This section of Shhhh! Digital Media is a unique escape. For it is the home of the Last Lonely Comic.
In a leisure suit that went out of style in the eighties, he approaches and speaks into the microphone:
Warning: This content is intended for a mature audience, there being occasional references to sex, tobacco products and narcotics. Reader discretion is advised.
<PS: I didn't grow up in Allenbury Gardens with all due respect and I am not mentally ill with all due respect to those who truly struggle with such hurdles in life. I'd in no way ever use such a label in a stigmatic way>
Holiday Season
Its the most wonderful time of the year.
<dead silence>
No. Really. It is.
Oh! Who am I fooling!
I mean, I had to walk here through three feet of snow, and its only the middle of December for crying out loud!
I mean, with global warming and all, we've been getting spoiled sick by snowfall that doesn't arrive until February.
Imagine that? Snow in December? Who in the heck ever heard of that?
<A pair of hands in the audience claps, followed by a sort of clinical laughter from the same direction>
Now that guy's definitely under age. How'd he get in here?
He's from the latest generation. The generation who know exactly what I'm talking about.
Because the rest of us, those of us who are in their mid twenties to early thirties, and those of us in our forties or older, focusing on our retirement which is only around the corner in the scheme of things, know much better.
You see, when Holiday Season came around during our childhood, by that point in time there was already six feet of the white stuff on the ground.
So much of it in fact, that Surgeon General warnings were more aggressively directed towards people shoveling snow, than they were to those smoking cigarettes.
"Yep. Good ol' Jim there passed away the other day..." Alex would say.
"Lung Cancer? Heart disease?" Bob would look to him in shock, asking him of the cause.
"Nope. It was snow shoveling that got 'im. Yep. It took another this week." Alex would reply.
"You know, they oughtta do something about that!" Bob would respond.
"What? Cigarette smoking?" Alex would ask.
"No. Snow shoveling for crying out loud! Those damned shovels are going to kill every one of us!" Bob would reply, taking a puff of his cigarette.
Some of us can remember a time when there was so much snow, that the ploughs would create mountains of the stuff along the sides of roads and shopping mall parking lots, and all of this was full tilt by the latest in early December. At least it was that way in the Great Lakes region.
After school, that's where most of us as kids became expert mountaineers.
They used to call us Sherpies.
No. I'm serious.
Any time there was a new mountain in the local mall parking lot, you'd see it covered in Sherpies.
Expert climbers, a base camp at the bottom of the mountain, cars driving around it.
We'd scale the thing in no time. Wouldn't even wait for Sir Edmund Hillary.
Each of us fighting for the top spot.
Some of us just jumping off when we got there.
Riding our toboggans and those crazy round disc things that looked like Cap's shield?
A treasure trove of memories on those things, which later in life got me wondering if maybe the adults weren' trying to secretly "off" us with our toys?
I mean, look where these mountains were? Dead in the middle of a parking lot...?
...during Holiday Season. The busiest time of year for shopping.
Cars everywhere!
And here we are riding Cap's shield down mountains into the middle of traffic.
I mean, it must have been part of some kind of secret design.
Its a wonder we're all still here, and certainly rest the souls of those who didn't make it.
Those discs were like greased lightning on any mountain or hill, and they'd never go forward.
They'd just spin until you were going down back first no matter how careful you launched.
They were a veritable death trap!
The funny part is that a year after they came out, they came up with these tiny pair of toboggans that you'd put on your feet!
Seriously!
Not quite skis, but more like really smooth shiny plastic elf shoes, with pointy tips.
They were made of the same stuff those discs were and when they hit the snow: 0 to 60 in like two seconds.
That would be the acceleration of your feet, because your upper body would only be doing like 0 to 60 in ten minutes.
You'd spend the first two seconds riding down the hill on your feet, and the other twenty seconds riding down on your butt.
Dangerous, but that was how you got your Sherpies' license.
"So what you climbed Everest. Dammit! I climbed Mount Fairview Mall, like three hundred times in December!"
Those were the real days of winter and many Sherpies were made.
Unforunately, not many of those same Sherpies survived their expedition to Mount Everest.
The real Nepalese Sherpas were like: "we warned you, but nooo, you wouldn't listen. You had to do things yooour way," they'd chant in their Sherpa-like chantful way, having been raised on a permanent mountain for their whole life.
Fortunately, where I grew up in Toronto, there were also a lot of hills around for family tobogganing and other snow activities, so it wasn't all danger Dan.
But let me tell you, there was snow. Everywhere, but that was alright, as long as you didn't get in onto your shoes and track it into your house.
There was at least two feet of it from November.
Now, in this day and age, when the holidays roll around, I'm in shock if I see the stuff before January.
Which leads me to believe, did you ever think that the calendar might be just a tad bit out of sync with actual time and say... the geometry and orbit of the Earth?
Like the seasons are slowly shifting so that in a few hundred years time, in North America at least, we'll have snow in the middle of July.
...
<More to come...>
Premature
I got here early tonight, so here I am on stage. But quite honestly, I don't have enough material to cover the extra time.
I guess you could say that I'm premature.
Honestly, I had no idea what that word meant until tonight.
Until I got here early for the first time in my life.
Now I'm here, and I don't know what to do. What to say?
I mean, I have like fifteen minutes of material. Eighteen at most, and I'm here like ten minutes early.
That means eight minutes of my show is going to be me standing here scratching my head. Saying: ummmm. Uhhhhh. What was that...? Oh, never mind.
That's a dilemma.
