This is a collection of perfect, small objects presented by an expert curator who has a gift for communicating his love of both artifact and artisan. It’s also really, really, REALLY funny. Definitely not what one should read in a small house when the rest of the family’s sleeping. I know that I'll be giving copies as gifts many times to come--and that I'll be returning to my own copy even more often.

I ve been doing comedy for 20 years and I laughed my ass off. Michaels easy style of writing, and great life time stories will have you wanting more.Theres classic jokes and some new unheard of jokes that will have you being the new class clown at work or home. This book is awesome!

Buy this guys book...it will keep him from learning new card tricks....lol
wwww.johnpizzi.com

I just got finished reading "That Reminds Me." I can't remember when I last enjoyed a book so much -- and laughed out loud so much while reading it.

Even the jokes I knew were well worth hearing again, because they took me back to the where and when I first heard them -- and, like with you, brought up great memories of the friends who told them to me.

Thanks for putting all of these jokes down in one place.

Tom Ogden

The first time I saw Michael MC a show, he floored me with his humor and timing. While reading "That Reminds Me" on a plane, I laughted out loud - again and again. Something I rarely do when reading a book. This is the real thing - a great joke book with jokes of every type. This one is a winner.

Bill Wells

There is nothing like having a good joke for just the right occasion. This book is full of them. I only wish that I had the only copy. I will be a little saddened the first time someone beats me to the punch line with one of these jokes. This is one of the few books I ever read that made me laugh out loud, not just once but many times.
Just one bit of advise, don't lend this book to your friends. Feed them these wonderful jokes one at a time.
Dennis

The first time I ever heard Mike Close tell a joke, was during the credits of one of the videos he did for L&L a few years back. The joke was the tale of a man who hears a disembodied voice saying nice things to him as he sits alone in a tavern. That joke, and a couple of hundred others, are in That Reminds Me Finding the Funny in a Serious World.

The joke took me completely by surprise for a couple of reasons: first because I’d just seen a whole bunch of really good magic, and wasn’t expecting to hear anyone tell a joke, and second because it’s a really great joke, with one of those punch lines you don’t see coming, no matter how many jokes you’ve heard, or told.

The other thing that made the joke memorable for me, was that Mike took his time with it. He wasn’t in a hurry to get to the payoff, and the pacing and matter of fact tone of his voice just didn’t sound like he was barreling towards a punch-line as most joke tellers do.

That’s the sort of thing that makes a great story teller, the ability to make listening to the tell, as entertaining as listening to the punch line. Michael Close, is a great story teller, and in That Reminds Me he provides some insight into how to tell a joke, with specific examples including voice inflection, dialects, and gestures.

This isn’t just a joke book for people who like to read jokes. This is a book for people who tell jokes, or want to.

Recommended reading.

This is the best joke collection of the last decade. Many were new to me. Mike's tips on how to "perform" the jokes are a real plus.
If you know jokes, these punchlines alone tell you this is a great collection:
"You've got to keep your worms warm"
"I'm trying to find his face so I can kick him in the ass." and
"A special pig like that you can't eat all at once."
--Scot Morris, former "Games" columnist for Omni and Penthouse magazines.

Just received the new book by Michael Close! Funnier than "Heck".!! Well worth the price...a "must buy" for the serious, (or not so serious) entertainer! One of my best investments to date! Found myself "laughing out loud" several dozen times. (and I'm only on page 25) A wonderful collection of classic (and not so classic) jokes! I rate this 6 Stars!

Bob Lapp
Cleveland, Ohio

This is the best joke book I have ever read.

This is the best joke book I have ever read.

I believe that everyone should have a good joke book. First of all, reading it will make you laugh. And if you ever need or want a good joke, you can check your joke book.

This is a great joke book. Reading it will make you laugh a lot, and if you ever need a good joke, you can go through this book and find a great one.

As a bonus, it's well written by a funny man with a ton of real world experience telling jokes. Highly recommended.

Told a friend how funny it was, lent it to him, now it's looking I'll have to buy another. He thinks it really funny, too.

