comedian contest: wildcard spot at Pete's
Henceforth, when I have an available spot at the comedy show at Pete's, I'm going to give it away in a contest on the blog.
The fine print: While many of the readers of this blog are quite funny, this is a contest for (New York-based) stand-up comedians. You must have a website or MySpace page that clearly indicates that you have performed comedy before. You also cannot have performed at Pete's in the last three months or already be booked for an upcoming spot. By entering, you give permission for your entry and name to be published on this blog. The winner of this challenge wins a spot in the April 23rd show.
Now that that's settled, here's the challenge!
Compose a short story of at least three sentences in which a child is admonished to stop eating an inedible object, and instead turns to a life of philosophy and self-abnegation.
Deadline is Tuesday, April 3rd. Email to jen - at - jenisfamous.com
The fine print: While many of the readers of this blog are quite funny, this is a contest for (New York-based) stand-up comedians. You must have a website or MySpace page that clearly indicates that you have performed comedy before. You also cannot have performed at Pete's in the last three months or already be booked for an upcoming spot. By entering, you give permission for your entry and name to be published on this blog. The winner of this challenge wins a spot in the April 23rd show.
Now that that's settled, here's the challenge!
Compose a short story of at least three sentences in which a child is admonished to stop eating an inedible object, and instead turns to a life of philosophy and self-abnegation.Deadline is Tuesday, April 3rd. Email to jen - at - jenisfamous.com
posted by JenIsFamous at 3/27/2007 11:41:00 AM
9 Comments:
short story...
That toy is made of toxic plastic. Therefore you should not eat it. Should you continue to do so, when you grow up you will be faker than Paris Hilton.
Once upon a time, a famous comedian and celebrity critic, loved to write about ovaries and other baby related things in her blog.
HOLY SHIT
copyright 2007, by Matthew R. Penn
Long before turning his life over to self-abnegation, Lhamo Thondup had been something of a shithead. At least, Shithead was what his older brothers had called him.
"Look at him," Gyalo had cried, "and see how Shithead reaches into his diaper to play with his feces and put it in his mouth!"
Gyalo slapped the baby's hand and it began to cry. "Why surely," he continued, "he cannot be--"
"Hush now!" Tsering admonished him. She was considerably older than Gyalo and more of a parent to him and the others than a sibling. The mother-sister scooped the child up and handed him to one of the more gentle girls, who sniffed and made a face. Tsering then cast her large brown eyes out the window to the valley below, hoping to see the party of dignitaries and clerics as it made its way up the hill to their home.
"They shall be here soon and there's work to be done, boy," Tsering said to Gyalo. She wagged a bony finger and hissed, "For shame, that you strike an infant. You would do well to mind me, young Gyalo, that I shouldn't tell Father and he would do you much worse!"
Gyalo went back to his chores and sulked. It seemed so unfair. As if it were not bad enough that their eldest brother Thupten Jigme Norbu had been recognized as the rebirth of the high lama Tasker Rinpoche, now came word that the head of the embalmed thirteenth Kundun had mysteriously turned from the south to face northeast, indicating the direction in which the next incarnation of His Holiness would be found. To make matters worse, the Regent claimed to have had a vision shortly thereafter, in which it had been revealed to him that the Yeshe Norbu would be found in a one-story house in Amdo with "distinctive guttering and tiling". The Thondups had recently renovated their kitchen after the patriarch's will had been probated and Father had come into his inheritance. The men of Lhasa would be here soon enough. Only, they were coming to see the little Shithead; not Gyalo.
Gyalo brought onions to Tsering and she began chopping them. But it was he who wept.
"Tell me yours are tears of joy, brother," Tsering chastised. "Else, I would bid you to cease your childish lamentation. The little one may be He, and that is all with which you need concern yourself this day. Now hurry--they come!"
Remembering that evening, thirteen years gone, on which the elders had proclaimed two-year-old Lhamo Thondup to be Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso ("Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Compassionate Defender of the Faith, Ocean of Wisdom"), the fourteenth Dalai Lama chortled. Gyalo had been a wicked boy, but revenge would be a dish best served still steaming.
"Eat it."
"What?" asked Gyalo, blinking.
"Did you not hear Us?" the Compassionate One asked solicitously, His voice barely a whisper as He leaned over to address the other lama.
Gyalo could smell the foul breath. He stammered, "B-b-but surely His Holiness wishes for me to d-d-divine. . .I mean, I c-c-can't very well. . .if I were to, uh, uh, eat--"
"Hush now," the Dalai Lama replied in a tone that reminded Gyalo of Tsering. He handed over a silver bowl as casually as if He were entreating a dinner guest to help himself from a box of chocolates. Then He let out a loud yawn, followed by an audible fart He used His crimson robe to billow in Gyalo's direction, and went back to filing His nails.
Gyalo's eyes burned, and he blinked again. He felt the vomit creeping up the back of his throat, and was afraid to speak lest he should retch upon opening his mouth. Instead, he simply took the proffered bowl of excreta and did as he was told.
"Und how did that make you feel?" Dr. Frankl asked.