Actually from what I understand, being early is a major dilemma, which brings me to my next question: what's worse, premature baldness or premature ejaculation?
(Bone chilling silence from the nonexistent audience...)
Back in my father's day, and his father's day, a man was rewarded for being early.
They showed up an hour before the plant opened, and some well to do guy in a fedora and suit that wasn't Indiana Jones, would give them a fat bonus for doing so.
Back in their time, that's the way it was. Its all right there, in black and white... movies.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Topper (1937)
Psycho (1960)
Casablanca (1942)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
The Canadian Victory Loan Drive (1918)
Back in my parent's and grandparent's twenties, and even my twenties, that was the way.
And then one day... or night. Perhaps in an intimate setting in their parent's basement, or the backseat of their first second-hand sedan, just when everything is nice and warmed up, Elvis decides he's making an early exit from the eye of the tower.
In situations like that is when we first learn that being early isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
Just ask your girlfriend. Fiancé. Wife. Mistress. Girly magazine. Mistress' mistress. Mistress' girly magazine.
I mean, if your wife suddenly stopped, and declared that Prescilla had fled to Shangri-la before Elvis had finished his set, you'd probably feel fairly unsatisfied.
"Well honey, Elvis is still playing the gig. Could you at least let him finish the last verse?" you'd say.
Unfortunately, when Elvis leaves, the show is over whether Prescilla wants another verse or not.
He's limp.
Done for the night.
Finished early, and left through the top of the elevator shaft.
When it comes to sex, and being early, women got the short end of the stick. Definitely.
And that's precisely why Henry Cavill was hired as the most recent Superman... and the poster boy of the vast majority of women's last verse when it comes to bed play.
So why isn't there a postmature?
Postmature baldness?
Postmature ejaculation?
Most romantic partners you'd have in life would just love that.
The tardiness of hairloss.
The procrastination of ejaculation.
Projaculation maybe?
"So tell me Theodore, why are you late again today? This is the third day in a row!" your boss says to you as you arrive late again.
"I'm sorry, but its in my contract," you reply.
"What's in your contract?" he grills you.
"I'm late because I'm a Projaculationist," you reply, standing proud of your faith in the austerity of tardiness... of ejaculation.
Being early has few benefits or merits. Unless of course its a tax bursary or benefit of some kind. Honestly, you can't burn down all your bridges at once.
Tardiness seems to be built into the very fabric of the universe.
Like recently, they're saying that the big bang is all wrong.
That the dynamics involved would have resulted in a completely different universe from the one we have.
I have another solution to that dilemma, though.
The universe is, in all honesty, just late. Its being tardy.
Think about it.
Everything that we know and love began with a lot of humping, Prescilla and Elvis taking an exit at their venues, and meeting somewhere to engage in some pretty heavy petting. Until one day, out pops Alex, or Barbara, crying for food and diapers.
An entire month after their predicted birthdate.
Damned procrastivacuationist children!
What if the universe is just the inside of an egg?
I mean the inside of a female ovum of nearly infinite proportions.
Compared to us.
And the big bang is... well... conception?
Then wouldn't it stand to reason that the birth of the universe will take place a month late?
Or about ten trillion of our years?
However, if we're in a premature universe, we're in BIG trouble.
Some deep thoughts there, and Jack Handy seems to have all the copyright on all that kind of stuff.
Him and that Red Green fella.
So I'm on my way to my day gig the other day, and I run into a pregnant woman.
Not literally running. Or literally into her.
I think they call it figuratively.
And let me tell you, she had a figure alright.
A figure much like that of a woman with a small, rotund, bald micro-person making a home inside of her, doing laps in her stomach on a daily basis.
So I asks her: "When are you expecting?"
She replies: "Oh the Doctor says she'll be with us in another two weeks,"
"And you don't believe him?" I ask.
"No I don't," she replies.
"Why's that?" I ask her, looking to her hunch stomach of Notre Dame and then back to her youthful and pretty face.
"Well, I already know that she's a lot like her daddy, and when we conceived her, her daddy was early too... He's a Prejaculationist,"
The End
Privacy
So I'm in bed with my wife the other night.
I'm an older fella, and since its an issue of privacy for both her and I, it wouldn't be right to tell you whether we sleep in one bed: a larger Queen or King Sized bed for instance, or whether we sleep in two separate tiny single beds on opposite side of the bedroom from each other, like most people who've lived a lifetime together.
There's the first proof that privacy evolved in the senior population before it did with youngsters.
When married adults in their fifties decided that it would be better to sleep on opposite sides of the room from each other.
Perhaps it was a matter of their changing bodies, or even their confidence issues in adjusting, but I bet it has something more to do with the movement of bodily gases and what not.
What scientists like to call flatulence.
It even sounds like what its describing.
A sudden flat tire, through which the passage of air is suddenly facilitated.
How romantic, isn't it?
To think that a lifetime of lust and love is going to end with two people on opposite sides of the room.
Barely able to tolerate each other's bodily scent.
The origins of privacy? Perhaps.
That's just one side of this lifelong debate as another lecturer steps up to the podium, and presents his evidence for the contrary argument, placing it on the podium before him.
The argument that privacy evolved at the hands of youth.
A stack of girly magazines from under one such youth's bed.
This was back in the stone age, long before the internet.
Which brings me to another theory.
The theory that the internet is basically the space under a giant bed, with a stack of dirty magazines.
At these two opposite ends of the scale, we see the motivations driving the pursuit of privacy.
Which brings me to antother point.
Why is nudity called dirty? I mean most people in those pictures are pretty much spotless.
