OK. So, this guy walks into a small bar and it's not busy and so he just sits down pretty much in the middle, leans against the bar and orders a drink. He's just casually gazing out the front window so's his left side is toward the bartender- who can see quite plainly that this whack-job has a banana sticking out of his ear. Trying to be discreet, the bartender doesn't say anything, but it's getting to him. Finally he quietly queries the man of mystery but he doesn't even blink. So, the bartender wanders off to munch up napkins the way they do so the corners rotate around and that makes them easier to grab and all of a sudden, "Why do you have a freakin banana in your ear?!"
The guy is obviously trying to be a jerk now, so the bartender stomps over and grabs his arm and swings him around and opens his mouth to start yelling when the guy takes out the banana and quite politely says, "Oh- I'm so sorry I couldn't hear you. I have a banana in my ear."
That's it.
It needs the proper delivery. National Lampoon did a funny poster around that joke of VanGogh holding his severed ear with a banana sticking out of it. I have a feeling many people didn't get that poster, either. The joke is what I call a New York bar joke. The kind that my grandfather used to tell and everyone at the bar would skip a beat and then start wailing with laughter all at the same time.
I'll never forget I was telling that joke at a little Italian restaurant in Green St in SanFrancisco's North Beach. The requirement to work there was that you had to be at least 70 years old and cranky. Service was always peremptory and curt at best. Dinner came in courses and you didn't get the next one until you finished your minestrone- which you got whether you ordered it or not. So- there were several people at the table, my father, the new wife, my girlfriend, and I think a couple other people. A decent crowd. I'm telling this story/joke and in the back of my mind I'm noticing we're getting uncharacteristically good service. In fact, the waitress is absolutely doting on us; rearranging things on the table, ladling soup out (which they had never done before) all while I'm narrating. So, I get to the punchline- such as it is- and everyone is stunned. Mouths half open, eyes looking around the table at the others while the heads aren't moving. All of a sudden, like the crack of lightening!, a loud shriek comes from behind my right shoulder and everyone turns to see the ancient old crabbiness incarnate- head back, her face contorted, emitting gales of laughter. When everyone saw that she thought it was funny, then everyone at the table made an instant group decision that it must be funny and the whole table started roaring as the waitress hobbled off wiping tears away.
So...a few minutes have passed and before the Hail Fellow- Well Met bonhomie completely dissipated, everyone is wondering when the food is coming. Eventually our waitress gimps out of the kitchen and comes quietly to my side. She meant to whisper but everyone could hear her ask me, "Was that a banana- or a bean?" The whole table erupted all over again as soon as I got out the last "a" in banana.
