At least until winter, when they can hide the bombs under their winter coats. She was shocked to see him since she just got him on the school bus, then she noticed the school bus with its funny stories essay open, in front of her house. I got one video that was so hard to watch… well, let me give you some background, funny stories essay. My dentist drives a Saab. Then back at the roses, and the Champagne.
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Some of these are funny, and some are serious. If you can't tell the difference then I'm not doing my job. Sure, not everybody can do my job it takes talent as a writer and performer, plus years funny stories essay practice but neither can anybody just get into medical school, pass the bar exam or become an engineer. Making a list of the best jobs but leaving out the creative ones is like having a list of the best places to live but excluding all the coastal states, funny stories essay. Not a funny stories essay I know just what you need… come to a show!
This is especially true for the waitress you have a crush on. This is possibly even more importantly true if one of the waitresses is dating the booker. Try not to have a crush on the waitress dating funny stories essay booker. I was the first NY comic to audition for Last Comic Standing II. And I was funny stories essay not ready— very new in stand-up. While waiting to go on stage I thought of an addition to strengthen my opening joke, an addition I still use. And I promptly forgot about it when I nervously stepped on stage.
time they were living on in front of people who watch comics for a living. And as I sat next to them at the call-backs I saw them sit through many comics without laughing much at all. They asked me if I were nervous because I was performing for only two people. Two, actually. One thing I noticed at the LCS II call-back show is how tight most of the sets were. That is, instead of getting a story started, then set-up, set-up, punchline, the comics who did well had almost every single sentence get a laugh. A punchline would also set-up the next sentence and it would flow from there. So a three minute set would have well more than fifteen laugh lines. It was a great show to watch as well as educational and inspiring.
And quite humbling for a new comic. So put the shortest, strongest jokes up front. Thirdly, one does not want to end up on the blooper reel— where they show comics looking ridiculous. So to avoid ending up on the blooper reel I have gone through my jokes one sentence at a time to eliminate anything that might not sound good out of context. Specifically one joke has a punchline that works well with the set-up but the punchline alone sounds creepy. Funny stories essay out that joke. Then I get on stage as much as I possibly can in the next week and a half to practice my two minute audition set plus my four minute call-back set. Then I show up at the audition and I hope that I have the set of my life. Twice in a row. I want all of us to rock.
Good stand-up raises it up for everybody. And good stand-up on TV gets more people to come see our shows. And I want NY comics to dominate as we should— after all, NYC is the center of stand-up comedy. Funny stories essay mother sent me the link to a study reporting that drinking low-fat or non-fat milk may lead to cancer. Funny stories essay, mom. I read the same newspapers you do, and then some. You know what causes cancer? Not dying of something else first. Sure, some things are known carcinogens: Smoking. Having a job wrapping asbestos around pipes, funny stories essay. Maybe they were drinking low-fat milk in place of wine.
Or beer. Or Erbitux, funny stories essay. And maybe, just maybe, the people who drink regular milk are mixing it with their Kahlua or Baileys and that, too, knocks down some cancer. To whichever idioticalite at the Clinton campaign who thought it was a good idea to load six buses full of supporters on a narrow sidewalk right outside of Grand Central Terminal at funny stories essay PM on a Friday: Funny stories essay a clue. Hillary, you ought to know better. I expect this behavior from someone who grew up in one of the forty six states without people. But you? I get it. Funny stories essay leave that to lower-ranked people twelve levels down from you. Well, baby Einstein, maybe not. But that lower-level person is going to be offered a job as a mid-level bureaucrat in the Clinton Mrs.
There are over six hundred federal District Court judges who each try one case at a time. There are fewer Appeals Court judges funny stories essay they seem to work in threes, funny stories essay. And the nine justices of the Supreme Court? So as a group which do you think has more power? That lower-level person is going to clog something in the system, funny stories essay. Something way more important than the sidewalk at rush-hour on a Friday. A long time ago I volunteered to work on a presidential campaign. The weekend before Election Day they sent me to hand out campaign literature.
My instructions? Get to work. Because another guy was given the same intersection and he stood across the street from me at the top of a subway entrance, funny stories essay. This is New York. You want them to read this propaganda, not crumple it up and throw it funny stories essay me when they get across the street. Engage them. And then ask for whom. I had no idea. Immigration should volunteer for a funny stories essay campaign, they could probably knock the twelve million illegal immigrants down by a few million. Just here in NYC. Ask them a polite question, they may stick around. We were the first group to run out of flyers. Which means that all the other teams were as ignorant as my co-hort across the street…. And now, with the jokes, comes the whining, funny stories essay.
Today, for about the eightieth time this year, someone told me what to do. My mother has the right to tell me what to do. But she can say whatever she wants. You should figure out what cures cancer and patent it and sell it. Anti-low-fat milk pills— invent some of those. Nobody in TV takes a sit-com idea from a new guy. Eventually you get a job writing for a show. You write. You get stuff on the air. You prove you can continue to funny stories essay under pressure. To write under deadline. To Not Suck. Then, funny stories essay, maybe then, someone will look at your new sit-com idea. And if it beats the one-in-a-thousand odds, it gets picked up. Yeah, roughly a thousand-to-one. You work your ass off writing during the day while tending bar at a Broadway theatre at night.
