Congrats, Gerald! And a Happy New Year of captions and humour!

Congratulations to you, Adrian! Your captions could never be the target of captious comments. You play your hand coolly on the chessboard of life and art, and it’s a privilege to count you as a colleague! Thanks.

“I don’t suppose you’re interested in attending the winter swim of the local polar bear club?”

“I’m still chilling out after an exhaustive ten-day tour of the Negev.”

“I got mugged this morning, but luckily they didn’t take my drink.”

Congratulations, Gerald, I was pulling for you!

Happy Nude Year!

Bloomberg never banned the Big Gulp.

Congratulations, Gerald! You too, Adrian! Now let’s get this new party started!

I’m bringing you the Local on the 8s.

It’s my Nude Year’s Resolution.

“I believed all that hype about global warming.”

Dale, thanks for your good words. Coming from you, they mean a lot.

Best wishes to you and yours for a really good year.

“Al Gore told me these were the only clothes I’d ever need.”

Hi, I’m from the Neighborhood Watch.

Humor can come from any direction, and quite surprisingly. Here’s a news item from, of all places, the New York Post. It seems that “a woman aggressively yanked Pope Francis by the arm in St. Peter’s Square on Tuesday, forcing the visibly testy pope to wrench his arm away from her clutches and slap at her hand twice to break free.”

What was that command from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount? I guess that quite literally dealt with turning the other cheek, not any other part of the anatomy.

Anyway, I did find a new pun, almost worthy of Dale, from the article.

What do you call a disagreement with the Pope?

Answer: A pon-tiff.

Yes, I have skin in the game.

Fuck Trump!

Bet my nipples are perkier than yours….

“What? You’ve never heard of ‘shrinkage’?”

“Is it too late to say Happy Nude Year?”

“How was your holiday? Mine was wild.”

“How was your holiday? Mine was wild.”

“My garage sale went better than expected.”

“The garage sale went better than expected.”

“You must be the new neighbor.”

I!m goin through manopause….

It’s just a fraternity prank…

“Great job, but I can’t give you both thumbs up.”

I see, you see, we all see my Icee.

The Weather Channel predicted McFlurries.

There’s nothing to see, move along.

Is this a hot flash or a winning streak?

I suck at strip poker…

Climate change has certainly impacted our block.

“Aruba, Jamaica, oh I want to take you to
Bermuda, Bahama, come on handsome poppa..”

“Pepsi Cola hits the spot
14 ounces
That!s a lot.”

Just took the polar bear plunge and I feel sooooooooooooooo ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m usually drawn to funny topics. Well, funny has two meanings, one funny-funny as in watching the Marx Brothers and the other funny-strange as in, “That’s funny. I thought I left my wallet on the table.”

Trump is one funny dude in the second sense. He’s busy cutting social programs so as to be able to build up the armed forces. He has no compunction about creating military emergencies and sending men to die even though he himself, like most of our past presidents, wheeled and dealed to avoid serving. He used student deferments and then pleaded the excuse of bone spurs in his heels, aided by a New York podiatrist as a favor to the podiatrist’s then-landlord, Fred Trump.

Although maybe the diagnosis did have some truth to it. After all, doesn’t Trump always seem to put his foot in his mouth?

But Trump shows the most chutzpah when he claims that his training at New York Military Academy (where he was sent as a teenager because his school behavior was troubled and his father thought he needed discipline) was more rigorous than that given to most military men and that he wouldn’t have been so stupid as John McCain was for allowing himself to be captured!

Now that’s funny!

In the second sense.

Got any SPF fifty?

I’m dyslectic; I thought it was summer….

Snowball and highball

“If ever I would leave you.
It wouldn’t be in winter.
Seeing you in winter,
I never could go”

“Does. Anybody. Still. Wear. A. Hat?”

“This is the Hans Christian Andersen test. Am I wearing any clothes?”

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A beautiful day for a neighbor..
Would you be mine?
Could you be mind?
Would you be my neighbor?

Two horses walk into a bar and the bartender says:
Why the long faces?

If winter comes.
Can spring be far behind?

I just saved $250 by switching to GEICO!

I just got a callback for the OH CALCUTTA revival….

“It’s amazing! After all these years, I can still fit into my birthday suit.”

You can call me Emp….

