Oh, they got jokes?! 🎤
(aka This Is a Stand-Up Set)
Hello, hello!
The next time I write to you will be in 2023. Can you believe? So we're going out with a bang. A fun experiment, really, and a first on JASPER—a written stand-up set.
Three jokes, written the same way I’d perform them. Segue, included. Legit just for kicks, cause the holidays. Enjoy!
Wait, wait, let me set the scene…
Joke #1
This Elon Twitter shit is wild. Elon Musk is like if Fred Flintstone owned Wayne Enterprises. It’s great. (And by great I mean an absolute train wreck.)
But one of my favorite myths about Elon is that he’s sooooo fucking smart. Elon is sooo smart. Genius IQ , that guy!
I love it, because Elon has literally never tried to convince us that he’s smart. We gave him that label. We did that, because he’s rich and can afford to fund failing businesses and one of them happens to involve rockets. We’re like, hired rocket scientists—rocket scientists are smart—Elon, genius. Yes, yes.
That’s like if everyone thought I was a math whiz the second I bought my first TI-83. Truly…that’s just not how that works.
But no, rich white guys—geniuses.
Joke #2
Speaking of powerful white guys… I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about the world’s “greatest philosophers.” You know, Aristotle, Foucault, Kant —All them little white dudes.
But I was thinking, like, wait. How come nobody calls, say, bell hooks a philosopher?
I know, I know, “Silly rabbit, philosophers are white!” Blah blah, etcetera, of course.
But really! She literally reframed how we talk about feminism. Iconic!
Like okay, yeah, Freud accidentally invented therapy. Useful. There’s the Freudian slip. Comes in handy when you wanna fuck your mom but definitely didn’t mean to say it out loud. Love that. Basically the fancy way to say, “Whoops.”
But he also thought men were the only rational people in the world and that being a lesbian is a mental illness so I kinda feel like…bell hooks wins? I don’t know.
Joke #3
Do any of ya’ll know God? Like, personally? The Christian one, specifically, like the extra messy one that ironically hates gays?
I ask because, #NoGodComplex but, God and me are like, low key similar?
Like, for example, I also don’t answer my calls.
Or texts.
Very often, like, it’s a thing.
But unlike Our Savior™ I do it for social reasons. Okay, anti-social reasons.
Not all the time! Like if you’re just checking in, I can send a quick “hi.” We’re good, I got you.
But if you text me to see if I can FaceTime and it’s after 5pm on a weekday? In post-COVID 2022 were I am absolutely socially rusty and already Thee anti-social queen themselves? Oh my God, baby, I’m unavailable.
But, what’s His excuse? Like, God, I called you 800 times in middle school and…I still never got those 2 extra inches. I’m literally out here wearing lifts. Pint-sized gang, for real, for real. Why has He forsaken me? I don’t understand.
These first 2 jokes are new. The last is one I used in my old sets from 2017 and earlier, only updated. It’s funny, how jokes can evolve, and how the writer evolves outside of subject matter, phrasing, thought patterns… But anyway! Hope you enjoyed it…
A quick follow-up:
A few weeks ago I asked the question, is all art incomplete until experienced by someone? I’ve spoken to a couple artists and writers since then who’ve really helped me see a more full, far more optimistic and rather beautiful answer than my own.
Once an artists creates a work of art, it is whole. It is complete.
Once they choose to share it with the world, the art is already everything they want and need it to be. But this art is also a living, thriving thing. And like any living thing, it may reveal certain parts of itself to certain people, certain instances, conversations, and experiences of it. That’s what’s beautiful about art, it’s a living breathing being that exists in an endless amount of realities all at once.
I love that. And thank you to those of you who reached out and helped me see the light.
As a reminder, all I write on here is up for thoughtful discussion. Here in the comments, or more privately. Feel free to reach out, or comment below.
Alright lovely people. Have a wonderful holiday. Be good. Or bad. Just don’t be late for our next meeting: January 4th, 2023!
Talk soon,
Jasper