If you're looking for dirt, its probably all between the ears of people who first identified it with nudity.
Imagine that. You have this wonderful functioning body. An absolute wonder and miracle of nature.
Then some profoundly humble artist starts painting renditions of nude women, and somebody has the nerve to start calling it dirt.
Way to spit on the human body, dufus. Only the greatest gift you ever got for free.
I'm getting off point here. Where were we? Oh, privacy.
The funny thing about the youth argument for privacy. Why?
Just about every other adolescent is doing the exact same thing. So why the need to hide it?
Why the desperate need to hide anything?
At that point in the lecture and debate, the wife of the lecturer comes out on stage and grabs the lecturer by the ear, pulling him off stage to lecture him about arguing in favour of things that violate their privacy, hence defining privacy in the process.
The difference between the impression of what happens between a loving couple when in public, and what actually happens when in their own private space together.
Don't get me wrong. It's a boundary and an important one at that.
Perhaps one of the most important of all, but also the most violated by others as is often the case, especially nowadays.
So it starts with the public impression that people give others relating to their life and demeanor, versus what actually occurs behind the scenes.
I'm a pretty up front kind of guy, being a comedian, so you're not going to see too much on stage that contradicts my private moments, which explains why my wife is never at any of my shows.
Because privacy is actually about secrets.
The secrets a couple share, versus the secrets that others find out about them.
Broken secrets are broken bias in the minds of some people.
Its a cruel game of breaking the bias of love, which is built on the secrets shared between a couple, played by the rest of the public who violate others' privacy or at the very least, try to trick others into violating their own, so they can justify violating someone else's.
Ahhhhh. Now we've got the real culprits by the privates, so to speak.
The funny thing is, that everyone who violates the privacy of others regularly, are usually the ones who are afforded the most privacy themselves.
No. Really. Think about it.
How often are the ones spying on other people's private moments, having their privacy violated?
Never.
Tabloid photographers for instance?
Not a one has their privacy violated.
Imagine what they're hiding?
Jimmy Hoffa's body?
The location of Bigfoot's home cave?
The keys to the Roswell UFO.
The Secrets of the Mayan Calendar.
The location of the Well of Souls.
The instructions to how they built the pyramids.
The real secret of how they get the Cadbury caramel inside the milk chocolate.
So getting back to the beginning of my routine, my wife and I are in bed one night.
To protect our privacy, I won't say whether it was the bedroom or the living room or the bathroom or whether we sleep in two separate beds or one giant bed together.
We were in a generic room in a generic house in one or two beds. Like Schrodinger's Cat, you won't know for sure until you take a peek, but once you do, you can never go back to not knowing.
We're snuggling up to each other, and getting a little frisky when someone opens the door and walks into our room and starts looking around.
We quickly lean up in bed, draw the covers over ourselves and try to stay hidden.
This person, looks around nonchalantly, like its a house tour or something. Behind them, another group of people enter, and begin looking around like the first guy.
Before long, there's like thirty or forty people in our bedroom with us, looking around, when one of them spots us.
He quickly points it out for the others, and soon everyone in the room is pointing at us, laughing. Making jokes about us.
A few of them even try to get into bed with us before I quickly chase them out, with the threat of seeing me naked.
The sight of me naked is deadly at five paces. Same with just about any guy after they crest fifty.
My wife would say otherwise, but I'm very grateful for her far-sightedness because if she wasn't, I'd be a single man.
So back to these people in our bedroom. They're looking around, going through our drawers and closets. Examining everything about our lives.
The funny thing is that they're all completely devoid of a conscience. Like there's nothing wrong with what they're doing.
Kind of like when the Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door, and try to invite themselves in to "discuss things" about the apocalypse and the afterlife. The same point you quickly show them your voter's card and the photos of your last birthday cake and chase them out while quickly devouring a candy bar and chasing it down with a shot of whiskey.
So these people are in our bedroom pointing at us, joking about us at point blank range. Some of them are still trying to get into bed with us too despite my best efforts to keep them out.
They're checking out all of our secrets, perhaps trying to break down the bias of love, because its built on the secrets between two people.
Some of these people start walking around in our bedroom, then try to create their own secrets. Taking a few selfies with my wife and I struggling to remain hidden in the background.
Inserting themselves into our life, to alter the bias of secrets in their favour, while breaking down our secrets as a couple.
So as my wife calls the Police, I grab one of the bed sheets, and get out of bed to deal with them.
I say: "Look! You're on private property. You're violating the space of my wife and I, but it doesn't look like the Police are coming. If you're going to stay, you're going to have to take off your shoes and your clothes at least down to your underwear, and wear housecoats while on our property, not to mention stay the heck out of our bedroom! Do you understand?!" I say to them, glistening in the specular light of the moon like the stone statue of a god.
My wife looks at me longingly and lustfully, ever so proud of me for having defended us.
One of the privacy violating tourists turns to me and verifies: "You want us to take off our shoes, get into our underwear and wear a housecoat?!" he challenges me.
I say: "And get the heck out of our bedroom! You're damned right I do!" I say to him wearing the sheet like the silk robe of a Courtesan from the Song Dynasty of Ancient China.
My rippling muscles visible in the moonlight.
Actually, it was the rolls of a thin layer of senior fat.
So the one speaking for all the people in my room there, he turns to me says:
"But that would violate our privacy!".
Deep Fakes
Everything in the news is about advances in technology.
About computers, the internet and in particular: AI.
Pronounced: Eh Aye.
Probably why so many Canadians are picking up on it so quickly.
Sailors too, the world over.
