Crouching Heckles, Hidden Punchlines

I looked up the word "definition" in the dictionary, but the definition was a definition, and if I couldn't understand that, how could I possibly use that information?

I put my jokes into an email and the google ads were for "Potty Training"! I mean, what am I supposed to think about that? This Google computer is so judgmental!



And now,

Random Heckler Responses:


My mother heckled me harder than that. Amateur.

God bless you.

I said I'd pay for humiliation after the show!

Say it in English if you want us to understand you! Anybody here speak Pig Latin Chinese?

I'm going to take your price of admission and buy a "Shit Happens" T shirt and give it to my dog. My dog thanks you.

My internet stalker, ladies and gentlemen. Last time I pick up a date in a Star Trek chat room.

I don't wish to ignore you, sir, it's just that I can't hear you, I'm tuned into reality!

I always shout when I wake up from binge drinking too. Hooray, I'm not in the gutter yet!

What, did you fall off your bigwheel back there? Oh geez. Guy fell off his bigwheel. Somebody get him up. Stop messing with his handbrake people.




To wit the wit:

When people ask me where I get my ideas I always tell them a lie so they won't wake up earlier and get all my ideas first.

Know what you get when you cross an angry sex-starved middle school teacher and a drunk comedian who wants to be punished? You get a comedy show that starts late!



So I was just googling for this picture and it made me realize that some guy in a cubicle down at the CIA must be getting the wrong impression of my internet habits.

I googled: "Spank Me Burning Man". You know why there's no Tivo for the internet? That's why.


How many comedians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Screw light!

I was going to be a scientist until they told me I couldn't have my own monkey. Forget that, what's the point of science if they don't give you a monkey?

I was going to be a violinist until they told me I had to keep my clothes on. I mean, how else is a violinist going to get any laughs?

I was going to be a lawyer until they told me I would have to fight for blind justice and earn people's trust and respect. Or was that blindly trust justice and fight people with no self-respect?

I was going to be a college professor until they told me that I was too mature and I should be a comedian instead.

At the gym, did you ever try lifting those...oh, what are they called...breast implants?

You know how to freak out airport security? Buy a ticket.


I saw a sign, and it read:

Do Not Molest the Alligators.

Now when I think about what's wrong with the world today.... I think of this sign, and it's like a comedy Zen koan. Sometimes I just meditate on punch lines for this joke. Not that it needs one! I call it my whetstone:




Punchlines:

Great. Now I'm worried about alligator molestors moving onto my block.

See ya later, gator baiter. After a while, crocophile.

You just know that whoever put that sign up doesn't have kids.

But you know, the sign said nothing about taunting and ridiculing.

Who are these people who need this sign? And don't you think - I mean, if people need the sign - it should be written in pictures? Just in case? Show a big yellow caution sign with an alligator with a big open mouth with a round thing in it, and a headless torso running around in shock? Little shock waves coming off of it?

Do we really need the sign? Isn't this a self-correcting problem?

Well I don't criticize You for what YOU do on Friday night!

Makes me wonder about all the other animals though. I mean, you never see the "Do Not Molest the Raccoons" sign. Raccoons, they're soft and fuzzy, too, and when you're done, you can use them to wipe yourself off. Apparently raccoons are always...in season.

Just kidding, I don't hunt raccoons. In baby seal season.
I'm just kidding, I don't kill those little virgin seals. I don't like virgins--to call me the next day.
I don't have sex with people I meet in the newspaper--unless I can get them to meet me in the woods at night.
I'm joking! Sex in the woods is no way to impress your YouTube subscribers.
I don't run a porno site online--I can't afford film after paying all those actresses to perform "A capella" in front of my "film crew."


And now I leave you with a final comedy zen koan:

John Lennon met Paul McCartney in a church hall when a mutual friend introduced them. John was playing Elvis' "Be Bop a Lu La", which was one of Paul's favorites. No Elvis? No Beatles. But you know what? It was Elvis' father who taught him to play guitar. Elvis wanted a rifle but they couldn't afford it. If Elvis' father had been just taken on a second job, the world would have never known Vanilla Ice. What? I'm just saying.

Sex on a Bicycle and Other Portable Comedy

Do you know why astronauts don't bring dogs into space? The frisbee just keeps on going.

