Sit Down Comedy … October 26th, 2018

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Knocked Out

Knock-knock!

Who’s there?

What do you mean, who’s there?

I mean, who’s there?

It’s me.

Me who?

Me who, who?

What is that–a Chinese philosopher? Man, that sounds really racist.

What are you talking about?

Me who who. Your joke.

I didn’t make a joke. I said me who.

Wait a second, I’m confused.

I’m just following the script.

What script?

The knock-knock script.

Is that anything like a knock-off script?

Was that supposed to be funny?

Funnier than me-who-who.

So what are you getting at?

I’m getting at that I just came to see you.

So why didn’t you ring the doorbell?

I thought it would be more charming to say knock-knock.

Actually, it was confusing.

Why is knocking at a door confusing?

A, because no one does it anymore and B, because it’s a setup for a joke.

What joke?

Knock-knock.

Who’s there?

So you DO know.

I just wanted to see how far we could go with it. And by the way, I’m not a racist.

No one thinks he’s a racist

Wouldn’t a racist think he’s a racist?

No. A racist thinks he’s proud of his color.

That sounds weird.

So does saying knock-knock.

How did that ever get started?

What?

The knock-knock thing.

Probably with two guys sittin’ around with nothing to do who should probably be working and making a living.

Are you referring to us?

Or any other two guys similar to us who have no real lives and try to come up with something they thought was funny and were astonished when it caught on–especially when they realized they had no patent on it and therefore could make no money.

You think the guys who came up with knock-knock didn’t make any money on it?

I know so. Because it was two women.

Is that a slam against women?

No, that’s a slam against what they get paid.

Well, I came to see you.

Why?

Actually, I can’t remember.

Why don’t you start over again?

Okay. Ding-dong!

You’re kidding, right?

It might catch on.

Okay. Who’s there?

King Kong.

King Kong who?

King Kong ding-dong.

I don’t think you understand this at all.

My friends used to play this when I was a kid but I always thought it was stupid so I would leave whenever it started.

Was that also true for history, math, English and sex education?

You see, that’s kind of funny.

Actually, it’s very funny.

But knock-knock is not funny.

It’s older than you and me put together.

So if something is around long enough, it has value?

That’s why hypocrisy is still here.

And hate, I assume.

And thank God, love.

Boy, has this gotten sappy.

It’s all because you don’t know how to play knock-knock.

I didn’t say I don’t know how–just that I didn’t like it.

I’m getting very tired of talking about this.

Just think how bored the readers are, having to go back and forth between two characters who aren’t named.

But we kind of trapped them, didn’t we? Because it looked short–at least not very wide, when they decided to start.

And now they’re wondering if we’re going to come to some sort of clever conclusion.

So you’re saying we tricked them?

Pretty much.

Do you think they’re still reading?

Most of them.

Why do you think that’s so?

Because they don’t understand that we’re really two klutzes who don’t have a closing for this bit.

How long do you think they would keep on reading?

A long time.

I think we just lost some right there.

I don’t because I’m going to accuse you of being a racist again and tell the readers that I’m about to name the top five racists in America.

Where did you get such a list?

Racists.com.

There’s no such thing.

Do you think they’re still reading?

Yeah, because they’re waiting to see if I actually name five bigots.

Are you going to?

Nope.

So we must have lost some by now.

But not all of them…

Why do you think that’s true?

Because they’ve come this far and they’re bound and determined to see it through.

So should there be a payoff?

We could just pretend it’s a political speech and make it long and meaningless.

I think we’ve already done that.

Knock-knock.

Who’s there?

People reading.

People reading who?

Us, dummy.

See the power of the knock-knock joke?

I still don’t like it.

Let me give you some good advice…don’t knock-knock it until you try it.

 

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G-Poppers … July 20th, 2018

G-Pop was nine years old when Bobby moved into the village and started attending the little elementary school.

At first the parents thought he might be a Negro, since he had skin a couple of shades darker, and curly hair. But on careful inspection and tracking down some details, it was confirmed that he was Italian. This allowed him to be suitable for playtime and interaction.

