Look Young, Speak British, Dress Italian, Think Yiddish

BOB: So give me a for instance. Whaddya mean stand-up comedy ain't what it used to be? How old are you ... ten?
BILL: Seventeen.
BOB: And you're some big authority on why stand-up comedy will never grow? Grow? Whaddya nuts? I got people standing in line over here, to get in this line. Okay, so what don't you like?
BILL: All the great old comics like, I dunno, Jackie Mason, Shecky Green, Woo Amai.
BOB: Woo Amai?
BILL: My new bitch. Bend over.
BOB: Hey, yeah ... that's funny, as long as you're not talkin' to me.
BILL: Maybe I was, and maybe I wasn't
BOB: Hey, maybe I'll give you one of these here! Speaking of Jackie Mason. You got a lotta nerve, you little prick.
BILL: Man, cool off, I was just doin' some schtick. Don Rickles is my hero. You want me to act it out for you, right here? What I hate about stand-up comedy, how they always ask these lame questions and then answer them for you. And they all open the same way. I wanna come out with a tube sock on my yah-ha, nothin' else, and sparklers attached to both of my nipples. They're pierced, you see?
BOB: I don't know what it is with you young people and the piercing. Is there any kind of statement you're making there?
BILL: Yeah, look, I have something to put my sparklers in. So you want me to act it out for you, right here, what I hate about stand-up comedy?
BOB: Yeah, sure, kid, knock yourself out.
BILL: Well, you know, what I hate most is when they do like this, okay ... So, you fool around with computers? You fool around with computers much? Yeah, me, too. And you know what I think about it, computers? They're driving me nuts. It's like sex, you know? When you first get on it, you know, you think, God, I wanna do this all the time. But it is a fleeting thrill, my friend. It's bait and switch. Microsoft will shut your computer down ... until you buy the new software that everybody hates.
BOB: Excuse me, kid ...for interrupting ... but you had a laugh set up there ... and you blew it.
BILL: Blew what? Your wife? ... Now when I get on the computer, it's a battle between me and whatever nerd out there has had a productive day writing code to eat my code, the bitches, no doubt all of four-hundred pounds, with a storage cabinet filled with Twinkies, and surrounded by General Electric, for cryin' out loud.
BOB: Wait a minute, kid. You didn't understand what I was saying.
BILL: Yes, I did, you were raggin' my act.
BOB: I thought you were going to show me what you don't like about standup comedy, and you're doin' a freaking bit. What the hell's up with that? It wasn't all that great, you know, but it wasn't bad, you're close. More of a Will Rogers thing ... than in your face comedy. But interesting. Kid, are you from Chicago?
BILL: North Carolina.
BOB: Why do you sound so much like some Chicago mug? That's weird.
BILL: 'Cause I'm from there.
BOB: I thought you said you were from North Carolina.
BILL: No, that's an exercise I do to clean the palette.
BOB: Clean it with what ...? The palette?
BILL: Yeah, my comedy vibe.
BOB: Get the fuck outta here! ... Come back here! Your what? Vibe? You clean your comedy vibe by washing your palette with a redneck state.
BILL: As in groove, you know, niche?
BOB: So what you're telling me is you say the words North Carolina, when you want to switch gears in a comedy routine.
BILL: Yeah, more or less.
BOB: Well do me a favor.
BILL: What?
BOB: Keep your state fantasies to yourself. Err on the side of much, much less. If you do something weird like that again, which can cause my flashbacks to reoccur, you can go peddle this esoteric comedy college kookarama crap somewheres else. We had Lenny Bruce in here one night ...
BILL: Who's Lenny Bruce?
BOB: You gotta be kiddin' me? You don't know Lenny Bruce, the great satirist?
BILL: Whaddya mean, like, with whips and leather, smackin' people around? A satirist. Yeah, I heard of that.
BOB: What a putz, but, you know, I like you kid. You have a presence.
BILL: I like to think of it as an aura.
BOB: Yeah, well, aura this ... I don't want the high-brow, shit, you know? Like Bruce did. He was okay for a while, but when he started smokin' dope and poppin' pills, his shit got really heavy, you know. You're more ... I dunno, easy to listen to.
BILL: Does that mean I have the job?
BOB: Yeah, whatever ... but on one condition.
BILL: What's that? Anything ...
BOB: You have to do a kind of ... comedy favor for me. Okay?
BILL: A comedy favor? What's a comedy favor?
BOB: Hey! What you give somebody at a party to make 'em laugh. Hey!
BILL: Hey, you just kneed me in the groin.
BOB: Did I kid? I'm sorry. No harm done. You don't use any of that down dere, anyway, do ya?
BILL: Says who? Your wife?
BOB: Okay, okay ... you were doin' the computer bit, and it was ... okay. So, keep goin'.
BILL: So, I'm like ... what other device would I ever sit down in front of for half the night running all my virus software, doing nothing, just to send some email? Bill Gates can drink my bathwater. I read where, in a magazine, not online, that the problem with a lot of these virus type things you get, is that when you buy the software to get rid of the file, there's another file on your computer which is activated by the one you just bought, and the bad file reenters all the information you just paid good money to have taken off.
BOB: No shit.
BILL: It's a war, and this is just in your den. It's like a fucking war just to send some pictures to my mother.
BOB: That's good, I like that.
BILL: No it isn't good ... it's fucking bullshit. I'll bet the companies who make a fortune selling all of this software for viruses and that, go out and recruit people to write more viruses so you will still need their product, only upgraded out the ass. If the aliens are responsible for the Internet, which Al Gore almost confirms all by himself, then they can't be liking the way it's going ... because the technology is eating itself, it will implode, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear over and over again. Globalism, schmobalism. You see what Microsoft has been doing?
BOB: No, what?
BILL: They're pushing this new software, an add on, that nerds can use to connect to the aliens, who want to turn all the street addresses into longitude and latitude.
BOB: This is still your comedy material, right?
BILL: No it isn't. I don't know what it is. It's stupid, okay, I admit it. I hate standup comedy. I hate it ... why did I have to be so damn good at it? Fuck Will Rogers and the horse he rode off with.
BOB: Wait a minute, kid. ... You got a problem with flyin' off the handle.
BILL: That's what my mother said just before she died.
BOB: Of what?
BILL: Third degree burns. I was cooking up a pot of cheese grits, and I stepped on the cat. I fell backwards and dumped the whole thing on her upper torso.
BOB: My God. So she died of being scalded? Man, that's tough.
BILL: No, she started screaming at me, and I hit her with the pot. You think I might be a satirist?
BOB: That's great, kid! You're a riot. Keep that in. Yeah, you got the job. You're a natural. Now ... the favor, could you play an old Jewish guy who does Yiddish burlesque.
BILL: Burl who?
BOB: Esque. Vaudeville, you know slapstick. Where you hit ... people ... with a pie, or something.
BILL: Tell you what, if you let me hit people in the face with a pie ... I can do Jackie Mason better than Jackie Mason. I do Rickles the best. What kind of crowd is this going to be?
BOB: Well, it's recent widows support group. I thought, you know, since my sister was in it, some jokes would cheer her and her new friends up.
BILL: Oh, I got a lot of material on dead husbands. We got a deal? Pies ... and I do the widows gig?
BOB: Well not pies with the widows.
BILL: Why not, give 'em something to really make 'em laugh, take their mind off of their problems. Pies are great. I like pies. So pies?
BOB: Yeah, I guess so. But just shaving cream.
BILL: Oh, I can whip up just the thing.
BOB: Yeah, well, go on home, kid. You're kind of freakin' me out.


... to be continued