I am just goingn to write.  I’m going to write some incoherent trash and see how much of it I can do.  I bet I could fill up this entire page with incoherent trash.  Lets see.  There once was a boy.  He was a really funny boy that made up a lot of funny jokes and told them to his friends.  They called him the joke man.  The joke man was about thirteen years old.  He had sandy blonde hair and was shorter than most of his friends, but he was funny.  He had that thing going for him.  Other people could run, play football, play sports, play things, but he could tell jokes.  He one time even wrote down a lot of the jokes he knew.  He put jokes that he had made up, ones that he had heard from people, as long as they were pretty original and uncommon he put it in his joke book.  He spent a few days typing up all those jokes.  He put in story jokes, the kind that are not just one liners but that involve and entire plot.  He put in riddles.  He put in puns.  He put in everything he knew.  It was an instant hit.  Even though it was only thirty pages or so, people couldn’t get enough of it.  He even saw his teacher reading his joke book.  It was thirty pages of stapled together paper print straight off of his printer.  He made five copies.  One for each of his friends.

His friends were Johnny, David, Nick, and Fred.  He made a copy of the joke book for himself too.  Johnny was really good at football.  David was really good at basketball.  Nick was really good at baseball and Fred was really good at soccer.  They were all really good at some sport, but jokeman was good at jokes.  Nobody really knew what Jokeman’s name was because they had called him Jokeman for so long.  David was the one who made up the name Jokeman back in kindergarten after Jokeman told a joke making fun of their kindergarten teacher.  They had been friends ever since.  David didn’t even know what Jokeman’s name was.  David introduced Jokeman to Nick and Fred in the first grade.  They met Johnny in the third grade.  Now they were in 8th grade but they were still really good friends.  Jokeman was generally really quiet, but whenever he said something everyone listened because a new joke would come out.  It would almost always be hilarious.

Every once in awhile Jokeman would miss on a joke.  He would tell a joke, and maybe one out of a hundred jokes would not work.  He took this seriously.  This was his one characteristic that made him special.  He could tell jokes.  He had to make his jokes good.  He couldn’t even have one joke fail if his life was based on jokes.  He had to get 100% success rate.  So what did he do?  He worked on it.  Every joke that failed he would write down also into the failed joke book.  It kinda contrasted with the real joke book because it was all the failed jokes.  Jokeman would look at his failed joke book and try to figure out what made those jokes bad.  Even though he told so many jokes, the failed joke book did not fill up very fast.  He only had a page or so when he published the real joke book of thirty pages.  Nobody even knew that he had this failed joke book.  The failed joke book was a really sad thing for Jokeman.  Every afternoon he would look at the page that he typed and try to figure out a way to make those jokes work.  They never seemed right.  Sometimes he would try them out again on his friends, but they would always fail the second time.  No joke that failed the first time ever made it to being funny again even after all the tweaking that Jokeman did with his failed jokes.  He just couldn’t make those jokes work.  Either a joke worked or it didn’t.  There was no chance for failed jokes to become funny.

Jokeman looked at his failed joke book and tried to throw it away on quite a few occaisions.  He could never bring himself to throw away the book.  He would look at it and hold it close to him as if those failed jokes had more to do with his identity than the thirty page book of successful jokes.

One day a publisher contacted Jokeman.  It was crazy.  All his friends went crazy.  They wanted to publish the joke book.  Johnny asked him how much was he going to be paid for the joke book?  Jokeman didn’t really know.  His parents are the ones who talked to the publisher.  Jokeman knew one thing.  He had to publish his failed jokes with the joke book.  They were as much a part of his identity now.  They could not be separated from the real joke book.

When he told his parents this, they talked to the publisher for him.  They told the publisher, “He really wants these other set of jokes to go in with the rest of the joke book.”  The publisher thought it was a good idea.  He had never read the jokes in the failed joke book after all.  A few days later however, the publisher called back to say that he just couldn’t publish the other jokes.  They weren’t funny.  Jokeman even went on the phone to talk to the publisher directly.  “Please publish these  jokes!  They’re only a page long.”  The publisher said, “It will dillute the effect of the joke book.  We want an all funny book, not a funny book with a few really lame jokes in it.  Every book needs editing and yours didn’t need any.  I can see why now.  You edited it yourself.  You know these jokes are not as good as the rest.  Why do you want them included?”  Jokeman told the publisher, “I don’t know, I just need to have them included.”

