Bruner Blog

I realize I’m woefully behind in my joke-a-day commitment. Oh well, you get what you pay for. So here are three, to catch me up.

Tuesday’s Joke: How Drunk Were You?

File Under: You’re-Fired Funny!

Three friends get completely shit-faced one Saturday night at a bar. The next Saturday they’re playing golf, comparing stories about how their nights went after they split up.

“That was the worst night of my life,” said the first. “I was so hammered I was seeing double the whole drive home. Lots of the evening is a blank, but when I got home I Blew Chunks!”

“That’s nothing,” says the second guy. “I wrapped my brand new Beemer around a tree! $65,000 car, totaled. Insurance isn’t going to give me a penny. Total write off!”

“Oh, you guys think you had it bad, gimme a break,” says the third. “My girlfriend was so furious, she trashed my place. She threw a Ming vase at me my mother left me in her will: $250,000. When I went downstairs the next morning, I realized she’d sugared the gas tank of my Maserati!”

They look over at the first who, who has slumped down to the ground, crying. “What’s up?” the second asks.

“You guys don’t understand. Chunks is my dog!”

Wednesday’s Joke: Man’s Best Friend

File Under: Oh No You Din’t! (Props to Dan H.)

An anthropology professor and a graduate student went to Scotland to research the phenomenon of how in different Scottish villages the men use strikingly different techniques to have sex with sheep. (This could really happen; bear with me.)

At the first village they find a middle-aged farmer down a isolated road, so they explain their mission, and the farmer is only too happy to help. “It gets lonely in the evenings here in the highlands, and men have needs,” the farmer explains. “So here in these parts, when the need arises, we find a handsome sheep lass, grab her from behind, lift her up and put her back legs in our Wellington boots to secure her, and then we go about our business.”

The scientists are fascinated. They thank the farmer and move on to the next village, where they find another friendly farmer. “Well, here in our village, when the nights are long and the urge comes upon us, we take a pretty little sheep, lift her back legs up over a fence to hold her in place, and we go about our business.”

Again, they express their gratitude and move on to the next village. There, another farmer explains, “Well, here in our village, when we find ourselves so inclined, we seek out a bonnie lamb, lie down on our backs and get underneat her, then pull her on top of us and go about or business.”

The anthropologists are amazed. “Really, you get underneath her then? That’s remarkable. Most extraordinary.”

“Really,” says the farmer, “Why? How else would you do it?”

The professor explains about the other villages where the farmers come from behind, and the boots, or the fence…

“From behind!?” exclaims the farmer? “But what about the kissing?”

Thursday’s Joke: Knock-Knock…

File Under: Not About Manimal Love (Props to Judith Z.)

Knock-knock

Who’s there?

Control freak (now you say, “Control freak who?”)

(I still can’t believe co-workers read this blog.)

File under: Funny Because It’s True (though not in my case personally)

My father tilled this soil for all his years, but do they call me “McGreggor the Farmer’s Son?” Noooooo.

You see that stone wall over there? A half a mile long, it is. I built it with my own two hands stone by stone. But do they call me, “McGreggor the Wall Builder?” Noooooo!

Everyone in this village knows I’m the finest auto mechanic for 200 miles. But do they call me “McGreggor the Ace Mechanic?” Blasted, no, they certainly do not!

But you fuck one goat…

BTW, in case you didn’t notice, I’m taking weekends off the Joke-of-the-Day thing.

I’m so pysched! One of my favorite bands, Seattle-based Kultur Shock, whom I know from only one of their CDs, FUCC the I.N.S., are coming to the Bulgarian Bar, as the kick-off for their E.U. tour, appropriately enough.

They’ve got a new album out, Kultura-Diktatura (pictured left), which I haven’t heard yet but it’s atop my wish list now. For those who don’t know them, which presumably is most of you, as they’re rather obscure, they’re hard-driving Eastern-Euro-influenced punk. The ecclectic mix of band members hail from Bulgaria, Bosnia, Japan and the U.S. Fans of Gogol Bordello will love this band. The concert couldn’t be at a better NY venue. Promises to be unhinged.

