Away with Words

by Joe Berkowitz

  The punning community in Austin is similar to the one in Brooklyn. Everyone is interested in hanging out and growing creatively and being fans of one another, rather than the competitive aspect. Even though they were from different theaters, Arthur, Valerie, and Matt would stage informal pun-offs with another local improviser, Dav Wallace, to get ready for the real thing. In the years following the competitive retirement of David Gugenheim and Brian Oakley, one improviser or another has won Punslingers every single year, whether it was an Austinite or Ben Ziek. (Wallace and Pollock are the only people who have been able to defeat Ziek at Punslingers yet.)

  Another way improv factors into pun competitions is that it helps players always keep a couple rounds in the chamber. The way some performers approach a scene is to unpack the setting like they’re sifting through a dossier. If the scene is set in a coffee shop, for instance, they’ll do a mental inventory of all the things that would be inside a coffee shop—studious laptoppers, a breakup in progress, a screeching grinder, a vegan exasperated by the lack of almond milk—and store that data until they need it. Being able to stack and index information in your mind is like a cheat code for pun competitions. The cue words are floating at the top of your brain, waiting for you to pluck them out and deploy them at will.

  Even without a bunch of puns at the ready, though, a seasoned improviser can stare into the gaping maw of a waiting crowd, and elegantly spin their wheels. Sometimes improv just amounts to doing trust fall challenges with your mind.

  “The MCs at Punslingers seemed to get a little annoyed with us at first because you have to start talking within a certain amount of time and come to your pun,” Valerie says. “I think everyone mostly had these little one-liners before, but if you get an improviser up there, they’ll be, like, ‘Well, I can just start talking and I don’t know what I’m gonna say but I’ll get there.’”

  They’ve continued taking their time getting there since.

  Matt Pollock recently became a father and has since lapsed in his improv and punning duties. Arthur and Valerie are both skipping the O. Henry in May as well. But Ben Ziek and Dav Wallace will be there, and so will Punderdomers like the Gwiazdowskis and Nikolai and Sam and Isaac, who all have improv experience as well. (Tim Donnelly stands out as being one of the few Punderdome champs to have never “taken a suggestion from the audience.”) There is no reason to suspect the streak of improviser wins won’t continue.

  Although plenty of people like Matt Pollock have arrived at punning through improv, there are also people like Words Nightmare who did the opposite.

  When Ally first went to Punderdome, years ago, it was on a date with her then boyfriend. She was in something of a spiritual free fall at the time, having just graduated from a master’s program in ergonomic engineering, without being certain it was what she wanted to do with her life. One day, her boyfriend suggested they compete at Punderdome, which they did under the name Punning Linguists. Their category was American Comfort Foods, and each approached it from angles that were uncomfortable in different ways. Ally joked about wanting her boyfriend to propose (“If he wants to maintain the peas, he best get me some carats”) and he joked about a very strange sex act (“How about spaghet-these balls-on-nasal?”)

  They did not make it to the next round, or the next stage of their relationship. Ally eventually came back as a solo act, though, and won. The Punderdome experience had a profound effect on her, beyond the thrill of victory. She felt a kinship with people so unapologetically into a very specific thing necessarily embraced by the masses. It was like finding an overlooked pocket of civilization that spoke her language. What really surprised her was how much she enjoyed getting up in front of a crowd—the fizzy euphoria of the unfolding moment. It made her reconsider everything.

  “I realized maybe all this time I’ve been thinking I want to be a designer because it allows me to be creative in a way where other people are able to appreciate what I’ve made,” Ally says one day over coffee. “But maybe it doesn’t have to be things I make, but ideas or conversations. So I started doing a lot of evaluating about what I wanted to actually be doing.”

  Ally quit her job at Warby Parker and began working freelance. Around the same time, she attended a friend’s show at the People’s Improv Theater in Manhattan and became enamored with the place. Another friend was interning at PIT in exchange for improv class credits, an ideal option for Ally’s new freelance budget. She worked out a similar arrangement and is currently on track to finish the fifth and final level at PIT soon after the next Punderdome in March.

