameless, obvious scam. The later anniversaries are all the same because they're already remembered with precious stones and metals. They're already expensive and besides that, fewer people reach those anniversaries. Between death and divorce, there are far more people reaching their fifth anniversary than their seventy-fifth. The so-called modern list is an attempt to move the more expensive materials to the more common earlier anniversaries: the second anniversary, cotton, becomes china (previously twentieth) on the modern list; the twentieth becomes platinum. Leather becomes crystal, fruit becomes appliances (ooooh, romantic), wood becomes silverware and in an oddly specific turn wool becomes desk sets. This sounds less like a way to renew the bonds in your life and more like a stranger's attempt to empty a crowded warehouse. I say we just skip the pretense and insist that all anniversaries be marked with the elements on the tail-end of the periodic table. Accept nothing with an atomic number less than one hundred. These are the sort of materials whose nuclei are so massive that they can only exist if they're synthesized in a laboratory, and even then they almost spontaneously tear themselves apart. What better way to say that our time together is precious than with something that can't even exist for more than a fraction of a second? And best of all, the process is so expensive it nearly guarantees bankruptcy for most young couples early on, eliminating the need to memorize the rest of these silly lists.

100409- A joke

.....I can't believe news outlets are ignoring genuine issues in order to squander airtime babbling about the new television ad from Nike with Tiger Woods. If you haven't seen it, the visuals are a single 30-second shot of Woods in an extremely slow zoom-in but the audio is a clip of his late father's voice taken from an interview. His father seems to be answering a question about what he would ask his son. The last thing we hear him say is, "have you learned anything?" and then the visuals cut to a white Nike symbol in the middle of a solid black background. I'll tell you what I've learned from all this: "Just Do It" is just as idiotic a lifestyle model as it is advice for buying shoes.

100408- A joke

.....Is someone who hates pseudo-pods lack-toes intolerant?

100407- A joke

.....Another cliche that really needs to be retired is, "A face that could stop a clock". It only makes sense for mechanical clocks that run on counterbalanced weights that can be thrown off by severe shocks. While it's possible that there are still specialist craftsmen somewhere in the world building purely wooden cuckoo clocks out of a loving sense of red-eyed spite, that's just not something that's common to most people's experience anymore. Not only are most clocks digital readouts, but even mechanical sweep-hand clocks run on electrical current. You can turn them upside and shake them and they don't lose time, let alone stop. Normally in these cases all you'd have to do is just exchange outdated technology for modern, relevant technology the way Bob Hope used to use the same jokes repeatedly for sixty years. Hope exploited the pathological laziness and bigotry of the entertainment industry and their propensity for pigeon-holing people according to physical appearance. Jokes about Billy Barty became jokes about Paul Williams became jokes about Gary Coleman. Jokes about Jane Mansfield became jokes about Marilyn Monroe became jokes about Ursula Andress became jokes about Dolly Parton became jokes about Pamela Anderson... He stopped writing new material in 1935.

.....Anyway, the problem with the "stop a clock" cliche is that most of the things that react to sudden violence yield positive results these days, and the cliche is intended to be an insult. Somehow, "You've got a face that could light a glow-stick" or "You've got a face that gets my remote to work" just doesn't have the same gravitas. You can't go too far in the other direction, either. "You've got a face that could snap a baby's vertebrae" goes wa-ay over the line beyond snide put-down. The whole point is to straddle the line between playfulness and condescension, which is more difficult than it sounds. That's the reason people continue using the same phrases even after they've become cliches and even after they've passed the point where their derivation makes any logical sense. It's just so hard to find a replacement. Until something better comes along, I suggest "You've got a face that Dick Cheney deserves."

100406- A joke

.....[I'm busy on another project and stuck for new ideas; here's a favorite story of mine that might actually be true. I've seen it repeated several times with slight changes in the specifics, which is the first sign of an urban legend, but I'm willing to bet that at some point someone else who read it would be motivated to actually carry it out. Enjoy.]

