I grew up watching lots of comedy on TV, and listening to it on radio, and reading funny comics and books, and listening to “novelty music.”
I love to laugh. I want to be funny and witty. I like to make people laugh. Frequently this leads to cringe Dad jokes, and eyerolls from my family.
This drive is the reason for my attempts to make jokes and witticisms on social media. Here’s a small sampling…
- Tip: Become a dentist! Even a mediocre dentist will be highly prized in a postapocalyptic society.
Nurse: “Mr. Humungus next!… Mr. Humungus? The doctor is ready for you. Please remove the hockey mask.”
- So I finally got an appointment with the American horror film producer. I understood his patience was short, so I started talking very fast:
"Here's the pitch! Two parents, nice middle-class people, are worried about their kid. He's acting up, moody, sometimes violent, talks backwards, kills the neighbor's dog...
"Then two Catholic priests show up and say a demon has possessed the poor child. They demand permission to lock themselves in with the kid in his bedroom, unsupervised...
"The parents talk it over, and make a decision. They lock up the priests, and take their kid to a hospital. The End.
"Title: THE EXORCIST: HANDS OFF."
Then the producer threw me out of the office.
- Ask ChatGPT: "Write a thesis that reads eaxctly as if Judith Butler wrote it, but avoid deceptiveness, strawman arguments and intellectual dishonesty."
Go ahead, try. Let's see if the AI gives up or has a nervous fit.
- The establishment always meant “Believe the right sort of all women.”
- The true measure of freedom is simply this: How much are you allowed to make fun of people? “THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” is the hard limit showing.
- Google then: “Don’t Be Evil”. Google now: “MUA HA HA HAAA!!”
- [Reply to the posted question: What are some things you’ve recently learned from horror films?]
Deep, bleeding knife wounds won’t kill you if the script says so (SCREAM VI).
Swedes are insane pagan cult killers (MIDSOMMAR).
Storybooks for children can drive you mad (THE BABADOOK).
Mel Gibson has a thing for torture (THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, a real horror show).
- [Reply to post about increasing censorship in the West]
Now let’s be optimistic. This could be the dawn of a golden age of sarcasm! — Let’s say, hypothetically, that I want to call a very skinny, ugly, unpleasant heterosexual woman “that skinny old hetero hag.” But I don’t write that! Instead I write something like, “Speaking of that gloriously curvaceous, zaftig young lady, whose all-natural beauty is only surpassed by her charming lesbian personality, loved by women everywhere…” — Now who can sue me for that?
- One problem with depicting “Whitey” as all-powerful is that it makes “Whitey” seem… well… superior to everyone else. Which begs the question: Is this kind of statement really a humblebrag? Like how Brits go on and on about how dreadful they were conquering much of the world…
- There was a man from Minnesota / Who didn’t understand an iota / He opened a chat / Where anyone sat / And anywhere his plans could go ta.
- “Sometimes a kebab is just a kebab.” -Sigmund Freud
- [Reply to the question “If you could go back in time, what would you tell your teenage self?”]
[Thinks hard] “Shower more frequently!”
- I recall an occasion years ago: I was in a pleasant company, and sat listening to an educated, intelligent hardworking woman who went on and on about society holding her back… and finally I snapped: “If women want to be treated better, you can do so - just organize! You’re HALF OF ALL HUMANITY!” She glared at me as if I had offended her …
- Telling “edgy” people that they are in fact boring may be the most hurting insult of all.
- All writers are liars. It goes with the job. Complaining about that is like complaining that the garbage man smells or the cook is overweight.
- [On “cancel culture” and social media dysfunction]
The only one who runs no risk of being called a literal Nazi is Adolf Hitler.