Some Standup I Wrote in High School
It is as good as you would expect.
I need to recharge my creative batteries, so this is going to be my last “new” Substack entry until after Labor Day. I’ll be back September 10th with a new podcast (!) and a focus on compiling my first book based on this blog. More information about that in a month, I think.
I will also be opening my merch shop, finally. Don’t worry, I may be taking time off but I’m not relaxing or having a good time. That wouldn’t be me.
In the meantime…
I started standup when I was 19, but I started writing standup years before then. I’ve always been so neurotic that when I did finally get the nerve to go up onstage alone and try it, I lamented the years I’d wasted.
Starting at age 14, I’d jot down jokes or bit ideas when I was supposed to be paying attention in class. Here, then, is a sampling of what, as a teenage fan of Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Robin Williams, I thought standup could be:
My parents abandoned me as a baby. They left me in a garbage dump outside of Newark. I never forgave them . . . for leaving me in New Jersey!
I would have died if the roaches hadn't taken me in. I was raised among their children, and accepted as one of their own. Years passed happily, as I learned the many different tricks of the wild roach. I learned to call and mount the wild rat, to scavenge for Twinkie wrappers, to travel under rusty appliances during the daytime.
Then one day, when I was six, a Health Inspector came to inspect the dump and found me licking a barely-cleaned Twinkie wrapper. He had me taken away and put in a foster home.
I used to be a professional boxer. they called me The Dead Drunk Kid. Not 'cause I drink. My drinking problem had nothing to do with it.
No, they called me The Dead Drunk Kid because I couldn't take a round without falling.
You know how people lose by forfeit if they don't show up? I used to lose by forfeit even if I did show up.
If I stepped inside the ring, the referee called a TKO.
I did almost win a fight, though. My opponent was 70 years old, and died of a heart attack in the middle of the fight.
The officials called it a tie.
And finally, here are some zingy one-liners:
If a hero ain't nothin' but a sandwich, what does that make a heroine?
Don't blame me, I voted for George Clinton. (Bill Clinton was President.)
Your mother is like the New York State Lotto. All you need is a dollar and a dream.
There’s more where this came from! Enjoy my hiatus!
What’s your core cringe high school memory? Leave a comment below! And hit the like button!