A writer and a monkey walk into a bar. First the writer climbs up on a bar stool. Then the monkey does. The writer orders a soft drink. Then the monkey does.
The bartender, when she has a moment, asks the writer what is going on.
“Well,” the writer says, “I have run out of ides. My well is dry. I don’t want to call it writer’s block, but I thought I would do my own experiment. I had heard somebody claim that if you put a group of monkeys in a room and gave them each a typewriter, eventually you’d get Shakespeare. I can’t afford a room full of monkeys. But I thought maybe with a little more time, one monkey might turn out something, even a crappy something that I could then use.”
The bartender walks away, but comes back after serving another customer. “Isn’t that like plagiarism?”
The writer nods. “Maybe.”
This goes on for several months until one evening the writer walks in alone.
After serving him, the bartender asks, “Where’s your … writing partner?”
The writer shots her a sour look, “Stupid monkey. After months of my investing him, teaching him all I know. Just when he starts to write some stuff I can use, he ups and quits on me.”
“What? He found out what you were going to do and got mad at you?”
“I wish. It would have been easier if he had.”
The bartender gets called away to serve another customer, but then returns. “Well, what happened?”
The writer sighs. “It’s a long story, but let me say this. I taught that monkey all I knew and he was getting good at writing a paragraph or two, here or there. Then he got the bright idea that he needed an agent.”
“So?”
“So, he only wanted one agent, a B.F. Skinner,” the writer says, taking a sip of his drink. This time it was something harder than soda.
“Never heard of him. He doesn’t come in here, anyway.”
“I can’t find him. But the monkey says he won’t do any more work until I do.”
“So, what now?”
“I’ve already moved on to another animal. I thought I’d try a dog this time. Thought he might be more loyal.”
“And how has that worked out?”
The writer shakes his head. “It was fine. Then the dog said he wanted to talk to somebody named Pavlov.”
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