Joe Milutis

An elephant walks into a bar

don’t let it bother you

An elephant walks into a bar

runs around the bar, grabs the peanuts,
rinse and repeat.

An elephant walks into a bar

with his dog.

He shouts to the bartender, ‘Hey barkeep, want to hear the elephant joke?’ The bartender says s s you right after I serve this guy here.’ It is now my turn,’ said Bill.

The elephant says, ‘Why did the worm crawl across the road?’ The bartender then replies, they can’t or you’ll never see your dog again my friend’.

An elephant walks into a bar

The elephant and the barman look at each other

and the elephant says: “Give me a beer”

So the bartender gives him a beer.

The elephant belches and then laughs at his own joke.

So, The Laughing Elephant goes back to his son and tells him …

“You know son, all your life, I’ve used my strength and power as The Biggest land animal on Earth to avoid work of any kind. That was up until tonight…” ,

An elephant walks into a bar

and starts smashing all the furniture. The bartender says, “What’s the matter?” The elephant replies, “I’m blind. I want to be depressed.”

An elephant walks into a bar

and orders a drink. The bartender says, “What’ll it be?” and the elephant says, “I’ll have a beer, a scotch and a tequila.” The bartender pours the drinks and says, “That’ll be $14.50.” The elephant hands him a $20 bill and says, “Keep the change.” The bartender says, “Where are you from?” and the elephant says, “Africa.” The bartender says, “How’d you get here?” and the elephant says, “I flew.” The bartender says, “You flew?” and the elephant says, “Sure. I sat on the wing and let myself be blown out of my cage.” The bartender says, “You’re an amazing animal.”

An elephant walks into a bar

and the bartender says, “Hey, we don’t serve elephants.” So the elephant leaves. The next day the elephant is back and the bartender says, “Sorry pal, we don’t serve elephants.” The elephant leaves. The next day the elephant reappears and the bartender says, “We don’t serve elephants.” The elephant calmly reaches into his pocket and pulls out a picture of the bartender’s daughter. The bartender says, “You showed me the wrong picture yesterday.” The elephant replies, “I have two daughters.”

An elephant walks into a bar

, orders a drink, and then pulls out a gun and shoots the bartender dead.

Elephant: “Sorry, I haven’t shot anybody for two days.”

An elephant walks into a bar

The bartender says, “Hey, where’s your piano?”

Elephant says, “On my piano!”

Barkeep says, “What?”

Elephant says, “On my piano!”

Barkeep says, “Then why did you say, ‘Hey, where’s your piano?”‘

Elephant says, “It’s under the piano.”

Barkeep says, “You’re one sick elephant.”

An elephant walks into a bar

Elephant says, “On my piano!”

The bartender says, “You’re not fooling me.”

Elephant says, “On my piano!”

The bartender says, “You’re not convincing me.”

Elephant says, “On my piano!”

The bartender says, “I don’t believe it.”

Elephant says, “On my piano!”

The bartender says, “You’re out of your mind.”

Elephant says, “On my piano!”

The bartender says, “You’re nuts.”

Elephant says, “On my piano!”

An elephant walks into a bar

, orders a beer, and starts playing the piano.

A few minutes later a giraffe walks in, orders a beer, and starts playing the drums.

The bartender can’t believe it. “What’s going on here?” he says. “We have two of the most talented animals in the world in the same place, but they’re ignoring each other.”

The giraffe replies, “Well, I’m good, but the elephant is perfect.”

An elephant walks into a bar

and says, “Can I have a beer?” The bartender, shocked, says, “Why yes, I suppose you can. The elephant replies, “Good, because I’m a frickin’ parrot.”

A parrot walks into a bar

and says, “I’ll have a martini.” The bartender says, “You’ll have to wait ten minutes to order.” The parrot says, “Ten minutes? I’ve got to wait ten minutes to order a martini,” and flies away.

A parrot walks into a bar and asks, “Have you seen my brother?” The bartender says, “No, but I think I heard him saying something about a bar.”

A parrot walks into a bar, sits down, and says, “Gimme a beer.” The bartender says, “We don’t serve beer to parrots.” The parrot says, “Why the fuck not?” The bartender says, “Because you look like a parrot.” The parrot says, “And you look like a fucking bartender.”

A parrot walks into a bar and says “Do you have any peanuts?” The bartender says, “No.” The parrot says, “Do you have any crackers?” The bartender says, “No.” The parrot says, “Do you have any money?” The bartender says, “Yes.” The parrot says, “Good, give me a beer.”

A parrot walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a beer, and a mop.” The bartender says, “You’ve got to be kidding. You can’t have a beer, and a mop.” The parrot says, “I’m not kidding. I really want a beer and a mop.” The bartender says, “Well, I’ll have to mop the floor before I can give you a beer.” The parrot says, “I’ll have a beer, and a mop.”

