The Protestant Ethic in the Spirit of Angst-Jöken

The Protestant Ethic in the Spirit of Angst-Jöken

A man walks into a bar with his pet Orangutan, Klaus. The bartender says "Hey, no monkeys in the bar!" Before the man can explain, Klaus is scared by the bartender's frightful countenance and enormous mustache and runs around to a corner of the room, where he hides behind Albert Einstein. Dr. Einstein says: "Vy, hello zere, Mr. Orangutan!" Klaus sees the kindly brown eyes of the famous physicist, and calms down, offering Einstein a partly eaten head of cabbage. Dr. Einstein accepts the gift, and smiles and pats the creature's head. Meanwhile, the man, seeing their fast friendship, realizes that even though he has owned the orangutan for 30 years, he has never appreciated Klaus for who he really is.

Touching Fielty

A blond walks into a gas station carrying a steering wheel. Tangled, burned wires dangle from the hub. The attendant, who is eating small powdered donuts, looks up at the beautiful girl and what she is carrying, and says "Oh my goodness, Can I help you?" And the blond goes: "This is the last memento I have of my mother."


Doom Loop

Two robots are building another robot for the first time. One robot goes to the other: "An endless cycle begins."

Koo-Koo for Ordinary Human Relationships

Two lawyers are trapped on a deserted island. Although they must work hard to survive, they subsist off of coconuts and sea-life, and it's enough to get by. One day, a box floats up on the beach, and they open it to find that it is full of new satellite phones. One of the lawyers turns to the other one and goes: "I can't bring myself to return to my old practice and just embrace a life of greed and ceaseless deal-making." The other lawyer, who has dialed home, nods solemnly as he waits for the phone to answer, and that knowing who she is, his wife will be gone. She will have remarried. His children will not recognize their father. His clients will be scattered, his expertise fatuous, his friends awkward in their re-embrace as he returns, absurdly, from death. He realizes that his friend will stay, becoming a hermit forever on the island. As the line rings, he wishes that the box had never come.

Arrrngst

A pirate pegs his way into a fancy piano bar, and orders a mojito. Long at sea, he glares longingly with his one good eye at the girl behind the bar, for whom he will always be a mutilated and frightening outcast. A balding man is singing and playing a Barry Manilow song. As she crushes the mint into the ice, a perfect metaphor of the fate of his affections, the Pirate thinks to himself: "I have robbed and killed innocents for this?"