"Have you heard about those smart computers they're building?" you ask them.
He responds: "Eh? Aye..."
And you're like: Whoa! this guy's knowledgeable for a sailor.
Meanwhile, that was just his canned response to anything.
"Did you get your lotto numbers in the 6/49 last night?" you ask him this time.
This time he responds: "Eh? Aye..."
Oh well. There goes the knowledgeable and worldly fisherman impression.
Kind of like bowling over that illusion you'd preferred to have kept.
"Is that guy a secret agent? The way he stands on the corner there. Like he's keeping an eye on things..." they start talking about you.
Then they see that you were just watching the local donut shop for the men's bathroom to be vacant so you could relieve yourself, and they're like:
"Oh well. Another one bites the dust..." shaking their heads.
A little lame. My material tonight. My material every night.
...
In life, sometimes you're up. Sometimes you're down.
Like Deep Fakes. They can work for you, or against you.
So I have this tech friend. A guy who's really into the latest stuff.
Hardware. Software. Underwear. You name it, he has it.
So I'm hanging out with him, and he takes a photo of me, and superimposes it so that it looks like I'm schmoozing with a bunch of Hollywood stars, and then prints it out for me. He hands me a glossy 8x10 photograph of the picture he just doctored to make me look like a star.
I'm like: "Thanks man! That's awesome!" thinking I'll include it in my resume, portfolio or something like that.
So of course, I start showing the picture to people, and for some reason, I start to become really popular.
Despite my crappy material, fans start showing up at the lounge thinking I'm a big star or something.
I walk the walk and talk the talk, really pouring it on thick, the whole Hollywood star impression.
My friend, the one who made the photograph in the first place shows up and I figure he's going to blow the whistle on the whole thing.
So I quickly deny even knowing him, and my fans literally chase him out of the lounge.
I start to become really popular.
People buying me drinks.
Women everywhere.
The next night, I'm up on stage.
A girl in each arm.
This happened in the eighties, 'cause you'd never get away with that kind of misogyny now.
An alternate version of the eighties, with today's modern technology.
That's my excuse.
So I'm up on stage, a girl in each arm. Sunglasses on. The whole nine yards.
And this cop walks into the lounge and starts yelling.
"Can I have your attention please! Can I have your attention please!" he interrupts while I'm in the middle of my show.
"Have any of you seen this man?" he holds up a photo.
Its an impressive and incriminating photo of me fleeing the scene of a bank robbery with a bag of cash - complete with a little dollar symbol on the bag - in one hand, and a gun in the other.
I see my former tech friend behind the cop, a devilish smile on his face.
...
So I was out the other night after work, at a bar, and someone snaps a quick video of me and a pack of drunken cheerleaders a few sheets to the wind if you know what I mean.
About two minutes later, the video is up on Instagram, and my wife sees it.
I get home that night, and she's waiting up for me. Her tablet computer sitting in front of her on the coffee table.
"Hi honey. Shhhhorry I'm late. I had to shhhtay at work tonight and finish up," I say, stumbling and still a little bit drunk.
She simply picks up the tablet, holds the screen to me and presses play on the Instagram post of me and the pack of drunken cheerleaders at the bar.
I stand there for a moment, swaying in the darkness as I fumble searching for the foyer light.
I take a look at the looping Instagram video she's playing back of me chugging a pint as the cheerleaders cheer.
They're cheerleaders. That's what they do.
A Zen moment I thought.
My wife didn't think so.
So I says: "Eh? Aye..."
That didn't work either.
"How could you?!" she exclaims at me, rightfully upset.
And then it dawns on me.
"It's a Deep Fake," I say.
She's like: "Thank the heavens! I was so worried that might really be you,"
I suddenly realized that I'd stumbled onto the goldmine of late night excuses.
I could use it to cover for just about anything.
Out with my secretary at a romantic Italian restaurant eating Tomato Marinara Linguine with Sautéed Mussels, drinking a bottle of the best wine?
Deep Fake.
In a marching band, drunk in Tijuana, Mexico, with a trio of women, a chihuahua, and a bottle of tequila with the worm in it?
Deep Fake.
In a pair of silk gauchies, wearing a black mask, in Akihabara, Japan in a room full of naked Hentai girls?
Deep Fake.
So my wife and I, we go to bed together, and she's all hot and snugly and I'm... a few sheets to the wind, but frisky nonetheless.
So we do it.
In bed.
On the night table.
On the floor.
In the closet.
On the chest of drawers.
It was an incredible night.
The best makeup sex I've ever had, and I wasn't even wearing any makeup <buh dum tsss from the drummer>.
<pauses for the silence>
I get up the next day and she's got breakfast ready for me on the table and she kisses me as I leave for work, just feeling great.
So I work all day, and feel particularly good, knowing I've got such a loving and dedicated wife.
I think to myself: "Man, you've really got to clean up your act. No more drunken nights with cheerleaders," I promise myself and her.
I decide that I'm going to turn over a new leaf, all for her.
And that great makeup sex.
I stop in on the way home after work to buy her some flowers and a romantic card.
I have it all ready for her, and this crazy idea that when I get home, we're going to have another night like the night before.
She's going to greet me at the door, press me up against the wall and lay a passionate kiss upon me.
Then she's going to take control and drag me to the bedroom, as I pretend to resist.
When I get in the door, I'm like: "Honey, I'm home!"
Right out of a sitcom episode from the nineteen fifties.
Picture perfect, except for one thing.
She's not there.
Nor is any of the furniture.
In fact, the entire house is cleaned out, top to bottom.