Your third produced play gets to Broadway. You write the screenplay, funny stories essay. Not a dentist, funny stories essay. It must be since I flew to the dentist in a new glass cockpit Cirrus SR22 Turbo GTS. My dentist drives a Saab. I get frequent requests from comics to appear in the show. And for the most part they make my decision pretty easy. Spelling errors, wrong genre, not following their submission guidelines… all make it easier for them to toss you aside and get closer to the bottom of the pile with no guilt.
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Of course many people come to the site seeking free comedy videos, or advice on how to tell a joke I wrote a column , or jokes on selling I spoke about marketing comedy and some info appears on the website. Quite a large number of people are seeking fat jokes. Two people yes, two were seeking sex shops in Raritan, NJ. Two people searched for Florida Gun Safety Comedy. And two people this month typed in Standup Comedian Starbucks. As the woman walking in front of me on the sidewalk rummaged through her purse, a ten dollar bill flew out and landed in front of me. I picked it up and caught up to her. She turned around angrily.
I shrugged. There was no evidence of a phone—nothing in her hand, no wire running to her head. She brushed her hair back to reveal a wireless earpiece. I kept the money. I wrote the perfect joke last night. Could not get to sleep. Around 3 AM I thought of it. Eight words. Just eight words. Silly yet deep on so many levels. Yes, I write jokes, and I wish my humor were more story-like, more revealing of myself. Usually set-up, set-up, punch, or set-up, set-up, punch, punch, punch. Jokes that are funny at 3 AM usually dissolve in the daylight. But not this one. Followed by a tag that went even deeper and yet politicized the joke.
This morning I woke up and I was still laughing. Tired, but laughing. Remembering that I have a show tonight, and a show on Saturday night. All day I thought about this joke. By 3 PM, only twelve hours after this perfect joke was born, I had a third tag— another punch line that not only capitalized on the eight words, and not only built on the next tag, but also added to the joke AND made fun of it all in just another eleven words. Now you all see where this is going. There were sixty people in the room, sixty people who had paid to hear jokes. I wanted to open with this joke, to shake the building until the bottles fell off the bar. But I was seventh in the line-up.
And how could I follow the perfect joke? Everything else I say would pale in comparison. So I thought maybe open with something tried and true. And I did. An opening joke about a cab driver, The Bronx and arson. I know it works. It did. All three tags. The three-liner. Another three-liner that builds upon the previous. Then the next tag, one sentence that makes them laugh, then groan. That suckers them in so I can point out the futility, the silliness, the irony of their groans. For another laugh. Then the perfect eight words. Followed by the perfect silence. It was so quiet I could hear the subway. The Montreal subway, three hundred and twenty five miles away. And then the next tag. That woke them up. And the next?
I felt exonerated. Remember The Rule: Do not open or close with a new joke, no matter how funny you think it is. Because YOU are not the judge, nor the jury. You are the prosecutor. Your job is simply to present the evidence. THEY will render the verdict. There is a reason people state these rules. I thought those eight words were perfect. And in a way, they were. They were the perfect set-up to the two tags that followed. But if they laugh at the set-up, IT is a punch line. Not ONLY a good set-up. A good set-up for two very good punch lines. Plant oranges. Copyright by Shaun Eli. All rights reserved.
Including the rights to a car that runs on oranges, if you build it. AND… THE UPDATE:. Got on stage on Saturday night before a packed crowd. So packed that they had to bring in more tables to seat everyone. I went up fourth. Fourth is good. I opened my set the same way I did the night before. Went into the eight word line, but this time thinking of it as the set-up to the two tags that follow actually three tags now— I thought of another on the way to the club. Worked just fine. Come to a show. See you at the clubs,. Shaun Eli. Over the last month four different female comedians have spoken with me about the troubles in being a female comedian. One said that comedy was rough for women because club owners, bookers and producers often hit on the comedians, making it difficult for them to rebuff these advances and still get booked on shows.
I, occasionally billed as a feminist male comedian, do notice the difficulties women go through in this business. It is harder for women to get booked than it is for men. In the early eighties when I started going to NYC comedy clubs regularly as a fan, bookers were less likely to hire female comedians. It was very rare to see more than one woman in the line-up, even if the show had a dozen comedians. And unfortunately, when people see a small amount of truth in something, they may believe the whole thing. The small amount of truth being that in fact there was a percentage of working female comics who did talk about their periods and complain about men.
Some generalizations may have had a bit of truth twenty years ago, but no longer. The percentage of professional female working comics is probably much lower. working comics now and not just in NYC because it takes years to go from starting out to making money. And maybe only one percent ever make it to the professional level. It takes a long time for things to change. Right now one NYC comedy club, Laugh Lounge, is owned and booked by a woman, and the person who first auditions comedians at The Comic Strip is also a woman. And if you look at who is booked at some rooms, the proportion of women seems to be on the rise. Change is happening.
Not terribly fast, but faster than it would happen without the women in comedy who are there helping other women. But there is a group of people who can help women comedians even more than the bookers and other comedians can. How can you help? Keep reading. Some people say that one reason that men are more successful in the business world is that while women tend to seek consensus, men are more likely to try to win people over to their point of view. A combination of all three? Marketing is very important in comedy— the more we promote, the more people we get to shows. The business really runs on favors. You introduced me to this booker, so come open for me on the road. You gave me a ride home when I was sick and it was raining, now I have a TV show so come audition for it.
