came to Beit Shemesh last night, so I went with my parents. They had Avi Liberman, Dan Naturman, Lowell Sanders, and Harland Williams up on stage telling jokes for an hour to help raise money for needy kids. Here are some of the most memorable lines.

AL: Purim's a great holiday--it's the one holiday in the world where you're supposed to get hammered. Your Gentile neighbors see you walking out of the house with a Jack Daniels in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other--"Where are you going?" "To synagogue. Have fun at church!"

DN: Did you know that pumpkins are the only living organisms that have triangular eyes?

LS: I wasn't all that scared of coming here--I'm from Detroit. We kill more people by 6 AM then you do in a whole year.

HW: [taps mic several times] I'm sending comedy to a tribe in the Congo.

AL: With Bill Clinton, if you didn't like him, it didn't matter what he was saying, it could be "I am going to revitalize the economy", you heard: "Your wife looks pretty in that dress."

DN: My last girlfriend, she was kinda-- I met her in my apartment building, one day, I'm in the elevator, and the doors open and she's standing there, and she asks, "Going down?" And I'm like, "If you get in, we are."

AL: As the senior member of this tour, I'm usually the one doing the explanations when we visit places like Jerusalem. This is great because, I can totally make stuff up and nobody will, know, except sometimes somebody does know something--in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, "That's the cross of John the Baptist." "I thought John the Baptist was beheaded?" "...Well, they're contesting that."

LS: The Temptations, you could always tell what they were singing about, because they would act it out on stage. They were like singers for the deaf.

AL: The big difference between the American and the Israeli armies, in the American army they're very big on saluting and dressing properly and stuff like that, but the big stuff they don't care about. Can you imagine an Israeli soldier saluting? I can't picture that. But they're good on the big stuff. I was on a comedy tour in Iraq, I walk up to a soldier and, "Can I shoot that gun?" "Private! Give this man your gun. Tuck in that shirt, you're a disgrace! Here you go sir." K-chk.

DN: Most American high school students can't find Canada on a map. Of Canada.

LS: Them Bee Gees, they sounded like chipmunks. On helium. ["Sings" Stayin' Alive with nonsense sounds and words.] And then they start laughin' at you. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

HW: This is Arnold Schwarzenegger in a revolving door. [walks in circle] I'll be back. [circles] I'll be back...

AL: The Internet, now there's a technology nobody saw coming. In Star Trek, they didn't have Internet. Can you imagine Star Trek with Internet? "Mr. Spock, sets a cousre for Ceti Alpha V." "I'm googling it now, Captain." The Klingons never said, "You are outnumbered. Surrender now. LOL!"

DN: Barack Obama, a black man, is now running for president. And there is still racism in America, a lot of racists around. The other night I was in a bar, talking to a chick--I asked her, "Who you voting for?" She says, "Not Obama, not voting for some black guy." I was shocked. Shocked!... I was, however, also desperate, so I took her over to my place. On the way, I phoned ahead to my roommate: "Darnell, get outta there... and take that poster of Martin Luther King down from the wall... I'm having my own dream tonight."

LS: I'm not used to getting checked when I go into places. Usually I get checked when I go out. ... Nobody got checked comin' in here. I'm feelin' nervous!

AL: ...Then she "got in the family way". If I was in Tel Aviv, I'd use a different word here, because in Tel Aviv they're all a bunch of godless animals.

LS: We went to the Dead Sea... I can't swim. I didn't wanna go in. The guys are all like, "Come on, get in, you can't drown here, nobody's ever drowned here!" Do I look like I wanna be the first?... Get turned into some sorta tourist attraction: "After visiting the Western Wall, come on down to the Dead Sea and see the dead black guy!"

DN: You can always tell what kind of man a guy is by his watch and his car. ... 'Course, you can always buy a fake Rolex. I bought one of those, and one of my friends is like, "Wow, you got a Rolex?" "Nah, it's fake." "How can you tell? By the band?" "No, by the guy wearing it."

LS: I think Michael Jackson keeps grabbing his crotch because that's the last piece of original equipment he's got left.

HW: George Bush recently said that 60% of Americans didn't know where Germany is. To which I say, What about the other 85% of Americans who know where Germany is? And who cares about those Germans? Don't forget what they did to us in Pearl Harbor back in '73!

AL: Shavu'ot! What a great holiday, right? Only one day long?... You do know that the bit about staying up all night is a tradition not a law. I can picture, about 100 years ago, buncha rabbis sittin' around a table--"Here's Shavu'ot, nice short holiday, only one day long... how do we screw it up?" "People like eating meat, how about we say they can only eat dairy?" "Okay, I'm liking what I'm hearing here, keep it going... Yes?" "How about we make 'em stay up all night studying?" "Good idea, you mean like till midnight?" "No, all night. And that'll mess up the next day too." "Write that down, I'm hearing good stuff here..."

DN: In Chicago they're pretty weird. You know what they call soda in Chicago? Pop. I was visiting Chicago, went into a store, "You got anything to drink?" "Yes sir, we got pop." Only I thought he said 'pot'. "You do?" "Sure, we even got Coke!" "...Man, you are the worst drug dealer I have ever met!"

AL: I don't get soccer around here. Like, I'm from California--over there, we expect the score to be 0-0 only at the beginning of the game.

LS: At the airport, my name always changes, to Random Check. "Random Check, will you please step this way..."

AL: Imagine Israel hosting the Olympics--"Welcome to Olympic Village, do you have a place to stay?... You don't? Come, you can sleep on my couch."

DN: I was coming here when no other comedians were--"No, I can't come, I've got a previous engagement at the Chuckle Bucket in Baghdad."

LS: When you got to go to the bathroom on the plane--that's when the oxygen masks should deploy.

HW: We are here tonight to benefit those poor, helpless, shivering children who are breaking into your houses right now...

LS: Last year, I got a snorkeling certificate. In Mexico. I can't swim and I got a snorkeling certificate! The guy was like, "Put your head underwater. If you don't breath in, you pass." ... Saw a shark down there, he wouldn't go near me. He was probably thinkin', "Black guy... stickin' his head in the water... this has got to be a setup." ...I'm going back to Mexico next year for my helicopter license.

AL: Internet terms aren't the same everywhere. I was once text-messaging with an Egyptian friend of mine (real nice guy), and I sent him a joke, and he replied "FOCF." I asked him, "What's that mean?" "It means 'Fall-Off-Camel Funny'."

LS: I went to a tough school. The teacher would go, "Who shot Lincoln?" "I ain't sayin' nothin' until I talk to my lawyer. ... I swear, he was lying there when I came in."

And the best part of Williams's entire routine:
HW: Ma'am, where are you going?
Audience member leaving room: I'm pregnant. I live in the bathroom.
HW: ?!?
Audience: [laughs]
Me: PWNED!!!!!1!


TODAY'S BOOK: "Dragonsong", by Anne McCaffrey ((c) 1976)

Labels: biographical