A joke that’s not very good - duh, obviously.
I have this idea which, if I don’t mind me saying so, is super SUPER SUPER SUPER great: write a stand up comedy routine that’s not funny.
Here’s what I got.
Thanks everybody, thanks. It’s great to be here. I haven’t performed in a while. The last time the audience rushed the stage and forced me to stop. It was a regular laugh riot! Ha! But seriously folks, I’m a traditionalist. I do pretty old fashioned style of comedy. For instance, I like to tell light bulb jokes. For instance, how many electricians does it take to change a light bulb? (Pause - 1. 2. 3.) One. I mean hell, I can change a light bulb and I didn’t go a trade school, so if a guy can rewire a whole house he shouldn’t need any help. Am I right? Huh? But anyway, why would you want to hire an electrician just to change a light bulb? You’d have to be pretty rich to afford that. Or pretty stupid! Like I said, even I can change a light bulb and I _am_ pretty stupid. Ask my wife! And even if you really didn’t know how to change it, I’m sure you could find instructions on the internet. But I guess it’d be hard to use a computer in the dark. Ha! Speaking of in the dark, I’m having an affair and my wife doesn’t have a _clue_. Don’t tell her! Oh no I forgot she was here! Hi honey! Uh oh, I’m really in the dog house now. You know what I’m saying fellas? Huh? I better get myself a flea collar. Or maybe I better just flee! Cuz she’s gonna beat my ass now, and I don’t mean erotic spanking! Ha!
[I have another bit that’s like a ghost story about a funeral home with a possessed coffin. It’s really long. The punch line is “then she pulled out the cough drops and stopped the coffin!” I could write it up but the point is just to tell a long long ghost story that ends abrubtly with a bad pun.]
lol. You must be a big fan of the movie ‘the aristocrats.’
Comment by Adam W. — December 20, 2007 @ 2:14 am
I actually haven’t seen it.
And if you actually laughed then maybe it didn’t work…
I talked to Jay on the phone about it last night. The idea is to seem like a sincere attempt at comedy, but to fail. So that if people laugh they’re laughing out of pained sympathy or else laughing at me. It’s kind of like writing a character. I was thinking his name will be David Mueller.
“So anyway, yeah, my name’s David Mueller. It’s not a great name but it’s the one I got. Kids used to make fun of my name in school. It’s an old name, from the days when your name was from what you did for a living. My great grandfather used to castrate mules. So, mule-er. When I would complain that kids made fun of my name, my grandfather used to say, at least our name isn’t Castrater! Then they’d really make fun of you! But yeah, kids used to pick on me. They called me moolah. Moo-ler, like a cow. I used to say, whatever you’re just jealous cuz I’ve got lots of moolah cuz I’m rich! I’m not really rich though. I do okay. But if I was rich, if I really had a lot of moolah, I’d spent it in on crazy stuff that’s totally unnecessary. Like having an electrician come to change the lightbulbs when they burned out!”
Something like that. I don’t know that I would _actually_ perform this. If I did I’d have to pack the room with friends who were under orders to laugh really hard. Ang sugested that I have note cards that I fumble with and deliberately screw up the bit then backtrack, and Jay said that one could be smudged and torn, I could start a joke then just trail off then change jokes. He also said I should cough while performing.
Comment by Nate — December 20, 2007 @ 9:23 am
You should go see aristocrats. I’m not saying you need to watch it all the way through, but it really made me think about humor. Anyways, I laughed because I like stuff that’s ridiculous. You have a good way of making it so cliche and silly that its just over the top. I dig it.
Comment by Adam W. — December 20, 2007 @ 9:05 pm
I like to make up songs, on the spot, about ron paul being a Nazi and put them up on you tube with no rehearsing, or very little. It is exhilerating! For example, search my screenname “Bobbyusbombs” on YT and, say, “Defeat Ron Paul the Nazi”, a sort of quasi George Jones ditty…
Comment by bobbyusbombs — December 21, 2007 @ 12:50 am
nate, this is great. it reminds me of when i performed jokes from boys life magazine at my elementary school talent show. also it reminds me of andy kaufman.
Comment by WO — December 21, 2007 @ 2:45 am
have you seen this?
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVC1KMTOgwiSoMQyT2LwZc9HyAgA
Comment by tzuchien — December 21, 2007 @ 11:39 am
Thanks y’all.
My nephew added a joke: “how many joke book writers, I mean, comedians, does it take to change a lightbulb? One, if they’ve been to trade school as an electrician.”
Jay added some more too, like “I’m a meat and potatos guy. Like for instance, I meet people and they invite me over for dinner and I say, ‘what, dinner, tonite? okay that sounds great, what are we having?’ and they say ‘meat and potatoes!’”
My other nephew also told me a joke I thought was genuinely funny:
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Control freak - now you say ‘control freak who’”
I did the act for my friends Tom and Sarah (Sarah is controversial on the internet) two or three nights ago in Chicago, they showed me some youtube videos of Tim Heidecker, which is pretty close to the idea I’m playing with here - http://youtube.com/watch?v=u9F0svqEtw4
oh yeah, WO - let’s hang out soon!
Comment by Nate — January 1, 2008 @ 3:26 am
oh yeah, I forgot to mention - Jay is going to try out the act in a week or so at open mic night at his friend’s bar in Kenosha or round about there. Should be good. Ideally, I’d like to perform this with a house packed with friends instructed to laugh, for the sake of my confidence. That makes it more like a performance piece. The other thing I’d REALLY like to do is get a ton of people to perform it in a ton of places at open mic nights, all as the same person.
Comment by Nate — January 1, 2008 @ 3:29 am