Refusing to believe the ancient principle that beauty times brains equals a constant, the smitten monarch engaged royal tutors of all sorts for Fuchsia, to no avail. All failed to capture the attention of the witless concubine, whose only apparent interest was in gathering pollen. At last the embarrassed Richard gave up and had Rotenone slipped into her soup.
As he exclaimed to his prime minister later that night, “I can lead a horticulture, but I can’t make her think!”
—Doc Webster
(According to Jake Stonebender, Fuchsia had a child before she died—and dark rumor suggests that Richard, a notoriously forward-thinking ruler, spent his declining years riding the Waif of the Fuchsia.)
One night the conversation turned to Richard Adams’s book SHARDIK, about an ancient empire ruled by an enormous, semimythical bear. This triggered Doc Webster:
The only way to become a knight in Shardik’s empire was to apply for a personal interview with the bear. This had its drawbacks. If he liked your audition, you were knighted on the spot—but if you failed, Lord Shardik was quite likely to club your head off your shoulders with one mighty paw.
Even so, there were many applicants—for the peasantry were poor, and if a candidate failed for knighthood, his family received, by way of booby-prize, a valuable sheepdog from the Royal Kennels.
This consoled them, for truly it is written:
“For the mourning after a terrible knight, nothing beats the dog of the bear that hit you.”
If you’re under 35, and not passionately interested in health food, this one may go over your head. If so, count your blessings.
Until very recently, a tribe of killer monkeys lived undetected beneath Greenwich Village.
To some extent it was not surprising that they escaped notice for so long. They had extremely odd sleeping habits, hibernating for 364 days out of every year (365 in leap years) and emerging from the caverns of the Village sewers only on Christmas Day.
Even so, one might have thought they could hardly help but cause talk, since they tended when awake to be enormous, ferocious, carnivorous, and extremely hungry. Yet in Greenwich Village, of all places on Earth, they went unnoticed until last year, when they were finally destroyed.
Everyone knows that Yule Gibbons ate only nuts and fruits…
—Ralph Von Wau Wau
I commanded a submarine in Her Majesty’s Navy during the last World War, and had at least one secret mission. The famous spy Harry Lime, the celebrated Third Man, had developed a sudden and severe case of astigmatism—and many of his espionage activities forbade dependence on spectacles. At that time only one visionary in the world was working on the development of a practical contact lens: a specialist at Sir Walter Reed Hospital in America. I was ordered to convey Lime there in utmost secrecy, then fetch him home again.
Lime was an excellent actor, of course, but I began to suspect that there was nothing at all wrong with his vision. I learned that he had an old girlfriend who lived twenty miles from the hospital. So I called him into my cabin.
“I can’t prove a thing against you,” I said, “but I’m ordering you to go directly from the sub, Lime, to the Reed oculist.”
—Gentleman John Killian
The toilet tanks on commercial airliners often leak. This results in the formation of deposits of blue ice on the fuselage. The ice is composed of feces, urine, and blue-liquid disinfectant.
Now: occasionally, when a plane must descend very rapidly from a great height, as in the Rockies, chunks of blue ice ranging up to two hundred pounds can—and do—break off and shell the countryside. I have seen a UPI wirephoto of an apartment in Denver that was demolished by a fifty-pound chunk of blue ice. (The airline bought the occupants a house. Neither was hurt…and for a while—until it began to melt—they were actually grateful for the coolness the bolus provided. It was summer, you see, and the impact had destroyed their electric fan…)
So even if you live where there are no strategic military targets, you can still be attacked by an icy B.M…
—Al Phee
Puns (II)
Spontaneous Conversational
Eructations, Mercifully Brief
NOTE: as these are mostly unattributed, blame cannot, at this late date, be positively assessed. But it is safe to assume that better than half of them were perpetrated by Doc Webster.
We were going to explore the Kama Sutra…but at the last moment her Kama turned into a period…
Be he never so humble, there’s no police like Holmes.
—Bill White
The success of a pun is in the oy of the beholder.
Got a date with the doctor who did my vasectomy. She believes in reaping what she sews.
The Buddhist hamburger joint: they’ll make you one with everything.
The hackers’ burger joint: you can have chips with it.
The junkies’ hot-dog stand: they’ll sell you one with the works.
I know you’d like to screw like a bunny—but I just washed my thing, and I can’t do a hare with it.
Bulimia is one of those subjects which can only be discussed ad nauseam.
He acquitted himself well at the trial.
Regrettably, the jury did not follow his example…
(He was blamed for something he didn’t do. He didn’t wear gloves…)
He learned about sex by trial and error. Now they’ve got him on trial for one or two of those errors…
—Ronny Corbett
Name a cowboy hero you can’t even call by his first name without going insane.
