So here are the desk jokes I wrote for today’s Sketch class.

They’re all about Brexit.

1. On June 23, the UK officially voted to leave the EU in a move that the media dubbed Brexit, although a better name might have been “Brarmageddon”.

2. In media interview, many of the people who voted to leave the EU expressed surprise that they had won. They were also surprised to learn that water is wet, that the sky is blue, and that swallowing thumbtacks gives your tummy an owie.

3. The people voting to Leave has such faith that other people would step in and stop them that none of them even bothered to come up with a plan for actually doing it. But other than that, it was a great idea.

4. Prime Minister David Cameron, who swore that he wouldn’t resign if the Leave vote won, announced his resignation the moment the Leave vote one. This continues the proud Conservative tradition of breaking things then running away.

5. Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London and chief spokesman for the Leave vote, says that it was the Prime Minister’s office’s job to come up with a plan for the UK leaving the EU. This is akin to saying “Look, you knew I was drunk, so you should have been ready with a bucket. “

6. Prime Minister David Cameron, on his part, says that it was Boris Johnson’s job to come up with the plan, thus turning the whole of British Tory politics into a game of “Who farted?”

7. Meanwhile, across the aisle, the British Labour Party has taken full advantage of the chaotic state of Tory politics by also descending into petty factionalist bickering. Reporters asked a group of kindergarten toddlers experiencing a massive sugar crash to comment. The kids said, “Those guys really need to get over themselves and grow up. “

8. News of the Leave vote’s victory immediately sent the British economy into a tailspin, with a plunging pound and plummeting stock prices causing 2 trillion dollars to disappear from the British economy overnight. Sources close to the economy said that the money’s last words before it disappeared were “Fuck these people… I’m outta here. “

9. It turns out that the second most common Google search coming from Britain around this time “What is the EU?”… especially on the day AFTER the vote. This is kind of like waiting until your car is on fire and going over a cliff before reading the owner’s manual.

10. And finally, probably the most amazing post-Brexit revelation is that a large number of the people who voted “Leave” thought it meant “Make the immigrants leave”. Or at least, that’s what they are saying NOW. Apparently, they would rather people think they were stupid racists rather than people so stupid that they couldn’t find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight.

They went over okay. Not as well as I would have liked, but then again, I am a hyper neurotic comedy writer who could have gotten gales of laughter for every joke and still doubted himself. We only got to do three of our ten jokes in class due to time constraints. I chose 1, 2, and 5, because they all ended on a nice, juicy, punchy word.

But nobody got “Brarmageddon”… in retrospect, it was probably not the joke for an audience two thirds of whom have English as a second language.

I bet Stephen Colbert could have made it work, though.

Number 2, the “owie” joke, got a laugh…. but it came after “water is wet”, which threw me off. The rest of it could not compete. Still, a pause after each item would have done wonders. I supposed that’s the sort of thing that you can only learn via experience.

And Number 5, the “bucket” joke, went over the heads of the students, and the teacher just shook her head sadly and said “Yes, it’s true. ”

Oh well. I am not, technically, a comedian, and I think all the jokes were pretty well written, if I do say so my self. And I do. It was just a matter of timing, delivery, and knowing your audience.

Plus, due to a radical mismanagement of time, I did not have time to go over them and tighten them up last night, like I had planned. So those are basically first draft jokes.

I think it should be obvious that I didn’t even have time to proofread. D’oh.

Oh well, the desk joke phase is over and for next week’s class, I get to write an actual skit. That is where I will really shine. I am sure I can come up with something brilliant, and I will write it specifically with the fact that it will be acted out by my classmates in mind. So, no props, simple action, one location…. pretty much a super cheap one act play.

So basically, a conversation. That’s fine, I am great at conversations. Come to think of it, I also have to do a two page dialogue for next week. I wonder if I could get away with submitting the same thing for each assignment?

Probably not. I am positive one of my classmates would say something about it, out of surprise if nothing else. And even if I did, technically get away with it by arguing that there’s no rule saying each assignment has to be for one class only, it would just makes people resent the fuck out of me and then they would be eager to, you guessed it, take me down a peg.

And that’s not easy to do. Partly it’s because I am gifted, partly it’s because I have a certain mental maneuverability that makes me hard to touch, let alone pin down, but mostly it’s due to being so socially oblivious and unconcerned with status and such that even if someone completely defeats me in some way, I would just smiles, concede victory, congratulate the victor, and go on my merry way without seeming even the slightest bit put out.

Even if the loss actually hurt me… like, for say, I lost in a comedy setting… I would still behave the same way. In that case, though, it would be more about not letting them see that they got to you. And I am not super great at hiding my emotions, so they would probably figure it out, and get some satisfaction that way.

Whatever. Life’s too short for all that status bullshit. I just want to have fun working hard at something I enjoy.

Plus, when I have to compete, I am an honest competitor. I don’t cheat and I accept defeat gracefully. To a true warrior (of words), the best thing is always victory, but the second best thing is defeat at the hands of a worthy adversary.

After all, that’s when you learn the most.

Because of my imperfect performance at being hilarious today, I had a certain amount of depression and self-doubt to deal with.^[1] I wondered if I was really funny, I wondered if I could do the job I am training for, and so on. But that’s just another day in paradise for me. My confidence has already (mostly) returned.

One of the other things we were supposed to do for Sketch class today was “watch some sketch comedy”. Uh, yeah. That would be totally redundant for me. I have seen more sketch comedy than the other students have watched all of television. I have so many skits in my head that I could do the same exercise (tells us about a skit that made you laughed or that you hated) every day for a year and not run out. And I am absurdly capable of explaining, in excruciating detail, exactly why I like it or hate it. Ad nauseum ad infinitum!

All in all, it was a pretty good day. I resisted the urge to buy lunch on the way home like I did yesterday. It’s a FRED week, and that means I have two dinners to pay for. Plus lunch tomorrow, for tomorrow is a full day. Class in the morning and the afternoon.

It did not take long for full days, which were the norm last term, to suddenly seem onerous and unwelcome this term.

God damn I’m lazy!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.