I received the following email from Slack yesterday:

​April is National Humor Month and we’re celebrating by inviting you to a special virtual event.

Join us as we welcome the authors of the best‑seller Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life, Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas, for a conversation on how leaders can use humor to empower employees to bring a broader and more authentic range of their humanity to their work and to their team.

We’ll talk about:

--The behavioral science of humor, and why it is an underleveraged superpower to fuel creativity, foster resilience and strengthen bonds at work.

--How to flex a new leadership muscle that will foster greater boldness, authenticity, presence, joy and love—in yourself, your teams and at your business.

On October 12, 2004 at 8:43 p.m. Central Time a man disembarked from a plane at O'Hare International Airport carrying the most deadly virus that humanity had ever seen. He was carrying it in his bloodstream. Not, like, in a bag.

The good part was that it was very hard to transmit. Someone had to say, "Yah mo b there!" to the carrier after he said something about a grapefruit festival in Woodstock, Illinois. The virus did not care what, exactly the carrier said to prompt that reply from the other person. It could be an invitation to the festival, obviously, but it could also be a general comment about there being a grapefruit fest in Woodstock (there is not) and then the person hearing about it would have to express interest in going to it using precisely that statement. Once "the phrase that slays" was uttered, (as the evil bioscientist who concocted the virus called it), the carrier would turn an ashen gray and his eyes would fill with pus. The person who said "Yah mo b there!" would not become ill from this encounter, since it takes another two weeks for the virus to become transmittable. But once the carrier wound up at the hospital all covered in pus? Oh man, look out.

St. Bartholomew Catholic Church
Guided by faith. Called to love.

Pseudo-Volunteering Program
Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pseudo-Volunteering?

Pseudo-Volunteering is for people who love the spiritual satisfaction that comes from volunteering but hate the tedium of volunteering.

How does it work?

Each Saturday a group of pseudo-volunteers from St. Bartholomew visits the Little Sisters of the Needy Scholastic Workshop.  We tutor photogenic, disadvantaged youths from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M.  

Oh, man. That’s way too early for me. Do you do anything on weeknights?         

Ladies and gentlemen, I am an alpha shark.  I must swim and kill constantly—or I will die. 

In 2001 a major international pizza franchise came to me and said, “Alfons, you’re a shark.  We’re getting eaten alive by other pizza fishes.  Help us kill again!”

Within 24 hours I pitched this company—which you have definitely heard of—a concept so game changing that it would soon catapult them to the top of the pizza chain food chain: the Full House XL®. 

You’ve enjoyed it many times I am sure.  It had a thinner crust than their pan, a thicker crust than their thin, and it was extra large.  This chain now has—according to Wikipedia, a crowd-sourced internet encyclopedia that I was instrumental in launching—over 6,000 restaurants in the United States and 5,139 additional “huts” in 94 countries and territories around the world.  Those numbers continue to surge every quarter, and are the direct result of the revolution effected by the Full House XL® paradigm shift.

Close your eyes.  All of you.  Now imagine that you are me. 

PROFILE OF DENNIS O’TOOLE
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
CITIZEN MONITORING CORPS, SECTION 5878, GROUP K

(Obtained via Freedom of Information Act request by Dennis O’Toole)

FULL NAME: Dennis Patrick O’Toole.
OTHER ALIASES: D-Train, D-Nice, NewFridgeD, Big D, Cornish Den, D-O-T, and DenDen.
PREFECTURE: Great Lakes, Urban District 7.
DOB: 11/05/1974
DOD: Pending

ETHNICITY: White/Caucasian
GENDER: Male, though when given the opportunity to write manually on surveys that ask for “sex” instead of “gender,” O’Toole has written “Yes” each time since he was 11 years old.
OCCUPATION: post-humanities-major office drone


HEIGHT: 5’7”
WEIGHT: 135 lbs.
EYES: Protean: varies from green to blue to gray, depending on his shirt/attitude

RELIGION: Leftist Roman Catholic
CONFIRMATION NAME: George (rec’d 12/8/1987, Archdiocese of Chicago)

POLITICAL BELIEFS: Semi-pacifistic, pro-regulatory leftist with permissive views on taxes, restrictive views on gun control, and fence-sitting views on abortion.  Comprehensive voting history attached.

THREAT LEVEL: MAUVE

On February 2, 1922, Shakespeare and Co. of Paris sold the first copies of James Joyce's masterwork, "Ulysses."

On July 31, 2013, Amazon at last rekindled that noble endeavor: one of challenging readers, raising the bar for other writers, and pushing the very boundaries of Literature beyond what the common man thought possible. On that day, Amazon began selling the first copies of THE PORKING OF MADAME R: AN EROTIC MYSTERY.

What is THE PORKING OF MADAME R? Why, it's an erotic mystery.  Duh. But it is more than that.  It's also a comedy, and in a way a tragedy. And yet not a tragedy. If you follow me.