”!eriW ,yeH“ ,og ot evah uoy ,eman yb mih llac ot os—”ocsicnarF naS ,nidalaP eriW“ :drac sih no ereht thgir os syas ti—”eriW“ si eman tsrif siH .LEVART LLIW ,NUG EVAH morf ,nidalaP :REWSNA
The shortest distance between two puns is a straightline.
—David Gerrold
Songs
From the repertoire of Jake Stonebender and Fast Eddie Costigan, as performed on Fireside Fillmore Nights at Callahan’s Place—
Those unattributed must be assumed to have been written by Jake and Eddie.
The Drunkard’s Song
A swell and wealthy relative of mine had up and died
And I got a hundred thousand from the will
So a friend and I decided to convert this into liquid form
The better our esophagi to fill
So we started in the city, had a drink in every shitty
Little ginmill, which is really quite a few
Then a cabbie up in Harlem took us clean across the river
Into Brooklyn, where he joined us in a brew
We was weavin’ just a trifle as we pulled into Astoria
At eighty miles an hour, in reverse
But it was nothin’ to the weavin’ that we did as we was leavin’
And from time to time it got a little worse
Well, there’s nothing like drinkin’ up a windfall
We was drunker than a monkey with a skinful
We was feelin’ mighty fine as we crossed the city line
Suckin’ whiskey and a-whistlin’ at the girls
But the next saloon we try, a fella wants to black my eye
’Cause he doesn’t like my shaggy hippy curls
So then a fist come out of orbit, knocked me clear across the floor
But I was fairly drunk and didn’t really care
And I was sorta disappointed when the coppers hit the joint
As I was makin’ my rebuttal, with a chair
Ah, but the coppers come a cropper, ’cause I made it to the crapper
And departed by a ventilator shaft
Met my buddies in the alley as they slipped out through the galley
And we ran and ran and laughed and laughed and laughed
Well, there’s nothing like drinkin’ up a windfall
We was drunker than a monkey with a skinful
So goddam drunk it
was sinful—and I think I ain’t sober yet
Halfway out of Levittown, we got our second wind
In a dump so down and out I had to laugh
So I had another mug, and my friend another jug
And the hack another pitcher and a half
When we got to Suffolk County, we were goin’ into overdrive
The word had spread, and crowds began to form
We drank our way from Jericho along 110 to Merrick Road
A-boozin’ and a-singin’ up a storm
I lost my buddy and the cabbie in the middle of the Hamptons
We was drunker than it’s possible to be
But there finally came a time I didn’t have another dime
I sat on Montauk Point and wept into the sea
Well, there’s nothing like drinkin’ up a windfall
We was drunker than a monkey with a skinful
So goddam drunk it was sinful—and I think I ain’t sober yet
Afterglow
(Iris’s Song)
by
Teodor Vysotsky
Tending to tension by conscious intent,
declining declension, disdaining dissent;
into the dementia dimension we’re sent:
we are our content, and we are content.
Incandescent invention and blessed event,
tumescent distention, tumultuous descent:
our bone of convention again being spent,
I am your contents, and I am content
to be living…to be trying…to be crying…to be dying…(I want)
to be giving…to be making…to be breaking…to be taking
all you have…
Assuming Ascension, Assumption, assent,
all of our nonsense is finally non-sent—
with honorable mention for whatever we meant…
You are my content, and I am content.
Time-Travel Blues
You’ve heard of every kind of blues there is, I hear you say?
Well, I’m leavin’ here tomorrow…and I just got back today
I got the time-travel blues, look at the mess I’m in
I’m sad for what the past will be…and what the future hasn’t been
I longed to know the future, like the Oracle of Delphi
And then this cat knocked on my door: Goddam, it was myself! I
got the time-travel blues, since I met myself comin’ in;
I’d tell you all about it…but where the hell do I begin?
He said that I was going to invent a time machine—
That is to say, I told me, if you follow what I mean.
I said, “I’m no inventor, man: I’ll never ever get it.”
But he said, “Copy this one, and we both can share the credit!”
I cranked it up, it blew right up, and then and there I died.
