Street Performance Lines and Banter

List of typical street lines and banter (just off the top of my head!)

1.)    (person walks through your show)

Response: It’s ok, it’s just a stage they’re going through.

                  I don’t walk into your bedroom in the middle of the night when you’re trying to perform!

It’s ok ladies and gentlemen, that man is just my agent and look at me I’m working on the streets.

Variation ~ That woman is my dear old mum – don’t worry she never acknowledges me in public.  I love you mummy!!!

2.)    ‘Something’ of Death or Doom, eg. The unicycle of death, the knives of death, the fire of doom etc.

3.)    (Parent with kid on Shoulders)  Excuse me sir, do you realise there’s a small child growing out of your head.  Small child, do you realise there’s a man growing out of your…never mind.

4.)    Juggling ~ There is a stage in every man’s life when their balls have to drop.

5.)    (man looking nonplussed with their hands in pockets) Please take your hands out of your pockets; this is a kid’s show.  Or  Take your hands out of your pockets we all know what you’re doing down there,

6.)    (Woman looking nonplussed with arms crossed) You might want to unfold your arms, you’ll squish your breasts or it’ll hurt when you clap.

7.)    I want you all to whoop, cheer, clap, throw small children in the air, you sir?  I want you to drop your pants and go ‘Whoooo’ when I count to tree for no reason at all just so we can grow our crowd and people will think I’m great.

8.)    Late comers ~ Sorry the shows over and now we’re talking about Jesus.

9.)    And for my big finale I will kill a small child.

10.)                        Hat lines ~ Stop, wait, don’t move and don’t walk away like those cheap chavs over there.

If you meet me in a pub and I showed you a card trick you’d probably buy me a pint and a pint is what, £5.00 in this economy.

Please come up and put some money in my hat, just open your wallet, take it out and fold it neatly.

If you don’t have any cash there’s a cash machine over there.

Rewarding a volunteer (usually a small child) with a note (money) and saying that they deserved it for being so brave as to come out there in front of all those people and perform for them.

I’m not paid or sponsored to be here not by the bank, the (whatever) shop your near, not by the government or any other criminal organisation.

If you’ve just arrived and wondering what’s happening, people are giving me money for no reason, come join them!

Travel Guide for Flying Part IV - Jokes

Aeroplane Jokes and Funnies!

An engineer and a programmer
A programmer and an engineer are sitting next to each other on a long flight from Los Angeles to New York.

The programmer leans over to the engineer and asks if he would like to play a fun game.

The engineer just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks.

The programmer persists and explains that the game is real easy and is a lot of fun. He explains "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5. Then you ask me a question, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $5."

Again, the engineer politely declines and tries to get to sleep.

The programmer, now somewhat agitated, says, "OK, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $100!"

This catches the engineer's attention, and he sees no end to this torment unless he plays, so he agrees to the game.

The programmer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" The engineer doesn't say a word, but reaches into his wallet, pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to the programmer.

Now, it's the engineer's turn. He asks the programmer "What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down on four?"

The programmer looks up at him with a puzzled look. He takes out his laptop computer and searches all of his references. He taps into the Airphone with his modem and searches the net and the Library of Congress. Frustrated, he sends e-mail to his co-workers--all to no avail.

After about an hour, he wakes the Engineer and hands him $100. The engineer politely takes the $100 and turns away to try to get back to sleep. The programmer, more than a little miffed, shakes the engineer and asks "Well, so what's the answer?" Without a word, the engineer reaches into his wallet, hands the programmer $5, and turns away to get back to sleep.

Those raccoons are not luggage
As migration approached, two elderly vultures doubted they could make the trip south, so they decided to go by airplane.

When they checked their baggage, the attendant noticed that they were carrying two dead raccoons. "Do you wish to check the raccoons through as luggage?" she asked.

"No, thanks," replied the vultures. "They're carrion."

What just happened here?
A military cargo plane, flying over a populated area, suddenly loses power and starts to nose down. The pilot tries to pull up, but with all their cargo, the plane is too heavy. So he yells to the soldiers in back to throw things out to make the plane lighter. They throw out a pistol. "Throw out more!" shouts the pilot. So they throw out a rifle. "More!" he cries again. They heave out a missile, and the pilot regains control.

