Category: ARCHIVES – Puns

The Wretched Puns of Destiny

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #039 (6/6/2015): SOPRANO

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The 39th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired June 6, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

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39.
A young singer is becoming the toast of the Metropolitan Opera for her beauty, her acting ability, and especially, her vocal range. She’s a contralto but almost as comfortable in soprano roles—a lucky thing, since she’s just taken on a new opera that makes her hit the D over high C in almost every aria.

After the first performance, however, she feels queasy and suffers cramps. After the second show, she’s nearly doubled over. There’s a two-week break before her next performance, and she feels fine, so she chalks it up to nerves. But as soon as she makes her next appearance, she suffers terrible stomach pain.

The next morning, she hurries to the doctor who takes an x-ray and discovers all these worm-like creatures in her abdomen. He frowns, “I’m afraid you have parasitic eels.”

“What? Eels in my stomach?”

“Yes,” says the MD.

“But I felt fine the last two weeks. It’s only when I’ve been singing . . .”

“Exactly,” says the doctor. “They’re born from vocal strain. And as long as you’re in that opera hitting those high notes, they’ll keep coming back. We call it `Wendy Wasserstein Syndrome.’”

“Really?” says the singer. “Did she have it, too?”

“No, she just inspired it. Haven’t you ever heard of `The High D Chronic Eels?’”

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #038 (5/30/2015): HAVEL

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The 38th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired May 30, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

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38.
Before he became president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel ran a small theater out of a convent in Prague. They had no money, so everything they needed, he had to swap for. If they required furniture for a set, Havel would trade eggs and homegrown produce for the loan of a couch and chairs. If a show needed stagehands, Havel and the sisters would offer to do housecleaning in kind.

Havel became so good at these arrangements, the theater company came out way ahead on every deal. This left him plenty of time not only to write and direct shows, but even create the costumes.

One time, during rehearsals for a Greek tragedy, Havel is backstage fitting the women for masks when in storm the government police to harass him for his political views.

“You can’t arrest him,” cries the Mother Superior. “We need him to run our theater.”

“You’ll just have find someone else,” says the cop.

“There is no one else! He’s the only one.”

“Really?” says the policeman. “The only theater director in Prague. What’s so special about him?”

“Can’t you see?” the woman replies. “He’s a Czech of all trades, and a masker of nuns.”

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #037 (5/23/2015): WANG CHOW

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The 37th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired May 23, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
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More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

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37.
College student Wang Chow is starting to see his grades slip and his GPA threatened because of his terrible problem with sex addiction. The more he promises to study, the more he finds himself compulsively chasing women, watching porn and giving himself over to pleasures of the flesh.

Ashamed, he confesses to his academic advisor, who suggests that religion might be a solution. Wang Chow tries Buddhism, but that doesn’t work. He then studies to be a Catholic, but no luck there, either. He goes through a half-dozen different religions before turning to Orthodox Judaism. For weeks, Wang Chow concentrates on keeping Kosher, studying Torah, going to synagogue—leaving him no time to sink back into addiction.

However, whenever he gets a few minutes free, Wang Chow still feels urges, so he finds the nearest private place and starts masturbating, several times a day. At first, he keeps his weakness a secret, but he feels so guilty that one day he visits the Rabbi in his study and says, “Rabbi, I no good. I do bad thing.”

“What do you mean?” says the Rebbe. “You’ve so sincere on the road to conversion. What’s wrong?”

Wang Chow whispers his dirty secret. “And you can’t control it?” says the Rabbi. The young man shakes his head.

“Wait,” says the Rebbe. “In the main office I have the book, `Kosher Sex,’ and there’s sure to be a chapter in there that’ll help.”

So the Rabbi excuses himself and heads to the office. After a minute, Wang Chow starts getting antsy. After two minutes, he’s breathing heavily and his heart is pounding. By the third minute, his pants are down around his ankles, and he’s rubbing one out to a poster of Jerusalem.

The Rabbi comes back just in time to see this and says, “Oy! I know you warned me, but this is too much. Even though you follow all our customs, you’re not ready to convert if you’re always doing this!”

“I know,” sobs Wang Chow, “I sorry! I Beat Off More than I Good Jew.”

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #036 (5/16/2015): SALK

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The 36th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired May 16, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

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36
One afternoon, early in his career, Jonas Salk is so busy with his medical research that he forgets it’s Valentine’s Day. When a lab technician reminds him, Salk drops everything, runs to his car, and picks up his wife to give her a whirlwind romantic evening.

First, he stops at a florist and buys her a long-stemmed red rose. Then he brings her to an ice-cream parlor and gives her a strawberry cone—her favorite. Finally, he drives her to his lab and exhibits all his petri dishes, telling her, “one day this will change the world!”

His wife hugs him and says, “Jonas, I love you. But I have to say, this was a very unusual Valentine’s itinerary.”

“I know,” smiles the scientist. “I call it my `Spanish dinner plan.”

“Spanish dinner?” says Mrs. Salk. “You gave me a flower, an ice-cream cone, and a vaccine.

What does that have to do with Spanish food?”

“Darling,” Salk replies. “Haven’t you ever heard of A Rose Cone Polio?”

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #035 (5/9/2015): WEIGHTLIFTER

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The 35th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired May 9, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

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More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

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35.
“Doc,” says the professional weightlifter, “ya gotta help me with my problem. Every day, I follow the same routine for lunch and dinner. I eat two bowls of pasta so I can carbo-load, then I pee in a cup for my drug test.”

“Sounds perfectly fine,” says the doctor.

“Wait, this is where it gets weird. As soon as I close the cup, I start having this incredibly hot daydream about that financial woman on TV.”

“Suze Orman?”

“Yeah, her! And before I know it, my knees buckle and my pants get all sticky. It’s killing my energy.”