  It did not take many classes for Ally to notice that her improv training funneled directly into her punning efforts.

  Because she’s a fellow Jeopardy! nerd like Ziek, Ally has an endless well of references to draw upon for puns. Improv trained her to quickly mine the furthest regions of her brain for Punderdome gold. It was partly just getting used to reacting in the moment, but there was something beyond Pavlovian improv response. Along with yes-and, another central tenet of the form is finding the less obvious way to approach anything. That kind of lateral thinking is exactly what helps Ziek turn his trivia knowledge into puns. Sometimes Ally would get a category she knew nothing about, and rather than dig deep for info embedded in her subconscious, she would look for the loophole. If she didn’t know baseball, maybe she knew some baseball movies and team names. When a category like Sources of Light came her way, she knew she could use anything naturally bright, units of light measurement, shiny appliances, whatever. There was always a way.

  Outside of improv and punning, Ally explored other creative outlets, going to open mics to try her hand at stand-up, and writing the odd piece for the female-centric satirical site Reductress. She bonded with her fellow Dome champion Sam, and the two began putting on a monthly comedy show, and eventually became roommates. Her entire life had become one big yes-and, agreeing with the possibilities that came her way and building off them.

  While Ally has only done more and more improv since she started punning, Ben Ziek has done less. A couple of years after he first competed in O. Henry, he stopped altogether. On the surface, the reason is because this was around the time he began his new sideline in wrestling, as both a manager and the occasional performer Lex Icon. With all the time he now spent training wrestlers and himself, he didn’t have enough time to keep up the weekly shows. Perhaps, though, there was another reason he’d stopped doing improv. With the O. Henry Pun-Off, Ziek had finally found the perfect synthesis of his two hobbies—improv and game shows—and had no use for the former on its own anymore. Although the two interests can work together nicely, they’re also in direct conflict with each other: one is just for fun, and the other is something that can be won.

  7

  All the Puns That Are Fit to Print

  The dawn of spring is upon us. Meteorologically speaking, it’s still very much winter, with air-conditioning units across Brooklyn serving as dust farms for at least ten more weeks, but tonight Punderdome returns from its respite.

  Over the past couple months, I’ve had several Richard Linklater films’ worth of dialogue about competitive punning. What I haven’t done, though, is actually competed. Walking down Fourth Avenue against the wind, swathed in a hoodie and puffy jacket, I feel cautiously optimistic. I’m bracing for that same naked-at-school feeling as before, only I’ve practiced enough since last year to have reasonable expectations by now. It feels like a test. A referendum. Maybe I’ll do so well that the audience goes into pep rally hysterics and Little Debbie Zebra Cakes rain from the sky. But maybe not!

  Once inside Littlefield, I neatly scrawl “Punter S. Thompson” on a name tag and slap it on my chest. A steady torrent of shivering bodies trudges in after me, scanning for places to stash their jackets and bags instead of using coat check. Pretty soon, the house is packed. A sizable chunk of the crowd is set in reunion mode, all bear hugs and head nods, and a few familiar faces are floating above name tags. Isaac, a.k.a. Punder Enlightening, i
s off to the side, near the DJ booth, and I go over to ask him about the play cycle he directed last month. A smiling dude with a shaved head and narrow, close-set features sidles up to us with a name tag clasped in his hand and asks about how Punderdome works. He knew enough to get here early, apparently, but he has no idea what happens now.

  As the warm-up begins, Tim flags me down. It’s the first time we’ve seen each other in months, and his ginger beard has grown several centimeters in the winter chill. He looks like he came straight from a double makeup shift at the co-op, which is not something I know him to do but would not be surprised if he did. We hang out near the bar, waiting for his girlfriend, Meghan, with whom he’s just moved in. It’s also the first time I’ve seen Tim since he left his job writing for the New York Post.