One of the many things I love about my wife is that she brings culture into my life. I’m generally partial to many forms of higher culture — classical music, theater, dance, arty films, etc. — but I’m rather lazy about seeking out the opportunities to enjoy them and am normally just as ready to check out whatever is playing at the local multiplex or TV.

Hence, my Christmas present has proven to be quite a hit: season tickets to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A few weeks ago we saw our first show, Laurie Anderson’s new production End of the Moon, which was okay but not great, in my opinion; not as good as a performance we saw of hers in Budapest years ago (the name of which I forget).

But last night’s performance was awesome: Matthew Bourne’s theatrical dance project, Play Without Words. Really terrific. Based on a 1963 film called The Servant about strained class relations in British society as seen through the interactions among a rich young fop, his fiancé and his servants, particularly a resentful manservant.

As the title implies, the plot is told wordlessly through dance in this stage adaptation. One of the more striking elements of the dance piece is the use of three dancers simultaneously inhabiting a single role, so three nearly parallel scenes are playing out on different parts of the stage, as three fops, three butlers and three fiancés enact slightly different interpretations of the same event at the same time. The effect is highly original and totally charming.

Another remarkable strength of the performance is the acting talent of the dancers. It goes without saying that they’re all great dancers (even though I took some pleasure that at least of the men appeared to be carrying a few more pounds around his middle than I do, though I only wish I could dance like he), one does not, however, expect dancers to be so subtly adept at conveying character and emotion in their faces and body language. But they were all really great. The event was as much storytelling as dance. (That said, I did get a bit lost in the second act; I’d wished I’d read this plot summary in advance.)

The accompanying jazz score by Terry Davies and performed by a live ensemble was also great. Went great with the whole ’60s milieu of the piece. I also confess to having been completely seduced by the costumes. I wish it were a big product placement so I knew where to run out and buy those fabulous timeless/retro duds (particularly the short bathrobe and the topcoat and fedora hat).

And speaking of seduced, did I mention how sexy it is! Here’s approximately how sexy: very.

It runs at BAM only through April 3, so if you’re inspired, buy tickets now! (though, juding by the sold-out auditorium last night, you might already be too late)

I know I’m late with this, but I have 45 minutes or so left in the day, so technically I’m still on track!

File under: A Boy Can Dream

A man sees his dentist because of a persistant toothache. The dentist tells him, “Mr. Jones, that tooth has to come out. Lay back and I’ll give you some novocaine.”

“Actually, Doc, I’m allergic to novocaine. I break out in terrible hives.”

“No problem. I’ll just give you some sweet gas instead. You won’t feel a thing.”

“I wish I could, Doctor, but it makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Hmmm,” said the doctor. “Okay, I’ll give you a Viagra.”

“Will that kill the pain?”

“No, but it will give you something to hang onto while I yank that baby out!”

File under: There But for the Grace of God…

“Well, Mr. Peterson, I have bad news. You have cancer, and you also have Alzheimer’s.”

“Thank you for being honest, Doctor. Hey, at least I don’t have cancer!”

File under: Metaphor for Life

Two guys are at the beach. One says, “There are so many pretty girls here, but none of them gives me a second look. I’ll never meet a nice one.”

His friend suggests, “Well, there are also a lot of hunky guys here. We’ve got serious competition. You might try putting a potato down your swim trunks for a bit of an advantage.”

Later, the first guy comes back: “I’ve been walking around with this potato in my shorts for an hour, and still nothing.”

“Andy, you’re supposed to put the potato in front.“

File under: Other Peoples’ Problems (or, The Problem With Other People)

Which of these things isn’t like the others?

• A lobster
• A Japanese guy flattened by a steamroller
• A salmon
• A barnacle

A salmon. All the others are crustaceans.

You love me! You really, really love me! (Well, five of you, anyway.)