“I’m sorry.  I can’t do that.  Its my job on the line.”  Jokeman didn’t know what to do.  He could tell his parents not to publish the joke book but everyone was so happy that his joke book was going to be published.  He couldn’t sort it out.  At the same time, there was this nagging feeling inside him that told him he was betraying those jokes.  He was betraying himself by not publishing the failed jokes with the joke book.  They were one and the same.  They all came from the same source, they had to be published together.

What was he going to do?  Finally the joke book was published, and it was published without the failed jokes.  It sold wonderfully.  It was on the NYTimes bestseller list.  It sold even quicker because the jokes were so funny yet they also had poignant moments in them.  The jokes reached a certain part of people’s hearts that had never been touched before.  People bought the book even more after they learned that it had been written by a thirteen year old kid.  Yes, jokeman became famous.  Yes he was still named jokeman because the publisher decided to publish the book under that name in order to protect the privacy of Jokeman.

Jokeman still wanted to get his failed jokes published.  He called up another publisher in new york city.  It was a rival publisher. The publisher had heard of him and was instantly interested in the possibility of publishing another joke book by Jokeman.  The publisher came down to see him and read his joke book.  It was too short.  It couldn’t be a joke book by itself.  It was only a page long.  The publisher looked at Jokeman with a puzzled look.  He couldn’t tell if he was wasting his time with this thirteen year old kid or not. Was this kid just kidding around with him?  He read the jokes.  They were not funny at all.

Jokeman saw the hesitation in the eyes of the publisher.  What can I do?  How can I get him to publish my jokes?  I’ll write him more jokes he thought.  I’ll write him funny ones.  So jokeman made the publisher come back a few weeks later.  During those weeks he worked hard.  He made up new jokes.  He wrote on his computer for a long time.  He had to get this jokebook published.  The second publisher agreed to publish his new jokebook with the failed jokes.  That was jokeman’s condition.  He wrote the second jokebook.  It wasn’t as long, but it was even funnier than the first jokebook.

A few months later, the second jokebook came out.  People bought this one up even faster.  People loved his jokes. They were funny and some were even touching at the same time.  The first publisher saw this second joke book and was extremely angry.  He came back and talked to Jokeman.  “Jokeman why did you  publish with them?”  he asked.  Jokeman told him “You wouldn’t publish my page of failed jokes and I had to have them out there with the rest of my jokes.  They’re  a part of me.”  The publisher said, “But your failed jokes aren’t in the second book either!”

Jokeman looked stunned when he heard this statement.  Surely they were there.  Surely the second publisher hadn’t tricked him.  Jokeman quickly ran to the bookstore and bought a copy of his own second jokebook.  He looked through the pages.  They were there.  His failed jokes were there.  They hadn’t been changed at all.  They were there right in the midst of his funny jokes.  Jokeman was relieved.  “I wonder why the publisher said they weren’t in the book.”

The publisher never called back so he never found out.  Nick came over to him one day and told him the second jokebook was even funnier than the first joke book.  “Why?” jokeman wondered.  “Because, there are some jokes that aren’t funny.”  “How does that make it more funny?”  Nick looked a little confused.  “I don’t know why it makes your other jokes more funny, but it just does.”

Jokeman got to go to the bookstore again one day, but not to buy his book but to sign people’s copies of the book.  As he was signing it, an old lady came up to the booth and told him that the second joke book made her cry.  Why would the jokebook make her cry?  The jokebook is supposed to be funny.  “It was funny,” she said, “but it was also you.  I felt like from reading those jokes, I knew who you are Eddie.”

He looked into her eyes and somehow she understood him.  He didn’t know why she called him Eddie, maybe it was his name, but even he couldn’t remember anymore.  He would have to ask his parents when he got home.  But somehow, he felt connected to the old woman.  He felt sure that his name really was Eddie.  He was glad he had those failed jokes published.  He wasn’t just funny anymore,  he was more than that.  He was something else. He had something else.