Successful comedians have learned to be nice to other comedians— more than half their help as they start in the business will come from other comics. Want to know the reason that comedy clubs put on theme shows such as Latino comics or gay comics? Because they attract an audience. If the room is full the owners will notice and put on more of these shows. If you go to The Comic Strip because Judy Gold or Veronica Mosey or Karen Bergreen is playing, mention how much of a fan you are within earshot of the person at the door. Amateur comedians are told that one step in getting noticed is when the waitresses at comedy clubs start talking about them— they see a hundred comedians a week and what they say carries some weight.
More importantly, if you, a paying customer, let it be known why you went to a show, you will be heard. How are they doing? And black people are what, fifteen percent of the country? Joan Rivers had a shot at The Tonight Show but she blew it. I would quickly get sick of having so much of her. I would have said the same thing about Rodney Dangerfield, by the way. But perhaps this is still the result of sexism. A long time ago people said that women would never be TV stars, until Lucille Ball proved them wrong. Some people even say that Kevin Costner will never be in a movie without baseball.
Eventually he may prove them wrong too. There will consistently be number one sitcoms starring women. Maybe even, shockingly, with me, a feminist male, as the head writer of one of them. What will make these shows number one? When you all watch them. Pamela Anderson has had how many? You want more female comics to succeed? Get yourself to their shows. There are thousands of comedy clubs in big cities, in little cities and even occasional professional comedy shows in small towns, all over the United States. Feminist Male Comedian sm. Note: This was written for publication last year and never run. She said that she was taking a friend out and asked if I could mail her eight free tickets, and mentioned a particular date. A date when I do not have a show scheduled and my website lists my schedule.
And that I would be happy to let her know the next time I could get the club to waive the cover charge for her entire party. The email bounced. No, an actual letter is too much work. What a bizarre country. Try not to hit any people. Ironically, he was eaten by an alligator. Since registration dates are getting earlier and earlier each year, couples in NYC are advised to register their future children for private pre-schools and summer camps prior to having sex during ovulation. Wal-mart is being sued in Pennsylvania for requiring its employees to work for free through breaks and after their shifts end. I suggest starting the trial at 9 AM and not stopping for anything until the jury has reached a verdict. The U. Trade Deficit has started shrinking as exports reached a record.
Good luck getting the sun to sign off on it. Home Depot says that the S. But hey, aid OR casinos, okay? One or the other. When they finished laughing. Maybe this is why sales are down— when a retailer needs two investment banks to tell them how to sell, something is clearly wrong. Millions of words have been written about which wines go with which foods. To the best of my knowledge up until now no one has written about which wines go with which movies. Many people might suggest a Chianti or Barolo but I think a strong red zinfandel such as a Martinelli or Hartford would be a better choice.
The taste seems to follow the sepia tones of the film, and more than one Italian-American has told me that red zin reminds him of the wine his father used to make at home. Besides, zin would go better with the cannoli. I will miss your choice of ring tones. I hope the battered spouse who receives this now-donated phone gets through to when she or he needs to. I know I always did. My new phone comes with 35 ring tones, each one annoying. Her loss; her shy cat was beginning to like me, an accomplishment previous boyfriends had never achieved. Way too much effort to say hi to the people who brought me into this world and raised me with values I appreciate and want to instill in my future children.
Especially because every time I call them they tell me how much they love me and how much something in their house needs fixing and when can I come over and do it? Not tomorrow? Saturday, then? Oh, her photos are there, too, and they come up when she calls me. A photo of her when she calls from home, and a photo of her holding her cell phone camera, taking a picture of me, when she calls from her cell phone. And just being able to pay is not enough— you have to be able to get a reservation at the newest restaurant two minutes after I call and tell you about it. ANYTHING IN ALL CAPS- I WILL SHOUT AT YOU through our entire first and last date. Consultant- lost my job. Self-employed- lost my job years ago. Entrepreneur- lost my job two years ago but I found a thesaurus. But I encourage you to fly me there just to make sure.
Let me clear up the uncertainty. Shaun is very much a Jewish name. Prominent in the Bible were Shaun Macabee who saved the Jewish people from massacre when a tiny bit of oil burned for eight days the holiday Shanukah celebrates this. There was also King Shaun, famous for such inspirations of brilliance as suggesting cutting a baby in half nowadays, of course, with extended and convoluted families we cut babies into eighths, like pizza. Shauns are famous for more modern accomplishments as well. Shaun Graham Bell invented the telephone; later his grandson Shaun Walker Bell invented the cell phone, after an unsuccessful career as an oil man and an attempt to invent the smell phone.
And then there was the Japanese engineer Shaun Ota, who invented a toy that later became a car. Of course he named it after himself. Yes, the ToyOta. Copyright by Shaun Eli Breidbart. All rights reserved, except feel free to name your son Shaun. Everyone else is doing it. The NYC Transit Authority is looking for ways to spend an unanticipated billion dollar surplus. How about… soap? Or maybe a joint marketing promotion with Gillette— buy a Metrocard, get a coupon for a stick of deodorant. arriet Miers withdrew her name for nomination to the Supreme Court. Is it possible that someone found evidence that Harriet Miers is not a virgin? Tropical storm Beta is now forming in the Caribbean. Are we TESTING storms now?
The Laugh Factory in L. recently auctioned off proceeds go to Katrina victims the opening spot in an upcoming Jon Lovitz stand-up comedy show. My smaller bid was apparently not enough. Bidding for stage time? Why would a comedian do that? Please let me explain why I bid. Here are some advantages of buying the time on stage vs. buying the presidency:. The tape of my spot will surely have fewer gaffs than any ten minutes of Bush in front of a camera. I can say whatever I want without worrying about offending those who claim to support me.