I wonder who that joker was, and why the bastard lied…
Got the time-travel blues: one of my life’s most awful shocks
Now I could use a doctor: in fact, I need a paradox
If I am dead, my murderer can’t logically exist
But here I am in pieces, and I’m really gettin’ pissed
I got the time-travel blues—it’s only natural, bein’ dead
To want to think that time is really only in your head
Spice
And when I’ve just assuaged your lust
By flicker-light of telly
I love to lie between your thighs
My cheek upon your belly
To smell you and to feel you
And to hear your small intestine
And know that this is perfect bliss
Just as it was predestined
In the hour that my death draws near
And I wonder what my life was for
It’ll be the afterglows
With your fragrance in my nose
I’ll remember and relive once more
And now I rest, caress your breast
And sail in satiation
On the oceanic motion
Of your rhythmic respiration
And now my lips and fingertips
Are flavored sweet and sour
For I have nipped and fully sipped
My favorite furry flower
In the hour that my death draws near
And I wonder what my life was for
It’ll be the afterglows
With your fragrance in my nose
I’ll remember and relive once more
I know in time I’ll have to climb
Up next to you for sleep
With no regret, but not just yet
This moment let me keep
And suddenly it comes to me
—how glorious and dumb!—
I had so much fun making love
I plain forgot to come…
Please, Dr. Frankenstein
I’ve walked a thousand miles in an effort to retain ya
And I didn’t come for charity: I fully plan on payin ya
But I’ve been so depressive, guess I’m ready for some mania
That’s why I’ve traveled all this way to gloomy Transylvania, singin:
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, won’t you try and bring me back to life?
Cause I truly have been grievin since I got “Goodbye, I’m leavin” from my wife
I’m slowly goin nuts because the memory of her cuts me like a knife
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, won’t you try and bring me back to life?
I cannot seem to find my pulse; my temperature is down
And I can tell I smell like hell, the way that people frown
I feel like rigor mortis, all I do is lay around
You gotta help me, Frankenstein, I’m halfway in the ground (I’m beggin)
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, I am up for any kind of change
Spent evenings in this coffin just a little bit too often, and it’s strange
Please don’t consider me more than some flesh for you and Igor to arrange
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, I am up for any kind of change
I’ll stagger like the victim of a wreck
I’ll wear those funny bolt-things in my neck
I’d love to be in stitches—what the heck
Do you need cash, or will you take a check?
I’m not afraid of what you’ll do—I’m immunized to pain
Cause everything I ever had has bubbled down the drain
Make me the Pride of Frankenstein and I will not complain
Just strap me down and let me have a transplant of the brain: I need it
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, won’t you try and raise me from the dead?
My heart is barely beatin since I caught the woman cheatin in our bed
My entire world’s a coffin and it doesn’t get me off, an like I said
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, won’t you try and raise me from the dead?
Come to My Bedside
by
Zaccur Bishop
Come to my bedside and let there be sharing
Uncounterfeitable sign of your caring
Take off the clothes of your body and mind
Bring me your nakedness; help me in mine…
Help me believe that I’m worthy of trust
Bring me a love that includes honest lust
Warmth is for fire; fire is for burning
Love is for bringing an ending to yearning…
For I love you in a hundred ways, and not for this alone
But your lovin’ is the sweetest lovin’ I have ever known
Come to my bedside and let there be giving
Licking and laughing and loving and living
Sing me a song that has never been sung
Dance at the end of my fingers and tongue
Take me inside you and bring up your knees
Wrap me up tight in your thighs and then squeeze
Or if you feel like it, you get on top
Love me however you p
lease, but please…don’t stop
For I love you in a hundred ways, and not for this alone
But your lovin’ is the sweetest lovin’ I have ever known
I know just what you’re thinking of:
There’s more to love than making love
There’s much more to the flower than the bloom
But every time we meet in bed
I find myself inside your head
Even as I’m entering your womb
So come to my bedside and let there be loving
Twisting and moaning and thrusting and shoving
I will be gentle; you know that I can
For you I’ll endeavor to be quite a singular man…
Here’s my identity, stamped on my genes
Take this my offering: know what it means
Let us become what we started to be
On that long-ago night when you first came with me…
O, lady! I love you in a hundred ways, and not for this alone
But your lovin’ is the sweetest lovin’ I have ever known
Out of Your Way
You went out of your way to make sure I’d love you
And now you say be patient for a while
You went out of your way to be just as nice as you could be
Until I fell, and then you modified your style
You say you’re somebody else’s slave…I suppose we all got our crosses
But I ain’t nobody’s slave and I figure it’s time I cut my losses
You could end up mine some way, but baby, until that day
I’m goin’ out of your way by a country mile
You went out of your way to make sure that I’d need you
You taught me the significance of need
And I went out of my way to show you who I am and how I fell
Which is for me a thing remarkable indeed
You got a lotta laughs inside, but I’m afraid that’s where they’re keepin’
You got a lotta tears there too, and I reckon you’re much more fond of weepin’