This is the only joke book I own and the only one I need.
Mike Caveney

Great! I found the best gift to give this Christmas. Half of my family will be thrilled because this is one funny book. The other half will be jealous because they didn't find this book first!



Great jokes - no filler. Some are quick, some are longer, story jokes. Several times Mike Close tells the same joke in different ways with different punch lines. An interesting look into the craft of what's funny and why.

I bought this book for my wife who has been going through a rough time at work and rarely seems to smile, let alone laugh these days. The first chapter on "dad" had her cracking up, by the time she got to "Indiana" she was laughing outloud constantly. I have just started it myself - the Texas Pretzel Hold joke nearly killed me ... seriously, I was using my asthma inhaler for 30 minutes after reading it!

Have you ever laughed so hard you thought you were going to bust a gut? Or tried to stop yourself laughing and thought maybe you were going to have a stroke? Do you ever remember being in a classroom and some junior high wit made a comment that left you crying and gasping into your folded arms on top of the desk? Or in a really Have you ever laughed so hard you thought you were going to bust a gut?

I have. All of the above happened to me when I was a kid and at college. In fact it happened to me just now as I was reading through a terrific new book by the talented musician, magician and raconteur, Michael Close. That Reminds Me: Finding the Funny in a Serious World features more than 250 of Close's favourite jokes. And boy, are there some great ones here. In fact, I've had the pleasure of hearing many of these being delivered by Mike in person and even rereading them sparked the same fits and gasps.

The book arrived yesterday as I was home having a tradesman replace some of the doors on my house. While he was busy working, I was in the lounge reading through the book. When I got to the joke about the two Brits in the gentleman's club talking about lion hunting in Africa, I suffered a major traumatic event. First, I laughed my ass off. I have a somewhat wicked laugh and soon I realised the tradesman had stopped hammering and must have been outside listening. Frankly, it was damn embarrassing. Giggling like a school girl, I tried to suppress the laughter. I started gasping like a gerbil that had choked on a peanut - heek... heeek... heek... heeeek! Eee-eee-eee-eee-eee-eeee-eee! The tradesman came in and said, "You okay?" No problem, I said. All under control. And I was all under control until I flashed back to the punchline and lost it again. What else can I say? I laughed so hard I formed a snot bubble.

Now there are joke books and then there are joke books. This is not like one of those dry compilations you see in the remainder bins. Like me, you'll probably read it in one sitting, because Close has authored it in a very personal, conversational style. The book traces the arc of Close's experience in collecting jokes, telling them to friends and using them professionally. You'll read a lot of clever insights into the art of delivering a joke based on Close's long experience and also on his observations of and stories about some highly regarded comedy magicians such as Penn Jillette, Jay Marshall and Chuck Fayne. Close includes a lot of anecdotes about family members, band mates, clients and so on, that really bring this book to life. I especially enjoyed the section on working as a musician, as many of the observations are dead on accurate about the weirdness, exasperation and fun of a life in music. In fact, there are lots of true and apocryphal stories sprinkled throughout the book, and I just lost it again now flashing back to the Oedipus Rex anecdote. (Sheer brilliance!)

Michael Close is a guy who loves a great joke and has an uncanny radar and impeccable taste when it comes to collecting the choicest material to help you give your friends a big belly laugh. I certainly hope you get a chance to see Mike do some of this stuff in person, but for now, this book is the next best thing to being there. Even if you're not a joke teller yourself (and why not?) this is a book that is a pure delight to read and I would recommend it to anyone.

This is not your typical joke book. Its part reminiscing, part philosophy, part comedy workshop, and all funny. Mike not only tells us some hilarious jokes, he tells us how to tell them and how to remember them. We meet the funny people who have influenced him, and learn a few lessons about how we can find our own funny material from our everyday lives.

If I had a nickel for every time I laughed while reading this book, it wouldn’t have cost me twenty bucks……..I might have made a few bucks on the deal!