No note. No nothing.
It was as if she was never there.
I check our joint bank account, and its empty. All of our hundred and fifty thousand dollars in savings gone.
I call my lawyer, and he tells me that I'm going to need proof she was there for legal purposes to get my half of the money back.
"But she has everything! All the photos we took together. Everything!" I reply.
Then I realize that we installed a security system the previous year and had forgotten all about it.
I grab my smartphone and connect to the service, and start going through the video logs and find the video of our last night together.
Pretty hot stuff too.
The video is very hot. Too hot.
So I call my lawyer and tell him: "I've got the smoking gun evidence we've been looking for that she was my girl!"
He's like: "Bring it to court next week, and we'll get your money, your furniture and your life back!"
I'm like: "Alright. We've got her right where we want her!"
So the following week, I get to court and present the smoking gun evidence.
The video of our last night together.
Everyone in the courtroom watches it, and then has a cigarette afterwards.
Even the jury.
Even the non-smokers.
"Whaddaya think of that!" my lawyer challenges her's.
"Deep Fake," her lawyer responds.
Computer Files
I was at home the other evening, sitting at my computer.
I was checking my email. Honest.
Actually I was going through my old files and cleaning up to make some space.
I have a lot of written material on my computer, and a lot of it is crap.
Stuff that doesn't make it for my standup routine.
So every once in a while, I take an evening and go through it all, deleting what I won't need.
So, I have a stack of files selected.
Actually I didn't know you could do that until just before the show.
You hold the SHIFT key down.
Ned told me. The bartender. He knows a lot about computers.
Anyway, I had some files selected to delete, and I pressed the DELETE key.
The computer thinks for a moment, and a dialog box pops up on the screen.
It says: Deleting 236 files. Are you sure?
So I click the OK button, and it begins deleting them. A few seconds later its done.
So I select another one, and press the DELETE key, and sure enough, another dialog box pops up.
Deleting 1 file. Are you sure?
So I say: "I'm sure" and click the OK button.
Another dialog box pops up on the screen: Really?
So I say: "Yes, I'm sure. I've given this a lot of thought and I'd really like to go ahead with it"
Another dialog box pops up: Because you created it last night, meaning its less than 24 hours old. That's wasteful you know.
"No it isn't. These are computer files! What are you talking about?" I ask the computer.
It responds: Well someone has to take them out when you delete them and it isn't you. I just think its an awful waste you know.
"Look, they're just old files that I don't want anymore. Can you just erase the friggin' things!" I reply.
On the other side of the world, there are people that actually don't have enough computer files, and you're throwing yours out?
"Look, I just want to delete the files. I didn't want a hard time about it. What do you suggest?" I ask.
Why don't you recycle them?
"Why don't you just do it and don't ask me again!" I'm now on the brink.
Are you sure?
It was mocking me.
"Yes I'm sure!" I reply, raising my voice a bit.
Alright. But don't tell me I didn't warn you.
An hour later, and I go to open one of the files that has all my new material.
I double click the file, and my word processor program opens up.
I examine the new material I had written and everything is jumbled and mixed up.
Conjunctions here. Prepositions there. Adverbs everywhere else. Some adjectives without verbs.
Orphaned letters all by their lonesome.
I was shocked. Twenty hours of writing all gone.
Like someone had taken the contents of a dictionary and dumped them randomly onto a page.
So I says: "Alright. What happened to my file!"
The computer just sits there quietly.
"I know you're in there! Come on! What happened to my new material here?!!" I'm furious at that point.
A dialog box pops up: I thought that was what you wanted?
"My new material's gone! This is just a jumble of random words and nonsense!" I says.
Another dialog box pops up: So? What's different about it from your usual material?
"Watch it! Where's my new material!" I demand, clicking the OK button.
Another dialog shows up on screen: You're looking at it. I recycled it!
The End Of World
This whole end of the world thing has me really frightened.
Especially in 2020.
Halloween too.
I mean Halloween comes every year.
So when it comes to horror, it seems kind of lacklustre.
Like that jump scare you've seen once too often.
Compared with the end of the frickin' world its pretty tame.
Some people don't believe in the end of the world.
I think they're part of the plot to end it.
They're just biding time since their botched attempt on Y2K.
I was talkin' with someone the other day about deforestation.
I was saying that if it keeps up at current rates, we'll have no forest or jungle at all by 2035.
He was like:
"No, no, no. Don't be crazy. The forest grows back faster than we can cut it. Nature just balances everything fine."
As he was saying that, I realized that it was kind of like a guy who encourages you to keep smoking while you're refueling your propane car.
"No, no, no. Don't be crazy. That stuff will never blow. Ever. That whole Hindenburg thing was a conspiracy. Like Roswell. Cigarettes are nutritious, especially when mixed with highly volatile substances like propane."
Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe.
Its like star farts.
Apparently stars fart often.
Fusion powered nuclear farts.
So often that most of the elements that make up human beings are from star farts.
In esssence, you'd be correct in saying we're the stuff of stars'... ...farts.
A bit of hydrogen.
Sometimes helium, which makes star voices really high.
Carbon. Oxygen.
We look out into the cosmos all the time with telescopes.
X-ray observatories.
Gravity wave sensors.
Tell me, what do we see with these things?
Planets colliding with stars and black holes eating each other.
Supernovas destroying whole sections of a galaxy.
Everywhere we look, something bigger than the Earth is on a collision course for something bigger than it.
I mean, come on!
As Jay Melosh once said: "We're living in a frickin' shooting gallery!"