But Bobby was different.

He wasn’t like all the scared children from our burg who were frightened to death to displease the grownups who held the key to play-time and candy. Bobby didn’t care.

When the teacher came into the room, the rest of the students fell silent–like attending a funeral. But Bobby just kept chattering, glancing up at the teacher and smiling back at all the other terrified third-graders.

He was the same way during recess. He played hard, rough and mean. But at the same time, he was sweet-talking to the girls, so they liked him. In no time at all, he developed a reputation among the teachers, staff and some of the parents of being a brat.

Yes. Bobby the Brat.

What concerned them most of all was that there seemed to be a breakdown of discipline across the board–because other students began to feel the liberty to be curt, selfish and overly aggressive.

There was so much pressure on Bobby that when the time to begin fourth grade rolled around, he was gone. His parents left town.

Bobby the Brat had departed, so things went back to being orderly. Even though we all denounce the blandness of being orderly, disorderly comes with a nastiness which spews out poison which has been deposited in our “mad hole.”

Yes. All God’s children got a mad hole.

It’s a space deep inside where we stuff all of our frustration, misgiving and prejudice, thinking it’s a garbage can–but really, it’s just a container where our bigotries decay.

And then one day, we reach a point of rage when this poison is vomited out of our mouths.

It’s a mad hole.

It’s never cleaned out–ignored.

People try to freshen it–try to put a lid on it, so to speak, but as long as it exists, it will eventually erupt.

G-Pop wants his children to know that the truth is, you can’t get provoked unless you’re already pissed.

Nobody pissed you off. They just provoked you until you finally spilled all the putrid contents of your mad hole.

Often all it takes is for Bobby the Brat to come along and tease us with the notion that we aren’t crazy and we should speak out our stupidities loud and clear, for everyone to hear.

So we do.

Civility dies, kindness is mocked, being nice is deemed weak and the only distinction we have seems to be in the horror of our mad hole.

Mad hole

In my soul

Take it in

Make it sin

First the hate

Of your fate

Rots your brain

With things insane

It’s begun

Load your gun

Me against you

Us against them

Don’t wonder if it’s true

Repeat it again

Mad hole

Leaves a space

For me to despise

The human race

 

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G-Poppers … October 21st, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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G-Pop’s thought for the day:

Stop explaining.

Don’t do it yourself and certainly quit demanding it of others.

Explaining leads to lying, lying ends up in mistrust and mistrust is the seed that sprouts hate.

It is very important to understand human beings:

1. Human beings make mistakes.
2. Human beings are selfish.
3. Human beings insist they don’t make mistakes and are not selfish.

So if you ask one of your fellow-travelers about a mistake that was made or a piece of selfishness you encountered, they will definitely explain how you misunderstand.

The best way to live this Earthly life is to answer yes and no.

“Who ate the last doughnut?”

I did.

Truthfully, most people won’t leave it at that. They will ask why or sometimes even how it happened. If you give in to the temptation to produce a storyline about your clumsiness or lack of attention, you will probably find yourself, like Brother Adam and Sister Eve, making really lame excuses and eventually pointing fingers at each other.

Because of that profile, Adam and Eve went from being prosperous gardeners to “Paradise Lost.”

The more explaining you do, the more you try to convince yourself that you’re a victim of unusual circumstances.

No one buys it, no one believes it and everyone is quietly thinking to themselves, “Please shut the hell up.”

One of the greatest ways to contribute to the peace and harmony of Earth is to stop explaining and certainly refuse to make others go through the agony of the process.

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Jesonian: Reasonable (Part 12) Repairing … February 21st, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Jews hated Samaritans. And by the way, the Samaritans were very willing to do their part to uphold the grudge.

Pharisees despised Romans. The Romans basically ignored them–until they occasionally got a murderous urge.

Zealots fought the Legionnaires. It was an unfair battle–Rome had too many weapons.

Lepers were separated from healthy people–and not nicely, may I add.

Men hated women. Women were in bondage to men.

Merchants killed thieves. Thieves stole from merchants.