I can contradict myself, change my mind, even insult myself. The money goes to help Katrina victims, unlike any money actually being spent by the Bush administration. On September 26th I wrote about a problem I had with the NYPD, and how they finally responded that they were doing something about it. This because precinct commanders are rated on how well they decrease crime in their territories, so they do what they can to prevent people from actually filing a police report. Two days after my blog I got a letter from the precinct commander.
Good news if it were true. I called the D. on the case. When I finished college, returned to NY and was living in The Bronx I was called for jury duty. A simple case— two cops saw a guy with a gun and arrested him. This was pretty easy because in in The Bronx about one in three people walked around with an illegal handgun. The defendant was a twice-convicted felon who contradicted himself on the stand. An easy verdict, I thought. Why not? Why would they lie, I asked. They just do. Like alcoholics drink, cops lie. Eventually we convicted the guy, but it took a whole day of deliberations more on this in a future blog.
My father is a retired law enforcement officer, a veteran, and someone I look up to as a model of integrity. Foremost on my mind might be how the NYPD is telling me what they think I want to hear, with reckless disregard for the truth. Inspector, the next time your officers lose a case in court, keep in mind, you might also be to blame. I could swear I heard this announcement in Grand Central Terminal this morning:. In February I was a witness to a non-violent crime. Six phone calls later, all to find out which precinct covered that address no exaggeration, seven phone calls in total I was steered back to the first place I called.
Someone ripped the mirror off your car? Your druggie son stole your jewelry? I also mentioned the crime and suggested that someone call me for further information. Well guess what? Today September 26th I got a call from an officer at the precinct that covers the location. Why do motorcyclists rev their engines at stoplights? Why do Harley riders rev their engines at stoplights? To keep them from stalling. All this time I thought that big business should not be running the country, that the government should be separate from industry. That the logging industry should not control our forests, that oil company executives should not be writing our energy policy.
I was wrong. We need the government completely run by corporations. In this case I presume that either party would do what they can to cut the budget, and preventing this disaster was one of the items cut. The levees breaking was maybe a one in a thousand chance. But I wonder how many other long-shot emergency items have also been cut. And what are we doing about it? President Bush has praised the newly-proposed Iraqi Constitution. Volunteers are flocking to hurricane-damaged areas to help out. Hey, they HAVE people!
Plenty of people, people with nothing to do. They need people with some SKILLS, like utility workers, not more unskilled people they have to house and feed. Turn your truck around, Gus, and go back home. The two hundred bucks you would have spent on gas to drive to New Orleans? Give it to charity, let them buy food for the hurricane victims, and use THEIR expertise to get it to Biloxi and New Orleans. President Bush is meeting Chinese President Hu. President Hu? This has Bad International Incident written all over it. Last week Madonna was injured falling off a horse.
The president of Turkmenistan has outlawed all lip-synching, even at private parties. After calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Chavez, Pat Robertson is now saying he was misinterpreted… even though he clearly talked about assassination. This is not a relevant question:. Their children, once they reach 18, are free to make up their own minds. Furthermore, the children of politicians may be able to make other, equally important, contributions to society. Where the hell are you sitting right now? And where were you sitting the first time you found www. Please bookmark www. com and read it every morning on company time. They stopped me from getting on my train. They took me aside and said that they wanted to look in my backpack.
I said no. My backpack contained no contraband, only my date book, cell phone, some magazines, some confidential business papers, and a copy of the Constitution. Hey, some people carry the whole Bible. Oh, and about a half-dozen empty soda cans. Nobody needed to know that. script for the show. It was a nice letter, nicer now in hindsight because apparently, knowledge or not, they did just fine. I wrote another script. I asked the police officer if she would prevent me from getting on my train if I refused to consent to a search. She said yes. Or, as I did, simply take another train. What if I were a journalist, an attorney, an investment banker or a doctor, carrying papers that were not for the police to examine?
It might not be only MY rights which were being violated. I called my parents to tell them that I was thinking of notifying the ACLU that I was stopped, and that I was volunteering should the ACLU, of which I am not a member, decide to sue to stop these random searches. Both parents were against it. My father fought in World War II on our side. My mother came here from Russia, her parents fleeing totalitarianism. They abandoned everything they had when they came here, and were dirt poor back when there was no Welfare and Brooklyn still had plenty of dirt. Mom told me that even after living in the U. for decades, when her father saw a police officer he walked the other way. Because for his entire life in Russia, nothing good ever came out of a possible confrontation with a police officer.
Keep in mind he was a Jew in a small town in Russia, where for sport the Cossacks would get drunk and beat up Jews for no reason. Of course once they got here, like so many other immigrants, they had to start over. Neither of my parents had it easy. Yet somehow they not only got through it, they raised three sons who, between all of us, have seven Ivy League degrees one of which is mine. My parents. Marines, a pediatric oncologist, Israeli commandos, black belts in karate. In AMERICA. The land of the free and the home of the brave. Because, as someone once said, and has often been quoted, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Okay, now to explain the Seinfeld reference. I wrote a second spec. A couple of months later I watched as they aired MY SCRIPT. The same two plots, virtually the same story, some of even the same types of sentences and ideas. I was LIVID. A co-incidence. I was darker-skinned, named Abdul or Mohammed, carrying a copy of the Koran. So, not only do these random searches waste time, frighten people, waste resources that could be put to better use, but they also risk convincing people that they are the victims of stereotyping, of discrimination, of the violation of their equal rights. That too is a risk we should not be taking. Because people come to this country to ESCAPE that, not to experience it.
