Monday, September 19, 2005

Conductor Punished for Annoyingly Stupid Joke

So I was walking around on the Upper East Side the other day, and this foreign couple comes up to me. They say, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" So I tell them- get this- "Practice!"

So went the "joke" that a guest conductor recently bequeathed upon the annoyed members of the New Britain Symphony Orchestra during a rehearsal last weekend. Although he still professes that the joke is hilarious, as evidenced by his open snickering and clutching at his spleen immediately after he told it, it has landed him in hot water. A judge at the New Britain Superior Court today found him guilty of first-degree gross irritation.

"That was the worst joke I've ever heard," said the Honorable Judge William H. Childers, the man who handed down the verdict. "It's so stupid I actually became physically ill when it was repeated in court. Those poor musicians; how they must have suffered."

In addition to the sheer fact that the joke sucked, the conductor was faced with the damning court testimony of seventeen orchestra members, all of whom claimed they had heard the joke from someone else, and thought it completely sucked shit, as long ago as fifteen years. This cast serious doubt as to whether the alleged incident had actually even occurred on the Upper East Side and had involved the defendant.

The conductor was sentenced to fourteen straight days in the back seat of nearby Lake Compounce's Zoomerang, a Vekoma Boomerang clone noted for its ability to inflict unspeakable pain and agony. Human rights organizations plan to protest the sentence as cruel and unusual punishment.

"It's too bad the Riverside Black Widow isn't still around," said one disappointed musician who just happened to be knowledgeable about roller coasters. "That would have been a much better punishment. But the Zoomerang will still put some decent stank on his ass."

--JCK