This is the scene that was in full force when Jesus of Nazareth stepped into the melee to express his voice.

What pressure was put upon him? “Pick a side.”

• The Jews got mad because he wasn’t Jewish enough.
• The Romans were unimpressed because he was raised Jewish.
• Even the Judeans and the Galileans–who were both Jewish–looked down upon one another, always pushing and shoving for predominant favor.

What did he do?

He set out repairing.

Rather than picking the Jewish side or the Samaritan side, grabbing a placard and protesting, he went to the Samaritans and to the Jews with the same message.

Rather than grabbing a sword and becoming a Zealot, his communication was that it was more important to give to the Romans what belonged to the Romans and to give to God what belonged to God.

He upset the Judeans by inviting Galileans to be his disciples.

And he really pissed off the boys from Galilee by appointing the Judean to be treasurer.

He touched lepers to heal them, which scared the hell out of his hypochondriac-followers.

And rather than submitting to a teaching arena, which was segregated for men, he blended men and women into a common camp of discovery.

You can’t repair if you’re going to insist that one side is better than another.

For instance, you will never be able to solve the problems in the Middle East if you favor the Jews over the Muslims or the Muslims over the Jews.

It is a reasonable process to go about the business of repairing. But to do it, you have to keep three things in mind:

1. Find the breach.

In other words, where has this group over here decided to hate that group over there, and how willing are you to stand between the two?

Since the black community feels persecuted by the police, and the cops feel targeted by that community, it is important for someone to stand in the middle, clean up the corruption in the police force, and teach the black community how to represent itself clearly and well in our society.

If you’re always going to try to find the victim, you’ll spend all of your time bandaging wounds instead of healing conflicts.

2. Situate yourself in the middle.

Black lives matter. Absolutely. No doubt about it.

Policemen have to make too many split-second decisions while holding life-threatening weapons. Absolutely.

Both camps need to realize the weakness and the strength of the other.

You can’t minister to Republicans if you’re a Democrat. And you sure can’t reach Democrats if you’re pounding them with the politics of Ronald Reagan.

Situate yourself in the middle where repair is needed and the breach is obvious.

3. Reach out in both directions.

Jesus found himself on the cross, nailed between two thieves, one hand reaching to the right and the other to the left. From that position, he was trying to salvage two lives which would soon be extinguished.

You can not repair if you choose to believe that one side is better than the other.

It is reasonable to go about the business of repairing.

You will have to free yourself of the unnecessary need of having an opinion on everything … and instead have a yearning to bridge the gap.

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Check Us Out … August 4, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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If you tell us we can’t, we’ll do it more

Tell us we can–why bother?

Surround us with love, we might prosper

Surround us with hate, we just might discover love.

Give us less and we start nurturing abundance

Give us abundance, we are drained of the energy to excel

Preach a sermon, we go to sleep

Produce a vision, we wake up prepared

Tell us we’re great and we’ll develop an attitude

Tell us it’s impossible and we just scratch the itch

Steal our heart, we fight back

Mess with our mind, we get revenge by thinking

Steal our soul, we create God

Laugh at us, we push harder

Believe in us, we may bring you along

Our colors don’t matter

Our nations are just land

Our religion is a process of hope

Our dreams are ever-changing sunrises

Ours is a family–a race of becomers

We are human

It’s up to us

We can’t walk on water

But we sure as hell will try

We have the power to welcome or deny our Creator

We are cast to Earth but not destined for mere mischief

We are …

What we are willing to be

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Silly Little Rhymes, Searching for a Reason … August 20, 2012

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Love is never easy

But the hate steals all you got

Faith may take some time

But doubt demands your lot

Don’t ignore the small

Or peer up at the tall

From grace you surely may fall

Follow Jesus, read Brother Paul

Don’t decide tomorrow

On what has happened today

Wait for the third one to come

For God to reveal a way

People are the only God

That we may ever see

Treat them quite divine

The results will make you free

I never have to lie

If I remove all the shame

I never have to die

If God forgives my blame

Hardly poetry. Yet … possessing motion.