Not just the richest. The most just. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! I suggest Janette Liberté. As an aside: I am for the legalization of marijuana. Also for the legalization of marajuana and the legalization of marihuana. Any drug that has three different spellings is fine with me. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak up. I have to speak up. We have to draw the line somewhere. Better now than later. I had no drugs in my bag. I do not use marijuana, by any spelling. Another reason to oppose these searches. If enough people say no, maybe we can make a difference. Because, guess what? Heard of Philadelphia mass transit? Heard of the local supermarket? Heard of hiding a bomb under your shirt, instead of in a backpack?
So have the terrorists. Like you should have, schmucks running our country, before September 11th. The White House had received warnings of hijackings. A Tom Clancy novel depicted a terrorist crashing a into the Capitol Building during a joint meeting of Congress. Hey, wake up and smell your job description. On my birthday yesterday I learned that the NYPD plans to begin random searches of backpacks in subways. Essentially they made him an arms dealer so they could arrest him for being an arms dealer. Enough on that. The NYC subway system has millions of riders a day. It will rain blood and metrocards. Mission accomplished. Oh, you work in a nail salon, Kara? Not anymore. So the suicide bombers give up on the subway… and instead blow up everyone in Gristedes, the movie theater, on the sidewalk.
At least until winter, when they can hide the bombs under their winter coats. Or recruit women. But anything that wastes my time, and invades my privacy, I have a problem with. And I heard on the radio yesterday that in the past four years there have been accidental incursions of the giant flight restrictions around Washington, DC. Think about that. Which means that probably there have been hundreds of thousands of flights that had to divert around that airspace. Do you realize what a monumental waste of time and fuel that must be? In other words, you can look at yourself. I can look at myself. But I cannot look at yourself unless you and I are the same person. Because when I do look at myself, I see me, not you.
If you have a problem with that, get back inside the box. So I had to sue my landlord. Back in the winter they were doing reconstruction on the apartment upstairs. The standard way to gut an apartment is to bust out a window, park a dumpster in the alley below, and throw all the debris out the window into the dumpster. To ask questions. He pretty much understood that I knew what I was talking about. And I found out that his office was an hour commute from the courthouse. I asked him the address of the courthouse. He said 34 Fifth Avenue. I asked him to read me my address. He said 17 Fifth Avenue. He showed up in court. We went into court, where the judge asked if we could go outside and try to settle. So we tried. He asked what I wanted. I said that sounded rather drastic— could we say July 4, ?
So if the Magna Carta has no Statute of Limitations…. I was walking to her apartment carrying four dozen roses. In the water bottle pockets of my backpack I had two bottles of Champagne sticking out very noticeably. She looked at the roses, then at the Champagne, then at me. Then back at the roses, and the Champagne. Eminent domain is the Constitutionally-allowed power of state and local governments to seize private property for a public purpose, as long as they pay for it. The Supreme Court just ruled that the power of Eminent Domain allows state and local governments to seize private property and give or sell it to other private enterprises merely because the newer enterprise promises to add value to the property.
In other words, they can tear down a slum and put up fancy housing because that will lead to economic development and higher tax revenue. Oh, they have to pay the people who own the slum properties, but they pay the market value for a slum, not what the land is going to be worth once the slum is replaced by fancy housing. Of course with the slum gone the price of the least expensive housing goes up, and the poor people who have been forced out of their homes are screwed. The Supreme Court vote was , and I find myself agreeing with the conservative minority that there ought to be stricter limits to eminent domain.
Otherwise, the state can seize a K-Mart and sell the land to Target, because Target promises higher tax revenues. That is, until Wal-Mart comes along. Where does it end? Ask Bill Gates, or Exxon, or maybe China. Or those mini racing cars. think I would get to keep my gun. Thank God for the Second Amendment. You can have my house when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands. I vote and pay my taxes proudly and I think this is the greatest country in the world. But still we stink. Let me explain. A few nights ago I was watching Fear Factor. One of the bug-eating episodes, not one of the bugs-crawling-all-over-you episodes.
There are five billion people on our planet, and a lot of them go hungry. Some of them will die of starvation. Or perhaps for every hour of Fear Factor people watch, they should be required to spend five minutes watching people go hungry. It may not be on the same scale as the Holocaust, but this time we know all about it and we have the military means to stop it. And by stopping it, perhaps discouraging future mass murderers. Oh, unless they really piss us off. Or at least scroll down and read some of my funny blogs. But I had to speak my mind. With my job comes some responsibility to speak out. Oh, you think I owe you some jokes? Some sad news. The founder of Wine Spectator magazine has passed away. For more comedy, please visit the Expired Comedy section of this website.
Every few weeks my neighbors have a garage sale. To try to sell the same useless crap that nobody bought at the previous garage sales. Nobody buys anything. But still every sale fills up our quiet street with cars and clogs the neighborhood as my neighbors sit hopefully in their driveway all day. Not much, so I bought it all to finally put an end to this nonsense, and on bulk garbage day I put it ALL out for the garbagemen. A surprise. A party which will include a live musical performance by Cyndi Lauper. I quote from her song: Some boys take a beautiful girl And hide her away from the rest of the world I want to be the one to walk in the sun Oh girls they want to have fun.