Shalom, shalom
You’ll find shalom
The nicest greeting you know.
It means bonjour, salut and shoal
And twice as much as Hello…

Did you know that the human body is composed of about 270 bones at birth and as a result of fusing, it has about 206 for an adult? Here, let’s count…

You look like you could use a hot toddy….

When I was in college, we protested by signing petitions.
Wearing no clothes seems to generate more of a response…

I came in eighth; Jesus, you shoulda seen the winner…

I came in eighth; god, you shoulda seen the winner…

Got more than expected last night!

I hire a guy to blow mine.

Doing it yourself? I just hire a guy to blow mine.

Good thing it’s cold out. I only had to buy a small.

Wassup???? I’ll show you wassup!!!!!!!

I’ll show you my bone spur if you’ll show me yours…..

Shrinkage has never been a part of my vocabulary…

Please do not tell my dermatologist!

Wanna ease on down the road?

You can see that my barber does north AND south…..

Welcome to Frostbite Falls.

Wave your little hand and yell out ‘so long Harvey,’
You ain’t gonna see me anymore…

So long, farewell, au revoir, auf weidersein.
Would you like to taste a bit of my champagne?

I get no kick from champagne.
Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all.
But it is so obvious and true.
That I get a kick out of you…

On the eighth day, I iced.

I’m checking everyone’s 20/20 in 2020.

“Hey neighbor. Do you have a minute to discuss shrinkage?”

“It used to be a Big Gulp cup.”

My urologist needs a urine sample..

By now everyone must have heard Joaquin Phoenix’s spaced-out speech last night as he won a Golden Globe for his performance in “Joker”; it almost seemed that we were really listening to the Joker himself, channeling Mr. Phoenix for the Joker to say what the Joker really wanted to say.

Reminding me of the other actor who played the Joker, Heath Ledger, who many years ago won Golden Globe and Academy and other awards for his portrayal in the movie “The Dark Knight” but let the character take possession of him (in the words of his ex-wife, Michelle Williams) and died soon after of a massive drug overdose. Is there a curse associated with the role?

If anyone’s interested in the real Joker, however, please read Alan Moore’s classic “The Killing Joke,” a superb story exploring the villain’s background and his confrontation with the Dark Knight. The story ends with a joke that the Joker tells Batman in a final confrontation.

Here is the joke:

JOKER: See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum … and one night, one night, they decide they don’t like living in an asylum any more. They decide they’re going to escape. So, like, they get up onto the roof, and there, just across this narrow gap, they see the roof tops of the town, stretching away in the moonlight … stretching away to freedom.

“Now, the first guy, he jumps right across with no problem. But his friend, his friend, daredn’t make the leap. Y’see … y’see …he’s afraid of falling. So then, the first guy has an idea … he says, ” Hey! I have my flashlight with me! I’ll shine it across the gaps between the buildings. You can walk along the beam and join me!”

B-but the second guy just shakes his head. He, suh, says… He says,

“Wh-what do you think I am? Crazy?

“Y-you’d turn it off when I was half way across!”

Robert D, thanks for your choice of Cole Porter’s lyrics for “I Get a Kick Out of You,” but you might have included these lines from the same song with their breathtaking five rhymes, one tumbling out after the other:
“I get no kick in a plane.
Flying too high
With some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do,
Yet I get a kick out of you.”

Wow! No? Thanks again for sharing.

“I feel naked without my drink.”

Has a new horse entered the race and taken the lead? The name’s Tom Preston, and two of his great lines are “Good thing it’s cold out. I only had to buy a small.”

Where did you come from?

But welcome. And thanks for the laughs.

And let’s see more for the new year and for the new contest?

My pleasure, Gerald. It’s FUN!!

“I left my inhibitions at the mikvah.”

“”Unlike the incumbent, I offer complete transparency.””

“It stimulates the circulation.”

“My sauna conked out.”

Is your wife around?

“Joyeux Moël!”

Winter bris.

“Too ballsy?”

“Taking the dreidel for a spin.”

Who needs warmth when you’ve got freedom.

“Ready for the open hose? I mean, house?”

“The objects seen through the plastic are larger than they appear.”

“Let’s drink to global warming. Trump is right, it’s not a threat.
Winter snowstorms such as this one are what I’d most like to forget.”

Shaq and I recommend Icy Hot.

“No, I’m not frozen — I’m chosen!”