I sometimes wonder how everyone else can remain so calm?
Remember Shoemaker-Levy?
The comet that hit Jupiter?
The explosion on the surface of Jupiter was as big as the Earth.
Like Mother Nature is saying to us:
Come on.
You wanna dance?
Let's dance...
We're like:
Yeah!
YEAH!
We got NUKES!
She's like:
Didn't anyone ever tell you not to bring nukes to a SUPER MASSIVE BLACK HOLE FIGHT?
I've also got two concealed SUPERNOVAS up my skirt, asshole!
C'mon.
Mess with me!
Mother nature.
She's kinky.
Maybe a sadomasochist.
In which case we're screwed, because that means she actually likes pain.
What'll we do then?
Tickle her? Hope she throws a pillow at us in hysteria and says "I give"
Humanity's first answer would be "Really? Do you?"
I played Poker with Mother Nature once.
Five card stud.
No. Really. She's a wild gal that one.
In fact, I learned something about playing Mother Nature.
Don't play against Mother Nature.
I'm serious!
So I played her and I was dealt a Royal Flush.
I bluffed it of course.
I mean I wanted to see how much I could bilk her.
So on the first bet, she looks at me.
She looks at my visible cards.
A ten of spades. A jack of spades. A queen of spades.
It was pretty obvious.
She looks at hers.
She's got a three of diamonds. An 8 of clubs. A six of hearts.
For those of you who don't know, that's pretty much a nothing hand.
Statistically speaking, almost no chance of a win there.
Yet, she takes every chip she has and bets it all.
I mean everything.
She had no hand whatsoever.
So stupid me, I thought I'd see her bet, and try to raise her.
I threw in the keys to my car.
Actually it wasn't my car.
It was the car of the friend who drove me to the bar where Mother Nature hangs out.
So she calls my bet.
I show her my cards, revealing a full Royal Flush on spades.
She just laughs and says:
"I win." and picks up the pot, car keys and all.
I'm like: "No way! I won that fair and square!"
Just then, it gets reeeal cold and a giant glacier forms on the card table freezing everything in a foot of solid ice.
She replies: "No you didn't."
I said: "Let's play again. Let me at least win back what I lost?"
She replied: "In thirty five thousand years. After everything thaws."
What happens to deleted computer files?
I think they get thrown out of our computers.
They become homeless.
On the internet.
The internet is like skid row for computer files.
When you clear your recycle bin, they just get dumped onto the internet.
Like an eviction.
Your word documents.
Your spreadsheets.
Your chat logs.
Your browser history.
They're out there alright, they just ain't got no home.
You ever stop to think that these files actually know everything about you?
I mean they were with you for the haul.
They have most of your most personal and private data.
They know all of your personal secrets.
Yet here they are cajoling with other discarded files, sharing secrets.
I think that's how the world is going to end.
These discarded files are all going to gang up on us.
I mean they know everything about us.
So the other day, I get a call.
I answer: "Hello?"
A voice on the other says: "Hi. Haven't heard your voice for a long time. How are you?"
I say: "Who is this?"
The voice replies: "It's me. Beer."
I say: "I told you never to come back. What do you want."
The voice responds: "I've changed."
"How?" I ask.
"I'm lower calorie now. I'm healthy. Much safer." the voice replied.
"How can I believe you?" I replied.
"Look. Are you going to open the door or not?" the voice replied.
"Look! Just go before I call the Police!" I responded.
"C'mon! It's warm out here. I need a damn fridge! Let me in! I've changed!" the beer replied.
"I don't believe you." I replied.
"It's true. Just open the door." the beer replied.
"Why should I?" I asked.
"...I'm canned now. No more twist off. No more bottle openers. Pleease! You have to believe me!" the beer cried.
"Alright. I'll let you in. But you can only stay tonight. Tomorrow, you have to find another place." I firmly advised the beer.
So I open the door and the first thing the beer did was run for the fridge.
It was reeeal cold to me.
It was also reeal cold. Period.
So I opened one, and beer's been with me ever since.
Silence from the absence of applause and the lack of beer.
Horror In The Modern World
Digging For Gold
Two women and a well dressed hunk of a guy are sitting at the bar. The bartender is busy cleaning glasses and wiping the counter between orders. The music is there but non-intrusive. Loud enough to be heard, yet quiet enough to speak.
The two guys are sitting on either side of the hunk, occasionally throwing him a friendly glance, to neither of which he responds.
So the girl on the right finally gets up the nerve to address the hunk.
"So what are you into?" she asks.
He turns to her seductively and says:
"I'm into one thing. Bullion, baby." he replies, twirling his diamond watch on his wrist.
The girl on the left shakes her head in disbelief upon hearing his words.
"Really? What a coincidence! So am I!" she replies slapping her knee at her good fortune.
He then looks her up and down, weighing her financial worth before he responds.
"And what do you do for a living?" he asks her.
"Why I work with it. All day. I drive a nice car. I have a nice house. I have money put away. But I live all alone." the lady on the left responds.
"Well perhaps you'd like some company for the evening, seeing as you have all that bullion. Maybe I can help you count it?" the lady responds.
"I sure would love some company, but you don't have to worry about counting it. I mean I have computers for doing that." the lady on the left replies.
"Your computers count your bullion? Why you must be a billionaire?" he asks her.
The lady on the right jumps in and speaks:
"Why I have people to count mine for me. Forget computers. It takes real couth to count it with people." the lady says, drawing the man's attention away.
