Let me tell you a little known problem I am having with some audience members…

As most of you know, I perform lengthy shows that are a good deal longer than most comics. I lay it all out there every single show and hope that the audience is exhausted and laughed out. 

Usually after the show I hang out and meet the people who stop by to see me. I enjoy the face to face time with the audience and I have been posting all the photos we take together.

For some odd reason, even after all the hour and a half of laughs, people are compelled to tell me jokes. It’s like going into a restaurant kitchen and telling the chef you will make dessert. 

First of all, I have heard most of the jokes. I started telling jokes in fourth grade to get attention, since the athletic prowess wasn’t scoring with the girls. One of my first jokes: “What is brown and steamy and lies in the street?” “Gomer’s Pyle.”

 It was topical and racy stuff for an 8 year old…

 We told a lot of jokes and made countless other attempts at getting laughs in my neighborhood. If we heard a joke that was “old,” we always said: “The last time I heard that one, I fell off my dinosaur.” If it was a dirty joke, using a curse word like “crap,” we told in only in male company, but of course the male company was the norm anyway, because the girls wanted nothing to do with the immature boys and the bathroom humor. 

We used to play a joke on our peers that made the rounds for a few years. It took cooperation from everyone in the room and some bad acting to complete the prank. 

If one of the kids left the room, I would quickly gather the remaining group into a huddle to call the play. 

“Ok..when Ricky comes back, I am going to tell a joke that makes no sense at all. The joke is not even close to funny, but when I give you the punch line, you laugh hysterically as if it is the funniest joke ever! Let’s see if he pretends to understand it and blends in by laughing when everyone else does. The place you laugh is when I say “no soap, radio.”

(Rick enters the room)

 “Hey guys. I have a great joke. You gotta hear this. This kid is in the bathtub taking a bath. He looks around for his washcloth and can’t find it. He calls out to his mom, who comes in to help. He says, mom, I said no soap, radio!”

Sure enough, Ricky would laugh along with the crowd as if what he heard was absolutely hysterical. Suddenly, we would all stop and turn to him for his trip down Humiliation Lane.

“Ricky, what are you laughing at? What’s funny about “no soap, radio?” It doesn’t make any sense, you idiot. Did you all see him?”

 This was the kind of mean spirited stuff we would pull on each other. And the older we got, the more vicious the prank.

One classic was a two man con we played at the restaurant where I worked as a dish washer. I worked it out with one of the bus boys and our mark was a really sweet waitress names Nina.

 Unlike Ricky, Nina did not deserve to be teased, but her naiveté made her the perfect foil for our plan.

 She and I always had a fun and loose relationship through the little hole where the staff in nice clothes passed the dirty dishes into my fishy, sweaty and stinky hands. The stainless steel area I worked was a breeding ground for acne, so when a cute waitress leans in and speaks to your pimpled face, it is pretty powerful.

 Typical for me, I couldn’t just let her enjoy my little witticisms and allow her to give me attention with an affirming chuckle. No, even though I wasn’t dating her (or close to it), the flirtation was plenty for a 14 year old trying to blend in with adults.

 Looking back, the “adults” were probably 22…

 Anywho…I got my busboy buddy to be Butch Cassidy to my No Chance Kid. Earl was had worked there a long time and was tight with all the staff. He also knew Nina to be a little innocent, and developed a playful relationship with her.

 When Nina poked her head in my hole, she mentioned her joining a dance class. I said: “Do you know Earl’s brother Johnny is an amazing dancer? He won the Pennsylvania state competition for Jazz dance. He danced at the White House. You should ask Earl about it.”

 Nina was pleasantly surprised about this bit of employee trivia, and went off to talk to Earl about his brother’s hoofing skills.

 Minutes later, as I was spraying off some beet juice from a dinner plate; I hear a scream of horror come from the dining room. It was Nina, who apparently found out that Earl’s brother was not a dancer at all. When she innocently inquired about the jazz dancing, Earl, as we had set up, pretended to be deeply offended by Nina’s question. He acted miffed, as anyone would be if any facts were true.

 He told her he was angry because his brother was not a dancer, but had his legs blown off in Vietnam, and how dare she bring this up like it’s a joke.

 The ruse worked, but only in fooling her and not making anyone laugh.

 I don’t know why I got off on a tangent, but the point I was making is that if you have a joke for me, email it or “old school” it and write me a letter. To lean in to me after a show with stale wine breath and tell me a racist joke will not endear me to you or entertain me. It’s even worse when you preface it by saying: “You can use this in your skit.”

 And I certainly do not want to be forced to say: “Last time I heard that I fell off my dinosaur!”