Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas Is Over, We Can Laugh Again

What did the guy who needed some milk but not a ton but a good amount say to the store clerk? 

Take me to your litre.

- Joke by Zach Braff

Scrubs star and modern day auteur Zach Braff mailed me this joke for Christmas. This is a transcript of my thankyou phonecall. 


Ring.

Receptionist: Hello, Zach Braff's receptionist speaking.

Tom: Hi, with whom am I speaking?

Receptionist: This is Lynn. 

Tom: Hi Lynn, is Zach in? 

Lynn: He's in rehearsal right now.  

Tom: That can be paused right?

(Zach yells in the background.)

Zach: Hello, Zach Braff here.

Tom: Zach, Tom Henry here.

Zach: Tom. Wow. Hey.

Tom: I'm calling about your joke. What are you rehearsing for?

Zach: I'm starring in the Alanis Morrisette bio-pic. I've been living in a stable for research.

Tom: You directing too? 

Zach: Of course.

Tom: I keep trying to tell people Garden State was a good film, but they won't believe me.

Zach: What can you do? People want to criticize without even watching the movie.

Tom: No, they watched it.

Zach:... 

Tom: Listen, the joke, I liked it.

Zach: Yeah?!

Tom: It was clever, I always knew that tall hair set you apart a bit.

Zach: I've actually been tucking it behind my ears lately.

Tom: Text me that look, ok? 

Zach: Ok.

Tom: You sent me the joke for Christmas, and I was wondering if it's a Christmas joke. 

Zach: To me it is, my holidays back home sort of revolve around dairy. 

Tom: Egg nog, fine cheese, pie topping... 

Zach: Yeah, and a lot of just straight milk drinking.
 
Tom: You grow out of babyhood, and you stop drinking your own species milk and venture in to other species. I'm not jewish but as a right of passage when I turned thirteen, I drank a glass of goat's milk. 

Zach: Did you feel like a man? 

Tom: I felt like a goat. 

Zach: ...

Tom: Do you wanna know what my holidays revolve around? 

Zach: What? 

Tom: I dunno, goddamn friends, family. Not milk. 

Zach: Mm. 

Tom: Clive Owen came over this year, he said it was a laugh. 

Zach: I'm a big fan of his. 

Tom: I think he would've said it was a great laugh, but that's not really a Britishism is it? 

Zach: I'm from New Jersey.

Tom: Anyway, I thank you for the joke, and as a Christmas offering, I'd like to impart to you some wisdom. 

Zach: Great. Lemme get a pen. 

Tom: I once learnt a lesson from trying to eat thirty grapefruits. 

Zach: ...? (signifying an air of curiousity) 

Tom: Grapefruits and grapes aren't interchangeable. 

Zach: Thanks. 

Tom: I could have learnt the same lesson by eating one grape slowly. 

Zach: Hm.

Tom: I'm gonna let you go ZB, will I see you at my annual New Years Eve party on the Mason Dixon line?

Zach: You bet. 

Tom: Great, ciao. 

Phone hangs up with the help of human hand(s).



*For Lulu. I've never had such a good use for a wall, even when it was keeping me safe from the rest of the animals. 

( No more dedications for a while, I promise.)


-------------------------

Also, I snuck my way into this interview with the talented Slim Twig by the talented Ben Dugas. Check it out if you know what's good for ya.  No Ones Laughing But you - Slim Twig

5 comments:

Vargas said...

I think many people have made that very same mistake with the grapes. If Jimmy Cagney had squashed a grape into that woman's face in The Public Enemy instead of a grapefruit then all the feminists wouldn't have become so upset. And when Mae West said: "O Beulah, peel me a grape" in I'm No Angel I think she meant a grapefruit. What's Eating Gilbert Grapefruit? would have made a better title as would've The Grapefruits of Wrath. Lastly, I think Clive Owen might have meant to say "It was a grape laugh" - I think that is a Britishism. Anyway, really enjoyed your conversation with Zach and your superb ghostwriting on No One's Laughing But You. Grape work.

tom henry said...

Thank you very grape.

Jennifer said...

thought you wandered into Slim's interview as elegantly as you did Pulp Fiction or maybe in Pulp it was more of a saunter....

Ben Dugas said...

Q: What did the robber say to the dairy farmer?
A: Skim-me all your milk!

-from Rip Torn's 1983 work "How to Tell Jokes Like a Man and Tell 'em Like you Mean it"

Anonymous said...

I don't think Rip Torn said that at all. Rip skipped 1983-5. Tom, who've you got working the door here?