Skull Fractures: A Fun Sketch about Love and Farts!

by Chris Stangl

--CHRIS STANGL, the famous comedian, comes on the stage. Why is he so funny?!--

CHRIS: Hey, everybody. A lot of folks like to talk to me after the show every week. Just kidding. But a few of you have expressed an unhealthy and disturbing interest in the personal life of me. So, in an effort to simultaneously push the audience away in an alienated, disgusted stupor, and lay open my psychic wounds for your fascinated horror, here's a factual sketch, which shall educate, humiliate, and leave everyone with a damp, sinking feeling inside. See, tonight, we'll explore, point by point, what I find appealing in potential sex partners. We'll start off with boy people. Good old Jamal here will assist me.

--Enter good old Jamal, the famous other comedian.--

CHRIS: Jamal, do you mind being objectified, prodded at, and reduced to nothing but an assemblage of body parts for my scrutiny?

JAMAL: Yes.

CHRIS: Good. Let's get started.

--Jamal stands, not moving, as Chris talks. Chris pulls out a pointer, to use as necessary.--

CHRIS: First: no body piercing. Is there any other time when having an open wound that doesn't heal or close up is supposed to be appealing?

Two: No tattoos, boys. At best you'll look like a prison inmate, at worst you'll look like a sailor, and no matter how you cut it, Popeye is not sexy. The closest thing to a good tattoo is in third grade, when you'd trace the lines on your palm with a ball-point pen... or maybe a tattoo that labeled body parts, like: Milk, milk, lemonade, around the corner, fudge is made!

Feet: Boys have, by nature, big, dirty feet, and their toenails grow fast. That's nature. But nature is gross, so do something about it.

Pants: One thing: Khakis are for preppies and people on safari. No matter what the Gap tells you, khakis are nerd pants, and under no circumstances do they "rock".

--Points to crotch!-- Okay... I'm not picky, no need to get self-conscious. Anything over nine inches is fine, so don't feel inadequate. Really, though, a word on the foreskin. It's cute, and fine if you're going for that all-natural sandals-n-grain look... but man, you ever tried to eat a Chiquita with the peel still on? I'm always worried I'm gonna rip the damn thing.

Torso: If you're like me, then you're scrawny- no, medically underweight to the point that your ribcage resembles a glockenspiel. That's also what I like. Don't think Anorexic Supermodel Skinny. Think Auschwitz.

Face: Cheekbones good, sideburns good- but Elvis '56 sideburns, not Elvis '76. Big eyes, but not thyroid-condition-big. The idea isn't to look like Jon Arbuckle from Garfield.

Hair: black's good, brown's nice, but the key is nothing down to the shoulder. Fact: the most important lesson of 1963-1975 was that hippies may have advocated free love, but nobody wants to fuck a hippie except other hippies.

In short, what I'm after is me, only with better skin and an ass to speak of. Thanks Jamal, you may sit down.

--Exit Jamal!--

CHRIS: Okay, now on to the ladies! I couldn't find a woman with enough self- disrespect to help as my visual aid, so... Jamal!?

--Enter Jamal!--

CHRIS: Okay. Girl people. A word on tattoos. Those abstract/ tribal lesbian tattoos are kind of cool, provided you understand two things: 1. Acceptable places are under the collarbone, around the wrist or bicep, or the small of the back. Not all of them. At a point, you stop looking bohemian and start looking like you stepped out of Biker Chick Magazine. 2. Old people, by definition, look gross. Old people with tattoos look moregross.

Legs: Don't shave. It feels nice, but it makes me feel guilty about altering yourself to please twisted patriarchal aesthetics... same feeling I get when I look at black people. See, even though I never owned a slave or had ancestors in the Klan, I get this dirty guilt for my own accidental genetic arrangement, so let it never be said I sent someone to the back of the bus, or asked anybody to shave their legs.

--Points to the crotch!-- Okay, y'all, welcome to Reading Rainbow, today's book is called "This is where the nonsmoking and vegetarianism pays off in spades." But... you don't have to take my word for it. If you don't believe me about marked differences in taste and smell, try picking up someone from the smoking section of the steakhouse, and someone from the New Pioneer Co-Op, and do the fuckin' Pepsi Challenge yourself.

Stomach: This time, I don't want to see ribs. Women have a protective layer of fat right here, designed to protect the uterus. It's natural, and it's adorable, though I'm jealous and don't understand why men don't get a layer of fat to protect our uteruseses.

Breasts: Or as the women-folk prefer, "bosoms". I like a good big breast. Also I like a good really really flat chest. Too many people are hung up on the breast, which is just fatty tissue and milk ducts I ain't gonna use anyway, and forget that the state capital, the greatest hit, the best and brightest is the nipple. When you've got a boy-chest in front of you, you don't get off-track because you don't have a couple of breasts bobbing around, distracting you from the nipples. The downside is, uh, no breasts.

Face: Got a Thing for brown eyes. But the key here is the hair. Short, women. Bull-dyke- short. Any longer than the shoulder, and I ain't even turning my head, like you cared. Chin length bob, and my head will turn and make that "Swoosh!" sound. One inch: head turns, probably some whiplash. Half inch: head turns, and spinal column snaps with that cartilage-scrunchy noise like a Dixie cup full of baby mice in a garbage disposal.

Oh... and glasses. Also a Thing for women in glasses, especially really dorky hipster glasses: In short, I'm looking for Velma from Scooby-Doo.

Of course, I've left out a few things. I left out that I want somebody smarter than me, so when people ask my phone number, you can tell them, because I always have to stop and think, because when the fuck do you call your own phone number?, but apparently it's just one of those "pieces of basic knowledge one needs to survive in society".

I left out how I want somebody who'll make me laugh. Laugh harder than a lungful of nitrous oxide, or a good episode of Mr. Ed, because that guy is a horse, but the kind of horse that can talk, and his voice sounds like a gay old man, and that is a violation of the laws of science!

I left out how I want arms that will wrap around me after that episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye and BJ get in a fight, and Beej gets drunk and punches Hawk, because that one makes me cry like a little bitch.

I left out that stuff because in the end, if I say it or not, I still go home tonight by myself, to a cold empty little bed, and wake up at 4 am in the dark with a bedroom full of nothing but moonlight and aloneness, and I am, after all a funny guy, so I might as well go for the underpants joke.

--Drops pants.--

CHRIS: Did I forget something? Oh. Yeah.

--Makes a funny fart sound!--

CHRIS: Pretty funny, huh!?



THE FUNNY END!

BLACK OUT!