Here’s a warning – don’t read this on a full stomach. It’s vile, and horrible, and utterly irredeemable. But it’s not meant to be all that funny. If you aware of the joke, which has had enough press in recent years to make it somewhat less of an underground joke, then you will be aware that the sting – the last line – is all that need be humorous. It’s appeal lies in how far good taste can be pushed. For what its’ worth, I reckon I’m pushing enough boundaries with it as it stands.
As always, there are obscure references and some strange wordplay. Yes, I know. Bad habits… It’s an edited version of the routine I normally give when performing the joke – the three sequences clipped from the middle-section are truly horrific, so the word count has been sliced to a tad under 2k thanks to the omitted material.
I’ll make no further commentary, save for pointing out this: You have been warned.
The Aristocrats: A Modern Interpretation
by Gary James
The Agent
This guy, fat guy – really fat, as in rolls-of-flesh-hanging-from-every-part-of-his-body – walks into a talent agent’s office. He’s sweating like he’s just ran a marathon, and his face is purple from the three flights of stairs. The suit he’s wearing is the size of a tent, but even such a large suit is stretched to breaking point.
“Whaddya want?” The talent agent asks, not even looking up from his newspaper.
“You… huff… You innerested in a show?”
The agent, still not looking up, grunts. He does this. It’s a trick. It’s the equivalent of eating an apple while taking a novice driver out for a spin. It unnerves the hell out of most people, but the fat man just sits there. Sweat dripping off his face like a waterfall.
“This… This show… best fuckin’ thing ever.”
The talent agent has heard this all before. That’s why he’s in a shitty office on the outskirts of town, with walls plastered in the glories of others. No celebrities in his roster, that’s for sure.
“You gotta… You gotta believe me. This is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.”
So the agent looks up, and a flicker of recognition crosses his face. The morbidly obese man sitting across the table from him is – correction, was – old money. His family was the founder of one of the big hotels: Preston… Perkins… Porter… Potzrebie… Something beginning with P. The agent knew it began with P.
“You’re in this act?”
“Yes. I am… I am the grand finale.” The fat man shifts uncomfortably in the chair.
“I seen acts from all over, and without seeing your act I can tell you this – if you’re the grand finale, the act is a dud.”
“I’ll tell ya… Tell ya about the show. huff It all begins with a grand ol’ dame walking out ontah th’ stage. She sings the American national anthem as a flag is unfurled behind her…”
Laydeez A-hund Gentlemen…
The lights began dimming. The light were always dimmed when a star, however minor, took to the stage -part of tradition, but in this case crucial for the show. All the way down to three small wafer-thin beams circling around the spotlight. At ninety-seven years of age, the lady before the crowd had seen the glory days of the theater, and performed in award-winning plays of the ages. Here, in front of the American flag, as the final notes of the national anthem were replaced by Yez Mir Habn Keyn Bananez, she gives a bow and turns from the audience. The lights are steady on her as she bends over, and with a flick of her wrists flicks her dress up over her ass. Her joints pop and crackle as her ancient frame accommodates the movement required of her for this performance. One last tour-de-force. One last grand exit. Pulled from her retirement home, she is glad to be on the stage, though understandably nervous about the performance – Absurdist comedy? Fuck that. This is beyond anything the likes of Potter could have envisioned. Different thing entirely. A stifled burst of machine-gun laughter fires from the audience and ricochets around the auditorium. “Hearts and minds,” She tells herself. “Hearts and minds.”
Turns out the song wasn’t entirely correct, because there is a banana – the blackened stump of it is peeping out from her between her ass-cheeks. From seemingly nowhere, out of the darkness and the wings, bounds a chimpanzee. I’m willing to bet good money that Gus Golstein never intended this to be played out under his ditty. The chimpanzee, bouncing around like a kindergartner on crack, sees the banana in a heartbeat. Eyes blown like saucers, it rushes the old lady without thinking of anything but it’s stomach. The music builds, the chimp chanting something as it’s jaws snap at her naked, wrinkled, liver-spotted flesh. It sounds like “Hub-hoo, hub-hoo, hub-hoo,” but through its’ excitement there is difficulty making out what – if anything – it may really be saying. In a moment, the banana is gone. Devoured with relish, the skin is flung over one shoulder.
There’s a moment of confusion as the chimp searches for more food hidden in the hiding place, it’s fingers knuckle-deep in her repository – the spotlight scans the stage, the audience treated to mere flashes of the scene. Now the audience is getting nervous and excited, the unexpected acts of the animal confounding their determined belief in the stability of the performance. The trainer rushes onto the stage, agog… But too fast, and his foot finds the discarded banana skin. Toppling head over heels, he falls. The chimp, uncontrollable now, releases a stream of urine in a high arc over its’ head, covering the woman, the trainer, and a fair portion of the stage. The orchestra is trying desperately to keep in tune as splashes of the liquid falls perilously close. A shoe flung by the trainer narrowly misses the chimp, but before he can get to his feet, the man is pulled from the stage by a large wooden stick wielded from the side of the stage. It began with the pee.