So, I grovelled, and five of you responded (two whom I’ve known for between 10 and 20 years, one industry buddy who bears an uncanning resemblance to…nevermind, and two complete strangers, which is kinda cool, kinda creepy). Good enough for me!

Interestingly, none of the five commented on whether they’d like me to pursue the joke-of-the-day concept, but I’ll take that as a Yes! We’ll try it for a month or so until the pain is unbearable for one or the other or both of us.

File under: Higher Power:

A man is hiking along the fjords in Norway when he stumbles and falls over a 500-foot cliff to the ocean below. A few feet down, he catches a shrub and clings on for dear life.

Dangling precariously, his palms begin to sweat. Realizing he has only seconds to spare, he calls up, “Is there anybody up there?”

A deep, booming voice answers: “Let go of the branch. I will catch you and set you down safely. This is God.”

The man looks at the sea far below crashing against the jagged rocks and again up to the lip of the cliff just out of reach.

He calls out, “Would there happen to be anyone else up there, too?”

Let me point out, I never promised these would be good jokes. Just one every day. For as long as I can stand it.

Does anyone still read this fucking blog anymore? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Yes, I do get a few hundred visitors every day, though mostly from Google traffic. But since I required TypeKey registration for comments to eliminate comment spam, the result has been no virtually comments at all anymore. Even my one-time most faithful reader Pablo Montoya has vanished into “I forgot my TypeKey password” ether.

I’ve been toying with the idea for a while of posting a joke every day to my blog. I’ve even thought of creating yet another blog for the purpose, but I have way too many blogs as it is at this point (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, among others (defuct or highly anonymous or behind a firewall, etc.)), so if I were to do it, I guess I should do it here.

But I’m sick of blogging into the void at this point. Show me some love, people, or you can stuff your damn jokes. Or maybe you really don’t want me to post a joke a day in any event. Please tell me one way or the other. Give me a sign of life.

I notice that one-time great car exectutive John DeLorean just died at age 80.

Aside from the Back to the Future movies that featured the memorable “gull-winged” DeLorean car, I did have one connection to it: my high school girlfriend’s father, Mr. K., owned one, which he let me drive on one or two occasions (in addition to the one or two occasions I drove it without his permission). It was a pretty cool car if you were 17.

What prompted me to write a post about it, however, was this snippet from the LA Times obit:

But after becoming a self-described born-again Christian during the months while he awaited trial [for a drug deal allegedly as an attempt to rescue his struggling car company, but which ultimately ruined him], DeLorean did concede that, over the years, there were some things he had done wrong.

“I think my ultimate sin — and it was really terrible — was that I had this insatiable pride,” he told journalist Robert Scheer in a Playboy magazine interview about two years after the acquittal. “Looking back at it, I see that I had an arrogance that was beyond that of any other human being alive.”

So, he’s supposedly recognizing his fatal flaw, and yet he lays claim to “an arrogance that was beyond that of any other human being alive.” Doesn’t that seem…pretty arrogant? I mean, no one else alive was possibly even a little bit more arrogant? I’m not sure he learned his lesson at all.

Every time I hear it, I like it more:

No one likes us
I don’t know why.
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try.
But all around even our old friends put us down.
Let’s drop the big one and see what happens.

We give them money
But are they grateful?
No they’re spiteful
And they’re hateful.
They don’t respect us so let’s surprise them;
We’ll drop the big one and pulverize them.

Now Asia’s crowded
And Europe’s too old.
Africa’s far too hot,
And Canada’s too cold.
And South America stole our name.
Let’s drop the big one; there’ll be no one left to blame us.

We’ll save Australia;
Don’t wanna hurt no kangaroo.
We’ll build an all-American amusement park there;
They’ve got surfing, too.

Well, boom goes London,
And boom Paris.
More room for you
And more room for me.
And every city the whole world ’round
Will just be another American town.

Oh, how peaceful it’ll be;
We’ll set everybody free;
You’ll wear a Japanese kimono, baby,
There’ll be Italian shoes for me.
They all hate us anyhow,
So let’s drop the big one now.
Let’s drop the big one now.

