Always Leave 'em Laughing

Texas Inmate Seeks Jokes for Last Words

By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Writer

LIVINGSTON, Texas - Patrick Knight is collecting jokes and will pick the funniest one for his last statement before he is set to die June 26.

He's had about 250 wisecracks mailed to him on death row or e-mailed to a friend who has a Web site for him.

"Lawyer jokes are real popular," he said. "Some of them are a little on the edge. I'm not going to use any profanity if I can find the one I want, or any vulgar content. It wouldn't be bad if it was a little bit on the edge. That would be cool."

Knight said he got the idea for a joke as his last statement after a friend, Vincent Gutierrez, was executed earlier this year and laughed from the death chamber gurney: "Where's a stunt double when you need one?"

You can read the full article here.

I love this idea! Yes. I know. It's insensitive. He committed a horrible crime. But they do give a condemned man the last meal of his choosing. Why not let him go for a laugh, too? It's his funeral.

And I have to admire the risky move it is on his part. What if the joke bombs? He's not exactly playing to a slightly inebriated comedy club crowd. Who's going to warm them up? The executioner? We all know he's no barrel of laughs. Worse, suppose they are in the mood for a little chuckle before he bites the big one. What if they don't get it? What if it goes over their heads? What if he messes up the punchline. He has established that he won't do blue material. Maybe he should, just to play it safe. Audiences always laugh at the dirty stuff.

His MySpace page is here. I was surprised to discover I was in his extended network! The jokes are pretty much all the standard jokes that get told on the golf course. Nothing original. That's a shame. Give the guy some original material. And worst of all, none of the jokes pertain to his situation. To me, a comedian is at his best when he's in the moment.

Here's a few I'll throw in for consideration. They're a little more "one-liner" than "joke" so I suggest doing three in a row punctuated with rimshots. Mind you, these are intended to be the last thing he says before the lethal injection.

• I've been waiting for the governor to call, but you know how men are after you sleep with them...
• Now, it's time for my lethal injection. I hope they use a clean needle.
• The last time someone strapped me down, it cost me 400 bucks. (to the person giving the injection) At least this is free and you're prettier.
• Yes, what I did was horrible. And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their dog!
  
• Oh, so that's a lethal injection. That's not at all what Bruno from Cell Block H told me it was while we were in the shower.
• Oh, lethal injection. I thought you were going to kill me by making me watch Danny Glover movies. (if the joke bombs, follow it up with...) I'm too old for this shit.
  
• You know, I should have told you guys this earlier, but I'm afraid of needles.
• Always the optimist, I couldn't finish my last meal, so I got the rest put in a "to go" container.
  

He does have an advantage over most comedians. If his joke bombs, he can still tell people he killed.

Apparently, he prefers to have the jokes snail-mailed to him so he can read them to the rest of the guys on death row who will help him decide which one to go with. Not exactly his audience, but it's the only option he has for testing out material.

Jokes can be sent to Patrick B. Knight, #999072, Polunsky Unit, 3872 FM 350 South, Livingston, Texas 77351.

Hey, if you have any, post them here!

Saturday Morning Cartoons!

MOM UPDATE - The doctors have stabilized her blood sugar level and she's out of the hospital in Toledo and back in Port Clinton at The Edgewood Manor Nursing Center.

CLOSING - OLD's sketch comedy revue Sketch Khaki closes tonight. It's at 7:30pm at Donny's Skybox.

DROOPY - Man, I love this cartoon! Directed by the great Tex Avery, it's one of the first one's where I remember noticing self-referential humor (Droopy's comment about the TV and the second time Wolf changes his pants).

My brother reminded me of another cartoon host. He was out of Toledo on week day afternoons after school and his name was Johnny Ginger. I remember writing him fan letters and drawings of him with his sidekick, a crow named Blackie. Gee, didn't seem racist at the time...?

Enjoy!

Chai Day

ROBOWRITERS - Last night was, again, so much freakin' fun. The first group had three new people including Elena who saw it announced on Craig's List. She brought a children's poem that she wasn't sure if she should make into a book or a short play. It's an adorable premise about a little girl trying to teach her pets the alphabet. We felt it could work on stage, but was probably best suited for a book or DVD. There's a lot of fun characters that we recommended she flesh out and I'm going to try to get her in contact with an art major at Columbia College to animate a DVD of it.

((sidenote: I have a neighbor who's a lovely guy, but he sometimes plays his television too loud. When I started typing this, he was watching The Benny Hill Show. He has since turned it off and I can hear him whistling Yakety Sax. There's no court of law that would convict me for what I may do next...))

ROBOWRITER'S ASSIGNMENT - This is a genre exercise. Take an existing franchise in any medium – Pirates of the Caribbean, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, The Dark Tower, etc – and write a scene that takes place in that world, but does not involve any of their main characters. The characters used should be either peripheral or completely created by you. The challenge is to use that world without calling it out specifically or depending on the audience’s familiarity with said world.

