Category — True Story, I Swear

We all love songs, even when we can’t understand some of the lyrics. Sometimes we go years thinking we know the lyrics of a song, only to find out we’ve been singing the wrong thing on karaoke night.

Here are a few of the things I have sang, out loud, in front of people for decades before finding out I was wrong.

Jimmy Hendrix – “Purple Haze”

What Barry Heard – ” Scuse me, while I kiss this guy!”

What Jimi Said – “Scuse me, while I kiss the sky!”

Pretty close, but I wonder why none of my male friends ever told me.

Here’s the inimitable Mr. Hendrix at Woodstock singing the song properly (I still think it sounds like “kiss this guy”).

Big Country – “In A Big Country”

What Barry Heard – “In a pickle tree, dreams stay with you.”

What Big Country Sang – “In a big country, dreams stay with you.”

I spent a few years looking for pickle trees. I even asked a botanist lady once on a field trip to the Ontario Science Centre where I could find pickle trees.

Here they are, Big Country singing the inventively named “In A Big Country”.

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Blinded By The Light

What Barry Heard – “Blinded by the light. Wrapped up like a douche, another runner in the night.”

What Manfred’s Band Crooned – “Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, antoher runner in the night.”

Apparently I’m not the only person who had issues with this one!

And here’s the real version… with funny subtitles.

So… what song lyrics have you misheard?

It makes a difference which underwear I wear when I blog,

I swear.

If wear the ones with a tear, invariably my posts go nowhere.

On somedays and Sundays I blog in the nude,

to some this seems unspeakably rude.

On Wednesdays I blog wearing a thong, why is that so unspeakably wrong?

Try it out, you’ll see it’s a big blog-a-thon.

By Thursday my briefs are all in the laundry,

so I re-post old posts, and and re-wear old undies.

Yes, my undies go right along with my moods,

so my blog posts reflect them, just as they should.

So which pair of knickers wears I today?

I don’t know if I’ve the gumption to say.

You’d never believe me anyway.

…

(Actual Elephant Undies From Photo Available Through This Link)

When you write comedy you always feel like you’re not as funny as you’re supposed to be. Except occasinally, when you make youself laugh hysterically. Usually, though, you’re the only one laughing.

Part of what you have to confront to write comedy are three tenets about your own humanity:

1) Nobody likes me.

2) I am afraid if I am not funny, nobody will continue to like me.

3) If I try too hard to be funny, nobody will like me.

Pretty much a Kobayashi Maru of comedy.

Your funny reputation and the resulting hyperbole about it will set people up for massive disappointment. These stoic, unhappy faces will remind you of the view from your crib. Take, for example, the time the funniest guy I ever knew came to visit me in college.

The funniest man alive’s name is Jonathon Cooper. And he *is* funny. He used to make all the guys in high school laugh when we’d go out riding on our bikes drinking purple Jesus.

But, in univeristy I sawthe tragedy of comic expectation before my eyes when Jon came to visit my residence. For WEEKS before Jon arrived another high school friend of ours walked around the residence halls crowing “The funnies guy EVER is coming! You won’t stop laughing the whole time he’s here. Wait til you meet him! Oh, he’s amazing” You’d think Chan-o (nickname, don’t ask) was standing on a sidewalk in front of a nickelodeon trying to fill seats in the place.

So, a few weeks passes, and everyone is abuzz with the impending arrival of the funniest man alive. (Jon *is* funny. Have I mentioned that?)

Jon arrives at 11pm on a Friday night, after four hours cramped between a greyhound window and a large, sleeping passenger who’d leaned on him the entire journey. Jon is tired. Jon carries two giant, heavy duffel bag. Jon trudges up the res steps, down the hall and into our residence room where he finds a sea of fifteen faces looking at him. The whole floor (and a few guys from other floors) had been waiting antsily in their chairs and sitting on the floor for Jon’s arrival.

Jon: “Hey. Chan-o”

He drops his bags.

Chano-O: “This is him! He’s so funny! Go on, Jon. Make us laugh!”

Everyone’s heads turn to Jon. He looks at Chan-O then back at the audience.

There is a long silence. Chan-O laughs nervously.

“Yeah, be funny!” someone yells from the back (seriously).

Exepctant smiles as they lean forwards, hands on their knees, like kids on Christmas morning. Except, as you guessed, Jon’s got nothin’. He’s been put on the spot hasn’t a goddamned clue what to say. I cringe watching the situation collapse inward on itself.

Jon just stands there.

One by one the audience members give up.  They glare at Chan-O as they go back to bed (Chan-O had woken them with a Paul Revere like ride through the halls). Jon tries to smile at them politely as the edge past him out the door. He apologises for his bags as one person trips over them.

I sit there, rapt at the pathos I am witnessing. It’s epic.

Uncomfortably, thirteen more people file out. Chano-O tries to make some light banter. The last person slams the door hard on the way out.

That was it. Jon *did* spend the rest of the weekend cracking everyone (including those initial audience members) up with his imitation of ChanO’s ill advised hyping of his arrival. I did tell you Jon is funny.

The lesson I got that day is that comedy wilts under expectation, or pressure to please an outside master. We must be funny, first and foremost, for ourselves. When we do that, we can stay out of our heads enough to find the vein of funny in everything around us. When we *try* to be funny, however, it’s just fear of falling on our face. Of humiliation. Of not being liked. Chano-O tried to be liked by promising everyone Jon would be funny for them, and it failed.