I was fired from a sleep study job for being too enthusiastic.

When my boss asked me to work overtime, I said only if I can work over space, too. Then I commanded him to exist, and he had to obey.

Dogs may be man's best friend, but Man is just a dog's casual acquaintance.

I drove my car into a tree, but it wasn't insured, so we exchanged information and settled out of court. I didn't pay.

It takes two to tango, but one hundred to Riverdance.

I needed some register tape but I didn't want to pay for it, so I bought some, and then returned it and kept the receipt.

I rode a bicycle cross country...no I didn't.

Do you know the fastest way to lose weight? Blow up the planet.

What's sex like after marriage? Well, do you ever get a coke with a broken straw, and all you suck is air? That sucking sound is the best sex I've had all year.

What do you get when you cross Mr Spock and a Humvee? You can live short and asphyxiate.

I've got an idea for a replacement for oil, which is as you know, a precious natural resource. It's a car that burns wood and koala bears. It can go from zero to sixty in three cubs.

I'm sorry, that joke is sick, it's not normal. But what is normal? If everybody does something does that make it normal? The way I see it, the only difference between something that's normal and something that's totally freaking strange is the number of people involved. If one out of three do it, it's totally freaking strange. If two out of three do it, it's normal. If three out of three do it, it's communist. That's why I'm always on the lookout for human pyramids. What do you think they're doing in North Korea all day? They march and build human pyramids. That's the life over there.

These jokes have me sweating more than a toilet in a police lineup. I mean, what kind of joke is that? Why would a toilet be in a police lineup? I don't know, maybe it was doing crack?

I know, it's hard to take these jokes seriously. Acting like you're listening to someone is the easy part. Not giving a crap? That takes commitment.

Would you rather wrestle crocodiles for your job, and go to Nascar in your free time, or go to Nascar for work, and wrestle crocodiles in your free time? What is this? Sorry, that was a joke from my "southernisms" pile. It's not even a joke, really, more of a rhetorical observation.

Would you rather be shaved from head to toe, and thrown in the killer whale tank at Sea World, or - ok stop right there - that actually that sounds kind of fun, doesn't it?

I lost my keys. Fortunately I don't play piano.

I bought a guitar for ten bucks with no strings attached.

Driving on the highway these days is like playing pinball with twenty balls. Pinballs, not...never mind. I won't even go there. Hey, check out Lumpy over there. Where does he even buy jeans, I don't know.

I want a website where I can explain these jokes, but I need a good website address. I mean that's critical to the success of your website. I was thinking about making a website that monitors your nanny? Does anyone know if www.babyshaker.com is taken? It wouldn't be hooked up to real babies or anything. You just use your wii. You know, wheeeeee.

I mean, could you imagine if you could hook up your baby to the internet? You know, you're surfing, and all of a sudden one of those slow-loading, animated TV network websites pops up, and you'd be like, oh, someone's got a poopie diaper! Then Paris Hilton's website pops up, and it's oh baby's got a little throw up. Rush Limbaugh's website pops up, oh, baby needs breast feeding.

Sorry, that was what's called “topical” material. Sorry, I don't do politics. I'm not into that whole ouvre. What's an ouvre, anyway? I'll tell you what it is, it's a little free ass detector. Yeah, all kinds of 'em were dropped into the English language by the king of the asses, Noah Webster. To help people spot asses. Words like “forward”, like “let's move forward on this finacial anal violation”. “Tweet” is another one. “Synergy”, “globalize”, “green”, and “win-win”. How about “jack-ass”?

And each industry has their own special ass-detecting language. Like law: “sue”, “jurisprudence”, and interestingly, “barrister”.

The business world is rife with ass-detecting language: “Herpes. Pimp-slap”. What? It's a business.

Michael Bay, he's the director of the Transformers franchise, and The Island, which is basically the movie Parts: The Clonus Horror with explosions and no script. He's a really hot director now. I'd like to see him remake some other boring, stuffy old movies from last century. Like When Harry Met Sally. In the diner scene, Meg Ryan can just blow up.