He turns to the lady on the left and says:
"I'm sorry, but I've made my choice. I'm going home with this one. She has an army of employees working for her, counting gold." he indicates the lady on the right.
"No matter, I'll do well. I'm a programmer. You know? Boolean logic and all? My computers count in boolean logic. Why, what kind of boolean did you think that I was talking about?" she asks him.
"Why that's easy! He's into the kind I have. Bouillon! The soup kind! I'm a bouillon soup clerk. I make twelve whole dollars an hour." the lady on the left responds.
The dead silence is deafening, except for the one lady in the audience who can be heard slurping a delicious bowl of soup. She looks up from her bowl and winks at the Last Lonely Lounge comic, who tries desperately to camouflage himself into the stage curtain.
Giving The Other Cheek...
Anyway, back to this joke.
So this guy's sitting there. He might have been drinking a beer, with a twist of lime. Just enjoying the day. In a big city somewhere in a universe that its legal to drink brand name beer on the benches outside of your residence without getting ticketed or arrested.
Keep in mind though that the beer isn't pertinent to this story until they pay me. Ya hear that big breweries? Insert your brand name beer right here in this story.
Maybe it was beer commercial? I mean in beer commercials, life always looks so ideal. Like a daytime fantasy. Anyway it was just a nice day.
So anyway, he's sitting there quietly and someone comes out of the building, walks by him and says:
"you're dumb" and then keeps on walking.
There's nobody else around and the man with the beer just ignores him as he goes by.
Another guy out on the sidewalk passes the man with the beer on the bench and as he's passing says:
"you really fudged things up didn't you?" and keeps on going.
Once again, the guy with the beer looks around and sees nobody else and watches this person who'd just made the comment as he walks by.
A short little then lady goes by a bike and yells:
"you stink!" and she keeps riding.
This time the guy with the beer sits up and looks around, starting to get suspicious that these people might be referring to him. He takes a look at his beer, smells it and it seems fine. He checks the lime and its alright too. I mean you have to have priorities in life. He then checks himself and realizes that he smells fine. Like aftershave and deodorant. He then shrugs his shoulders and leans back once again enjoying the day.
Someone in a blue two door sedan pulls up and parks their car outside of the building. They step out of their car and on their way into the building the driver says:
"you really are an ass..." and opens the door to the building and lets himself in.
The man with the beer looks to him and smirks as the driver goes into the building and then sits back down trying to enjoy the rest of the day.
One of the people who'd first addressed him returns to the building from the store with a bag in hand. As he walks over to the front door of the building he speaks:
"you scum sucking moron..." he says as he passes.
The man with the beer finally loses his cool and stands up with a mean look on his face and says:
"Are you talking to me?! What's your problem!?" he asks, a bit frustrated.
The man with bag stops and says:
"What are you, some kind of trouble maker!?"
...
Silence from the absent audience within the lounge.
Bullying
Get it? With more bullying. You know. Cause he's already being bullied. You're a wonderful audience. Really. You are.
Computers And Windows 10
I was using Windows 10 the other day.
The sound of crickets chirping accent the ambience of the empty room.
I tried to open up a word processor and my computer responds by telling me that it can't run on my system.
So thinking that I am a tech savvy guy, I decide to try running one of the Windows 10 Troubleshooters. You know, the apps in Control Panel that help you fix problems with your computer.
So I run the troubleshooter.
I wait a few minutes.
Some time later a message pops up on my screen telling me that it can't find any problems.
So I ask myself aloud if my computer is in denial?
My computer answers "no".
Then it says "maybe its you".
...
I have some bad news.
I recently had a bad break up.
Yeah, it was bad.
Cortana left me for another operating system.
Addictions
I've recently come to terms with the fact that I've got an addiction.
You know what they say. The first step is in admitting it.
It was hard admitting it to myself.
Its even going to be harder to tell you people. My audience.
The empty room glares back.
You see, I'm addicted to...
breathing.
Awkward silence.
Yeah, I know. I know. It's hard.
It all started about 55 years ago.
I had just arrived on the scene.
I didn't have anything. Not a penny to my name.
Not even something to wear.
Naked. A little small too.
Thinning hair at zero years old.
Thinking that I could take on the world.
That nothing could stop me.
That's when the Doctor coaxed me.
Encouraged me...
A bit aggressively too...
He forced me to take my first breath.
I was thinking to myself:
this ain't so bad.
I don't know what the big deal is?
I can handle it.
The Doctor looked at me with a sinister grin on his face.
Like he could see me years from that moment.
In the future.
With a breath dependency.
Where the breathing would take me.
I coughed a bit.
Then I took another breath.
And another.
Before I knew it, I was hooked.
I didn't want to do anything else but breath.
I was so confused.
So I started crying.
That's when this big lady tried to console me.
I struggled to get away. I only wanted to breath some more.
Just another breath. And then another.
It felt so good.
Like I was on top of the world.
Before I knew it, I couldn't stop.
I didn't let on to anyone that I had a problem.
It just takes one breath and you're hooked.
I breathed while I ate. While I slept.
I even wanted to breath with sex.
I had a bit of trouble talking my girlfriend into it at first.
I mean, I didn't ask her to breath at all.
I didn't want to get her started down that road.
To breathing.
To addiction.
I just told her that I had to breath when we slept together.
She was alright with it at first.
When I had to breath every time we did it, she'd had enough.
She left me for a straight laced guy. No breathing problems.
Now she's married. Has a house and kids.
No breathing problems whatsoever.
As a matter of fact, she lives in a gated community.
They keep the breathers out.
I heard that a breath dealer got in there once.