An elephant walks into a bar

and says, “Can I have a beer?”

The bartender says, “No, you’re an elephant .”

The elephant says, “I’m so thirsty.”

The bartender says, “You’re an elephant, eat some grass.”

The elephant says, “How about a cigarette?”

The bartender says, “No, you’re an elephant.”

The elephant says, “I’m so stressed out.”

The bartender says, “You’re an elephant, go home and take a shower.”

The elephant says, “Can I at least stand on the bar?”

The bartender says, “No, you’re an elephant.”

The elephant says, “I’m going crazy, I’m going nuts. I feel like a tiny mouse.”

The bartender says, “You’re an elephant.”

The elephant says, “I’m leaving.”

The bartender says, “You’re right. I’ll call you a taxi.”

This is a true and funny story, and I can’t help but wonder how many times the elephant was told “you’re an elephant” before he finally left.

Elephants are magnificent creatures

 
 
 
**
 
 
 

The Writer for the Stranger

He wore his own design. He told me about how many crystals he went through before he found one that was just the right hue. One time, I saw him on a train. He had his chain draped around his neck like a cape. He seemed to be taking mental notes on other riders. I asked him what he was going to write about me in his column, and he said he wasn’t sure. “I just want to put you in my album,” he said.

He told me that he admired “Bling Bling” because it was honest. He told me that I was “perfect.” At one point, I told him that I had written about him for the Stranger. He said that it wasn’t “too bad.” I asked him what my review was like, and he said, “Fine, actually.” Then he laughed.

The next time I saw him, it was at the same comic-book store. He came down the stairs with an expression of genuine surprise on his face. “You’re still here,” he said. I said I was working, but that I would be free after four. “Wow,” he said. “We’ll get together soon.”

“It’s not a date,” I said.

“I know. I know,” he said. “But we should make it one. Let’s have a movie. What’s your favorite movie?”

“That’s a great idea.”

“Me too.” He paused. “But a pizza first.”

I looked around. I saw a pizza place, and I said I was going to get one. We walked outside.

“Tell me one thing about yourself,” he said.

“What?”

“When was the last time you had sex?”

“Um … I don’t know.” I thought about it. “When I was in ninth grade,” I said. “At a sleepover.”

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Was it with a boy or a girl?”

“A girl. Or a boy. Both.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not. I had oral sex.”

“Wow.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Really?” He paused. “When was the last time you had it?”

“Oh, when my boyfriend and I broke up. In April.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I know.”

“My condolences.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded his head. “I’m going to write about you.”

That wasn’t true, but I decided to make the whole thing up.

“When did you start dating Brian?” I said. “I’ve known Brian for a really long time. Since ninth grade.”

He did. “I’m going to write about you,” he said.

I told him that I was going to get some water and that I’d be right back. I got some water and then came back.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“I thought I’d wait outside.”

“No,” he said. “Come inside.”

I went inside. I sat down on the couch. He came over to me and sat down.

“Well, we can’t do the movie,” he said. “We need to make up a date for you to be my girlfriend.”

“What? You mean the one where we just make it up?”

“Yes, the one where we make it up. Are you ready?”

I put my hand on his leg.

“My girlfriend. You’re my girlfriend.”

“But I told you that we couldn’t make it up.”

“That’s my problem, not yours. You said we should make it up. And I’m going to. So, no. No boyfriend.”

I left.

I walked out of the store and down the street. It was 10 p.m. I walked and walked until my legs felt like they had been sliced with a knife. I got on a bus and went home. I opened my phone and there were pictures of him. He was sitting on a bench with his head on his hand, a dog lying beside him.

“If I don’t see you again,” he said to me, “I’m going to blame you.”

I never saw him again. I don’t know if he used the words girlfriend or girlfriend-boyfriend or boyfriend-girlfriend to anyone else. But that’s what I was to him. I was a girlfriend, and it had been a long time.

 
 
 
**
 
 
 

What He Really Wanted

What he really wanted, really and desperately, were the Things of life. The camera obscura of DeQuincey, out of which dreams were projected, did not interest him. But Things! Things of people, of places, of objects, of old and new bodies and spirits that were not human, of great things that lived before human beings were—oh, of those smelly crudities that he loathed to encounter in the street.

“What do I want!” he said, triumphantly. “I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I will not ruin or change or coerce or go against nature, which is good!”

In this, one could say, he was wanting want. The self sufficed. But there was something more to it. He wanted things, because they were what he needed, what was necessary. They were the raw material of his imagination. What he wanted were, in a sense, images that he had seen. Images of people and things, that had been cast in the moving image factory of his mind.