Or Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Michael Bay's Birds could be these giant cgi radioactive cyborgs. Alfred Hitchcock's movie never explained why the birds attached that New England town. I think Michael Bay's version can right that wrong. You know, have one evil robot overlord bird that steals a top secret jet, because you know, flying under your own power is for suckers. In the climax there can be a showdown between this overlord bird and a cgi shark hijacking a bullet train.

And the trailer would give away the surprise ending. Don't you hate that? It's like sitting through a presidential administration. It's never as good as the trailer. The trailer looks like Die Hard and the term is like Mask. Mask, not The Mask. You remember, Frankenstein meets a litte deformed boy. I'm wrong. I realize, it's socially unacceptable to liken Cher to a classic undead horror character. But that's my trade. That's what you deal in with the comedy game.

Or a Bad George Lucas movie. You know, which one was that with the muppets? The Pantsless Menace? Revenge of the Wal Mart? The Empire Strikes the Concession Stand? The Clone Sequels?

Speaking of being in a constant state of going nowhere, if you were a Star Wars character which one would you be? I'd be Jar Jar Binks so those other freaks would leave me the hell alone in my trailer.

If you wear corrective lenses in a corrective institution, do two wrongs make a right?

If a librarian misses her period can your books be late too?

I saw two guys riding a bicycle? But I don't think it was a bicycle. I think it was a gaycycle. I'm still looking for a menage-a-tricycle.

Have you ever had sex on a bicycle? No, you haven't and you know why? Nobody can pedal that fast!

Do Not Hack the Stewardesses

Mobile phones are necessary. How else can you make yourself a public nuisance without actually talking to the people around you?

Keeping up with technology is cheap. It only costs you your sanity, your dignity, and your ability to walk in a straight line.

Light jazz music is like war. It’s never over until it’s too late.

And now, the hack:

You know I once got arrested for unlawful possession of a jelly donut, but they had to throw out my case due to lack of evidence. If you’re going to steal, steal donuts.

I asked the stewardess why don’t they just make the plane out of the black box. She got offended because I was staring at her crotch at the time.

D’ya ever notice how there’s always one sock missing in your laundry? I used to cry because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had two different shoes, and then I cried because I didn’t have matching shoes.

If you give a man a fish he eats for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he’ll want to invite you to go fishing, and that is just too early in the day for me.

“You attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.” What does that mean? You could also say, you attract more beautiful girls with money and good looks than with vinegar. What can’t you attract with something other than vinegar? I say, you’ll attract more winos with some cheap vinegar than with a full-priced imported bordeaux.

And how many bees do you need, anyway? Who’s out here attracting bees? First of all you’ve got to buy the honey, and that’s way more expensive than vinegar – what am I, King Bee Rockefeller? And then you’ve got to have some place to put the bees, unless you want to just wear them out of the store. You need the beekeeper’s hat, and the bee Barbie dream house and convertible. Hey, I just wanted some bees, I didn’t want to change my whole lifestyle!

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” You know what makes the heart grow fonder? It ain’t vinegar, I’ll tell you that. Vinegar does not make the heart grow fonder. If you give a man some vinegar, he’ll not attract bees for a day. But if you teach a man to make vinegar, he’ll not attract bees for a lifetime. I’d rather learn that than how to fish. I don’t even like fish, and I like getting stung by bees even less. Who plans that for your afternoon? Come home all fishy-smelling and covered in bee stings. I’ve got a saying for you – how about shutting the hell up and letting me sleep? You never hear any ancient philosphers saying things like that. Well – maybe St Augustine, I heard he was a real bastard before his morning coffee.

You never hear like Aristotle saying, “Did I ask for fries, bitch?” Socrates and his famous “leather shoes give me corns” quote. Demosthenes and Archimedes arguing over gladiator salary caps and sword-corking. Makes you wonder about the history that really happened that no one talked about. I don’t know, maybe whole chunks of history were big lies, that we just take for granted. They don’t speak Portuguese in Brazil. Maybe the Brazilians settled Portugal but since history is written by the victors, they wrote it to make themselves look like the innocents being conquered. Go through life with their holier-than-thou “You Conquered Us” attitude. What do you have to say now, Portugal? Ha, nothing, I thought so.