TOUGH WEEK? - Even though most everyone had Monday off, all the folks I know that do the 9-5 dance have had a rough week. Apparently from trying to pack five days worth of work into four.

Here's something very, very adorable for you to look at....




You can see more at Let's Be Friends.

If seeing adorable critters doesn't help you relieve stress, imagine that mouse about to chow down on that frog's eye.

Why Are You Here?

At the beginning of most writing classes at Second City, I will ask the students if anyone saw a sketch revue since the last class and what did they think about it.

Almost always no one has seen one.

Not even the mainstage or etc show, for which they get a free ticket a week through the training center. Many of them will make it to Writing 5 without having seen a Writing 5 show or, for that matter, ANY show in the Skybox.

This strikes me very odd.

It's certainly not for lack of opportunity. There are almost as many sketch revues in this town on any given night as there are improv shows. The Reader devotes a section of their theater listings to improv and sketch and isn't able to list them all.

The Second City Writing Program is a great writing program. I'm one of it's biggest proponents. I think Second City makes it very clear that the thrust of the core program is to learn to write sketch comedy for the stage. Every week, I tell students to go see shows, and often give them recommendations. So, last night, when I asked my Writing 1 students who saw a show last week and received the typical response of "no one," I asked them...

Why are you here?

Improvisers go see improv shows. Quite often, they are the audience! Actors go see theater. Playwrights go see plays. Why don't sketch comedy writers go see sketch comedy?

Turns out, only one of them was really interested in improving his skills as a sketch comedy writer.

Other answers included...

"Seemed like a good creative outlet."

"I write short stories (or screenplays or insert-any-medium-other-than the stage) and I thought this would help."

"I thought it would help with my improv." (The person who said this, by the way, is only in Level C of Second City's Beginner's Program. The writing program can be helpful to an improviser, but probably only if the improviser has some chops.)

"I wanted to see if I could write."

"Somebody told me to."

"Somebody else is paying for it."

Now, these aren't wrong answers, not by any means. It's just not what I expected. I expected people in a sketch comedy writing class to be there to learn how to write sketch comedy. So, no wonder they don't go see sketch revues. They could care less about sketch comedy. By the way, the writing program can be helpful to these folks and whatever their goals are - but only as a by-product.

My hope, is that they will go see sketch comedy - good and bad - and that it starts to get under their skin. I believe to grow as an artist, you have to see what's out there. And you have to challenge yourself to be as good or better. And there's a lot of bad sketch comedy out there, so hopefully it's the better.



THE YES MEN

I worship the ground these guys walk on. Help them out, if you can. They are doing God's work...

Dear Friends,

In under two weeks, the Yes Men will speak on behalf of what may well
be the world's nastiest company at a very important conference. We've
got foul plans - but we need your help.

The last time we asked for your money, your gifts enabled us to
present the Halliburton Survivaball to insurance industry lawyers. This time, our
plans are about three times as tasteless, weird and elaborate. And
they're about as expensive: two hundred stinky-poo props don't come
cheap.

If you can help, please visit

PayPal

(ignore the part about shipping and sales tax).

You'll hear what you've done very soon.

THANKS!!!
The Yes Men

NEW ROBOWRITERS START TIME

RoboWriters is tonight at the Uptown Writer's Space. The start time has changed from 6pm to 6:30pm, to give people coming from work a little more time for dinner. See you tonight!

Hey, Nice Labia!

((The following blog entry is Rated PG-13 for strong sexual content and may not be suitable for children or your boss who may be standing behind you looking over your shoulder as you read this.))


Life is too short to be ugly.

Even your cooch.

I thought we as a culture had hit rock bottom with anal bleaching. How low is our self-esteem when we are concerned about the shade of our butt holes? A place I haven't looked at in years and have never tried to color coordinate. Is there some segment of society that shuns dark-skinned anuses?

What could possibly be worse than that?

Ladies and gentlemen, submitted for your approval - or disapproval - the latest in unnecessary and expensive surgical procedures...DESIGNER VAGINAS!

There are three types of female genital surgery that are rapidly on the increase in this self-obsessed country of ours... Labia Reduction, Vaginal Rejuvenation, and Clitoral Unhooding.

Now, for all three of these procedures, there may actually be a few women who can benefit from the operation. But, for the most part, it's for what the plastic surgeons call beautification.

That's right, the ol' hoo-ha just don't look like it used to. Or it never looked like it used to and it's scaring the beejesus out of the other ladies in the sauna at Curves. Sadly, it's mainly women who want to look like a porn star without being a porn star. Here's the secret nobody is telling you... NOBODY LOOKS LIKE A PORN STAR! Porn stars weren't born that way. They had to have surgery to get that look and it's long term effects are gruesome. I used to think it was rather ridiculous that anyone would spend money on a blow-up doll. They look nothing like the real thing. Instead of trying to improve the technology of the blow-up doll, women have decided to look more like the inflatable.