.....A young man checking out the newspaper classified section for used cars saw an ad that he had to read twice. It seemed like something was off or that he was not understanding it properly. The ad read, "Used Porsche, $5.00" and gave an address. That had to be a mistake or maybe a joke. The most likely explanation is that the decimal was in the wrong place and they wanted $500, not $5. But even if that was the case, and the car was a piece of junk, he might be able to sell the salvaged parts for more than that, and certainly for more than $5. And if it turned out to be a toy car or something along those lines, at least he would have a good story to tell his friends.

.....He rode his bicycle to the address, which was a well manicured home with a garage, and nervously approached the front door. Things looked a little too normal. Even as he rung the bell, he wondered if this was all just some prank being pulled on the resident of the house, and he was just the patsy who answered the ad. He was thinking of the best way to word an apology when the door opened and a pleasant-looking woman in her late forties asked, "Hello, can I help you?". The young man stammered, "Uhh... I, um, did you place an ad for a car?" The woman smiled, "Oh, yes, I did. Were you interested in buying it?" "Uhhr...yeah. Yeah, but, you see, the ad technically said-- I... I brought it with me here... somewhere... anyway, it said the car was $5. Now I don't know about legally what that--" She cut him off; "Yes, it's $5. Would you like to see it?" she asked. The young man was completely lost at this point. She didn't appear crazy. She certainly didn't look like a junkie desperate for cash or a thrill-killer luring naive bargain hunters to their doom. As long as he didn't sign anything or hand over any money, it seemed safe to go along with it all for the moment. "Well, yeah. Yeah, I'd like to see it.

.....The woman stepped out of the house, locked the door behind her and led the young man to the garage. She unlocked it, then pulled a remote out of her purse and opened the garage door. Inside, surrounded by the typical clutter many people have in their garages, was a red Porsche. It looked great, maybe a few years old. The tires seemed fine, the headlights intact, no visible rust or major scratches. Yet, the more that the young man saw of the car, the more he worried about what he must be missing. "The price does include the engine, doesn't it?" he asked. The woman laughed to herself. "Yes, of course. And I think there's a quarter tank of gas in it. You can take that, too. As is for $5. Why don't you drive it around?" she suggested. Try as he might, the young man couldn't think of a reason not to. "Sure. Let's go."

.....The seats squeaked slightly; the engine started readily and purred steadily. He eased down the driveway and past his bike on the lawn, turning down one street and then another. Once he knew that it turned left and right without incident, he tried the lights, the wipers and every standard feature he could think of. Since it was a residential street, the only thing he couldn't do was take it to maximum speed, but since (a) he didn't race cars for a living and (b) he opened the paper that morning expecting to get a ten-year-old Chevy, he wasn't too concerned about that. "Hell," he thought to himself, "if it turns out that the catch is a dead body in the trunk, I'll just dump it somewhere. For $5, there's too much right with this to care about what's wrong." He pulled back into the driveway and told the woman, "I'll take it. I can pay cash, right?" The woman chuckled. "Well, I sure don't take credit cards. Cash is fine. I'll go get the paperwork." Minutes later they were filling out everything needed to transfer ownership on the hood of the Porsche. He handed her a five dollar bill. "Thank you very much. Enjoy your new car." Once he had the keys, he grabbed his bike and nervously unlocked the trunk. No body. No room for the bike either. While he pondered whether to dismantle it or just leave it, he noticed the woman reentering the house. "Excuse me," he said, and put down the bike. After walking up to her door he said, "I'm sorry, but I just can't stand not knowing. I mean, I know I already paid for the car, I know we filled out all the paperwork and there's no going back and everything, but-- I just--" "You want to know why I sold the car for $5?" the woman asked. "Well, yeah I want to know why. I mean, whatever's wrong with it, it's gotta be worth more than that." "Oh, there isn't a thing wrong with it, as far as I know. In fact, my husband's 23-year-old secretary seemed to love it while he was seeing her behind my back. So when he ran off with her and left me a note to sell the house and car and send him all the money, I wanted to make sure it went to someone who would enjoy it as much as my mother's going to enjoy the house."