What else happened in history that people never talked about? Maybe Mark Twain had a schoolgirl fetish. That’s why he was always hanging around the playground. He wasn’t doing research for the greatest American novel, he was touching himself and making up stories.

Maybe Hitler took a long time in the bathroom. You never hear anyone talk about it either way, but he only had three options: he either he took a shorter time than usual, or the normal time, or a really long time. What if he took a really long time in the bathroom? What was he doing in there? Heiling himself in the mirror? Trimming his inverted soul patch? Plucking his eyebrows? What if Hitler plucked his eyebrows? Do you think he could have risen to power if that had gotten out?

Whenever I see a guy like that, a world leader or celebrity, I always picture them taking their morning dump. There goes l’etat. Sorry, threw in a Louis XIV quote at you. Didn’t mean to. Louis XIV, he said “L'etat, c'est moi. The State is moist.” I think he was talking about how long he took in the bathroom.

So anyway, I picture these heads of state all holding court on the big white throne, you know, reading last year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and squeezing out melodies for the secret service bugs. I bet somewhere there’s like a vault with nothing but the morning toilet sounds of all the presidents since Washington. Back then they didn’t have recorders so they had to use quill and ink to record their noises with.

Now go back and look at the last three pictures. Do you know who they are? If you can tell the difference between Sir Isaac Newton, Louis XIV and Han Solo frozen in carbonite, thank a teacher. If you can't, call a lawyer.

And the dinosaurs. Who did they think they were? Taking huge dumps everywhere. Screw ‘em!

What am I talking about? Oh that’s right, hack comedy. If you give a man a joke, he’ll laugh for a moment. But if you teach a man to write jokes, practice his delivery, enter a few open mic contests, book a gig, get up on stage, and deliver – he'll tell fish jokes for a lifetime.

Internet Comment Commandments

As with any new blog or forum or ersatz internet community (ersatz is a kind of cream-filled donut), readers will from time to time leave well-formed, insightful comments. Far be it from me to contradict this time-honored tradition of random ranting and mooning in public.

Therefore it becomes contingent upon me to spell out what I will call, the official decree of webmastery and internet authoritarian comment policy for this site and all related and affiliated cyberpresences of the duly-self-appointed Celestial Emperor of this Domain URL.

And now, the 11 Commandments:

1. All Comments Are Welcome. Most Comments Are Welcome. Comments Are For the Most Part, Probably All Welcome.

2. All Comments Are Subject to Being Edited for Clarity. (For example, the comment “!$## wut” will be clarified as, “Nice site, keep up the good work, handsome!”

3. Before hitting the submit button, ask yourself these three questions:

   1. Does my comment contribute, in any way, to teh interwebs?

   2. Is my comment at least as intelligent as one which might be simulated by a hamster running across the keyboard?

   3. If my comment were a smell, would it be an “ah” smell or an “ew” smell?

4. All comments must be written for human beings and not sharks or pigs wearing human pelts in order to infiltrate the herd.

5. Please Keep Arms and Heads Inside the Ride At All Times, and All Spam inside its Spam Can.

6. Flaming Comments Will Be Burned Out. Flaming Drinks and Desserts Are Always Festive.

7. Hate, h8, haters, players, player haters, flaunters, fronters, sadists, and goobers will be ejected from the public pool.
   

8. Heckles Are Tolerated Only At The Discretion of The Guy With The Mic. Didn’t bring a mic to the show? You will NOT have the last word. When you feel the urge to heckle, a nice self-inflicted swirly can usually restore your cool.

9. Comments are reserved for teh interwebs and not your local comedy club. Learn the difference between interaction and performance. Stupidity kills. It’s ten o’clock. Do you know where your children are?
   

10. Trolls, Floggers, Moles, Mouthpieces, Narcs, Vigilantes and Other Assorted Whackjobs Will Be Tossed Overboard with the Chum.

11. Compliment the site owner on every occasion. They are starved for affirmation and you will quickly establish the credibility of your name around these parts.

    

This list is the awesomest, because unlike the 10 Commandments, it goes up to 11.

On a departing note, remember kids, that internet commenting is like marching in a parade. Horse’s asses to the back of the line!

Love and Punches,

Frank Altair

I Miss the Fifties

I Miss the Fifties, man. Daddy-O.