That said, its still a bargain. What’s a little joy and laughter worth to you? These jokes will stay with you long after the boost from your Starbucks triple mocha-lattes have worn off.

Buy a few and give them as gifts to people who love to laugh.

I just had the pleasure of reading Michael Close's new book "That Reminds Me". This is basically a collection of jokes that Michael has used and lived with for a number of years. In addition to the jokes, the reader gets a great insight into Michael, how he remembers jokes (something that is a challenge to many of us), why he feels humor is so important, and how to tell jokes. This is really an invaluable read - the jokes are great and I found myself cracking up a LOT - but more so for the insight into humor, how to remember jokes, and thoughts on life. If you have been fortunate enough to see Michael Close perform not only have you been badly fooled but you have most likely laughed a LOT at the many jokes sprinkled throughout his performances. It's always amazed me at what a resource Michael is for jokes... bring up a subject and he's got a joke. Michael tips his mitt here with the jokes and his thoughts on how to tell jokes. I highly recommend this book. A great read, funny, and great advice. As Michael points out, laughing is very important in life.



Tim Trono

You want to know something funny. Really? Then read this book. Do you like to laugh? Then read this book. Do you want to learn how to tell a joke? Then read this book. Wanna just kick back and have fun for a few hours? Then read this book. Want to learn something about how to deal with life and the twists and turns it can throw at you? Then, yes, read this book.

You won’t be disappointed. Read this book and then do your friends a favor and lighten up their lives. Tell 'em to read this book.



Thanks Michael for making me laugh. I needed that.

That Reminds Me is arguably the best collection of jokes under one cover ever assembled.



I've had the pleasure of hearing many of these jokes first hand and have seen Michael bring an audience to tears (with laughter). Michael always manages to find the perfect joke for any situation. I guarantee you that you will find jokes in this book that you've never heard and a couple that that you may have heard before, but are presented here with a new twist or wrinkle that brings it to a new gut busting level.



If you're a joke lover as I am, you'll do yourself a favor and order this amazing collection. I'm already anxiously awaiting part two.

I have been collecting joke and comedy books for over 50 years. This book is my favorite of all of them. Some of the jokes I had heard before from Jay Marshall and even from Michael himself. I couldn't put the book down until I finished it. What a collection of great stories as well as hillarious jokes. No one who enjoys comedy should be without it. Even if you don't use the risque material in part of the book you can adapt the same jokes to tell the straight crowd. Don't pass up all of this fun to avoid some off color stories. It goes to the top of my collection of joke books I give it six stars, more if i could!!

Dick Stoner, Magicomedian

Re: The magic of That Reminds Me: Finding the Funny in a Serious World 10 Nov 2007

by Michael Close

For years I've heard Mike Close tell jokes and I always kicked myself because I could remember so few of them. I've always hoped that someday he would collect all of the great jokes he knows and put them into a book. Well, the time is finally here, and I got my copy a few days ago. It now has the place of honor in my home... on the back of the throne in the bathroom!



These are the best of the best when it comes to funny stories. Short jokes, long jokes, clean jokes, not-so-clean jokes. But all of them are hilarious. I've been telling jokes to everyone I meet for the past couple of days and while I'm not as skilled as Mike is, I'm getting great laughs.



These are as sure fire as it's possible to be. And, Mike sprinkles in good advice on how to tell them along the way.





Dennis Loomis

P.S. When I read: "But I have to admit, that drummer was pretty good. Should we tip him?... We didn't last year." I couldn't stop laughing for hours. You better get the book and find out why.

I don't usually buy joke books, but this one intrigued me because of the background of the author....musician, magician, raconteur, etc. I'm not disappointed.

I've read about 60 pages and laughed hysterically. Some of the jokes are old chestnuts, while others are amazingly new. I marvel at the material within these pages and look forward to completing the book....then reading it again and probably again after that.

BTW...I've interupted my reading numerous times to call friends and tell them the latest laugh-creator I read.

Buy it...you won't be sorry.