He pulls out of the dive and lands safely at an airport. They get into a jeep and drive off. Pretty soon they meet a boy on the side of the road who's crying. They ask him why he's crying and he says "A pistol hit me on the head!"

They drive more and meet another boy who's crying even harder. Again they ask why and the boy says, "A rifle hit me on the head!"

They apologize and keep driving. They meet a boy on the sidewalk who's laughing hysterically. They ask him, "Kid, what's so funny?" The boy replies, "I sneezed and a house blew up!"

What was the problem before?
Taxiing down the tarmac, the jetliner abruptly stopped, turned around and returned to the gate.

After an hour-long wait, it finally took off.

A concerned passenger asked the flight attendant, "What was the problem?"

"The pilot was bothered by a noise he heard in the engine," explained the Flight Attendant, "and it took us a while to find a new pilot."


I deserve a first class seat
A blonde gets on an airplane and sits down in the first class section of the plane. The stewardess rushes over to her and tells her she must move to coach because she doesn't have a first class ticket. The blonde replies, "I'm blonde, I'm smart, I have a good job, and I'm staying in first class until we reach Jamaica."

The disgusted stewardess gets the head stewardess who asks the blonde to leave. The blonde yet again repeats "I'm blonde, I'm smart, I have a good job and I'm staying in first class until we reach Jamaica." The head stewardesses doesn't even know what to do at this point because they still have to get the rest of the passengers seated to take off; the blode is causing a problem with boarding now, so the stewardess gets the copilot.

The copilot goes up to the blonde and whispers in her ear. She immediately gets up and goes to her seat in the coach section. The head stewardess asks the copilot in amazement what he said to get her to move to her correct seat. The copilot replies, "I told her the front half of the airplane wasn't going to Jamaica."

Boarding from what gate?
At the airport for a business trip, I settled down to wait for the boarding announcement at Gate 35. Then I heard the voice on the public address system saying, "We apologize for the inconvenience, but Delta Flight 570 will board from Gate 41."

So my family picked up our luggage and carried it over to Gate 41. Not ten minutes later the public address voice told us that Flight 570 would in fact be boarding from Gate 35.

So, again, we gathered our carry-on luggage and returned to the original gate. Just as we were settling down, the public address voice spoke again: "Thank you for participating in Delta's physical fitness program.

Half off these tickets
USAir recently introduced a special half fare for wives who accompanied their husbands on business trips. Expecting valuable testimonials, the PR department sent out letters to all the wives of businessmen who had used the special rates, asking how they enjoyed their trip.

Letters are still pouring in asking, "What trip?"

The world's smartest man?
A pilot, Michael Jordon, Bill Gates, the Pope, and a pizza delivery man were all in a plane together traveling through stormy conditions.

Suddenly, the pilot came running back to the passengers and announced that lightning had hit the plane, and they were going to crash in a matter of minutes. "There are only enough parachutes for four of the five of us," he announced. "Since I'm the pilot, I get one!" After saying this, the pilot grabbed a parachute and jumped out of the plane.

"I'm the world's greatest athlete," proclaimed Michael Jordon. "This world needs great athletes, so I must live." Michael Jordon then grabbed a parachute and leaped out of the plane.

"I'm the smarest man in the world," bragged Bill Gates. "The world needs smart men, so I must also live!" Bill Gates grabbed a parachute and jumped out of the plane.

At this point, the Pope began to speak. "I have lived a long life compared to you, and you may take the last parachute. I will go down with the plane."

"You don't have to stay here! The world's smartest man jumped out of the plane with my backpack."

The Christmas airport
It was a few days before Christmas. The trip went reasonably well, and he was ready to go back home. The airport on the other end had turned a tacky red and green, and loudspeakers blared annoying elevator renditions of cherished Christmas carols.

Being someone who took Christmas very seriously, and being slightly tired, he was not in a particularly good mood. (Almost a scrooge) Going to check in his luggage (which, for some reason, had become one suitcase with entirely new clothes), he saw hanging mistletoe. Not real mistletoe, but very cheap plastic with red paint on some of the rounder parts and green paint on some of the flatter and pointer parts, that could be taken for mistletoe only in a very Picasso sort of way.

With a considerable degree of irritation and nowhere else to vent it, he said to the attendant, "Even if we were married, I would not want to kiss you under such a ghastly mockery of mistletoe."