100405- A joke

.....After Easter there are always some lapsed Catholics who wonder why they only go to church three or four times a year. They weren't all traumatized by power-tripping clergy; some just drift away. For them, I think it's because the organization obsesses over its own hierarchy, which is needlessly elaborate and byzantine. For instance, non-Catholics are aware of major holidays like Christmas, Easter, All Saints Day, Ash Wednesday, etc., but they probably don't realize that every date on the calendar is a Catholic holiday of some kind or another. It's because there are more saints than there are days in a year. The Vatican just refuses to let go of any excuse for bureaucracy, plain and simple. Today is a perfect example: April 5th is St. Smedley Day, named for Smedley, the patron saint of comic-opera naval officers. Tomorrow is set aside for Ste. Ratchettatatata, Our Lady of Rotary Phones. Does anybody still pray to her? The last I heard, the abbess tending her shrine had been deaf for years. I say the Vatican should establish a hall of fame and retire inactive saints just to streamline the schedule. If you have any saints in mind that everyone else has forgotten and would like to see them step aside for more relevant saints, leave a note in the comments.

100404- A joke

.....You don't hear people complain too much about the commercialization of Easter the same way they complain about the commercialization of Christmas. It could be that Easter coincides with most people's spring cleaning and they're psychologically more prepared to divest themselves of material clutter and clear things out than to 'harvest' doo-dads at year's end. They devote less time to outdoor light displays when the nights get shorter and the sun's arc takes it higher. Then, there's the simple fact that most of the pop-culture trappings we associate with both holidays were clearly stolen from pagan rites and customs with the deliberate purpose of undermining what were then rival faiths. Knowing this, early state governments in this country banned most Christmas celebrations for years. No such outrage over Easter. Of course, when you think about it, exchanging traditional, historical imagery such as crucifixion (Sado-Masochism) and resurrection (necromancy) for purloined pagan fertility symbols like chocolate (opiates) and rabbits (sex addiction) might just be seen as an upgrade in some quarters.

100403- A joke

.....The upcoming edition of The Chicago Manual of Style will include a revision requiring any use of the phrase "when hell freezes over" to be replaced with the phrase "when Nancy Grace blinks".

100402- A joke

.....If you can't tell what sex a robot is, is it androidgynous?

100401- Menu Options

.....Thank you for calling You're Welcome. If you're receiving this message it means that you have called on April Fool's Day, our only recognized holiday, and have been forwarded to voice mail. We would be happy to fulfill your low-rent humor needs during regular business hours, which are every day. As a service to our valued bipolar and emotionally stunted customers we offer the following menu in lieu of today's joke:

• For English, press one.
• For Spanish, press dos.
• For Danish, press three.
• For coffee with that Danish, press four.
• For the hell of it, press five. I always wanted to see what happens.
• If you're just waiting for a chance to give strangers personal information, press six.
• If you wanted to know why Paul McCartney stopped smoking pot, "Press To Play".
• If the first thing that comes to mind when you want to reassure someone that you don't look like Carl from "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" is that "my head is a completely different shape from his", press seven.
• If you forgot to take your medication, press eight.
• If you le-ee-eave me now, press nine.
• If you wish to hear this menu again, take two aspirin and press zero.
• If you wish to speak to a human operator, hang up and call the same number again. It will save you the time spent on hold until we did it to you anyway.

100331- A joke

....."Did I tell you I used to be a model? Perhaps you know me by my professional name. Does 'Before' ring a bell?"

100330- A joke

.....Well, there's still three days to go before the remake of "Clash of the Titans" arrives in movie theaters and we've already got a winner for the "first use of 'Release the Kraken!' as a sexual double entendre" office pool. For those of you playing at home, Sandra nailed it with 'an MIT dorm room'.