Adrian S. Kuiper

Rather than repeat what's been said before, I'll just say that Reading That Reminds Me was like visiting with a bunch of old friends...jokes I've heard in bars and clubs over the years. Mike also pays tribute to Bob Read, someone I'd never met but to whom I owe a great debt for his devotion to comedy and the cups and balls.

That Reminds Me is well worth the meager asking price. Order it today!

"I laughed. I cried.



I read the book from cover to cover at one sitting. I've read many gag books but never one like this. I ask only one simple favor. Please don't sell it to anyone else so I can use ALL the material.



If you never write anything else (which would be a disaster) you can rest well at a superb work that must give pleasure and pain in the form of aching sides."



Reviewed by Michael Woolf, Editor Magicana Magazine, New Zealand

I have always loved to laugh and make others laugh. When I became a professional entertainer, my sense of humor was necessary to put food on the table. I am always in a search for material and have several large joke books. This is the most consistently funny book I have ever read.



When I received the book, I put it in my truck. I read a joke at random sitting at a stop light. I told the joke that evening as the MC of an awards banquet and the room exploded.



The unique thing about this book is the funny and touching stories that Mike tells about some funny entertainers and interesting people. He also has some interesting information about telling jokes properly and finding funny situations in life.



Don't make the mistake I did. I decided to use the book to read myself to sleep as I do many nights. Two hours and many laughs later, I had to force myself to find a technical manual to settle myself down.



MOM, Don't Worry. I didn't read any of the dirty ones... Unless I did not know they were dirty when I started reading them. Oh, and the ones I accidentally read, I did not laugh at them......unless I could not help it.



Sparkman

Michael Close has done a beautiful thing - written a book that makes you laugh out loud, and often! I had heard a couple of the jokes before but forgotten them, and it was like visiting old friends. (I've been a stand-up fan for around 50 years, back before they called it stand-up). I've been trying out some of the many new ones on friends and getting terrific laughs. There are also a couple of fond rememberances of friends who have made Michael Close laugh, and they're beautifully written. Get this book. Like I said, it's a beautiful thing.

Frank Dudgeon

By this book - and be prepared to have people stare at you when you start laughing out loud. It is that funny.

This is a wonderful anthology of great jokes, woven together with personal anecdotes and good advice, both on comedy and life. Michael Close is widely (and deservedly) admired as a magician and musician and this book will surely win him more fans for sharing his personal collection of great stories, jokes, gags, and bits of business with a wider community. I couldn't put it down and couldn't help laughing out loud on nearly every page. My only regret is that it does not have an index to help me find the many jokes I want to remember, but that's not such a bad thing either, since it forces me to search through the book looking for them, doing which reminds me of the many others that I hope to remember as well. Thanks, Mike!

Michael Close is a first-rate pianist and sleight-of-hand magician who is frequently the life of the party at the numerous magicians’ conventions he attends, not only for his music or for destroying well-posted magicians with some new magic trick he has invented, but because he happens to be one of show business’s premier raconteurs. Michael is proud to call himself a joke teller, and he cites joke telling as his avocation. Although he might draw a crowd with a new card trick, he is happier drawing a crowd with laughter. As someone once wrote of Johnny Carson, Michael proves that talking can be talent.



Michael’s new book, That Reminds Me, is a 207-page collection of jokes that Michael has told over the years. Jokes and the telling of them constitute happy memories for him, not only for the jokes themselves but for the associations they evoke. Accordingly, Michael has organized the jokes by those associations. Indiana reminds him of rural jokes, Las Vegas of gambling jokes. Michael’s dad, who was Polish, reminds him of Polish jokes. Michael Bryant, a fellow music student, reminds him of musician jokes. Eric Mead, a magical bartender, reminds him of bar jokes, and Aldo Colombini, a lovable Italian magician, reminds him of Italian jokes. Physician-trained Billy McComb reminds him of doctor jokes, Jewish magician Chuck Fayne of Jewish jokes (and those of other religions), and the hilarious Jay Marshall and Bob Read of, well, Jay Marshall and Bob Read jokes. A censored (by his parents) copy of Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger reminds him of salty jokes. Within all these broad genres are subgenres – drummer jokes, Heifetz jokes, blonde jokes, yuppie jokes, Chihuahua jokes, Jimmy the stock boy jokes, and many others.



