CAPTION THIS WINNER!!

And the winner is . . . Mr. Joe Janes with this little gem:

"And now . . . the wind section."

I liked his entry because it was short and sweet and sort of low brow without actually being low brow. Joe will be getting his prize the next time I see him.

Special thanks also to Mike Harris, who obviously knew the real story "behind" this photo, which I will share with you now. This photo was taken when I did some stand up comedy at my office holiday party back in December of 2005. In case you didn't know, I work at a law firm where I am a secretary, and the also the only male secretary in the firm. Here is the joke that more or less used this pose:

“I thought it would be fun if I got a bunch of guys together that are in these sort of female dominated jobs, and we could do one of those beefcake calendars. You know? You could have the little male nurse, with his little needle. [pose] Or the guy behind the cosmetic counter, maybe spraying some perfume. [pose] Oh, and here would be me, typing at my keyboard. [pose]”

Actually, I changed it up a bit, as you can see in the video below. I think the final turned out much better.



Also, for your reading enjoyment, here is the text of the entire routine. This is actually quite a bit different than what is on the video, as I think this is my final written version of the routine, and then over the last week or so of rehearsing I made quite a few cuts and changes. I’ll talk about my rather limited experience doing stand up in a future blog post.

Once again, congrats to Joe and thanks to everyone who submitted a caption.

Chris Othic's GCD Idol Routine:

I know, I know what’s going on here. “Hey let’s put the male secretary up on stage.” Look at the freak, everyone! And I know what you’re saying. I hear the whispers. “He’s not like the female secretaries.” “He never bakes anything.” “I hear he can pee standing up.”

Hey there is nothing wrong with being a male secretary. I know it doesn’t sound very manly, but you should see what I use to hit the space bar. [Then just glance down between your legs and smile knowingly]

I thought it would be fun if I got a bunch of guys together that are in these sort of female dominated jobs, and we could do one of those beefcake calendars. You know? You could have the little male nurse, with his little needle. [pose] Or the guy behind the cosmetic counter, maybe spraying some perfume. [pose] Oh, and here would be me at my keyboard. [pose] Ah, it’s a bad idea. Nobody would want to see those other guys in their speedos.

I’ve noticed that there are two kinds of people around the law firm: the staple people and the paper clip people. I’m a staple guy, you know? It’s just more fun. Like when you’re attorney makes you mad, you can staple with an attitude. (Act out an imaginary confrontation.) “You need this document right now? Oh yeah? I shall staple it for you! {staple angrily, twice] Bam, Bam. Here you go. Those sheets of paper shall remain fastened together, forever!” You can’t really get that satisfaction out of a paper clip. It’s like (Act out a similar imaginary confrontation.) “You need this document right now? Oh yeah? I shall paper clip it for you.” [Act out trying to retrieve paperclip from holder, very delicately] (Meekly) I can’t get just one clip, they’re stuck together. It’s because of their trombone shape! [Retrieve clip, angrily put it on paper.] (Confrontational) Here you go! Those sheets of paper shall remain—oh yeah, you’re right, I should have used a binder clip. Dammit!” Sometimes I hold the stapler sideways, too, like I’m one of those gangstas about to pop a cap into a severance agreement. “Oh yeah! Take this sucka!” You should see what I do with the three hole punch.

This is sort of depressing, if you’re a lawyer, but that your job consists of basically coming to work, day in and day out, and for the rest of your life, having a term paper due every three days. I mean that sounds awful, doesn’t it? Is there any job that would suck worse than that? Oh yeah, I know: The only job worse than that would be having to type somebody else’s term paper every three days. Talk about a sucky job! Hey, wait a minute . . .

Speaking of stuff that sucks, how about this: Paper cuts. You ever get one of those? Little bitty cut, hurts like hell, and won’t stop bleeding NO MATTER WHAT. (Demonstrating) You got the Band-Aids and the wrapping of the gauze and your sucking on it and it’s getting all over your desk and the papers and it just keeps on coming and at some point (pause for effect) isn’t it just easier to hand a bloody document to your attorney? It’s like, “You know what, let’s just come to an agreement, we’re going to have blood on the documents today, okay? It’s my blood, I don’t have any infectious diseases, we’re both type O, we should be fine.”

And here’s a little secret they aren’t telling you. You know some of the folks who (finger quotes) “supposedly” left the firm? (pause, look around suspiciously.) Papercutted to death. Oh, yeah, hey it’s not funny. Damn you manilla folders!

And I have to be extra careful about papercuts because when you do as much typing as I do, any type of finger injury can be a huge problem. Like, this past spring, I jammed my finger playing softball. There’s me, rolling around on the ground, holding my finger, and my teammates were like, “Why are you crying? It’s just your pinkie.” And I told them, “You don’t understand, it’s not just my pinkie, that’s my semi-colon finger!” (Holding up pinkie.)

You can laugh about a potentially career ending injury if you want, but it’s a big thing to me. Because what most people don’t know is I can type 870 words per minute. That’s right. 870 words per minute. You don’t believe me? Check this out. [Demonstrate: I SPACE , I SPACE, I SPACE, I SPACE, A SPACE, A SPACE, A SPACE, A SPACE, I SPACE, A SPACE, I SPACE, A SPACE. (pause) Semicolon. [Holding up fingers and blowing on them like they are smoking guns.] Hey, you don’t think that’s worth a 4 percent raise every year? You can spell check it if you want. No errors.

Typing isn’t my only skill. I also know how to sneak porn in through the GCD firewall. Yeah, and they don’t think I’m partner material.