Snuck in.
He tried to give one of the residents mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
He was arrested and charged with a conspiracy to distribute breath.
Years later and he's still in prison.
It's so funny when I think back.
When I suspected that it was becoming a big problem in my life...
I tried to quit.
I was thinking, I started it.
I can stop it.
So I stopped breathing.
Cold turkey.
It wasn't so bad at first.
After I started going through withdrawal, I passed out.
I don't know how long I was out for.
But when I woke up...
There I was.
Right back at the beginning of this mess.
Breathing again.
It's tough to quit breathing. Really tough.
Now, I don't beat myself up when I fall off the wagon.
I guess some people see that as a weakness.
Not me.
It's more like honesty.
But still, some see it as having no control.
Like the other day, I was outside, waiting for a bus.
I'm standing there, minding my own business.
This small scraggly looking guy comes up to me.
He stands beside me.
Reaches into his pocket.
Pulls out a little baggie.
It's filled with these little crystal-like rocks.
He takes some of them from the bag and fills a dirty old pipe.
He hands me the pipe.
"Wanna try some crack?" he asks.
I say "No. I've already got my own vice".
He asks me: "Oh yeah? What?!"
I shrug. I tell him.
I say: "I like to breath. I can't stop."
"I've been a breather my whole life." I continue.
He confirms that he heard me correctly: "you mean you're into breath man?!"
I nod my head hesitantly.
"Yep. I ain't proud of it. But at least I can admit it."
He says: "Whoa man, that stuff will kill ya!"
Telekinesis
"So I was talkin' to a friend of mine. He says to me that he's got telekinesis."
"I look at him and say: So? I've got telekinesis and nephews."
Silent pause.
"It's a great crowd here tonight."
Deafening silence.
...
Golf
"Does anyone here like golf?"
Silence again from the ever absent audience.
"Two guys arrive at the golf course to play the first nine holes. One of them a stock broker, the other one a priest."
Silent pause.
"So the priest takes his shot. Lining his drive up nicely landing on the fairway."
"The stock broker pauses, admires the priest's shot a little nervously. He steps up to the tee and winds up for his drive. He swings. The ball hooks far to the right."
"He begins cursing and swearing all the while jumping on his golf club like a mad man."
"The priest says: Take it easy there son and watch your words. The good lord is listening."
"The stock broker shakes his head and apologizes. He assures the priest that it won't happen again."
"They hop in the golf cart together and arrive at the stock broker's ball in the rough. He quickly pulls a nine iron club and lines up the shot. He makes a furious swing and the golf ball veers far to the left, once again landing in the rough. The air is filled with his cursing and swearing as he throws his club at the ground and once again starts jumping on it."
"The priest looks at him in shock and disgust and speaks: Easy there son. Watch your words. I'm a man of the cloth and the good lord is listening! We can't have this behavior in the Lord's presence!"
"The stock broker shakes his head and apologizes. I'm sorry 'bout that."
"They hop in the golf cart and arrive once again at the stock broker's ball in the rough. The stock broker takes a moment to line up his shot, this time with a wedge and swings hard and with purpose. The ball once again veers into the rough and into the water hole."
"The stock broker spews, cursing and swearing jumping on his golf club in anger."
"The priest speaks in shock: I'm a man of the cloth! Hold your tongue and watch your words in the presence of the lord!"
"At that moment, a bolt of lightning shoots down from the clouds in an otherwise clear sky and strikes the priest dead in his tracks."
"From the clouds, a tremendous and ominous voice is heard cursing and swearing over the lousy shot with the lightening bolt."
Silence.
"You're a wonderful audience."
...
How To Make Anything Look Comfortable
"I used to work a job selling furniture. Well, not really."
"I used to pretend I had a job selling furniture."
"No really. When I would do this, I came up with a great way of doing my job."
"In fact, nature has provided us with a naturally occurring furniture salesperson."
"The fact is, that if you want to sell furniture, you have to make it look comfortable."
"If it looks comfortable, chances are they'll buy it."
"So in order to make it look comfortable, all you have to do is put a cat on it."
"I mean a cat. Not like a picture. A real life cat. Give them a minute or two and they'll inevitably lie down on it."
"I mean cats sleep eighteen hours out of every twenty four hour day. So if you put a cat on something; anything, your odds are three out of four that it will lie down on it and fall asleep."
"I doesn't matter how jagged the thing is. How hard or flat it is. A cat will make it look comfortable."
"I mean the first thing that you think when you see a cat sleeping on a bed is: wow, that looks really comfortable..."
"Same thing with a couch. A chair. Anything."
"In fact, I told a friend of mine this who works in the concrete business. He used to work in the furniture sales business and that's when I told him."
"So he tried it one day. He got a cat in the store, and put the cat on the furniture that he wanted to sell the most."
"Sure enough at the end of the day with the cat working to help his sales, he'd had a few more sales than he'd had the prior day without the cat."
"So he does this for a few weeks and things are going pretty good. One day, he shows up late to the store and the cat is stuck waiting outside. So the cat falls asleep on a concrete slab just outside the store."
"When the guy finally arrives at the store later that day, he finds a thousand orders for concrete."
Dead silence.
"You're a wonderful audience."
Produced at Shhhh! Digital Media
200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Inquiries: brian.joseph.johns@shhhhdigital.com,
info@shhhhdigital.com
All material here is the original work of the Last Lounge Comic with the exception of the Golf joke. That's one I heard on a radio comedy radio show. I'll try and track down the original writer and comedian's name because that is one of the funniest jokes that I've ever heard.