“Let me get this straight,” says the doctor. “Pasta, pee, Suze Orman fantasy, and then a discharge?”

“Right” says the weightlifter. “Is it serious?”

“Nah,” says the MD. “A lot of musclemen get this. We call it `Larry David Syndrome.’”

“’Larry David Syndrome’? What on earth does it have to do with that guy?”

“Well,” says the doctor, “I guess you’ve never heard of `Carb-Urine-Suzy-Gasm.’”

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #034 (5/3/2015): OPERETTA

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The 34th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired April 4, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations.  For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

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More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

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34.
On a break from shooting his latest film, Sean Penn flies to Hawaii to visit his favorite relatives: two spinster aunts who have lived together for decades.

Not only are they wonderful ladies, but they’ve done well in business together–right out of their basement–by selling authentic Hawaiian foods like macadamia nuts and poi and spam to customers around the world.

When Sean Penn gets to their house, however, he immediately calls the cops because he smells something bad at the front door. The police break in and make the tragic discovery that both women are dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. To get out of the cops’ way, the actor goes down to the basement–but that just makes him even more distraught because all the food there is infested with mice and vermin.

Soon, the CDC arrives, and neighbors are treated to the sight of health inspectors carrying out living and dead mice covered with remnants of Hawaiian food. One neighbor turns to the other and says, “You know, this makes me think of an operetta.”

“An operetta? What on earth are you talking about?”

“Well,” says the first guy. “haven’t you ever heard of `The Poi-Rats of Penn’s Aunts?”

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #033 (4/18/2015): HANGOVER

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Segment aired April 18, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
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33.
A guy calls his best friend after overdoing it the night before. He says, “Hey bro, I need one of your patented hangover cures.”

“Sure,” says the friend. “Tell me what you drank, and I’ll tell you what to take.”

So the guy tells him, and the friend says, “No problem. You just need the Fairy Tale Cure.”

“The Fairy Tale Cure? What’s that?”

“You take a thick slice of gouda cheese, and around it you wrap a thin slice of smoked salmon. You eat that, and then you take three aspirin. That’s it.”

“That’s it?” says the guy. “Cheese, salmon, aspirin—great! But why is it called the `Fairy Tale Cure’?”

“Because,” says the friend, “haven’t you ever heard of Gouda, Lox and the Three Bayers?”

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #032 (4/11/2015): UBER

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The 32nd Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired April 4, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

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More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

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32.
When Uber was in its planning stages, the two founders were still college kids, and they had an even bigger idea than just creating a livery car service. First of all, they wanted all the dispatches coming from one central station, and that station would be located on a blimp hovering over the city like a roaming GPS. Also, the Uber guys wanted the cars to be able to warn drivers if they were approaching a dangerous place. For example, a car in New York would make a deep growl whenever you drove towards a high-crime zone. In the midwest, you’d be warned of an impending dust storm by the car making a loud hissing noise.

“I think we have amazing ideas,” says one Uber dude to the other, “but will anyone listen to us?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re just a couple of frat boys. How do we get the world to take our ideas seriously?”

“It’s all in the marketing,” says the other. “We tell the truth, but we do it with a catchy slogan.”

“A catchy slogan?” says the friend. “We’re two college kids talking about putting a homing station in a blimp to track limousines that hiss at you in a dust storm. What slogan could we possibly use?”

“Let me think,” says the friend. “Aha! I’ve got it! Uber: One Station, Undergrad, in Dirigible, with Livery and Dust Hiss for All.”

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #031 (4/4/2015): CHESS MATCH

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The 31st Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired April 4, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

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More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

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31.
During the Washington DC try-out for the original West Side Story, whenever Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein faced writers’ block, they’d play chess backstage. Actors, stagehands, and sometimes famous visitors were allowed to kibbitz or even sit in.

One night, playwright Edward Albee is in town, and during intermission, he agrees to a speed-chess game with Sondheim. Meanwhile, Bernstein sits nearby at a piano, trying desperately to come up with a love ballad for act one.

The chess match is even at first, but soon Sondheim gets the upper hand, with Albee swearing under his breath every time he loses a piece. At one point, while protecting his queen, the playwright loses a knight. “Damn,” he says. “Stupid horse.” Two plays later, Sondheim makes a bold move with his rook and takes the other knight. “Damn!” yells Albee. “I can’t believe I lost both of them.”

“That’s it!” shouts Leonard Bernstein at the piano. “Two Knights, Two Knights. Ed Albee Damned Two Knights.”

Dave’s Gone By Wretched Pun of Destiny #030 (3/28/2015): HORSE SHOW

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The 30th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired March 28, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

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More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
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30.
Organizers of the National Horse Show are very excited because for this year’s event, They plan to rename all their horses after late-night talk-show hosts. Then they draw lots to see which horse gets which name.

On the day of the race, all the thoroughbreds line up at the starting gate. First out is a middle-aged millionaire on a beautiful stallion. “I have David Letterman!” the rich man shouts as the horse takes off down the field.

Next out the gate is an attractive lady on an Arabian steed. “I have Jimmy Kimmel!” she says and rides off to do show jumping.

Next comes a dashing young owner on a draft horse. “I have Conan O’Brien!” he calls, cantering away. And then come Handler and Colbert and Daly until finally, a 97-year-old woman is at the last gate, sitting on an ancient nag. “He’s Jimmy Fallon,” she rasps, gently striking the horse with her whip. But the animal won’t move. “Come on,” shouts the woman, digging her heels into the horse’s sides, but again, the horse remains still.

The woman tries leaning forward, but she slips and sprawls across the horse’s back. Medics rush over and say, “Are you okay?”

She replies, “I’ve Fallon. And I Can’t Giddyup.”