Backhoe

A old, rich CEO is on his deathbed, and he's invited his old high school chums, a teacher, a priest and a janitor to his hospital room, and he tells them: "While I was out building companies and currency trading, you guys spent your whole lives in those little jobs. Everyone else I know is a shark, so you are the only three I can trust. So here: they say you can't take it with you, but I'm going to try.  I'm handing you each a milllion in cash,  and at the funeral you're each going to put it in the coffin with me, to be buried forever. It will comfort me knowing the fruit of my life's work is there.  It is.. my last request..old friends.."  He falls asleep, and that night, passes away.

Later, the coffin is being lowered into the ground. Only the teacher, the priest and the janitor are there.  The rain soaks the upturned earth.  They look at each other.  Spitting a puff of diesel smoke, a backhoe dumps soil on the sumptuous coffin with a soft thud. 

The priest lowers his head: "Adios, Jerk."

The Central Valley Farmer's Daughter.

A traveling genetically modified eggplant salesman is driving through Idado with sample seed packets when his car's computer fails, leaving him stranded by a remote farmhouse.  Too far for a motel, he walks to the house and knocks on the door just as a heavy thunderstorm hits.  When no one answers, he enters. Empty of residents, the declining old farmhouse is clearly owned by a food commodity corporation, and the house is used only for the computers running the watering systems. But it's dry at least, and he huddles up for the night, using one of the computers to check email  before going to bed. 

The next morning, he is arrested by the FBI for corporate espionage and is later sentenced to 2 years in federal prison.  Also, he is fired and fined $30,000 dollars. Also his wife leaves him, he loses his house, he is kicked out of the National GMO Eggplant Marketers' Association in disgrace, and his children thenceforth speak his name only in resentment and sadness. 

When he is finally released from prison, he returns to the place out of pique, and as he walks in the vast, empty dusty field, he spies a strange object in the distance, and to his astonishment, approaches a 5 foot high, 15 foot long eggplant, exactly in the place where his car used to be.

As he softly rubs the enormous vegetable that is perhaps the last marker of his being, a beautiful blond girl with an expensive professional camera steps out from behind the eggplant, taking a series of shots of its deep purple hues framed against the flat landscape, broken in the East by jagged, dry mountains.

"Quite an eggplant!" he says, "You know, you'll never believe this, but...."

"Excuse me," she says, "I'm documenting the decline of life on earth." 

Ut Get Fortunatos

A Cowboy, his friend the Robot, and the Pope are arguing about Vatican II in Karaoke bar in a strip mall in Nevada.  Suddenly, two big scary-looking guys burst in the room and head straight for the Robot, who accesses his memory of extensive gambling debts, and executes panic.exe, spinning his head and waving his rubbery robot arms wildly around.  The big guys approach the table as the cowboy, realizing the Robot is a hapless Jets fan, reaches for his six-shooter.  It looks bad.  But the Pope rises to his full height with great dignity, and bids the men welcome.  Cowed by the Pope, the big guys sit down uncertainly, their fingers on triggers, the Robot's fan squeaking, the Cowboy's steely eyes drilling into their faces with deadly scrutiny.  The air is still and it is hot, and menthol smoke hangs like a curtain.  

Then some bridesmaids go onstage and start singing Daft Punk's "Get Lucky." "Oh, I love this song," says the Pope.  "Let us all listen together awhile," says the Pope, smiling gently, tapping his shoe, making everyone hold hands. 

Angst-Jökens- New for the Fall Collection

Classicism

A desperate New York artist schedules a performance in which he will take a staple gun and staple a live weasel to his head while reciting the U.S. Constitution in front of a video of gold molecules vibrating.  A large crowd has arrived in the Chelsea gallery for his performance entitled "Microeconomics with Live Weasel IV" and just as he is about to staple the struggling, squeaking weasel to his head, he hears a famous art critic say to a friend: "This seems a bit hampered by visual classicism."  He looks at the weasel, who looks back with big, dark, pleading eyes, and decides to lets him scamper off.  The disappointed audience boos, as the artist, his heart sinking, walks off stage, only to notice that the newly freed weasel is outside now, looking in through the gallery window, flipping him off. 