100329- A joke

.....Formally Retiring Cliched Jokes]

.....Q: What's black and white and red all over? (#9)

.....A: An embarrassed soccer ball.

100328- A joke

.....[Formally Retiring Cliched Jokes]

.....Q: What's black and white and red all over? (#8)
.....A: A Communust panda.

100327- A joke

.....[Formally Retiring Cliched Jokes]

.....Q: What's black and white and red all over? (#7)
.....A: A rusty police car.

100326- A joke

.....[Formally Retiring Cliched Jokes]

.....Q: What's black and white and red all over? (#6)
.....A: Frank Miller movies.

100325- A joke

.....[Formally Retiring Cliched Jokes]

.....Q: What's black and white and red all over? (#5)

.....A: A team of nuns playing soccer.

100324- A joke

.....[Formally Retiring Cliched Jokes]

.....Q: What's black and white and red all over? (#4)

.....A: A chess board on Mars.

100323- A joke

.....[Formally Retiring Cliched Jokes]

.....Q: What's black and white and red all over? (#3)
.....A: A mime in a woodchipper.

100322- A joke

.....[Formally Retiring Cliched Jokes]

.....Q: What's black and white and red all over? (#2)

.....A: A moon pie with ketchup.

100321- A joke

.....Since I've started this daily joke blog, I've noticed how difficult it is to use classic pun-based riddles in this medium. For example, if you're speaking to someone face-to-face you can ask, "What's black and white and read all over?" The answer is "a newspaper", but because "read" is a homonym for "red", and you list it right after two other colors, you've misdirected the person trying to answer the riddle. The essence of punning, right? The problem is, printed words aren't conducive to homonyms; you're limited to only those words that not only sound the same but are spelled the same and have different meanings.
.....Of course, the bigger problem with that particular joke is that the punchline is no longer true: newspapers are no longer read all over anymore. When they were, the joke had circulated so prevalently that a second level of misdirection became possible: you could ask the same question, and persons prepared to reply "newspaper" would instead be given a punchline based on the word "read" actually being "red". What's to become of all those jokes when the cliche they are based on dies out? I propose we give them a formal retirement. This week I'll do one per day.

.....Q: What's black and white and red all over? (#1)
.....A: A penguin with a sunburn.

100320- A joke

.....Today's the first day of spring. According to the calendar, anyway. With climate changes the past few years, the 'first robin' has been around for a couple of weeks. We may need to nominate a new sign of spring. How about "the first television series cancellation announcements"? "First shirtless jogger"? Or even, "first movie scheduled for Christmas DVD release"?

100319- A joke

.....How many Tea Party protesters does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three. The first one screws it in, "as the founding fathers would have". The second one smashes it spitefully, "as the founding fathers would have". The third one blames Obama for the broken glass, "as the founding fathers would have".

100318- A joke

.....Speaking as someone who doesn't have any kinks or fetishes, I'd like to reassure those who do that, yes, you're not imagining things, it is indeed freaky when mass media pretends they've never heard of such things before. For instance, one of the latest practices they can't seem to get over is related to anthropomorphism: couples (and sometimes groups) dressing as animals. I don't get the appeal, but I also don't have a problem with couples doing things for each other rather than for me. Unfortunately there's a whole industry built around convincing the public that it needs protection ("make your checks payable to...") from this silliness. Sorry, but I can't seriously believe that mixing nookie and play-pretend is sufficient grounds for eternal damnation, as a cable preacher recently implied. Especially not the women dressed as cows or deer. Because after all, everybody knows hell hath no furries like a woman horned.

100317- A joke

.....For St. Patrick's Day, I felt I should forego tired old cracks about alcohol and leprechauns. I'm not above stealing material (a joke every day without fail is easy some days and nearly impossible others). The thing is, falling back on ethnic stereotypes feels even more lazy than it does offensive. I would like to think I had more self-respect than that. Instead, I'd like to use today's space to send out a warm, traditional Irish welcome to the man who has done the most to keep the spirit and memory of St.Patrick alive in these modern times: Mr. Samuel L. Jackson. Because let's face it, if you're overrun with snakes, who are the two people you think of?

