Au Cochonnet Marin

A day without laughter is a day wasted. Charlie Chaplin

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In our troubled times, we need to decompress regularly. So here are three (old) short stories kept cool for you in my joke freezer to make you laugh:

A man comes home and tells his wife that he will take a shower and leave immediately for a last minute business dinner. His wife is a little skeptical and decides to go through his pockets while he is under the shower. She discovers a little note saying:
My love, I am awaiting your arrival. I will cook you a duck in sauce, the dish that you are so crazy about.
The spouse does not lose heart and decides to up her game: she puts on a sexy negligee, enticing makeup and spellbinding perfume. The husband astounded, throws himself immediately on his wife and makes love to her with a long forgotten passion, and renews his feat twice.

But he suddenly remembers his lie and feels that he has to go to his so-called business meeting in order to avoid arousing his spouse’s suspicions. He arrives at his mistress and tells her right away that he is exhausted from working all day and that he is just going to eat and leave early.
After dinner, he falls asleep and the offended young woman goes through his pockets. She discovers her own note on which the spouse had added: I send you the duck, but I am afraid that there is no sauce left….

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Attorney: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a
pulse?
Witness: No.
Attorney: Did you check for blood pressure?
Witness: No.
Attorney: Did you check for breathing?
Witness: No.
Attorney: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began
the autopsy?
Witness: No.
Attorney: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
Witness: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Attorney: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
Witness: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing
law

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A guy is reading his paper when his wife walks up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head with a frying pan.
He asks, “What was that for?”
She says, “I found a piece of paper in your pocket with ‘Betty Sue’ written on it.”
He says, “Jeez, honey, remember last week when I went to the track?’ Betty Sue was the name of the horse I went there to bet on.” She shrugs and walks away. Three days later he’s reading his paper when she walks up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head again with the frying pan.
He asks, “What was that for?”
She answers, “Your horse called.”

Feel free to thank me: your day has not been wasted.

Alain

“I’m Russian: I’m into men, diamonds, and caviar.” Irina Valeryevna Shaykhlislamova

                                                      ? ????

а ты говоришь по русски? (A ty govorish’ po russki?)

On American TV good movies offerings are rare… They are like mirages. They shimmer on the horizon but they vanish the minute you try to grab them.

To watch fairly decent flicks you have to stay clear of the networks and fish in foreign waters. You have to turn to Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Amazon and the likes.

After a hard day of loafing, I often relax from the stress by gazing at the BoobTube. Well, it is not a tube anymore… but after spending a sizable amount of money on a large flat screen, I want to get my money’s worth.

The last 3 months I survived a pathetic dearth of Yankee entertainment with a steady diet of Hispanic, Indian, Korean, Danish, Swedish and German offerings.

After exhausting my supply of watchable stuff, I turned to my wife for recommendations.

моя жена (my wife) who watches almost exclusively Russian flicks pointed me to YouTube where there are plenty of foreign and Russian movies.

I am somewhat acquainted with the Russian language and I am familiar with a bunch of words; I also understand some snippets of conversation.

Additionally, when watching a Russian movie I sometimes come accross French “loanwords” such as bagage, bigoudis, bouquiniste, café, cauchemar, chance, chanson, concours, costume, couchette, dame, douche, garage, jalousie, mirage, plage, restaurant, trottoir, voyage, etc.

Let’s not forget that before the Bolshevik Revolution, due mainly to Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725) and Catherine II (r. 1762–1796) the nobility spoke almost exclusively in French.

I found Russian movies very interesting. If it would not be for the omnipresent snow and if people didn’t speak Russian, you could easily believe that the action was taking place is some affluent European country.

The living quarters are nice, people are well dressed and everybody seems to drive late model cars.
This is course a fantasy land, like the 1930’s Hollywood productions.

Many Russian movies feature beautiful women who dress exquisitely (shades of Doctor Zhivago) and act very well.
In many Russian comedies (and dramas) women are unmarried or divorced. They are all brazenly looking for marriageable material and they make no bones about it. But not everybody qualifies. The prospective groom has to be rich, filthy rich. Russia seems to be a very materialistic society where money reigns supreme.

Plots are often convoluted, if not very schmaltzy. But I am not against occasional schmaltz. If you must know, I am a softie and I like happy endings.

In Russian melodramas though, there are very few happy endings. Somebody must die before the movie ends. It sometimes reminds me of exasperating French flicks that do not have an explicit ending.

I tried to learn Russian many times but the devilish Cyrillic alphabet always prevented me from getting ahead. With subtitled Russian movies, I have the feeling of gaining ground. Maybe someday I will be able to finally understand моя жена.

до свиданья мужики. Goodbye peasants!

Alain

 

“I’ll come and make love to you at five o’clock. If I’m late start without Me. “ – Tallulah Bankhead

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That’s cool… And I like cool people. I think that most of us secretly do.
Paradoxically, guys are always trying to look cool and girls always try to look hot.
Do opposites attract? Apparently so.

But who really qualifies as a “cool” person?
Is it somebody who wears his cap backwards? Somebody slumming with torn jeans? Somebody covered with ink? Nose rings, tinted glasses, hoodies?
I don’t think so.

Is it somebody who talks loudly and makes outrageous statements? Somebody who (like a teenager) tweets impulsively?
Definitely not!

In my book, people qualify as “cool” not by the way they dress or talk, but by the way they conduct themselves. A cool dude to me is somebody who doesn’t get easily rattled and remains composed in a stressful situation.
It is somebody who thrives in adversity. A cool person is like a glowworm; he shines in darkness.

Franklin Roosevelt was such a person. He remained cool when he declared war on Japan and his speech was brief, just seven minutes.

He didn’t bellow like Hitler or bark like Mussolini. He simply stated:

“No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.”

I like somebody who rarely uses superlatives . Somebody who is sober in speech and action and who does what he says.

A hero is not automatically cool. A hero often acts before thinking. A cool guy thinks before acting.

Being cool means to be able to make rational decisions while being afraid or under extreme pressure. It is not given to anybody.

Think before you act and follow through calmly but decisively.

Alain