  “What was it like working there, anyway?” I ask. “Was it just puns all day?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Before we can delve into the subject any deeper, Jo starts calling out the first round of names. One of them is Punter S. Thompson. Tim smiles and claps me on the back and I get moving. I push through the crowd like a gentle Godzilla, careful not to stomp over the purses and tote bags on the floor, hopeful that people see my name tag and panic-eyes and know I’m not doing this merely to get in prime spectating position.

  Once onstage, everybody arranges themselves in writing poses, either kneeling on the floor or hunched over the edge of the plastic picnic table behind us, like we simultaneously all lost contact lenses. The category is . . . Plants.

  A laser light show of vegetation unspools in my brain, an undulating abundance of leafy greens and foliage. I need words, though. Sound over meaning. As a woman in a Wilma Flintstone–esque white dress sings The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song, words invade my mind like a fleet of tiny ninjas. Syllables divide. Tulips becomes two lips. Orchid becomes or kid. Bigger words appear, too—big, juicy, multisyllabic language husks with hidden innards waiting to emerge. Chlorophyll, that’s something. Photosynthesis? Chrysanthemum? I can work with those. What else? What else?

  “Markers down!” Jo yells. “Hand ’em over.”

  I look at my half-empty board like it’s a traitor. There are only six words, only two of those words are puns, and both are Bad. The naked hallway moment is about to be a reality. But the worst that could happen suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.

  Fred turns around and scans the row of punsters. His eyes land on Punder Enlightening.

  Isaac walks forward to a generous helping of cheers and puts a hand to his cheek like an aw-shucks debutante.

  “Wow, usually I don’t get that much applause,” he says. “Must be a couple plants out there.”

  A ripple of jolly, eager laughter roils through the crowd. Punderdome is now truly back.

  Isaac’s approach is shock and awe—a barrage of single-word puns with clear, compact setups, sometimes two or three in a sentence, and all with a nuanced delivery. Jordan Gwiazdowski calls Isaac the Used Car Salesman of Puns; if you don’t like one, he’s got another to apologize for that first one with, and another after that. What will it take to get you inside this pun?

  When the buzzer goes off, Isaac manages to squeeze out a final entry: “I used to tell people I could grow plants on my foot, but I was lying: It was a faux-toe synthesis.”

  Before I even have time to process that “photosynthesis” is now off the table, Fred turns around, looks directly at me, and squints to read my name tag. This is it.

  I step over to the mic a moment later and try to let my intuitive brain take over. What good did my cognitive brain ever do anyway, besides come up with a handful of terms from Intro to Earth Science? The first thing my intuition does is eighty-six “two lips,” since that’s just beyond obvious.

  “I’m kind of a mechanic with these puns,” I start. “I got these tool-hips over here.”

  The crowd applauds as I shake my hips a little, a thing I had not considered might ever happen. Then, without intending to, I go in and out of a narrative about what’s happening onstage.

  “I don’t want to bore or fill you with bad puns,” I say, and the audience cheers. I make an allusion to Christopher Walken to force a chrysanthemum pun, and miraculously they laugh at that, too. I’m just about done, but there’s still the matter of whether to do “photosynthesis.” Fuck it.

  “I’m a visual thinker so I didn’t do that well presenting in college: I put way too many photos in thesis.”

  Nobody boos or throws whiskey-ice at me for reusing Isaac’s cue word. Instead, the cheers that send me off are notably louder than last time. The crowd isn’t being polite; I’ve improved.

  Up last is the defending champ, Daft Pun, who used to be part of a duo, but started performing alone while retaining the name, like Axl with Guns N’ Roses. Nikolai has a soft, spindly voice with the inflection of a narcotized indie rock Valley girl. He delivers his puns as though they’re a sweet surprise to him.

  “I have a coat made from the beard hair of a famous actor,” he says, scratching his head. “It’s a Michael Douglas fir coat.”

  This one gets a huge laugh and the next one does not, which is probably how Nikolai ends up closing out on a run of celebrity names.

  “Do you wanna know who’s my favorite actor in the plant-based remake of Mad Men? Elizabeth Moss. Or the plant-based remake of Twin Peaks? Lara Flynn Soil. Or the plant-based remake of the presidential election? Fernie Sanders.”