100316- A joke

.....I knew a guy who tried to give up smoking. I told him that it's always tough but it would be worth it. The one thing he should remember though, is that sometimes when people fail it's for the same reason that dieters fail: they often get advised to use a "one-method-fits-all" treatment. It would work better if the treatment was tailored to the condition you want to change. I recommended he try the nicotine patch first. "If you crave a cigarette," I told him, "you use the patch instead. If the cravings are stronger than that, you use two, and so on. You see? You make the treatment match the need." That made sense to him. I got caught up in work for a while and it was months before I saw him again. When I did see him, I noticed he wasn't holding a cigarette. His face and hair seemed cleaner and he had a little more energy overall. I started up some small talk, but I was dying to ask him if he had really quit. When I did, he said, "Oh, yeah, it's been a while now. You were right about those patches." "Really?" I asked, "they worked that well?" "They sure did," he said, "they tasted horrible. And lighting them is nearly impossible."

100315- A joke

.....If you have an airplane that starts to break up at half the speed of sound, does that mean you should beware the ides of Mach?

100314- A joke

.....A religious conference was being conducted in the American South and delegates from all over the world were attending. A southern Baptist preacher went to an airport in D.C. to pick up two attendees that he offered to drive the rest of the way. He greeted the rabbi from Israel and the brahmin from India and once they reached the highway exit he told them, "Since we don't really need to register until tomorrow, I figured I'd treat you boys to the scenic route and get to know the real America. Y'all need a chance to see people who live Christianity every day, not just lecture about it." His two guests agreed this would be a good idea and as soon as they reached the Virginia border he chose an exit that would take them through farm country where they saw everything from Little League games to prisoner work details. They stopped at privately owned general stores and mini-strip malls, saw barbecue picnics and humble wooden churches.

.....In fact, they were enjoying themselves so much that they lost track of time. It was already pretty dark when they ran out of gas on a country road , and to make matters worse, it started raining heavily. Seeing a small farmhouse, they hurried to it and knocked on the door. Although it was late, the farmer answered warily and when the preacher explained the situation the farmer replied, "Well, come in out of he rain. You're certainly welcome to spend the night, but your real problem is they ain't no place to sleep. I only got one bed for me and the wife. The couch there is good for one more and I guess one of you could use my old army cot. But once you set that up there really isn't even any floor space. Tell you what though, that barn out back has gotta be dry as a bone. It don't look like much outside, but I make a point of keeping it water-proof. I can't afford any sick animals. But whoever sleeps out there would have to make do with a bale of hay."

....."This is not a problem," said the brahmin, "comfort is just a material concern. Many in my homeland survive with less. If I face a necessary hardship in this life it only means I will be that much closer to enlightenment in the next. I would be honored to sleep in the barn." With that settled, the farmer pointed out the path to the barn and the brahmin disappeared into the rain.

.....Twenty minutes later there was a knock on the door. It was the brahmin. "I apologize. I cannot tell you how embarrassing this is, but whenever I lay down on the hay, the cow nearest me would get up and move. They apparently are not accustomed to sleeping near humans. I cannot bring myself to cause an innocent animal discomfort. It could come to bear very negatively in my next life!" "Don't worry about it," said the rabbi. "There's no real harm done. You can take my place and I'll sleep in the barn. Jews have faced persecution for thousands of years. If the worst I have to complain about is roughing it for a night, I should consider myself lucky." And so the rabbi disappeared into the rain.

.....Twenty minutes later there was a knock on the door. "God strike me down for a fool! What was I thinking! Of course there are going to be pigs in the barn! As matter of fact, there were cloven hooves all over the place out there. I thought I could just ignore it, but... I can't sleep out there. It may be clean, but it isn't pure." "Oh, for cryin' out loud!" shouted the preacher. "I can't believe a bunch of grown men can't just make do! I never heard of such a ridiculous bunch of--" and continued blustering on his way out the door, "-- in all my days, so help me, Jesus, if I ever so much as--" and so on, his voice gradually fading as he made his way down the path, eventually lost in the sound of the rain.