The jokes themselves are pure comedy gold, jokes you will immediately want to tell your friends. (Telling jokes is not an easy skill, and Michael sprinkles tips throughout the book on how to do it well.) On occasion the setups are so funny you just don’t care where the joke is headed. I was laughing so hard at a three-legged chicken racing alongside a car or at a deranged bear hunter that I was already transported out of the humdrum of life. (I would say that the punch lines didn’t even matter, but that bear joke punch line just may be the funniest line in the book.) Some of the laughs in the book are not jokes per se but are real lines or situations that Michael relates. I exploded with laughter upon hearing a high school classmate’s whispered definition of Oedipus Rex, upon hearing Eric Mead’s line regarding a troublesome spectator, upon hearing Penn Jillette’s practical joke on a heartsick friend.



This book is brimming with humanity. You will meet wonderful people, and you will learn a lot about Michael Close. I love the whole conceit of the book, of jokes as autobiography. For myself, many of the jokes took me back to when and where I was when I heard Mike Close himself tell them to me. I also heard firsthand a joke by the late British magician/comedian Bob Read (slightly re-written from the book to the way I heard it). We were attending a magicians’ convention at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. Bob’s joke:



“I’m staying across the street at New York, New York. It has a pool on the thirty-fourth floor. Do you have any idea how deep that is?



To this day, I do not drive by New York, New York without thinking about that pool on the thirty-fourth floor – I’m convinced it exists – or without thinking about Bob Read.



So purchase and revel in this book. You will not find a funnier or warmer collection of jokes anywhere.

Mike Close has written the funniest joke book ever! Do yourself a huge favor and buy as many copies as you can afford. The book makes a perfect gift for anybody you know who thinks they are funny. Dexter Cleveland

This book should be sold with Kleenex and aspirin. I laughed so hard I got a headache! It's not for everyone, but it was great for me.

Constantine Tgiros

The post-internet world is full of jokes and we all get lousy ones every day on email from people we don't even know or want to hear from and who wouldn't know a good joke if it bit them in the ass.

Any idiot can put together a collection of jokes. But Mike Close let his own great taste guide him in assembling this collection, and it's far and away the best book of jokes I've ever read, and I'm in show business so I've heard some jokes in my day and told a few too. Pay close attention to Mike's expert Tips on Telling 'Em -- and you too could be the life of the party, at which point you can tell your internet friends to stop emailing you all the crappy jokes because you've finally got some great ones of your own.

You hear a great joke and you can’t wait to tell it to your friends, it gets a big laugh and you continue to tell it until you hear another great joke and the cycle starts again. You’d think that after a while you would have a string of great jokes but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Roger Miller [King of the Road singer/songwriter]once said your memory starts to work the second you are born and it stops when a spotlight hits you.

Michael Close’s method of remembering jokes is to recall people… and that reminds him of places…. and times…. and jokes, and now he’s done all of us a favour by writing them down together with some wonderful stories of the people, the places and the times he spent there with them. I’m lucky to have met and in some cases [except for James and Michael B. and Mike’s Dad] to know well, many of the people he writes about so the fear of a spotlight hitting me has been somewhat reduced.

Now I can get on-stage inspiration from the likes of Jay Marshall, Billy McComb, Eric Mead, Chuck Fayne and Aldo Collumbini names that are legend in the world of magicians.

Not only does Mike tell you the jokes, he tells you how, and more important when not to tell them and believe me they are all “tellable” has Mike has often proved, given the right occasion.



One chapter which stands out for me, and I’m sure many others, contains no Joke “jokes”, to use Mikes own words’ but more laughs than I care to remember ,

I simply refuse to believe that there won’t be another story, another string of laughs or another beer with our mutual friend the late Bob Read.