On a Brief Respite from Soviet Russia

It's 1963, and three Soviet submarine commanders are drinking in a bar in Havanna, Cuba. One goes: "Mechanical breakdowns! Drunken crews. Nuclear weapons! U.S. Navy patrols! There are times I would like to give it all up, the stress and responsbility. "   Another goes: "We patrol so close to Florida, we could swim to Miami Beach. You can see even the girls on the beach in the periscope, another world, so carefree and beautiful...."   "Careful, Komrade, says the third, "The Party is always listen..."  

Suddenly a ferocious Polar Bear crashes into the bar, people screaming and running and drinks spilling, and before anyone can react he stomps on the first submarine commander, jumping up and down on him and crushing him, until the bear takes a mighty swipe with his gigantic paw and tears off his head. As the horrified captains look on, the Bear, blood staining his white fur, stands up, looming 10 feet tall, looking right at them and goes: GGRAARRRRGHHHHH!!!  And then the huge beast grabs the body with his enormous sharp teeth, leaving a trail of gore as he exits the flimsy wicker doors, the commander's proud, splattered hat rolling to a corner before falling over for the last time.

The bartender goes: "Another round, Señors?"


BAM-Os! Shoes for Cool Kids

A lady at Goldman-Sachs is at work one day, drinking her half-caff mocha. She analyzes the children's shoe market in a small country: if thousands of adult workers could be fired, return on investment would grow by 3.7%. Children could make luxury shoes for - haha! how ironic!- the  children at the top 5% of the market. All that has to be done is bribe a few officials, weaken child labor laws, exploit religious bigotry to de-fund public education, ban trade unions, maybe scare a few activists, and make a stylish campaign emphasizing cutting edge design and how they use greener, recycled materials. 

Later, on her way back to a lower Manhattan Starbucks, she's run over by a school bus. This story has a happy ending, as thousands of jobs making shoes in a sweat shop in Asia were saved.

The Bell Epoch

Pavlov, the physiologist, is in his luxurious laboratory checking how ringing a bell in association with food affects animals, and today he is trying it with a cat.  After feeding the cat for days at the sound, he rings it without food to see if the cat will salivate.  But the Cat just saunters in and looks around, and then he says, out loud: "What?" Astonished, Dr. Pavlov goes: "You can talk? Tell me more! Tell me: are you salivating?," and he rings the bell again.

"That seems a bit personal,'" says the Cat.

"Well, I can't ask the dog, he doesn't talk," says Pavlov.

"That's right, and it's going to stay that way," says the Cat, looking meaningfully at the Doctor.  They stare at each other, until Pavlov feels uncomfortable, puts down the bell, burns his notes, gives the cat an entire salmon for dinner, and quietly leaves.

On the Resignation of Benedict XVI

A cowboy, a robot and the Pope are waiting in line at DMV. "I reckon I need to renew my tabs, just about got a ticket! heh heh," says the friendly cowboy." "Beep Bop Boop!," says the robot. "Such language!" says the Pope.  "May the lord forgive you, if you even have a soul, you lump of useless machinery!"   "Hey, calm down, he didn't mean nothing!" says the cowboy. "Bleep Blorp!" says the robot, raising his tiny rubber tool arms into attack position as the cowboy suddenly has to stand between them, holding them apart, as the Pope tries whapping the robot on the head with his glorious sceptre. 

"Screw, this, I'm through being Pope!" says the Pope, throwing off his robes and tossing his hat aside, to the amazement of dozens of people in line.  Fuming, he drives off in the cowboy's El Camino without even asking if he borrow it, spinning the tires in the dusty parking lot and spraying gravel, dinging the other cars in the lot. 

The cowboy turns to the robot and goes: "Weren't you the one that told me he was in the Hitler Youth?"

On the Line Between Joke and Angst Joke

"A man walks into a bar. There is no such line."

Soprano

A ferocious Bear is at a McDonald's in the drive-thru lane, poking his enormous head into the window and gnashing his teeth. "RAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!' says the bear, as he tears at the walls with his huge paws, ripping them away one by one, as bear slobber flies from his mouth. As it turns out, the terrified attendant is smooth jazz star Kenny G, who has fallen on hard times, and is making ends meet with this part time job.

Frozen for a moment,  he remembers that music soothes the savage beast. He sets down the bag of McNuggets he was holding and picks up his soprano saxophone and, inspired again, touched by the muse for the first time in years, Kenny G gets ready to play a gentle, soothing tune, a tune which may save his life and the life of his friends.