Sooner or later… two people are going to be talking to each other on their cell phones while driving, and crash… into each other. Confucius say: He who crosses street while talking to girlfriend on cell phone get run over by woman driving SUV while talking to her nanny on cell phone. Tonight it was raining and yucky out so I only had 4 tables and am home already, writing to you, faceless Blog. In any case — I had a revelation as I was starring at the lake waiting for my last table to wash down their fish fry with our finest white zinfendel Go Rochester! Two hotty italian busboys would gallantly throw down their Windex bottles and buspans and scream….. Someone get me out of this city. The End. Comments are below. Same fantasy, minus the death.
Order steak for everyone. Then run away, in your Ferrari, driven by comedian and excellent driver Shaun Eli. Okay, Brad Pitt. Bring this to the restaurant. And an address in Malibu for them to mail the speeding ticket. You and Mr. Pitt leave the car at a local airport, where pilot Shaun Eli is waiting with a plane to fly you two lovebirds to California, after a stop in Vegas where Mr. Fabulastic chef Shaun Eli goes shopping and returns to prepare you a wonderful dinner while you relax in a bubble bath. He then leaves you with two bottles of Champagne, and a wonderful dessert, as a ragged Brad Pitt enters the house for one final goodbye fling.
I went to pick up my date at her apartment. At th near Lenox. Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks or at least Chuck Berry. Someone came out of her building, and I asked him if he knew if Evie were home. Her building is a five story brownstone with only two apartments per floor. He had no idea who she was. A new study reported that most traffic lights in the U. have not had their timing changed in over a decade. Back when fewer cars travelled, and came from and went to different parts of your town. The reason for the lack of change? They say for only FOUR DOLLARS PER CAR they could re-time most of the traffic lights in America, saving us millions of hours in travelling time, millions of gallons of gasoline, and wear and tear on our cars including the tires and brake linings that wear down every time we have to slow down to stop at another red light.
And of course cut down on pollution, that thing we used to care about back before the oil companies took their first four year lease on America with an option to renew. The money has to come from somewhere. Comedy: A non-polluting, self-renewing national resource sm. Somebody told me that no matter what phrases you Google, you will get some number of hits. But substitute fellatio for cunnilingus and you more than double the number of hits. Change it to fetus or calculus and it goes up further still. Algebra does even better, more than hits.
Note that I was totally sober when I tried this experiment. So you can imagine how my mind works after a few drinks. My stand-up comedy is clean. Apparently my blogs are not always. When I was seventeen I worked in a supermarket. I had a beard and looked older. Once when I was leaving, two sixteen year olds stopped me and asked if I could buy them some beer the drinking age in NY at the time was eighteen. Of course I probably could have bought beer anywhere EXCEPT that store, since they knew how old I was. Last night I was sitting at the bar at a comedy show, next to an eighteen year old. She asked me to buy her a beer.
The bartender knows me, and obviously knew that this woman was too young to buy alcohol, so had I bought a beer and given it to her, we both would have been thrown out. Not that I would have anyway. In many European countries kids are given small amounts of alcohol to taste as they grow up. Raising the drinking age is credited with cutting down on drunken driving, but in fact all the exposure to the issue, and stricter law enforcement, is probably responsible for much of that. Perhaps we should lower the drinking age to sixteen, but give kids a choice— a license to drink OR a license to drive. That way every group of friends would have a designated driver, and they could switch off every few months. This week the NYPD undertook a massive search for a missing Chinese restaurant deliveryman.
When his bicycle was found chained up outside an apartment building, they searched the building and found that he had been trapped in an elevator… for three days. An elevator with an emergency call button AND A CAMERA. In the meantime the police arrested a man because he had a blood-colored stain on his shirt. Mitch headlined one of the first shows I ever did, at Stand-Up New York. Mitch Rocked. Then he did most of that material on TV the next night. Until at one point they cut to a shot of his shoes while he was in the middle of a joke. Mitch taught me a lot from this experience. I hope some day I can benefit from both these things.
The world lost a great comedian this week. Someone who could make us laugh not only from a surprise or an unusual observation, but simply from a brilliant manipulation of the English language. Three comedian websites I monitor SheckyMagazine. com, ComedySoapbox. com and The Standups Asylum group on MSN have had more comments on Mitch Hedberg this week than on just about any other topic, ever. Mitch, you are already missed. More interestingly, if you type NYC Arabian Comedian into Google, my website www. com comes up first. Not even close. Sell your Google stock. Some students have protested, claiming that hacking into a website to find out early what they would eventually have found out anyway is no big deal, likening it to taking a pencil home from the office.
Would you hire someone who did that? If the students believe that what they did was not wrong, they should be amenable to having the schools publish their names, so we can decide for ourselves whether we ever want to hire these people. Those of us who live in NY are used to seeing all sorts of strange behavior. Sometimes we can figure it out. Last week I saw tourists, who spoke with American accents, taking a photograph of a Starbucks. Unless they flew to NYC in a time machine from the s. Or, with any luck, from not too far in the future. Street Vendor: Three for ten dollars. There he would meet Elijah. I was visiting my friend Sara who teaches and does research at a medical school— I met her outside the hospital entrance, where a large number of patients, many with IVs attached, were smoking.