For just $3, you can tell your church, your family, your platoon, your law firm and your government that "I am a changed man or woman.  By reading this book, I have rejected convention and spurned bourgeois morality. I am Zarathustra. Or maybe I am the Overman.  I am not sure, I have not read much Nietzsche. Whatever the case, this book is awesome and all you guys in this church or platoon or law firm or wherever the hell I am should also buy a copy. It's just $3!!! Buy two."

Paris, 12 May 1780

My dear Portia,

Since my Arrival this time I have driven about Paris, more than I did before.  The rural Scenes around this Town are charming.  The public Walks, Gardens, &c. are extreamly beautifull.  Oh Man, it would be Cool if I could blow off Diplomacy and just get into the Arts over here, but the Science of Government is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences. 

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy.

My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine. 

Those Children must study Painting, Musick, Tapestry (if Tapestry is still a Thing in the Future), Porcelaine and Whatnot so that their Children might study Advertising, Marketing, Investing, Law, and Communications.  That last one is certainly a bullshit Thing to study, but those Students will wind up in Law or Advertising anyway.

The most important thing that non-football fans must know about Super Bowl XLIII or XLV or whatever, is that the coaches of both teams are brothers.  Jim Harbaugh is a former NFL quarterback, and coaches the San Francisco 49ers.  The other Harbaugh, whose first name and biography I don’t know and refuse to look up, coaches the Baltimore Ravens.  I will call him Cyrus.

Beyond that, I can’t tell you a lot.  Ray Lewis plays for the Ravens.  Not sure if he’s on defense or offense.  Let’s say defense and that he will be a game changer.  I don’t know the name of any other player on either team.  Worse, I don’t care.  Here are my predictions:

Cyrus Harbaugh may not have played in the NFL (honestly, no idea) but one thing is certain:  when the game is in the balance, this 6’10” behemoth will stride onto the field and play whatever position he chooses.  He can bench press 1700 pounds, runs the 40 in 0.8 seconds, and once ate a StairMaster on a dare.  Expect some 4th quarter theatrics when the noble Cyrus dons a Raven uniform and—in neither pads nor a helmet—subdues the 49er offense in a chilling display of raw power.


The game will be at least 11 hours long.  Most of that will be commercials, and man, they are going to be hilarious!    

PAMPHLET 69, No. 12
 
Addreffed to

THE INHABITANTS

OF

AMERICA

On the Interefting Subject of

POLITICAL PROGNOSTICATION

By Nathanial Silber

Writ Upon the Ifle of Manhattan
On the Sixth Day of January
In the Year 1789

Tomorrow, Americans will vote for the first President of our United States. Months of Campaigning are in Abeyance, and the Election shall at last be placed into the Hands the People.  However, it is fitting that, one last Time, we peer into the Entrails of this Election Season and cipher another Augury for the Future.

Earlier this year I put up a show called Tales of Adventure.  (Don't worry, I'm just explaining the context.  It ended in May so you don't have to go anymore.)  Moderately skilled improvisers read short stories based on a different theme each week. The first week's theme was horror, so in honor of Halloween and self-promotion, I am reposting this DennisOToole.com classic: the extremely scary playbill that I handed out to the audience that week. 

TALES OF ADVENTURE!

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1:
HORROR WEEK

For your diversion, we have compiled some of the most popular jokes about ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and other deadly monsters that have been passed down through the generations.  Perhaps these laughs will take the sting out of what you hear tonight and the chuckles herein will help you to sleep.  Perhaps…



GHOULISH JOKES AND 
GHOSTLY RIDDLES

What do you get when you cross a swamp thing and an ogre?

Below is the complete text of the program for yesterday's first-ever Tales of Adventure.  Seriously.  Audio of show to follow soon.

TALES OF ADVENTURE!

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1:
HORROR WEEK

For your diversion, we have compiled some of the most popular jokes about ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and other deadly monsters that have been passed down through the generations.  Perhaps these laughs will take the sting out of what you hear tonight and the chuckles herein will help you to sleep.  Perhaps…

*

GHOULISH JOKES AND
GHOSTLY RIDDLES

What do you get when you cross a swamp thing and an ogre?

_

The word “hero” gets kicked around a lot.  We say it so often that we’ve rendered the word meaningless. 

Rose’s Final-Second Heroics Give Bulls the Win, says the headline in the sports section.  I’m gonna destroy this hero, says the hungry man using another term for a submarine sandwich.  Where are my heroes!?!  Wait, duh—they’re right here in my hand, says the guy having a mild stroke who meant to say “keys.”



None of these people is a hero, and I am not either.  I rode my bike seven miles in a snowstorm.  That’s all. 

I did not wrestle a tiger away from a group of toddlers.  I did not take the controls of a 747 after the pilot didn’t feel like landing.  I did not kill Osama bin Laden.   I repeat:  I did not kill bin Laden.  Stop asking.