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Poison Pal … July 15, 2012

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Foolish man that I am, I had convinced myself that I was immune. I believed that I had built up a toleration against the venom that often spews from your soul in response to my obviously insufficient endeavors.

You want to hear something even more comical? Uniting my faith, hope and charity, I actually contended that I had discovered an antidote to such poison. Yet there is always a new way to be attacked and a surprise ambush available to suppress any claim of innocence.

Why have you chosen to be my enemy? Why have you selected to side with those who are against me–and even though their numbers may dwindle, you try to prop up their meager attempts at revenge by adding greater significance to their misgivings?

After hundreds of letters and notes, we seem incapable of creating any kind of treaty between the two of us. Part of me wants to be absolutely devastated and enraged by what I view to be irrational and unjust accusations.

I feel prosecuted, convicted and executed without ever understanding my crime. I have grown weary in the well-doing of justifying your behavior as frustration that is cast upon me because you have scared away all other possible victims. You are bitter–and there is never a passage from “bitter” to “better.” Bitterness demands that we find the root and destroy it so as never to allow the evil sprout to protrude from our beings again.

Yet I don’t understand such an anemic statement because it carries the double punishment of being inflicted and ignorant. Why is there such a desire, even a gnawing passion within my soul, to strike back at you because you leave yourself so vulnerable with your ineptness, jealousy and failed projects?

You are the walking contradiction to your own philosophy. You are the evidence that drives people away from ever wanting to be created in your image. Yet even as I write these words, regurgitated from exasperation, I feel shame. Or maybe it’s just that I feel trivial and predictable–to be involved in such a miniscule battle over absolutely no available turf.

You are supposed to be important to me. Yet I grow absolutely exhausted trying to expend energy to cause our relationship to have significance when you have relegated me to such a worthless state. I am not accustomed to being treated so. I am not one who automatically is able to produce graciousness from my soul with a demure smile and a silent prayer.

For after all, it’s virtually impossible to initiate activities of a positive nature if you have allowed yourself to believe that your humble talents are meaningless. Yes, I will admit it: I believe in myself. And I resent the hell out of you for trying to make me extinguish the flame of joy and confidence that God has permitted me to have–to be the light of the world.

You never had yours–so you want to destroy mine.

You never loved–so you dream of rendering me loveless.

You never possessed victory–so you want to rewrite the history of my success.

I can’t let you do this, even though I have no will to stand against you, nor heart to be your adversary. You are poison. It is not a poison that has been manufactured in some factory in a faraway land, but rather, squeezed from your own reticent and recalcitrant spirit, and dribbled out on anyone who would suggest that life is good.

• You are Booth–a shot in the dark for my rear.
• You are Brutus–a stabbing pain in my heart.
• And Iscariot–a garden-variety traitor.

But hatred is difficult to me. I don’t know whether it’s because I find it to be surrender, distasteful or just a one-way street that leads to a dead end. For after all, where do you go from hate? With love, you have the options of mercy, grace, tenderness, discovery, growth and generosity. Hate just seems to stop and sit in a corner by itself and gnaw on its own leg.

I can’t do that.

When I listened to you speak yesterday–or wait–was it the lack of words? I forget. But what seemed to envelop my entire being was a sense of your indifference to all my overtures of creating concert between us.

I don’t understand. I despise the sensation of being without remedy or comprehension. Do you really hate me? Or just don’t know what to do with me and have selected to erupt like a volcano in your frustration and indecision?

You are my poison pal. For after all, there is a cross we all bear, but somewhere along the line we have to be intelligent enough not to climb up on it and be nailed down. Crucifixion belonged to a Savior, not to a mere mortal like me, who is baffled by the responsibility.

You are poison. Dare I drink the dregs of this cup and think that I will not damage my own internal parts? What should I do? What can I do? What is permissible to do?

Oh, forget that. I am so tired of trying to be upright that I am downright angry with the notion. You are poison.

Yet … for some inexplicable reason, I still feel compelled to love you.

Love.

Love is often the tenacious bastard, abandoned to foster care, absent the milk of human kindness.

   

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