So I quote you from Genesis —. So there! All nine Supreme Court justices are either Christian or Jewish. Two religions which believe in the Ten Commandments as a central tenet. Therefore I believe that all nine justices ought to recuse themselves from this case. But— also according the the New York Times, Representative and mayoral candidate Anthony D. The guy proceeds to slowly rub the lotion on his face as the whole class watches him in confusion. Now people call him lotion boy. I never got to eat my Pringles : Okay, so this was in fourth grade, and I was in this class with all these dumbass kids.
I was really excited since I LOVE PRINGLES. I started scoping the area, trying to find my Pringles. Than this thought comes to my mind—What if MOIRA STOLE IT? Moira was this chubby girl in my class that literally ALWAYS wore this purple princess dress that should be classified as a bad Halloween costume seriously and was known for being a bitch. It was just PRINGLES. So I stomp out of the class and start searching for Moira. So after a solid 10 minutes, I find a group of these kids crowded at the side of one of the portable classrooms. I rush over to see what it is. The kids were eating Pringles. Barbecue flavored Pringles.
MY PRINGLES. And in the middle of all the kids, sat a smug looking MOIRA with my PRINGLES. Thinking that my parents must have thrown away the box for box tops, I called my mom to ask how long and at what temperature to cook chicken nuggets. She told me both of them, I laid out about 20 on a tray and stuck it in the oven, setting the timer before I walked out of the kitchen. When it was almost time to get my chicken nuggets, I walked into a cinnamon scented kitchen. I searched all over that kitchen, trying to find the cinnamon scent, leading me to the oven. I decide to turn on the oven light to see if maybe my mom had stuck some cookies in the oven and forgot to bake them, but instead, I find that the tray my chicken nuggets were on has cookies on it instead!
Somehow in some form, I had accidentally baked snickerdoodles. And that is why my parents can never take my cooking seriously. Painting a roller coaster : So in my junior year of high school I got a project to make a roller coaster for my physics class. Everything was going fine until the day my partner and I had to paint the thing. We were in my garage spray painting the tubes and these two guys come marching up to the house across the street and start yelling at the top of their lungs, beating on the door. Well I called the police, closed the garage and parked myself in front of the dining room window. Long story short the police showed up in full gear broke down the door and brought out the two boys at gunpoint.
Jellyfish fiasco : So when I was like 9 I went to this aquarium thing and it was a pretty amusing trip overall. The next day at school, the teacher asked us what we had done over the weekend. Now normally I never raise my hand. But I did this time. I fucking did it this time. The worst possible time. Eighth grade games : So when I was in the eighth grade, science class was the most boring hours of my life. IT WAS ALL THE WAY UP. I started panicking because the game noises were excruciatingly loud. I kept playing and got eaten by a ghost almost after I pressed the start button my hands were shaking like crazy …. my strict science teacher looked me straight in the eye.. My teacher and everyone else started laughing and I got so red afterwards.
Now when we stand up for the pledge, he moves all the way to the back of the room away from me…. So still, to this day, I get my hands confused. The principal and I were quite aquatinted at this point and so I told her why I was sent back to her office again, and she laughed. And laughed. My principal wrote on the back of my hands, L and R. She did the same to hers. Anyway, I was on a cruise ship with my grandparents, and I spot this super cute guy a couple years older than me. I make eye contact with thus cute guy, look at my Grandparents who both look extremely disappointed, and a few other people are looking at me. Obviously I left the room immediately. Sporting goods : So I have this health teacher who is really insane about exercise. This woman has done ironman triathlons, and talks about going to the YMCA at am.
Basically we have this project to pick a health goal to do for a month. Things like drinking water or doing squats. For that you need some motivation so we were talking about physical things to reward ourselves with. She decided to tell us about her sporting goods fetish, where she goes into a store and buys a bunch of gear like they were books. Looking back that was my first existential crisis. Now, in 6th grade I had one really close friend who I never actually got into a fight with. I was really good at holding grudges because I was not a forgiving child, so for three weeks I completely ignored my best friend in anger to the point where she started crying in front of the teacher and he asked what was going on.
Sniffing candles with my best friend : So my best friend and I were in a super market and there were a lot of new candles. Whatever I guess we sniffed to much candles because we started laughing very hard and I lay on the floor and my best friend fell into to pasta shelf which made us laugh even more and louder and people were already staring at us. All glowed up : After the final bell, my friend and I were walking to our buses after school through a crowded hallway. We were talking about childhood and reminiscing about old memories, and we somehow started talking about which people became hot since middle school.
Anyway, right as she said that she turned her head and he was RIGHT BEHIND US this is so so very cliché but I swear to god there he was. And OF COURSE he heard her, but it was so awkward so he just walked past us looking down at his phone and my friend fell on the ground from embarrassment. Chinese class : I took Chinese at school as a freshman. Our teacher wanted us to watch a Chinese movie in that free time, and I just so happened to watch one recently on YouTube. I offered to find it, and my teacher let me use her computer, that was connected to a Promethean board so that the whole class could see what I was doing on the screen. When I opened my history I was mortified since stupid me had forgotten that being the awkward virgin that I was at the time I had searched up tutorials on kissing and making out that previous night.