Do you think we could ever go back to living like they did in the fifties? You know, driving big pink aircraft carriers around, taking our best girl to the sock hop, rumbling with greasers and driving bread vans for a living?


I’ll tell you one thing I couldn’t live without, if we went back to the fifties. Mexican food. No way! Come on, Buffy, let’s go to Taco Jose’s! Buenos dias senor Jose, dos chimichangas por favor. Con much gusto! Yo gusto te carne Mexicano.

Back then people got dressed to go to a club. Clubs had class. You had to dress for dinner. Paul Anka would come out and croon by a white grand piano. Now what do we have? Monday night football at Hooters. Could you imagine James Bond at Hooters? Martini – shaken, not stirred, and I’ll drink it out of a test tube lodged between your knockers. Slurp! Now that's classy!



You know what I could live without if we went back to the fifties? Cafes. No more Starbucks, now you have to get your coffee from a surly waitress named Sal, or Bea. Yeah it only costs a nickel but the beans were grown in a toxic waste dump in Ohio and shipped in a Ford pig hauler on a hundred mile trip that took a week on two lane muletracks. Imagine, no more lattes, no cappuccino, no wifi, no Joan Baez or Suzanne Vega music. Instead you get Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, a chipped mug and a sly look. The way coffee was meant to be.

I think we don’t understand the fifties. We look at it through a lens, the media, the movies, as if that was the representation. It wasn’t. That was the entertainment. We have to infer the times through their entertainments. Just like now, people look at a movie from America and think that’s how America must be. Like we think China must be fighting gangs of bun merchants for molesting your girlfriend who you for some reason call “Little Sister”. I mean, can you know French culture by looking at French movies? Everybody mumbling and cynical, you’re sitting in a café and a minicooper police car drives by with that two-tone siren, and next thing you know your waking up in a strange woman’s sunlit apartment on a pile of books and the curtains blowing in; she’s whispering passages from Proust and you’re fumbling around with a dog-eared Balzac.






You can’t judge a culture by its entertainments. You can’t know it, really.

The Fifties were unrealistic? The twenty-first century, though – whoo boy. Global warming, wars for oil, the entire world watching the same movies and listening to the same music, sorry – you were maybe expecting a punchline? Dig that crazy groove, daddy-o!

image credits:
Miami Diner by tycity
At the Beach Bar by rockinbree
Classic Car Hood Ornament courtesy:

What if they’d had Cell Phones?

quotes from movies that may have never been

*Boop beep boop*

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat”

*Boop beep boop*

“Dammit Janet, call Triple A.”

*Boop beep boop*

“Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope”

*Boop beep boop*

“Hello, Stella?”

*Boop beep boop*

“911? John McClane here. Help?”

*Boop beep boop*

“It’s ET, come and get me before this kid finds me”

*Boop beep boop*

“Spock here, Captain. You can call off the search.”

*Boop beep boop*

“Hello Tom? It’s Meg. Are you on the roof of the Empire State or not?”

*Boop beep boop*

“Here’s Johnny!”

Frank Altair surreal ranter

Hello World!

My name is Frank Altair and I'm a comedian. I want to welcome you to my blog Frank Altair Stand Up Comedy!

This blog will contain comedy. Writing, vlogs & videos, that kind of thing. It's just a simple place online where I can do my ranting and tell jokes. Feel free to chime in!

Leave comments, send me an email, whatever you like! I'd be glad to hear from you.

Let me begin by telling you something about myself. I'm a 40-something American with a wife and little daughter. I have a degree in psychology, and in my life I've had a pretty eclectic career. I've been a writer, a teacher, a professional musician, an artist, and of course, a string of day jobs.

I'd describe my comedy as "surreal, random ranting"; I tend to ramble on about certain topics, like a laid-back Dennis Miller or Dennis Leary. I try to keep it family-friendly and clean.

And now I'm off to Burger King to heckle a cashier. "Hey buddy, you call that a paper hat? I could make a better paper hat out of a used coffee filter and a grit magazine! Nice job pushing the button with the picture of a hamburger. You know, in college I once saw a chimpanzee that could do the math in his head - and he got a banana every time he pushed the right button! What do you get? You get to not be fired and homeless."


That's my time,
Frank