What's really scary is the amount of money these women are dumping into this. Hard to justify with all the hardship in the world, not to mention the women in third world countries who have no hope of ever having this surgery and whose labia scrape the ground when they walk.

So, you may be wondering, is Vaginal Beautification right for you?

I've taken the liberty of putting together my own diagnostic quiz.

Answer the following questions...

- While wearing shorts and riding a bicycle, do you hear the sound of playing cards attached to your spokes, even though none are there?

- When wearing tight pants, do you have Camel Foot?

- While making love, does your sexual partner have to tie a rope around his waste before entering you?

- Does the hood over your clitoris have a short Swiss man on it shouting R-I-C-O-L-A!

- Has anyone ever referred to giving you oral sex as spelunking?

- While running outdoors in the summer, have you ever accidentally ignited small grass fires from the sparks caused by the friction between your legs?

- While playing tennis, are you able to return volleys without the aid of a racket?

- When camping, does your pelvic area double as a sleeping bag or canopy?

- Has anyone ever said to you, "Is that two bananas laying side-by-side in your pocket or are you just glad to see me"?


If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then Vaginal Beautification Surgery may be just what you need.

If not, then just look in the mirror and repeat after me... I have a lovely vagina.

And then give me five thousand dollars.

Walleye Afterglow

Quite a weekend, but mostly a good one.

My mother is STILL in the hospital in Toledo. The doctors have been trying to stabilize her blood sugar levels. They won't release her until they do that. So, Julie and I visited her on the way to Port Clinton and on the way back. Hospitals are very depressing places. The lighting is horrible, the rooms are cramped, the food is awful and there are all those lovely smells. It's amazing anyone gets well. The good news is that my mom is looking pretty good. She's hooked up to a heart monitor and we noticed on the way back that her heart was stronger and steadier.

On Saturday, we picked up my brother and went to THE WALLEYE FESTIVAL! I was actually looking forward to this. It's a piece of small town America and something my hometown is very proud of. There were rides and lots of booths for food and arts and crafts.

Here's my suggestion for Port Clinton's next Walleye Festival... um, more walleye.

You would expect a festival for walleye would be overflowing in walleye. Nope. There was only one food stand out of maybe fifty food stands that served walleye, fried, on a bun. That's it. Perch, walleye's nemesis in the Lake Erie fresh water fish popularity contest was more available. And there wasn't much representation of the walleye around the festival itself. Except for a sign or two, you wouldn't know what the hub-bub was about. My girlfriend Julie was disappointed there wasn't some kind of walleye tossing contest. I would have been happy just seeing a guy walking around in a walleye outfit. Julie had never tasted walleye or perch and got to sample both. Perch won.

Walleye...

Perch...


On Sunday, we drove around the area where my brother lives, which is east of Port Clinton, in Marblehead. We drove to an old cemetery we used to go to in high school. It juts out into the quarry there and there used to be an urban legend of a witch that would jump out from behind a headstone if you flashed your headlights at it. We never saw a witch there. Just drank a lot of beer. We also took pictures in front of Prehistoric Forest, which had cavemen living with dinosaurs way before creationists or The Flintstones. We stopped by Just for Ewe, an arts and crafts shop my sister used to do a lot of work for. She still had a few stained glass pieces there. She does lots of different things, but I think her stained glass work is her best.

The most interesting thing we did is visit Johnson Island. During the Civil War, it was a pow camp for confederate soldiers. Many of them died there. The Masons were conducting a Memorial Day service specifically for them. The guy in the top hat and apron said that these were soldiers who were Americans and they were fighting for freedom. Their freedom, any way. I wonder if there were any Memorial Services in the South for any of the boys from the North.

On Sunday night, we visited Julie's parents and hit them up for dinner at their restaurant. Monday, they bought us lunch at a sushi restaurant. Parents are good things.

Saturday Morning Cartoons!

I'm off to Ohio today to spend time with my mother and older brother. And, of course, to enjoy the Walleye Festival. I envision a nightmare Body Snatchers- type scenario where I will be watching the Walleye Queen crowned and someone will point and screech "vegan!" at me.

Julie and I will stop in Michigan City on the way back to have sushi with her parents and grandmother. I'm not sure what this has to do with Memorial Day, unless it's to honor the fallen Japanese soldiers. You know, just to be nice.

Bite and Smile will return on Tuesday!

Until then, here's the Saturday Morning Cartoon!!!

I remember watching cartoons when guys like Barnaby and Captain Penny hosted local kids shows. Oh, sure, in retrospect they look like top-of-the-line child molesters. When I was pre-school, they were the coolest guys around. And no one knew pre-school hip like me. They were both out of Cleveland, so, I only got to watch them when the weather gods and the TV antennae all got along. These shows would often feature cartoons from the 1940's.

Here's one of my favorites...