“I have even been dreaming of things I have never seen,” DeQuincey once said, “of things I have never heard of, or seen, or smelt, or tasted, or touched, or heard.”

What he had not seen and heard and smelled and tasted were things that could not be seen and heard and tasted and touched—things which were not the true Things of this world, not the Things of this moment, things which had some rough black fabric or thin and fragile pearl, some slight organic curve and knuckle, some curling fin or bony ridged pectoral, or even the iridescent glass color of an egg.

He did not know the color of love. He knew that he could not make himself love without the Things he needed, without the distillations and alien materials that could do this. He had been trying them all out on people and things, since he was small enough to taste and touch.

What he could not make were things like love, or the least strange or delicate wisps of human memory, like women’s hair or something that might be a fragment of human speech. He knew that he could not make a dead body talk to him. He could not make a limb grow. He could not make a heart beat.

In a book he had read long ago, of a Russian traveler’s journey to Constantinople, the author had described Constantinople as “a great brain,” a thought balloon into which all the strange and sad and absurd things of the world, a great whole, “had been forced,” and there still remained “a tight, aching sack full of memories of all the ways in which the infinite has ever been.”

It would seem a contradiction, in not needing things, to need them all the more, in not needing dreams, to create one’s own. But this had always been his experience: no matter how distant the object or feeling, his mind was the magnet and the barometer that guided him to it.

All of this he saw and felt. He saw through the bright, clear lens of the device into the box of colors that was his head and then he would fall into another fugue of passion. This momentary condition could easily turn itself into an obsession, as happened with DeQuincey. The Madness would lie in wait for him, or there was a meeting of desires that had to be addressed immediately, before he forgot all about it.

Sometimes, when his control was beginning to falter, his senses beginning to loosen their hold, his memory begin to wander, his sense of proportion begin to flag, it would just come, out of the blue, that feeling of being absolutely alive. That breathless, blood-rush sensation of being alive. He did not feel sick or tired. He felt as if he had been running along, up in the mountains, and had paused to rest. Then, as suddenly as that feeling had come on him, it was gone, gone like someone having read a great battle off a map, or seeing a movie about that battle. Then he would feel sad. And like something had been lost, something stolen from him.

“What was that I saw? What was that I felt? Who am I?” he would ask himself, that long, long time after. And what came back was not the image of any particular thing. It was the shabby, coarse smell of something, a smell that he could not really place. It might have been a cigarette butt. It might have been blood on the sidewalk. It might have been unripe plum in a child’s hand.

He would ask himself those questions, again and again, until he knew that he must not trust his thoughts. They were going in circles, like the ships of Descartes’ mind, full of about as much truth as a Dicken’s war novel, full of little, easily predictable rips and splits in the layers of awareness. He tried to focus. He tried to concentrate on his physical senses. He tried to locate his voice within his own brain. But nothing seemed to come. He made himself laugh. He made himself walk down the street, singing to himself. Nothing came of it. He tried to ignore it, and pretended he was not there, even though it felt more and more as if he had become something more than a human.

At times, he would awaken, several days or weeks later, in a cold sweat, totally confused, shivering with terror. But he was not trying to escape from reality. In fact, he now felt that he was in danger of losing himself.

He did not want to love, or be loved, or dream of women. He did not want to make someone who would always remind him of his mind.

He did not want to make this thing that ran inside his body.

He was not a physical being.

All the same,

he did not want to die. For many of his patients, that was the way out, the way back. He was no exception. He did not want to lose his experience of life. “What would be the point of living if I could not experience it, live it, enjoy it?” he asked himself. “What if all I had left to keep me in this world was this alien horror that robbed me of my ability to laugh?”

But while these inquiries ran through his mind, a physical illness crept into his system, a sickness of the heart, of the soul. He became inexplicably depressed.

“Why can’t I be myself?” he asked himself. “Is this what it means to live—to be someone else?”

And then he began to dream. Dreams that were of no particular significance, no particular place, and so in many ways perfect, with no particular significance, of that type that we never know what they mean, and yet we dream of them anyway, as if in some way they are our deepest thoughts,
our deepest feelings.

Just before he woke up, he could feel a strange sensation at his feet. The feeling was pain.

“What is this?” he asked himself, in a perfectly calm, perfectly normal voice.

But the voice that came back to him was not his own. It was a voice that did not belong to anyone living or dead.

“Yes,” it said.

“Is that really what it is?” he asked, and the voice repeated, “Yes.”

He woke up to a dull headache, the kind you get on Sundays, after you spend too much time with your family on Saturday.

And that, of course, was when he finally began to see his drawings, and listen to his own voice.