.....Twnety minutes later there was a knock on the door. It was the pig and the cow.

100313- A joke

.....With baseball season starting up, the professional leagues have finally decided to do a little preventative maintenance regarding steroid abuse. From the perspective of management, the problems don't stem from the abuse but from getting caught when it becomes so comically obvious that even congressmen notice. So, to prevent things getting that far out of hand the owners have opted for the 'theme park' approach. From now on at the doors to each of the locker rooms there will be a die-cut plywood cartoon character with an outstretched hand and a word balloon reading, "You must be this tall and able to scratch your ass with both hands to play this game!"

100312- A joke

.....For a lot of people of my generation and younger, workplace sensitivity training feels much like being told how to tie your shoes. When you're thirty years old. And the people instructing you are wearing velcro boots.

100311- A joke

.....I was wondering: can you legally change your name to "Guess"? And if so, exactly what is the procedure if you're stopped by a policeman?

100310- A joke

.....Have you been swept in right-wing pseudo-Christian hysteria during the last thirty years? Have you said a lot of rabidly intolerant, decidedly un-Christian things? In print? On video? Worried that people you know might find that online screed from a few years ago where you declared that left-handed people were evil and should be publicly executed? Embarrassing, isn't it? Well, rather than pretend that your mistakes didn't happen, or that they aren't mistakes, why not own up to them and learn from them? Rather than pretend that there's a religious basis for your behavior, you could actually have a religious basis for your behavior. Just ask yourself: WWBRFD? What Would Buddha Refrain From Doing?

100309- A joke

.....When life gives you lemons, contract citric toxemia.

100308- A joke

.....An aquaintance, J.-- , had been unemployed for so long that he was forced to cut his losses and stop paying his mortgage. Like many these days he would just allow it to default rather than pour money he needed to survive into a home that was no longer worth as much as he owed. He spent the last few months selling furniture and other possessions online and putting the money in the names of solvent friends and relatives. It would pay for gas and food so that he and his wife could live in their SUV and drive until he found work. I was helping him pack what was left into it when I asked him how his wife was taking the news.
....."She's taking it better than I expected," J.-- said. "She really hasn't complained at all. I think she's afraid to." I was stunned. There had never been any signs of violence in their marriage. "Why would she be scared of you?" I asked. "Oh, hell," said J.--, "it's not me she's afraid of. It's just that ever since we got married she's been grousing about how I never take her anywhere. Now that it's the only thing we'll be doing for a while, I'm guessing she's getting extremely particular about what she wishes for."

100307- A joke

.....The thing that distinguishes 'sports radio' from other radio formats is that 'sports radio' is where people with tiny walnuts in their skulls scream about people with tiny walnuts in their pants.

100306- A joke

.....My friend hasn't come back from the Winter Olympics yet. I heard he saw a billboard that said, "Drink Canada Dry" and took it as a personal challenge.

100305- A joke

.....The strange thing about babies and cars (#3) is that after seven years you feel like trading them in.

100304- A joke

.....The strange thing about babies and cars (#2) is that many need stricter emissions standards.

100303- A joke

.....The strange thing about babies and cars (#1) is that everyone wants to smell them when they're new but nobody wants to smell the factory.

100302- A joke

.....If there's anything worse than recording artists who can't sing using autotune programs to pretend that they can, it's artists who can sing using autotune programs to pretend that they can't. Why are people like Mary J. Blige wasting their time with robotic voices? Could you imagine the Metropolitan Opera hiring Luciano Pavarotti or Leontyne Price twenty years ago, and then when they got there handing them a kazoo and saying, "All the kids are doing it?"

100301- A joke

.....If I've learned anything from my dog, it's that sometimes you just have to stop and pee on the roses.