Randy Newman, 1972

Email scares me. Here’s the background story:

A couple of weeks ago, Adrienne came across the site SaveToby.com. It’s a well designed site with lots of pages and pictures of an adorable small rabbit. The homepage copy reads, in part:

Toby is the cutest little bunny on the planet. Unfortunately, he will DIE on June 30th, 2005 if you don?t help…. [Context describing how the anonymous author found the rabbit wounded under his poarch and nursed him back to health.] Unfortunately, on June 30th, 2005, Toby will die. I am going to eat him…. I don’t want to eat Toby, he is my friend, and he has always been the most loving, adorable pet. However, God as my witness, I will devour this little guy unless I receive 50,000$ USD into my account from donations or purchase of merchandise.

It’s a rather hilarious site in its sick, anonymous Internet prank kind of way. Photos of the rabbit in a cooking pot, on a cutting board next to a knife with worried thought bubbles, recipies for rabbit dishes, etc.

When we first checked, it appeared that site visitors had sent, in addition to a gallery’s worth of hate mail, something like $12,000 in PayPal donations. So the other day I checked and saw that they’d only risen to $18,000. I emailed Adi and said something to the effect of “It’s not looking good for Toby.” She replied pointing out that when you actually clicked the PayPal link now, you are greated with this on PayPal’s site: “Error Detected: This recipient is currently unable to receive money.”

Yikes. The clock’s ticking. What is PayPal trying to do, guarantee a death sentence for the creature?! So I wrote back an email that said simply “Poor bunny.”

The next morning a female colleague wrote me expressing suprise and perhaps a bit of concern as to why I had written her a note in response to a business issue we had been discussing that read simply “Poor bunny.”

I was able to forward her a chain of emails back and forth with my wife and reference SaveToby.com quickly enough that I trust she believes me. She also happens to have a good sense of humor, so as far as I know she hasn’t reported me to HR for harrassment.

But the incident was so random (how on earth did I do that? a renegade, unexamined cut and paste, perhaps?), it could have just as easily gone to our CFO or head of legal or whomever. Or maybe it has. I seriously started to worry about whether I should look back through my entire Sent Email box to see what other non sequiturs that could easily be grossly misconstrued I may have sent in recent weeks to any number of colleagues, clients, vendors, etc.

For the time being, I’m just keeping my head down and trying to plow on, though with a moment’s pause before hitting “Send” a bit more often.

Thankfully, I bear in mind it could have been much worse.

Pity the fool

I saw a guy on the subway last night, maybe late 20s, with a mohawk hairdo. Fucking loser. He had on combat boots, a studded leather wrist band along with one of those ugly yellow rubber wrist bands everyone is wearing these days for Lance Armstrong’s charity. A punk with a heart of gold. <barf>

I was so tired of the mohawk back when I started college in 1983. I had friends wear it when I and they were 15. Then it was cool; that was 1979/1980, when punk mohawks were at their apex, and beside we were 15, so we were still easily impressed. But even by ‘83, it was so over.

I was no stranger to fucked-up hairdos myself in my misspent youth. Once in college I got a “pinhead,” where I shaved all my hair around my head south of my forehead, so I just had a tuft on top of my head. That got looks. As it grew out over the next couple of months, it turned into a “mushroom cloud.” Sadly, no photos remain that I know of.

But a mohawk? You want to look all counter-culture, and that’s the best you can do — the same counter-culture hairdo that dweebs have been getting for decades?

All these years, I’ve been waiting to see someone get the perpendicular mohawk — left to right, instead of front to back — a stripe of hair running ear to ear. That would be cool, something you don’t see every day. Better yet would be the “toilet brush” — a left-to-right mohawk conntected to a mustache-less beard — a continuous band of hair running all around your head, framing your face like a freak mane.

Sadly, I can’t grow that heavy of a beard, not to mention I’m a grown-up with a real job, and no one else out there seems to have the creativity where it comes to zany hairdos as me. Ah well, a boy can dream…