"Sir, look more closely at where the mistletoe is."

"Ok, I see that it's above the luggage scale which is the place you'd have to step forward for a kiss."

"That's not why it's there."

"Ok, I give up. Why is it there?"

"It's there so you can kiss your luggage good-bye."

What is MysterySeeker.com?

What is MysterySeeker.com?

The internet is a global phenomenon that has changed the way we communicate, work and play; even the Oxford English Dictionary has had to amend its contents to include the universal colloquialisms of techno babble and terms in our vocabulary.  It isn’t surprising therefore that if you’ve ever heard of ‘it’, someone will have written a blog on ‘it’.  Almost every conceivable topic or interest has been entered into a search engine at some point in time so that everything from the mundane to the utterly bizarre has a place in the vast, gobbling world network.

On the 10^th February 2009 (http://whois.domaintools.com/mysterygoogle.com) the domain name www.mysterygoogle.com was registered by a private, anonymous owner apparently listed as Markmoniter.  The registrant address is recorded as the company quarters of Google.  Back then if you were to visit that site, a strange and back-to-front search engine greeted you.  However, when you typed in your keywords and clicked to engage you would be redirected to a results list for a completely different term. 

After complaints from the corporate giant Google, mysterygoogle.com changed their name to mysteryseeker.com on the 30^th November 2009, according to the mighty brain of Wikipedia.  Google has not acknowledged any authority over the site but its popularity spread like wild fire reaching internet traffic of 440,000 visitors in November of 2009. 

Today the site is still running and works on the premise of directing searchers to the search term of the previous user, effectively generating random pages to visit.  Sometimes it seems to use the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on Google and direct you straight to a website, bypassing search results.  “You Can’t Always get what you Want” – there’s a lesson to learn and a philosophical debate to be had behind mysterseeker.com! 

These are actual examples:

Keywords Typed: weather forecast

Directed to Webpage: Wikipedia’s page on Centipedes

Keywords Typed: Movie Reviews

Search Results For: Lenovo?

Keywords Typed: Who am I?

Directed to Webpage: Everything is annoying.com

Keywords Typed: Oranges

Search Results For: Procrastination is all I’m good at (Ironic considering the nature of the website!)

Soon another, connected trend took hold with the craze of a ‘mystery mission’.  If the user types ‘What is my mission?’ a demonstratively Google search page comes up with an often bizarre and egregious mission statement.  From research for this article it appears that these challenges are supplied by other mystery seeker users who enter weird and sometimes embarrassing instructions into the search book with the label ‘Mission’.  The site isn’t always reliable nor does it always do what it’s supposed to but that’s kind of the premise on which it was build.  It would appear that receiving a mission is not guaranteed and that this is not what the site was built for but merely the fun and intrigue of receiving someone else’s search query but so many people are entering missions into the form that you will get one eventually.  If you think about it, it’s even a good way of advertising!  Many of the missions seem to relate to MLIA which is a website devoted to the everyman – My Life Is Average. 

These are authentic examples of missions:

“Build a house out of fruit”

“Your mission is to copy and paste this into Mystery Google until you have a story worthy of MLIA. Good luck”

“Go watch a Very Potter Musical”

“Find the nearest family member and start singing a random Disney song”

“Chop down the tallest tree in the forest wiiiiiiiith....a herring!!”

The trouble and dangers of these missions was that many people started creating tasks that were against privacy laws, such as:  “Call Lisa on 555-1436 and tell her that  her boyfriend is cheating on her” or “Email someone@something with the first picture that comes up when you type ‘sex’ into Google images”.  You can see how this could be alarming and frankly terrifying and harassing depending on the roll of the cosmic dice, or search engine.  Please do not phone, text, email, IM, tweet anyone with potentially damaging and hurtful information.

If this site is taken with a pinch of salt and enjoyed for its quirky attributes then it is both fun and informative – who knows what you’ll end up learning about.  If you’re stuck in the office because it’s pouring from the heavens outside and you really don’t feel like getting drenched when you go out to lunch then stop playing ‘hearts’ or ‘solitaire’ and go to mysteryseeker.com.  If you find yourself at a loose end and needing to kill time you can also visit mysteryseeker.com and you can even view videos on YouTube of the results of people accepting random missions.  But remember, and this is important, what you do you will NOT get what you searched for!