  Both he and Isaac advance forward when the clap-o-meter is introduced, and I am just barely edged out by If Looks Could Kale, who has also improved. It’s a little disappointing, but I’m still high from having done better than before.

  In the next heat, the first-timer who’d asked Isaac and me how Punderdome works earlier—the Pundance Kid, he’s called—comes up with several puns, all with decent setups, and gets a lot of laughs. Not bad for a first-timer, or even a second-or third-timer, actually. Words Nightmare follows him and she punctuates her puns with a self-deprecating meta-narrative about how this turn is going. It’s a hit. Both of them move on.

  In the final heat of the first round, Jerzy and Jordan perform as a team. The pair strides out to the front of the stage, grinning like Siamese cats who very recently shared a Siamese canary. Their category is: Pizza.

  “I don’t come to Punderdome to meet friends,” Jordan says, his voice dropping an octave. “I come to meat lovers.”

  Everybody in the entire audience roars.

  “This guy is s’silly, isn’t he?” Jerzy says, crooking a thumb at his brother. “If you wonder whether punning is genetic, our ma’s-a-real-a good punner, too.”

  They each get another few turns in, and Jordan closes out by leading the crowd in a singing chant of John Lennon’s “Give Pizza Chance.” No Las Vegas oddsmaker would take a bet against the Gwiazdowskis making it to the next round.

  Finally, it’s Tim’s turn. He goes high-concept, using only the names of pizza places—mostly New York spots. Tremors of barely contained excitement run through his body as he twitches onstage. All these years in, and he’s still nervous.

  “I guess there’s no topping that,” he says, closing with a goofy shrug at the audience.

  This is Tim’s style. He always pushes himself to find some thread of a story to lace through his puns. Unlike Jerzy, Isaac, and many of the other champs, Tim’s only performing experience is doing this. He has no improv training. He’s never acted. All he has are his wits and his skill as a writer. As he gets voted on to the next round moments later, I’m suddenly more curious about why he wanted to leave the New York Post. It’s a media outlet unquestionably committed to puns; why wouldn’t Tim want to work there? Of course, when wordplay is part of your job, it ultimately becomes wordwork.

  Before making puns was part of Tim’s job description, he had already worked somewhere surrounded by puns all day. The first employer to incorporate Tim’s hobby into his career was Trader Joe’s. It was there, in 2011, walking through aisles choked with Speculoos Cooki
e Butter and Sockeye Salmon Fillets, that he first stumbled upon punning as a game.

  Trader Joe’s is thick with puns. Stroll into any store and you’ll be instantly confronted by colorfully chalked signage promising prices that are “un-be-cheese-able” and exhorting you to “have a rice day.” Punning is a nationwide company initiative here, one that Tim and the other cashiers chose to embrace by mimicking. They made up puns about the store’s suspiciously low-priced products—What is the dill with these pickles?—in an attempt to outpun whoever was running this operation.

  They played other games, too. When Tim and a friend were ringing up customers side by side, they passed the time by daring each other to work certain words into the store’s seemingly inescapable checkout chitchat. The only rule was that they had to slip in the bingo word naturally. If it was boxcar, for instance, they couldn’t simply solicit opinions on boxcars. That would be cheating. Instead, when Tim was challenged with that word, and his very next customer asked whether he had a trash bin behind the counter, Tim replied: “Of course! We don’t live like boxcar hobos back here.” The other cashier heard him say it and reacted with a boom-goes-the-dynamite gesture that his customer would’ve had to be truly checked out not to notice.

  After getting wind of Punderdome shortly after Jo Firestone launched it, Tim and another Trader Joe’s friend, Noah, were soon figuring out how to wedge words into sentences onstage. Noah punned under the name Black Punther, and became the Dome’s first reigning champion—although Tim wasn’t far behind, and both ended up facing off against Jerzy a lot in his earliest days. For one night each month, hundreds of people cheered for the kind of goofy puns Tim made at work about gluten lovers being lack-toast intolerant. It was his first taste of performing, and he liked it.