It's really *him*! Follow Jon at therealjoncooper on Twitter!

We tried to milk Jon like a comedy cow for his joke milk from his fun udders and his chuckle-tits, and his laugh nipples, and all like that. But you can’t lead a cow to water… or something like this.

I will leave you with a confusing quote:

Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says “But Doctor… I am Pagliacci.”  -Watchmen

So, apparently Jesus has begun hanging out in bathroom doors. Check out this real news story.

This particular door was at Ikea. Why did Jesus choose IKEA? Does he shop there? Stuff from IKEA is nice and easy to assemble, so I could see why he might go there.

What’s more confusing is why the son of God would cchoose to leave his mark on a bathroom door? Is it a message for people entering the lavatory that they’d better flush and wash their hands?

But there is controversy surrounding the latest Christ-like manifestation (recall the similarly awe inspiring Shroud of Turin or ‘Cheetos-Jesus’). The wife of the man who discovered bathroom-Jesus does not think it looks like Jesus. She says it looks like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings.

Wait, there’s more! The IKEA store employees don’t agree with either of them. They insist the striated phantom face in the bathroom portal looks like Benny Andersson of ABBA. I mean, he is Swedish, like IKEA, after all.

Who do you think the face in the door looks like?

This past weekend, my friend and I scored some premo seats for the Price is Right. I’ll admit, I have a pretty giant man-crush on Bob Barker, and I did, in fact, cry for several hours the day Drew Carry took over. But I’m over it now and I think Drew is doing a pretty good job, so I decided to go and have a good time.

Now, I know there is a trick to getting on the show. You gotta have a memorable personality and be interesting. I could have just shown up and giggled like an idiot and claim that I watch the show everyday at my nursing home, but I needed to make absolutely sure that I got on that show. So I decided to go dressed up in a costume–Zombie Bob Barker.

I know a professional makeup guy and I'd say he did a pretty bang up job.

So I showed up in costume with my ticket and immediately the Price is Right goons that work the show are not love’n my costume.  They were eying me the minute I walked in the place.  I tried to truss things up by groaning and calling a group of nearby women “My little necrophilic beauties,” by that didn’t go over well.

“Sorry, pal,” some asshole with a clipboard said to me, “we don’t want our audience members dressed in costume.  This isn’t Let’s Make a Deal.”

“It sure as shit isn’t,” I said in my Zombie Bob Barker voice, “now get away from me before I slap you with my replica skinny microphone that I soaked in formaldehyde for three days.”

This little exchange earned me the heave-ho, but when they saw me sob uncontrollably outside in an ally, they said if I came back in normal clothes, they’d let me in.  I literally jumped at the chance and sprinted to my friend’s car for “Plan B.”  I had a hunch that the costume might not go over well, so I had a custom t-shirt made.  I know what you’re thinking, Joe, those t-shirts are soooooooo lame.  Not mine, bitches.

This is obviously not the real thing because mine was confiscated and destroyed...

Seconds after reentering the studio, I was accosted once again by Price is Right goons who deemed my “Bob Fucking Barker Rules!” t-shirt to be inappropriate for CBS.  I really wanted to tell them to go to hell, but my friend kept me calm.  I gave them the t-shirt and in exchange they gave me a sweater that had been left behind in the audience a long time ago.  It said “NANA IS GAGA FOR BAH BAH.”  There really isn’t a comment to top how stupid that is, so I’ll just leave it be.

So finally the show started.  And, honestly, I couldn’t control myself.  I’ve been a huge fan of the show for my entire life, so I just started freaking out–screaming hysterically, whooping and hollering, dancing–you name it and I did it.  At one point, I got too rowdy and accidentally shoved a geriatric woman into the isle.  She fell face-first into the carpet and got a pretty nasty brush burn on her face.  This was the first of several show stoppages.

I received a warning and the show continued again.  I wasn’t picked at first and I was okay with that.  I decided it would be funny if, during the bidding, I started shouting absurdly high or low prices.  I managed to get some guy on contestant’s row so flustered he actually bid my suggestion of one million dollars for a lamp.  During the next round of bidding, I suggested a “Bea Arthur collector’s-edition Diaper” as a bid and taping stopped again.  I was told by a producer to “Cut the crap” or I’d be kicked out.

After that, I was a model citizen.  I sat there, didn’t say a word and just watched the show.  At the mid-point during the show, Drew Carry shmoozed with the audience and singled me out because of my Nana is Gaga for Bah Bah sweater.  The asshole got the entire audience to laugh at me–even that old lady with the brush burn on her face (which had gotten comically swollen and distracted Carry several times during the show).

Carry: Nana is Gaga for Bah Bah?  Interesting clothing choice.

*audience laughs*

Carry:  Did your grandmother make you wear that?

*more audience laughter*

Carry: No, no, I’m just joking.  Actually, no I’m not.  That sweater is ridiculous.

*even more audience laughter*

Me: Pretty funny, Carry.  We’ll see how funny you are after I neuter you with your own glasses!

*Stage Hands grab me as I run down the aisle and escort me out*

Aaaaaaand that was pretty much it for me.  My friend watched the rest of the show while I waited outside and fumed over the fact that people were snickering at me because of the sweater I was wearing.  Maybe I’ll try Wheel of Fortune.  I hear that Pat Sajak is more forgiving if you show up with profanity on your clothes.