100228- A joke

.....Back in the 1970's, the Canadian government was having problems with indigenous peoples' separatist movements, sometimes leading to bloody confrontations. Considering the longer and more contentious relationship the U.S. government had with its own native population, many in the U.S. suggested a little preventative maintenance might be in order. "Poppycock," said a long-serving congressman, "we've always got somebody on top of those things." He seemed a little surprised when someone pointed out to him that he was on a congressional committee overseeing what were then called "Indian Affairs" himself, and his attendance wasn't exactly sparkling. "Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to kiss a few hands and shake a few babies." He arranged a speaking engagement at a reservation the next week.
.....When the congressman arrived the local leader acting as his aide-de-camp was friendly enough, but hardly enthusiastic. "It's good of you to come out here," he said. "Uhh... I can't make you any promises..." "Oh, don't worry about the accomodations," smiled the congressman. The local leader raised an eyebrow and was about to speak when the congressman spotted the podium. Sighing, the leader introduced him and the room remained silent. The congressman thought that was odd and suddenly wished he was more familiar with the culture, to know if there was any significance to that. "I am so glad to see you all here tonight," he said to the crowd filling the tiny function hall. More silence. "I come here from Washington to tell you that we hear your concerns." Nothing. He wished there was some reaction to gauge how this was going over, but the light-bulb made more noise than the audience. "All of us in the legislature are doing whatever is possible to meet the needs of America's native people." Suddenly, all the men in the audience shot one fist in the air and shouted, "HOO-rah!" The congressman was momentarily taken aback. "Well, that's certainly better than polite applause at the Rotary," he thought to himself. Emboldened, he went on with his speech. "We will provide the finest schools for your children." "HOO-rah!" came the response. "You will always be able count on our word." "HOO-RAH!" , and so on. It ended with the congressman smiling, waving and nodding his head as he made his way back through the curtains. There, the local leader greeted him and shrugged, "Well, I suppose you'll want to get back to your flight." "Oh, there's no hurry," said the congressman. "I figure as long as I'm out here I might as well take some photos. Y'know, publicity. Plus, you've got some beautiful country out here." The local leader seemed to be staring right through him. "Uhh... really? I mean... yeah, sure. Yeah, the mountains are really gorgeous but there's not much around here except the cattle pasture." The congressman smiled, "Hey, I grew up on a farm... state. That's fine with me." "Okay," said the local leader, "I can show you around. But those are some pretty nice looking shoes. Make sure you don't step in the hoorah."

100227- A joke

.....I'm sure many of you are a bit confused about why a huge powerful country like China throws a conniption fit whenever anyone mentions the Dalai Lama. The short, obvious answer is that he's a living testament to their half century effort at ethnic genocide of the Tibetan culture. If you're going to invade a country for completely illegitimate reasons, it would behoove you to make sure the leader was a thoroughly unsympathetic son-of-a-bitch whose subjects wouldn't dream of smuggling to safety at the risk of their own lives (what? I never mentioned Iraq; did I mention Iraq?) and not a pacifist who devoted his life to better understanding the human experience.
.....No, I believe China's apoplectic temper tantrums have something to do with koans. Koans have been described as zen riddles, questions that have no answers... or infinitely many answers. In fact they're intellectual disciplinary exercises. The eternal bane of dogmatic ideologies like Maoism and fundamentalist religions, koans aren't meant to be answered. They're meant as mental training for approaching any question no matter how difficult by posing one that can't be answered definitively. More is learned by the pursuit of the answer than would ever be learned by the actual answer, had one existed.
.....At some point, the Chinese communists became convinced that Buddhists were simply tricking everyone; that there were answers to all of those questions, and the Buddhists were hogging them all to themselves. By their reckoning, the slaughter and/or enslavement of millions was a small price to pay for knowing "how high is up". The clue that tipped them off was the lifestyle of the monks themselves. Many were brought to the monastery as young boys, got their heads shaved and wore a simple robe every day into adulthood. The communists refused to believe that anybody who spent their entire puberty in a remote temple surrounded by other boys didn't know what the sound of "one hand clapping" was.