But the bear rips the saxaphone from his hands and bites it in half.

"You're hardly Miles fucking Davis, are you!?" says the bear.

With A Chaser of Warm, Flat 7-UP

 Hijacked Navy Seal Joke

Three ex Navy Seals walk into a bar.  Noticing that one is quite a bit shorter than the others, the bartender asks him if being small presented any special challenges as a Seal.  The short Seal pulls out a gun and shoots him in the face, killing him instantly.  Then he picks up the body to try to drag it away, and goes: "Wow, this guy is huge. Can you guys give me a hand?"

The other Seal kindly pours him a glass of straight, warm, inexpensive vodka.

Navy Seal Joke, Version III

Three ex Navy Seals walk into a bar. Noticing that one is quite a bit shorter than the others, the bartender asks him if being small presented any special challenges as a Seal. The short Seal goes: "It's very hard to capture that particular Navy SEAL feeling of having achieved a very great deal in the service of a corrupt and heartless hegemon while simultaneously fully experiencing the emptiness of all human existence, especially when firearms are involved."

The bartender kindly pours him a glass of straight, warm, inexpensive vodka.

Navy Seal Joke, The Missing Version II

Three ex-Navy Seals walk into a bar, noticing that one is quite a bit shorter than the others, the bartender asks him if being small presented any special challenges as a Seal.  "Not really," says a 4th Navy Seal, who is silently weeping on top of a club sandwich.

The bartender kindly pours him a tiny glass of straight, warm, inexpensive vodka.

On the Correct Understanding of the Angst-Jöken

To embrace the penetrating clarity permitted by the hilarious despair, we must ultimately reject "funny" as a evaluative concept pertinent to jokes, where a jocular clutch, as it were, is, naturally, a bourgeoise construct distracting us from the social reality. Rather than a mechanical bleating of air, the proper response to any joke is therefore: "Yes, that is highly descriptive." Try it with your friends.

Identity

"Knock, Knock."
"Who's There?"
"The Gaping, Empty Chasm of Total Meaninglessness."
"Do you have any I.D.?"

Another Panda Joke

Vice President Cheney walks into a bar and tells the bartender "give me a goddamn sandwich!" The bartender, noticing Cheney has pulled our a Glock and aimed it at his head, asks nervously "wha..what kind of sandwich, Mr. Vice President, Sir?" Cheney goes "I don't care, but make it good. You think this is about food? This is about respect. It's about who is the right man who has the will to excercise power and who's the chump that makes sandwiches."  The bartender comes back with an egg salad sandwich and Cheney simply shoots him in the knee, takes and eats the sandwich, throwing the plate through the window and shooting up the bar and all the bottles for good measure, and storms out.   

The waitress comes out to the bartender, who is writhing on the floor, and says "Wow. Something just like that happened with a Panda last week, but aside from making us look up 'panda' in the dictionary he wasn't such a dick about it."

Balloon Payments

Friends

An Iguana is staring at a rat, while the reptile's old friend, a scruffy-looking Coyote, looks on hungrily. The Iguana whispers to the Coyote: "Last time we went to town, that rat had enough quarters to buy us three tacos. You distract him. I'll get his wallet."


Baby Harp Seals

How do you get a baby harp seal to stop crying? You are all too aware of the method.

Blizzard

A Parson, a Rabbi, an Imam and a sexy porn star are trapped alone in a cozy ski cabin during a ferocious blizzard. "Well, it's warm and we have enough food," says the Imam, sipping his hot chocolate. "It could be worse," says the rabbi, stroking his beard. "Thank you, Lord, for blessing us this day, " says the parson, combing his hair. So the porn star pulls a gun and says:  "One step closer and I'll kill every last motherfucking one of you!"

The Pretty Balloons. 

An elementary school decides to raise money for a field trip to the Dinosaur exhibit by selling balloons. But  there's a mistake at the balloon company and instead of sending a tank of helium to fill the balloons, they send a tank of nitrous oxide. The balloons don't float, but it's soon found out that when the pretty balloons pop and are destroyed forever, everyone begins laughing and laughing. In this way, the children were primed to delight in the suffering of others.