[ejenk21]

SYNOPSIS: Standup in the 22nd century

Hiya, hiya, hiya, folks. It's a pleasure to be here in New Miami, and I hope you'll excuse me for being a little exhausted. I just flew in, and boy, is my antigravity belt ever HOT! Hey, ain't these modern belts something else? Definitely not your grandpa's antigrav belt. These RIDE UP! Heh,heh, I love that joke.

But seriously, folks. Don't you just hate being in an antigrav lane? It's so crowded now, you can smell the gnork in front of you. They got rid of airplanes, but they didn't get rid of EXHAUST GAS. Don't talk to me about the control puters. Don't talk to me! They're in your face all the time. All the time, with their "Please do not look downward. It is not acceptable to regurgitate while in transit. Please do not swivel around to view the traveler behind you. Gyroscopic compensation fees will be added to your transit costs. If you feel a need to urinate, please signal your needs by declaring 'Number one' into your shoulder sensophone. If you feel a need to defecate, please signal your needs by declaring 'Number two'. You will be descended to the nearest waste reprocessing kiosk. Since these may be no closer than 100 kilometers on some routes, please do not delay your declaration." Makes you feel like a baby, doesn't it? Like your mom asking if you need to winkle before getting on the Centauri shuttle.

Actually, folks, I kind of like that. I admit it, I didn't have a mom like real people. My daddy was a syringe, and my mom was a vat. That's right! I'm a clone. Go on, go on, whisper among yourselves. You've never seen a clone comic before. Right? Out of my place, huh? Yeah, yeah, I know. We're invisible to you folks.

Oh, I'm not complaining. I'd better not. After all, we're here for sex and nothing but. Your sex. Don't talk to me! But I'm grateful to be alive. It's a full six-hour day, but then I get to enjoy myself. We're the same as you in many ways. Prettier, healthier, less moody, but the basically the same. I like a whaleburger just like you. Say, isn't it great that we brought back the whales? Aren't they scrumptious?

This genezoic technology is great. Do you know they once didn't have enough oil? Now we make our own! You couldn't drive a Chrysler if they didn't. What, you don't drive? Have to take the antigrav all the time? Only little people do that. But don't feel bad. The poor will inherit the earth, they say. Yeah, sure. All the nice stuff is ON THE MOON.

Hey, whatever happened to fusion power? You were gonna drive around with a little machine that turned banana peels into energy. Hello! We're still waiting! I ate a thousand banana splits just to build a fuel stockpile. No, really, that's why I did it. Honest. Why won't you believe me?

And what about those Centaurs? Are they smelly, or what? Maybe not to you. Clones have better noses. Wish we didn't, most of the time. Hey, it’s my job, but I gotta tell ya, a lot of you folks could use a bath. Come on, give us a break. The act will be easier if you're less funky.

Back to the Centaurs. Their tails so high in the air all the time. You were better off without them, even if they did bring the antigrav and the DNAlevators.

But before I get into that, I'd like to do a few basic clone jokes. Why not? People do 'em all the time.

You know, when I was growing up I was so poor didn't even have my own name. Just a number. To begin with, I didn't even have a personal number. I was just part of batch XEM-1324. Clones die off so fast they wait a couple months before they give the leftovers individual numbers. I'm 937. So my full official identity is XEM-1324-937. Kind of rolls off your tongue, doesn't it? Easier to remember than one of your people-type sixteen digit whoppers. Let me play a little bit here. Madam, yes you right here in the pink flashsuit, let me guess. You're an 873, am I right? I knew it! (Thank you, thank you, don't applaud, just do a bitburst. Nothing smaller than a thousand, please: my accountant says it just isn't worth it.) You know what gives it away? There's this leetle depression in the skullbone just above the left eyebrow. Really sexy if you're another 873. I'm not, but it's my day job to know these things.

And how about you, sir? How do you like it in Valparaiso? How did I know that? That was just a guess, based on your being a 1620. They like the extra magnesium in the water. Don't get mad, but those ears are a giveaway.

Huh, I sorta let things shift, there. This isn't a magic act, it's standup.

So there I was, not long out of the vat, and somebody lets one go. Well, you can imagine. We're all genetically identical, we've been living in the same environment, eating the same soylent, surrounded by the same buds all our short lives, so naturally, we ALL let go with one. WOOF! The ones farthest into the pile just about died. Literally. I was on the inside. Can you spell Auschwitz? Don't talk to me!

But it wasn't all that bad growing up. We did fight a bit over the hand-me-downs. After five, six weeks out of the vat you start developing some individuality even if you're basically being handled alike. There's always random variation: some mean, some sweet, some smart, some human--gotcha! The handlers respond to that, so after a while they may pick out a name for you, and you start being recognized as different. Which means that the hand-me-downs are not equally stinky.

So that's how I got to be Leopold. This really pretty girl Brenda was like a mother to me. Me and another forty-nine surviving littermates. Oh, the tricks we played on her. But she got even. She carried a shocker on a wrist loop all the time. There was no alternative. If she had warmed our butts she would have worn out her hand in two weeks. Oh, yeah, I remember that shocker. A good, no-nonsense 20 kilovolts. More kilovolts when you got bigger. Ow! Don't talk to me!

In case you didn't know, and why should you, a clone matures in 18 months. So it's roughly a month of ours to a year of yours. After gestation. You take nine months in the womb, but we only take three in those vats. You wouldn't need all that time if you allowed yourselves to be better engineered, but you're old-fashioned. Absolutely right to be cautious. You can take a chance with a clone, there's always another one coming along, but not with a real live people.

As you can figure, they started teaching me my trade at about fourteen months. Was that ever fun! Ya know, it's the best part about being a clone. It's really STIMULATING work. It's that new and improved nervous system. And if you by chance get a bad partner, you just turn off the pain pathways until the cops come. Yep, it’s a wonderful life.

So anyway, about those Centaurs. They don't bother me, I'm way down the food chain anyway, but I don't know about you folks. From what I hear, you feel a little funny about creatures with a civilization a thousand times older than yours. But I'm here to tell you, older ain't better. Where's their Picassos and Baudelaires and Ngangas and Fujiwatsus? Answer me that! Do you believe those fancypants mind sculpture things are ART? That any Joe Blow Centaur can whip one off with an hour's notice? That they award whole planets as prizes for the best ones? Don't talk to me!

Well, you've been a great crowd. I've really appreciated my chance to perform here at the Great Subsurface Phoodery and Phishery. Maybe you will catch me live in the EuropaDope Lounge next decaday, in orbit above beautiful downtown Methaneville. If not, you can stop by my crib in Corpus Christi. My number's in those matchbooks right on your tables.

It's been a great night, and I'd like to leave you with this little ditty that came to me when I was about 13 months out of the vat--

Be a clone, be a clone,
And you'll have no life of your own…

Good night, everybody. Don't talk to me!

[RENA HANDS]

I too love the joke! (The introductory sentence).

Did you mean…

Did you know they once didn’t have enough oil?

This was, is morbidly twisted. And I love that! I give 5/5!

Don’t talk to me…:l augh:

[alja123]

Bits of this remind me of Futarama.

Are the jokes supposed to be funny funny or a "the future is lame" kind of funny? Other than some exceptions (the thing about oil, fusion power, centaurs), it was the latter for me. But hey, i guess maybe it'll be funny funny in 100 years or so. Actually i'm sure that if someone manages to read this in the 22nd, they'll get a good laugh out of it.
Actually i'd like to see something like this performed. Do a fantasy one next, lol.