"Oh, it was wonderful, Doc," Gyalo replied sarcastically. "Joy. How the fuck do you suppose it made me feel? Shithead was only fifteen and here I was already a man. But what could I do? He was the Kundun, and so I had to eat my little brother's shit. There were pieces of lentil in it--"
The psychiatrist tried not to wince. He scribbled something on a small pad, tore it off, and handed it to Gyalo.
"Each tablet is a hundred milligrams," Dr. Frankl explained. "But I vould like to start you mit two pills a day und see how it vill go, ja? I think it vill calm you somevhat, and I should add that as a residual benefit you may find also that it vill help you to kick your nasty smoking habit. Take both pills together; preferably not on an empty stomach, Herr Thondup. If you begin to suffer from the insomnia, ve can alvays go back to--"
"Yeah. If I begin to suffer from the insomnia," Gyalo repeated. "Sure. Y'know, you crack me up."
Dr. Frankl rose from his chair and extended a hand. "I'd like to see you a little earlier next veek," he began. "If it vould be all right, you vill come at half four, ja? I mean. . ." He paused. "You did not mention that you vere hired for a position in the Konditerei, und so. . ."
"Vhatever."
"Shall I write it down for you, or vill you remember dis time?"
"I'll see ya, Doc," Gyalo said, gathering his coat from the couch and making his way to the door. Before leaving, he crumpled the prescription and tossed it into what he took to be a wastebin.
Dr. Frankl thought better than to point out that it was really for umbrellas.
Hi Jen, I'm not a comedian nor do I intend to enter the future prison city otherwise known as New York, but it sounded like an interesting challenge, so here's my story:
Jasmine loved to read Jennifer Dziura's blog, so she loved to write about the state of her ovarian health, rant about babies, and gossip about how ugly celebrities are - he didn't care about that, nor was it related to the fact that he had a woman's name; his parents were hippies and they liked that name.
He sat at the computer, dry snot, or so he believed, smeared across his computer screen. "I love Jennifer Dziura so much!" he said loudly to himself, as if vocalizing his confession would make him a better man. Dziura had posted a competition on her blog to win a standup slot on one of her tyrannical gigs. A rush of blood temporarily caused Jasmine to have a micro-seizure, his eyeballs rolling to the top of his head, "How exciting..." he uttered through tightly clenched teeth.
Okay, he thought to himself, and it almost ended there, when his brain kicked in again like a rampaging mule in heat. He'd done a few stand up gigs, alright they weren't really gigs as such, but he'd done some rants at the synanogue, talking about y'know stuff, and the audience actually laughed; that's enough to qualify entry I guess, said his brain.
Crying could be heard from the other room. He reached for the pistol in the holster tied to his ankle, and crept towards the splintered wooden door that seperated him and the source of the sound. He held the pistol at arms length, eye level, then kicked the door, it slammed open. A baby sat on the dusty concrete floor; it was some kid he took from a pram in a mall. The child was covered in tears. "What you want baby?" The baby did not respond and continued wailing.
"This is such a horrible image of me: an adult pointing a gun at a defenceless baby." he said to himself with tears in his eyes, "Oh what have I become!!" The baby picked up a rusty needle of the floor, "Don't touch that baby! you're too young!" Jasmine ran towards the infant. Oh what horrid imagery, a man with a gun, a baby holding a needle like a junky!
The baby inserted the needle into its mouth, and just before its mouth closed, a large hairy male hand slapped the back of its head causing the needle to fly out and rattle on the floor. Oh how horrible, a grown man holding a gun, slapping a cute baby on the back of the head to force a heroin needle to come out of its mouth! Oh! The baby looked too stunned to cry, confusion setting its tiny expressions into stone. "Oh baby, you cannot eat that," began Jasmine. A quizzical expression enveloped its eyes.
This is the part where the story gets extra crappy. Jasmine picked the baby up. Suddenly a shaft of light thrust downwards from the heavens causing everything within its path to glow with an unearthly incandescence. The baby spoke, "Yes, thank you Jasmine, you have proven yourself to the alien overlords. Even though you have erred in your ways, you are a good man." it burped, "I must leave now for another planet, on the spiralling arm of this Milky Way. I have learned about humans today and now I thank you." And with that, the baby vanished, leaving Jasmine to sob in the darkness.
Dear Zombie,
What's truly amazing is that here Jennifer posts about the dumberanddumberness of dreams, and then I read your story and thought, "Talk about Holy Shit--I dreamt that very same Zombiehellmonkey entry only last weekend after a bottle of cheap Mescal had suckled me into a blackout, or sleep, or whatever we're calling it now!"
Um, I know that you're Canadian, friend, and so I'm also terribly sorry to be a bother, but if you would be so kind as to get the fuck out of my head, Satanspawn. . .
; )
LOL,
Matt
LOL Matt.
BTW, I'm not Canadian!
Sorry, Zombie. I thought that you are from Toronto, for some reason. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)
My bad.
I reside in Toronto, Canada; that is correct, but my passport says I'm British - It's confusing - I should move to New York where it makes more sense.
Zombie,
Well, I apologize for having assumed that you are Canadian simply because you happen to live in Toronto. But as for New York--you have an open invitation, my friend, to move/visit here any time you'd like. We'd be pleased to have you, I'm sure.
If you're celebrating one this week. . .
Happy holidays,
Matt
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home