Behind the chimp and the ancient woman, lurking in the shadows, a man sneaks on stage. His striped black and white top, topped with a mask, hunchback with a bag emblazoned SWAG… Clearly up to no good. The flag behind him falls, covering his escape for a moment, but struggling he frees himself. The bag flops to one side from under the flag, now reading TREASURY, closely followed by – emerging triumphant – Uncle Sam. He grins to the audience, unzips his fly and salutes – in both senses of the word. Cymbals clash, and a drum-roll indicates that the main event is merely warming up. The old lady gets to her knees and crawls to the side of the stage, trailing blood behind her. The chimp, busying himself with a bottle procured from some dark, hidden corner, bounds across the stage. Shaking the bottle violently, he raises his prize aloft, grinning a grin which would challenge the Cheshire fleabag for horrors.
And Uncle Sam is fully erect. One hand sliding up and down his shaft, the other remaining in mock salute. The chimp pulls the top from the bottle by force. “Do you want to sing a song for America?” Cries Uncle Sam, jaws clenching. Blood, cum and the vile fluid are spurting over the stage – a Guignol bukkake spread red, white and blue. There is a cry, and a whoop, and a cigarette flies through the air. An errant flick, maybe, or of deliberate aim – it hits the ground, bounces – once, twice, and it is at the blue liquid. The flames immediately rise, and clowns rush in with buckets held aloft. Over to the source of the flames, they’re circling each other, slipping and sliding in the mixture of liquids, falling and rising. One manages to stand long enough to throw the contents of his bucket over the flames – a ticker-tape display unrivaled in the memory of any stage hand.
That’s when the curtains begin to slowly close.
With a flash of light, the orchestra unleashes a thunderous racket, obscuring events behind the curtain. And, oh, what events… For this is a drama, and the players are positioning. The flag, so carefully unfurl’d at the top of the performance has been replaced with a giant smiley face. The lights fill in the center of the stage, revealing that Uncle Sam is busy giving head to the chimp – upon whose head has been placed a Nixon mask. It is slightly less disturbing than the retarded grin it had previously been displaying, but nonetheless too much for some of the audience. The orchestra is in full swing with a tribute to Gershwin, interrupted only by the grunts from the stage. The old lady is gone, her blood-trail leading off into the depths of darkness. And the chimp laughs… And he’s jerking around, and waving his arms… And Uncle Sam’s head is bobbing up and down as if he’s hunting for apples in a barrel.
With a snap of his jaws, Uncle Sam stands. Blood pouring down the front of his costume, the remains of the chimp’s cock dangling from his mouth. A scream. Deafening and bewildering emanations erupting forth from its’ throat, the chimp stands screaming, topples in mid-movement, then pulls at the place where its’ missing appendage ought to be. With a skip and a dance, Uncle Sam exits – stage left. An over-sized barbecue is rolled onto the stage by two assistants, the old woman’s body skewered into position above the open flame. The fat man is wheeled on by eight preteen girls dressed in what could only be described as Victoria’s Secret’s junior range – though secret is hardly a word to describe their bodies under the whispy fabrics. They’re straining to move the fat man’s bulk, the wheels of his carriage screeching underneath. The fat man is drooling at the sight of the corpse – his feast. Pieces of paper released by the clowns float aimlessly above her, the odd one catching too close to the heat and burning up.
The fat man, center-stage, begins licking his lips, and the girls move aside. Uncle Sam returns, twirling a carving knife as he tap-dances to the roast. The chimp is off, running God-knows-where, by the time the fat man has a knife and fork in his greasy, chubby hands. The little girls line up at the front of the stage, as the cutting and carving begins behind them. As if on cue, and in unison, they lean forward and vomit into the pit. Onto the orchestra, who screech and grind to a halt mid-tune. A rumbling fart releases from the fat man’s gut, as a finger slides into his mouth, then an ear, sliced and diced and cooked to perfection. As if by silent order, the girls release another wave of their pea-soup-like vomit, splashing over the musicians and into the first three rows of the audience. Chunks of God-knows-what bouncing off the instruments…
Uncle Sam is dancing around the bloated, flesh-eating monster now, naked from the waist down. In graceful movements, and to the sound of a kazoo being played offstage, he twirls and floats across the boards, coming to a full stop every few minutes to release a stream of diarrhea in an abstract expressionist splatter which could – if not for the smell – rival Jackson Pollock for ingenuity. And softly, between mouthfuls of human flesh, the fat man speaks – the pledge of allegiance uttered through a mouth full of bloodstained teeth. As the light flickers out, there is one final movement, Uncle Sam rushing front and center.
“God bless America,” he intones.
Sign On The Dotted Line
“What th’ fuck. This act… This… fucking-whatever-it-is… A carnival of horrors. What is it called? I mean… Do you even have a stage name?”
“Oh yes. We have a stage name.”
“So what do you yourselves?”
“We’re The United States Congress.”
The Graveyard 