100226- A joke

.....The next time you find yourself in an office building, just before you leave pick up a phone and say, " Hello, Security? I'm feeling insecure. Could I have a hug?"

100225- A joke

.....How come nobody remembers John Lennon as "the guy who broke up Fluxus"?

100224- A joke

.....A tour guide out at the wharf was playing up the area's colonial history, even affecting a period persona. "Aye", he said, "there be pirates on these shores even to this very day!" "Pirates?" cried one tourist incredulously. "They attack countries without coast guards or out in the middle of the ocean beyond jurisdiction. There haven't been organized pirates around here since the Civil War!" The guard squinted. "Err... oh, really? Well I says there is!" "All right", said the tourist, "prove it. Just show me a pirate." The crowd turned and looked at the tour guide, who was sweating but determined not to break character.
.....The guide looked around the large but sparsely populated docks and then pointed. "There! You see? That... rugged old gentleman with his hands shoved deep in his pockets? Well, you may think they're both hands, but one of them is solid, cold metal. That there is none other than Harry the Hook!" "Harry the Hook?" repeated the skeptical tourist. "Aye! Once while harpoonin' a... a... a narwahl," and the guide looked around to make sure the crowd was following him on this,"he was a-haulin' it up on deck when it lunged and swallered his prize telescope!" The tourist rolled his eyes. "Well, he weren't gonna stand fer that from no fish! He grabbed the horn with one hand and put one boot on its lower jaw and reached in... ah, but the boot slipped and the beastie bit his hand clear off!" Most of the crowd gave a startled jump and a look of concern. "Of course, medicine being what it is on a pirate ship, all they could for him was fashion the hook he wears to this day. And that's why they call him Harry the Hook."
....."Oh, come on!" pleaded the skeptic. "You can't expect us to believe that in this day and age... and anyway, you said there were 'pirates'-- that's plural, with an 's'. You got any more vagrants with their hands in their pockets?" The guide squinted again and thought, "I might, I might". He had to look a few more seconds this time but finally pointed and said, "Ah-ha! That gentleman you see limpin' over there. That limp doesn't come from the gout, oh, no. That's because that man there is none other than the notorious Peg-Leg Pete!" The crowd had all turned as one to stare at the disheveled drunk and together made a quiet 'ooooh' sound. "Oh, for the love of-- are you people serious?" shouted the skeptic. "Can't you see what he's doing here? The next thing you know, he's going to start telling you some phony-baloney story about him prying open a shark's mouth when his foot slipped and the shark bites it off! So, unless you're willing to go up to some totally skeevy-looking stranger and pull his boots off, he's free to say, 'there you go, that there is how he got the name Peg-Leg Pete'!" The guide was clenching his teeth when suddenly his face brightened and he straightened his back. "So you've heard of him?" said the guide. For the first time the tourist was speechless. "I must apologize," the guide continued, "I had no idea you were an expert. In fact, had I known I would have offered you the advanced tour we normally reserve for graduate students from the colleges." The guide began to lead the now totally confused skeptic past a boathouse they had been standing near. "You see, most people find it a bit stuffy and academic for their vacation, but you? Oh, I can see you're a man of learning, a man of real depth..." he continued as the two of them disappeared around the back of the boathouse, leaving the crowd silently perplexed. They stared at each other, the sky, their own feet, each other again, etc. Then there came a few minutes of shuffling, banging and clattering from behind the boathouse. It had stopped for a few minutes when the guide slowly emerged around the corner.
.....The crowd stared blankly at the guide until one of them asked the obvious question, "What happened to that other guy?" "Oh, him?" gasped the guide, "well, he got so caught up in our conversation, it inspired him to go off and become a pirate himself!" The members of the crowd looked at each other in pleasant surprise and there were a few 'oh, my's. "Of course," continued the guide, "you'll probably know him by his pirate name from now on. He'll be known as Woody Woodpecker."