“As a pluralistic Jew, I’m not clothes-minded!”

Top of the morn Bob-o! You mind shoveling my driveway next?

Hey Bob, just cut off my penis with a chainsaw!

The neighborhood mohel is three houses on your left.

I need directions to the Garden of Eden. I lost my fig leaf and need a replacement.

I think you’re being gaslighted.

I think my Icee is stuck to my icicle.

May I borrow your scarf?

My cup runneth over.

Less is more…more or less.

Hey, Joe, ask me why Debbie didn’t as me to shovel this year.

It’s the Emperor’s Nude Clothes.

Hello sir, I’m doing polling of women in the area. Is the misses home?

Thought I’d try out a new icebreaker!

“We moved down here for the warm winters.”

“Maybe you’d like to join me.”

“Could I trouble you for a little ice for my drink?”

“We should start a new club.”

“Hey, neighbor! How’s it hanging?”

“Nice tool.”

“Need an extra pair of hands?”

“Don’t bother. Property values on this block have gone through the floor.”

“I see you’re still embracing all the norms.”

“I can lend a hand if you’ll just grab my cocktail.”

“Am I hot enough for ya?”

“I’ll shovel your property for forty dollars or leave it for eighty.”

“I just found out the laundry doesn’t deliver.”

Hey Joe, I lost betting on the snowball fights.

Hiya pal, wanna sip?

Guess who’s coming to dinner.

Ha, Ha, very funny Ray! Now give me back my clothes!

Buddy, I like your shovel, but mine’s bigger.

Hi, I’m Frosty, the ding-dong,walking up and down your street, sliding here and there, almost anywhere, scaring everyone I meet.

Say neighbor, Do you happen to have another pair of boots?

Could you help me? I think I took a wrong turn. Is this the “Happy Farm Nudist Colony”?

I know what you are thinking. So yes, I’m going bald.

What’s the point of being nude, if you can’t share it with a friend?

Stupid dryer, makes everything shrink.

i lost my clothes betting on the snowball fights.

Those snow moths really eat your clothes, but good.

Yeah George, my wife locked me outta the house again.

The winter air is great for my hemorrhoids.

Hello I’m the pastor from the church down the street. How about joining our congregation? We’re real free thinkers.

“I won a free trip to the mikvah when I won the office pool.”

(Thanks, Dinah, for the idea. You can steal one from me next time.)

Hi. Wanna join me? Be free. Feel the wind between those knees.

“Hey, Mike, Mike, Mike. Wanna guess what’s worse than getting your tongue stuck to a frozen pole?”

I don’t believe in climate change and I’m much happier!

“Hey, it’s the 50th anniversary of my bris.”

Have you ever tried menudo?

Shoveling snow can make anyone testy.

“I heard you are having a house warming. That’s great, because it’s time for my personal climate change!”

“My psychiatrist said, ‘You need to keep a cool head,’ and I thought a cool body would help.”

“Would you believe I live in an air-conditioned igloo?”

“Can you give me directions to the nearest nude beach?”

“In my past life, I was a polar bear, and somehow now I am frozen in time!”

I’m freezing my Shalomi.

“I’m a little cold. Could I borrow one of your yarmulkes?”

“Often when you take a drink, your bad side is revealed.
But with the drink that I have now, my bad side is concealed.”

“The warmest winter ever and this is how I find you?”

I don’t know if we’ve met, but I’m your daughters boyfriend.

Am I cool or what?

My divorce is finalized.

“I’m coming out as a Jew”

At Burger King, it takes two hands to handle a whopper.

I love these bottomless refills.

At the deli, tell them Big Mike sent you.

“Let’s hang out together.”

Are you in good hands?

I won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.

Don’t eat yellow snow cones.

I told my baby it’s cold outside… she didn’t agree.

Have you heard about manspreading?

Does anyone remember “Professor” Irwin Corey? He died a few years ago at 102 and was essentially a double-talk comedian who billed himself as “the world’s foremost authority.” His words seemed to make sense and were delivered in complete seriousness but were sheer nonsense. Well, even though Irwin Corey is gone, we today have a worthy successor. His name is Donald Trump. Here is a transcript of one of “Professor” Donald Trump’s speeches on climate control, thanks to Jonathan Chait. If you can figure out what he actually said, PLEASE notify me.

