The Jokes, section 1

"How do you make an elephant fly? asks one guy to another. Hmm, darn. I was supposed to introduce him first but it's okay. No one's listening anyway."

In a stripped bare to the bones studio sits on his stool an aged man. He faces an anachronistic microphone hanging from the cobwebbed ceiling. He stares with a distance in his eyes unconcordant with his claustrophobic surroundings. The crow's nests of wrinkles extending out the sides of his eyes embolden as he smiles to himself. It is the year 20--. Time is coming to a stop.

"How do you make an elephant fly? Well first you need a big zipper. That's the joke. I used to kill with that one, kids. I never knew why. I don't get it myself. Maybe the joke is the joke. Maybe people were easier to please back then. Or now. Or maybe I should just stop talking."

Wryly he smiles, shakes his head slowly, looks down, looks far away.

"What's the use of a setup? I mean, what does it mean. What does it accomplish? I always thought I had a knack. Others I knew working the rounds, they had a method. Some of them, especially the kids coming up, they had a theory. The one's with a theory, I never cared for them. They could tell you what a setup is, how it works, the psychological, the Jungian...crap. You know, the crap. I'm sorry, I don't like to work blue but I'm starting to think that maybe I don't care anymore. That's breaking my heart, kids. I've devoted my life to this business and now I don't even care anymore. They've killed it like they're killing each other out there.

"I never thought I'd live this long. I thought God willing I'd make it to my 80s. I did. I watched my idols die old noble deaths. Steve Allen. Bob Hope. I was hoping for that. Not that my death would be celebrated. Or my life. I played the Tonight Show once in the sixties but never made it to the big time. Maybe it's because all I had was a knack. Maybe-"

"Alright, get the fuck out." A man of many colors on his jacket and white powder under his nose barges in. Simultaneously, Jack E. Roger, the aged man's longtime friend and producer is being hustled out of the engineering room by a burly, badly shaven bald man.

"Now see here" the aged man with a wagging finger, "I've got until 3:30. We had a deal."

"Look Mr. Magoo, you've had your time and a half," responds the gravelly-voiced man of dingy technicolor. "Your clock must have stopped because now I'm here and ipso facto it's my show now. If there were any other way you know I'd leave you be, I'd love to let you ramble on incoherently. Because it's funny. But this is the only studio in the county and I forgot my car in a pile-up. What are you worried about, you can come back tomorrow."

"I was going to say goodbye, I was going to say there won't be a tomorrow for me. I'm retired. You can't take my farewell away from me!"

"Um, actually, yeah I can. Shoo. Shoo." For a moment the broadcast consists of mumbles and throat clearing. And then "Hey yo kiddies, it's the clown here. You remember the clown. The clown had a show once in the good old days. The clown had...a lot of things. Sometimes the clown gets wistful. Blah blibiddy blah. Hey kids, I've got a joke.

"Heh, sometimes the clown gets wistful. Sometimes the clown gets a wristful of blade. Sometimes the clown gets a pistol and aims it at kids. Hey Hey! Don't tell your parents. Hey kids, want to do Uncle Whozits a solid. See all that funny green paper your parents keep in their wallets? I wish! Onward, did you hear that guy? Hey Georgie did you hear the withered husks of jokes old man Magoo was telling? You know what the problem is? Back in his day you just said whatever stray thought was in your head, just machine gun it out. The listener didn't have enough time to figure out what the hell you said let alone what it means and then bam next joke and then bam next joke and then I Got A Million Of These! Well, no shit. Ooh, sorry kids. Pardon this drunk his excuses.

"Oh yeah, hey kids I've got a joke. Georgie, you gotta keep me on track. So this guy walks into a bar, his pet giraffe in tow. Pet giraffes, they were the in-thing at the time. Everyone had a giraffe....Michael Jackson had two. Trust me. If you can't trust me....So they make the most of their night. The guy takes a drink, he gives the giraffe a drink, the guy takes a drink the giraffe takes a drink. The giraffe can't hold his alcohol apparently, and by the way you should have seen him with the ladies...but anyway... but wait, imagine what that long neck connotes. Ya got to think symbolically like me, kids. But, heh, but anyway so the giraffe drops like a spent cartridge to the floor. Dead on his feet, but off his feet if you can follow the, um, trajectory. (glug) And the man pays his tab and stumbles out to the door but before he can escape this shithole the bartender yells Hey man, you can't leave that lyin' there. The guy, he's Hey, nah that's not a lion, that's a giraffe.

"Georgie, where's my rimshot?

"But anyway kids, let's face facts. Things ain't what they used to be and that's fine. It's that they're not what they're supposed to be that bothers me. Know what else bothers me? No I won't get into that. But you see, it's homophony. That's the joke kids, it's all I have. It's also a shaggy dog. Don't take that as me backing any side in the war. Shaggy dogs can be funny. The absurd can be funny. Knock knock jokes can be funny. Doesn't mean they always are. Kafka can be funny. That's not a lion. One of the first gags I learned. I was a kid. Things were more innocent back then. That in itself is not a good thing but sometimes you can pretend otherwise, pretend reality away. Escapism, that's the name of the game I play more than any other. Watching old movies, fishing what I can off of the terrestrial radio signals. Just like all of you! We're not that different, you and I. You the listener are also a participant. I'm a listener. I'm an escape artist. I fantasize about the past, which is to say that I effect an escape. It's an affect. It's an effect. I drink, that's an escape. I masturbate. That's the greatest escape of all if you can make it last.

"But I'm bitter. Escape is an embittering experience, kids. After awhile the bungee cord starts to show some wear and tear. You can only toss yourself off the bridge so many times before something snaps. Wanna hear a dirty story, a really dirty story? Two white horses play in the mud! And then they dig up your grandmother with their hooves and.....heh, I love that one. How do you make an elephant fly? I despise each and every one of you more than you could ever conceive. Your parents never told you people would hate you for your innocence. That was so you could never conseive the fact that they hated every breath you took, the conception you wreaked. Everything you stole from them, right down to the DNA."

The clown digs into his bag of tricks and pulls out another bottle of dark stuff. His eyes wince at the gleam reflecting off. A million miles away a war is being fought.

TO BE CONTINUED...

(preview of section 2:

...the scraggly bearded teen wasn't listening. Dirt caked his hands that buried his props in the makeshift graveyard. He hoped that the enemy wasn't so vile as to rummage through rotting remains for a new gimmick. Yet he could imagine the Shaggy Dogs, their numbers fractional, their morality giving way to a cunning unbecoming of wordsmiths, and already he regretted his lapse. Naivete was death on a battlefield...)