The whole class was hysterically laughing, my teacher was extremely confused, and I almost cried as I scrolled past all the kissing tutorials and finally found the movie. Coca-Cola disaster : A couple years ago my friends and I were going to see a movie in the theatre at the mall. Instead of paying the ridiculous movie theatre prices for pop and candy, we decided to go to target to buy some stuff. My friend told me she had seen a bottle with my name on it inside this bin of Coke. The pop was at least five or six feet in diameter. I watched as people passed the mess and made looks of disgust. Imagine if I had opened it inside of the theatre….
at the pothole : Once upon a time I had a friend that was going to a Panic! At The Disco concert and she promised me she would face time me so that I could watch with her. So she messaged me at like the middle of the night telling me to answer her FaceTime call but I was at my neighbors house which also happened to be my cousins house so I started running out the door and my sister followed me behind and was chasing after me. I NEED TO SEE, WHY CANT I SEE!?! I waited for almost two hours, refusing to take a shower even though the mud was starting to dry up. This was two years ago and to this day every time my sister sees the pothole she starts dying from laughter.
The toilet phase : When I was younger, around 3 or 4 years old, I had a phase of flushing things down the toilet. the biggest and most hilarious thing I ever dumped was a gallon of milk. one day I was bored and was looking around in the fridge low and behold there it was, a new gallon of milk. my tiny body dragged the bottle on the floor all the way to the bathroom. I opened the cap, let it go into the toilet, and flushed. Slappy trails : One time in fifth grade, I was walking back to class from the bathroom. Before I continue, I should specify two things. Now for whatever reason, I was swinging my arms around in a wild half-windmill motion. So there I was, swinging my arms dramatically, then just when I got to the corner….
I had accidentally slapped someone in the face. It took me a second to realize who it was: my crush. I was mortified, but he just started laughing. The ramen incident : I have decided to remain anonymous to protect my identity from the foolishness. last night, I became hungry and decided to make some ramen. I removed the various packets from the bowl, added the flavor and vegetables, then put the bowl in the microwave. After about a minute or two, I realized something was wrong. A terrible burning smell had filled my kitchen. I opened the door to my microwave and…low and behold…I had neglected to add water. There was some smoke coming from the bowl. Not wanting to waste the ramen, I went to the sink and added water, which filled the room in acrid smoke for several seconds. I then returned the bowl to the microwave and cooked it for two more minutes before attempting to eat it.
It went okay for a little while, until I discovered a globule of blackened noodles which had turned into some sort of strange crystalline substance yet seen in nature by humankind. I had a change of heart. First phone accident : When I was in the 6th grade my parents decided I should get my first cell phone because I was going to middle school now and things were different. I took decent care of my phone and never needed a replacement. Well, flash forward to Memorial Day weekend. My family and another family went camping up in Pennsylvania for the weekend. Well, one of the days we were up there my buddy, Oliver, and I decided to take the kayaks out on the lake. Genius me, decided she wanted to listen to the 4 Selena Gomez songs I had on my phone.
I thought it would be a brilliant idea to put my phone in a plastic bag to protect it from the water. When we got back from kayaking I took my phone out only to find the bag was submerged in water. We had no rice or anything to save my phone so we tried laying it out to dry, not even 15 minutes later it starts down pouring destroying my phone even more. Lesson learned. Little thief : When I was around four or five I was with my mom at this store buying some Christmas gifts. as we were leaving I saw these little plushy dinosaurs that fit perfectly in my hands.
I grabbed two of them and stashed one in each of my pockets. my pockets were so small that they made me look like I had two rumors on each of my hips. I still remember the rush of energy I got from actually leaving the store undetected. well, when my mom and I got to the car, she found them and called the store back and made me apologize. I had the absolute worst social anxiety when I was a kid so I was a absolutely sobbing, telling this poor employee how horrible a person I was. like I was having a mental breakdown, it was so bad my mom apologized to me afterwards and bought me a nice milkshake! turns out she was the lady that had to do the actual road test with me.
We get in the car and I thought I was doing pretty well, until she starts freaking out? after yelling at me, she demands I go back to the DMV. and the rest of the time she is on her phone. When we get there, there is a state trooper waiting for me. gives me a field sobriety test. Literally had to take a sobriety test when I tried to get my license. At least I passed one test that day. That one time I got lost : So about a year ago, I was in Phys. Ed class, and we went around the neighborhood for a jog at the beginning of each class. I ended up being lost for TWO AND A HALF HOURS. Ed policy. embarrassed, I ran away and my mom and sister had to bring me the slice of pizza from my finding place in the freezer section.
To this day, I beg people to order for me when anyone remotely attractive is working the cash register. however, I am also there to assist the on shift technician, obviously not with the lasers as I am not certified, but with well…helping shaving clients to prepare them for their treatment. It is all I can do in my power to keep from laughing from sheer shock. I finished as through and quick as I possibly could and booked it the hell out of the room. Later when I had to book the clients next appointment neither of us could look the other in the eye because of that traumatizing encounter.
I will probably never be able to live down the moment I looked at the multicolored butt right in the crack. Thanks, Mrs. Miller, you the best : One time way back in sixth grade math class I had to fart really bad. Me being the idiot that I am decided that it would be silent. The only person talking was the teacher and she was interrupted by freaking cannon fire farts. Weed birthday : Last year, during class, my algebra teacher let us listen to music while we did our classwork and whatnot. So, I was just jamming, being super confused on this one problem and I look up from my paper to ask my friend how to do it and EVERYONE is intensely looking back and forth between me and another girl with their fingers on their noses.
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