“You can blow up a pipeline, you can blow up the windmills. You know, the wind wheels (mimics windmill noise, mimics shooting gun). Bing! That’s the end of that one. If the birds don’t kill it first. The birds could kill it first. They kill so many birds. You look underneath some of those windmills, it’s like a killing field, the birds. But, uh, you know, that’s what they were going to, they were going to windmills. And you know, don’t worry about wind, when the wind doesn’t blow, I said, “What happens when the wind doesn’t blow?” Well, then we have a problem. Okay good. They were putting him in areas where they don’t have much wind, too. And it’s a subsidary–you need subsidy for windmills. You need subsidy. Who wants to have energy where you need subsidy? So, uh, the coal is doing great.

(P.S. I thought Irwin Corey made more sense.)

If the previous excerpt hasn’t given you intellectual indigestion, here’s another excerpt, thanks to Tony Rhodes, this from a speech given by President Trump on Iran’s nuclear power. It’ll either make you laugh or, possibly, give you an ulcer:

“My uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart–you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world–it’s true!–but when you’re a conservative Republican, they try–oh, do they do a number–that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune–you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged– but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me–it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right–who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners–now it used to be three, now it’s four–but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so you know, it’s gonna take them another 150 years–but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”

#######################

Well, although we don’t have that great World War II codebreaker, Alan Turing, on hand to help us, we do have our Jim Gorman from California to call upon to possibly make sense of the above. How about it, Jim? We haven’t, unfortunately, heard much from you lately.

Did you want matzah balls or chutzpah balls?

Howdy, neighbor! You missed a spot…

“Should we start a jogging club?”

Jim, thanks, but is apophenia necessarily a bad thing to have? Aren’t geniuses those who can see connections that no one else can, thereby making fortunes on their bets? Aren’t great poets those who put two sticks together that no else has thought to mix, thereby creating great metaphors? John Dryden once summed up the puzzle: “Great wits are to madness near allied / And thin partitions do their bounds divide.”

So what is Trump, a farsighted prophet or incipient schizophrenic? If you ask me, he’s the latter. If you ask those violent crowds who attend his rallies and extend his cry to make America great again, he’s the former.

Again, thanks as always for your thoughts.

To tweak one of Dale’s entries on January 17th:

“I won two Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actor. Want to see them?”

“The neighbor kids used to come round, but you never see them anymore.”

I spilled my drink. Do you have an ice scraper?

Spring has sprung.

If I said it wasn’t cold, I’d be a Pinocchio.

Hold that thought…I just got a text from Anthony Weiner.

“Hi, neighbor, I’m here to invite you to a cocktail party celebrating Purim 2020. We know the holiday’s not till March, but we thought we’d start drinking early.”

“They say you can’t keep a good man down.”

Gerald, got my grogger and ready to partly!

Let’s take a picture together, just point and click.

Stephen, your ‘They say you can’t keep a good man down’ was well worth waiting for.

Incidentally, in all the years I’ve seen your work, this is the first contest in which you’ve submitted what might be called X-rated captions.

Just an observation, not a criticism by any means, for your submissions are ALWAYS good.

Thanks.

“Say, isn’t it nice out?”

Cold frontal coming through!

Big Gulp? Yeah, getting that reaction all over town.

That picture of Brett Favre was just a Croc.

Take this job and shovel it. I ain’t twerking here no more.

Let’s make like a banana and split.

It’s Victoria’s Little Secret.

I’m working in my product placement.

Location, location, location.

“The Full Motke”

“I believe in the right to bare everything!”

Who’s the Chinook Schnook this time?

“Are you coming to my gender reveal party?”

“Michael Angelo David is my name, and nudity is my game!”
+++
(Dale, I’m back. Now you can put away your anti-depressants.)

“My life has been a harsh and blustery existence!”

“My Nude Vodka Soda is made with vodka, sparkling water, and all-natural essences. You might say that this drink ‘brings out’ the best in you!”
+++
Dedicated to Gerald Lebowitz who appreciates a NUDE DRINK!

“My girlfriend wants to get married, but I tried to explain to her that COLD FEET is just the beginning of my problems!”

Welcome back, Marvin. And already in top form!

Marvin, the vacation did you good.

It recharged you, sharpened your wit.

I’m going to imitate you and take a vacation, too.

I’m leaving now.

But I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

What can I do in that short time?

