yeah yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah

For decades I've argued with Howard Stern about Paul McCartney. One of my regrets about leaving the show was that Paul was finally a guest two months after my much-maligned departure and has made fairly regular appearances since.

I'd heard from multiple sources ... one being the late Noel Redding, bassist in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, a guest on the Stern show multiple times, who loved my joke tapes and would always tell me he and Paul and their wives had spent hours telling jokes at dinner the night before. I'd heard that Paul loves jokes, dirty jokes of course, telling them and hearing them. And joke tellers love to hang with me, which has nothing to do with anything other than if they don't already know they very quickly realize they're going to walk away with a few new ones, a few great ones.

So I've always maintained that if I got to spend five or ten minutes with McCartney that he'd both enjoy me and want to connect with me simply because he'd realize I'm a terrific source for jokes.

I know that. Joke tellers have a connection. It's a bond that crosses all barriers, much like people who like to play hockey or who follow the Jets. It's a very strong common denominator.

Thanks to my pal Tom Bernard, the co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, I'm on the event invitation list of eminent PR guru Peggy Siegal and last night, November 20, 2015 (an important date for me as I crossed something off my Bucket List) the lovely Barbara Klein and I were at MOMA for a screening of the incredible film "The Big Short."

The revelers at the cocktail hour before the screening was an eclectic group ... the film's producer Lorne Michaels, the film's director Adam McCay, actress Candice Bergen ... and a host of many folks I'm sure I should have recognized but didn't.

No sooner had Barbara said to me, "I want to do something fun in here ..." (she's so great) in walked Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell.

I said to Barbara, "You realize for decades I've wanted to tell jokes with him, right?"

She said, "Well, then, you've got to go do it."

I said, "Man, I'd love to. But I'm sure there's not a person in here who doesn't think they've got a perfectly legitimate reason to approach Sir Paul and strike up a conversation. And that'd be crummy. He and his lady should be able to meander the party unencumbered, that's what New York City is all about."

Of course she knew that. And of course as I said it my mind was racing, thinking about all the near-misses I've had trying to get in his presence to fire off a few.

As if we willed it, almost right away here comes Paul and Nancy, walking toward us, smiling and nodding and saying polite "hello's" as they were upon us.

As they were about to stroll past us, I very gently stopped the cute Beatle and out of Nancy's earshot said, "Can I tell you a joke?"

Only slightly taken aback, he said, "Sure."

So I did...

A guy's at a job interview.

The interviewer says, "What's your biggest fault?"

The guy says, "I think my biggest fault is my honesty."

The interviewer says, "I don't think honesty is a fault."

The guy says, "I don't give a fuck what you think."

Paul laughed out loud, said, "I like that one," and they continued on, making their way to Lorne.

The most absurd thing about that joke is my good pal Ed Hamell, a spectacular singer-songwriter and all around magnificent artist, was a guest on my SiriusXM radio show, "Jackie's Joke Hunt," and when he walked in the first thing he said to me was, "I love your joke e-mails. The best one in the last batch was ..."

And he told me that joke. And I howled.

Meanwhile, the joke not only hadn't been in my last e-mailing, I'd never heard it before. And when I told him that, Ed actually argued with me that it had been in the mailing.

I said, "Ed, you nincompoop, if my memory's good enough to know damn near every joke in the world, I think it's good enough to know when I hear one I don't know."

I've used that joke in every show since. And every show I smile when I get to it, because I think about Ed and I of course think about how funny the joke is and how hard the crowd's going to laugh when they hear it.

The post script to this tale is that it certainly seemed like Sir Paul hadn't heard that joke before. In which case I'm almost sure as he walked away he ran it through his head, to cement it, so it'd enter his repertoire, so he could tell it, because it's a downright wonderful joke.

And I'd give odds that since I told it to him he's retold the joke three, maybe five or seven times. Or more.

Because that's what us joke tellers do.