I figured it all out out.

I can take a leisurely walk from the refrigerator to the couch and back, with stops in between.

Talk to you soon.

“My body ‘RUNS ON ANTI-FREEZE’ so I don’t have to hybernate!”

“I’m also known as ‘Smokey,’ because I’m a little BARE!”

“I dress up like this for Halloween to become a NUTTY professor!”

“My foreign doctor told me that I have Coronavirus from drinking Corona beer. But, I think something was lost in translation.”

“As a decent photographer, I never dreamt that the police would ‘capture me’ for INDECENT EXPOSURE!”

Some of my favorite sayings are:

FREE WILLY
WHERE’S THE BEEF?
OSCAR MEYER WEINER
and
WHAT’S UP?

Marvin, I’m back, refreshed from my long vacation, and I brought someone with me who wants to write about mezuzahs. Her name is Nancy Maxwell, a very funny librarian:

“Not only is displaying a mezuzah typically Jewish, so is how it is hung. As the story has it, a heated debate broke out between the eleventh-century sage Rashi and his grandson about the proper direction to hang it. Rashi believed it must be affixed vertically, while his grandson insisted it be horizontal. Providing us an example of Jews finding middle ground, they compromised. We now position our mezuzahs at an angle between the up and sideways axis. The top of the mezuzah points toward the inside of the room, and the bottom points toward the outside.”

Calling to mind the story of the non-Jewish painter who removed all the mezuzahs in the large apartment of an elderly woman’s apartment, then later, after the painting job was finished, reassuring the woman: “I put them all back exactly as you told me.” And then he added with pride, “I even removed all the warranties that were rolled up inside.”

Breaking news: Environmental organizer fired for using plastic straw amid ill-timed naked climate protest.

Writing the above, I realized that there is a lot of humor about people who do inappropriate things with the greatest of good intentions, like my house painter removing the “warranties.”

For example, the aspiring boy scout who goes out to do a good deed and comes back home after three hours.

“What took you so long?” his mother asks.

“I tried to help a little old lady cross the street,” the boy answers.

“But why were you gone for the whole afternoon?” the mother pursues.

“She didn’t want to go,” the boy shrugs.

########

Or the story of the monkey saying to a fish, “Let me help you so that you won’t drown,” as he carries the poor fish up the tree.

You get the picture. Humor is often the product of an embarrassing confrontation, isn’t it? 🙂

This is my last post about the matter, I promise: But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the mother of all humor is embarrassment.

I don’t, however, know who the father is.

“I must have taken a wrong turn two miles back.”

Have you heard the song, “MY DING-A-LING?” by Dave Bartholomew/Chuch Berry (1972).
Some words have a special meaning to a Nude Man.
That song reminds me of the following phrases.
+++
(1) Don’t pull my chain.
(2) Don’t handle the merchandise.
(3) Pop goes the weasel.
(4) Easy come-easy go.
(5) Swing high-swing low.
(6) Bring it on.
(7) Love means never having to say you are sorry.
(8) Hang on to what you have.
(9) Keep your eyes on the prize.

Other songs by Chuck Berry (spelled correctly, this time!) that have a special meaning to a Nude Man.
(1) Johnny B. Goode
(2) Let’s Twist Again
(3) I’m Talking About You
(4) I’m A Rocker

“I’m playing peek-a-boo in the neighborhood. So PEEK and BOO!”

Baby it’s cold outside!

Do you want to hug together for warmth?

Am I early for the costume party?

This drink is the fun size.

“As an exhibitionist, I really love the NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH!”

“One advantage of my journey is that I am not EXPOSED to pickpockets!”

“I predict two more months of cold weather, and that’s the NAKED TRUTH!”

This is part of the nude and proud exercise program.

I’m sorry I was writing my memoirs and spilled white out all over my clothes.

Hello I’m the local police chief. Have you seen any suspicious activity?

Neighbor, I’m holding a weenie roast. Love for you to come.

“I’m the advance man for this year’s Groundhog Day. We’re predicting an early spring.”

“My formal attire consists of a tall hat and a bowtie.”

“I was invited to the SKIN’S football game in Washington, D.C. But, I didn’t like HANGING OUT with that crowd!”

“My Bubbe said jokingly to me at my Bris: ‘When you grow up, you will be more than a HANDFUL!'”