When people ask how they can be funny I always quote Bob who said “When you know why 4x16 is funnier than 8x8”.

This book is full of “4x16” lines and stories……BUY IT NOW…I read it and laughed until the “tears ran down my leg” then I got to the chapter on Bob and I read it and wept..

Steve Walker

I’m not sure if I have ever come across a book so aptly titled. This “joke book” is more than that. It’s an endearing work that transports your mind—and soul if you so believe—to a better place; if only for the time you spend reading it. And these days, every minute helps.

That Reminds Me reminds me of a time when being offended was something one just dealt with versus hiring an attorney over and/or numbing ourselves with the latest pharmaceutical breakthrough. Heritage, race, religion, physical appearance, whatever could be joked about was, and we all laughed because everyone of us fell into at least one of these categories; no one was left out.

That period was the 1970s and every store had a rack filled with “Official” joke books. There was the Official Polish Joke Book, I’m sure the big seller of the series, and there were also Jewish, Irish, and my favorite (because of my heritage) Italian versions. I really believe that these books helped America get past Watergate and Viet Nam. We laughed again at something other than Bob Hope Christmas Specials. Well, it’s time America laughs again and That Reminds Me is a prescription you don’t need a pharmacist to fill.

Mr. Close is a multi-talented professional entertainer. He is a world class magician, jazz pianist, and is one of the funniest people I’ve seen on stage (although I don’t believe he would ever call himself a comedian). For decades, he has been compiling jokes, including old chestnuts he’s returned to relevance, jokes written by his many friends, as well as original material he has used himself or has passed on to friends to use because he knew it would work well for them. This book contains many of those jokes that he has collected over the years. But again, it’s not just a collection of jokes. As he says in the book, they are jokes that he “has a personal relationship with.” But even if that is all this book was—a collection of jokes—it would be prescribed reading.

Most chapters center on Mr. Close’s friends. He weaves stories about these people, all the while being reminded of even more jokes that fit the current theme—his method for recalling jokes. The names, such as Jay Marshall, Eric Mead, Billy McComb, Chuck Fayne, and Michael Bryant will not be familiar to the average person. Magicians will be familiar with many of the names, but not all have met these men. Michael Close introduces you to them and his stories captivate you so that personal acquaintance, while certainly helpful, is not at all necessary to bring tears—usually of laughter—to the eyes. Regardless of who these men are and what they do (or did), Mr. Close brings you into the world that he shared with them. These are brief visits to be sure, but he makes you want to meet those you still can and wish that you could have met those you no longer can.

Jokes are funny because people are funny; what they are, what they do, what they look like. Some of us are fat—just the other day I got on one of those fortune telling scales and the little card said “one at a time please”—some of us are Italian, or Polish (like Mr. Close), or golfers, musicians, magicians, blond, black, or brown, smart or stupid. Every person on this planet falls somewhere into a category that can be joked about: It’s not cruel or offensive to tell a joke about these characteristics. It’s not cruel or offensive to tell a joke about someone’s religion. Watch the evening news and you’ll see real offensiveness and cruelty in action. But better yet, forget about the day’s news, pick up a copy of That Reminds Me and remind yourself that it’s time to have a good laugh.

Sometimes you read a book and you think, "Yeah, this is never going to be done...", and sometimes you think, "Man I wish this was never going to end." That Reminds Me: Finding the Funny in a Serious World is the book that definitely falls into the latter category, and it broke my heart when I got to the last empty page. It was as if I was seeing a friend for the very last time. So the solution was to go right back to the first page, and start again. That's the magic of this book.

Mike Close is able to lure you into each chapter by making you best friends with every person he introduces you to- you're intimate, you're bonded, you're teased, and you're heartbroken, just as he is. The jokes that make the story complete are wonderful. But as wonderful as they are, they are not half as endearing as the friendships the man has maintained throughout the years with those people for whom each chapter is dedicated. The warmth transcends the humor, and the love between this man and these mentors, compadres, and miscreants, brings you to the key places in his life that changed him as a person.

You feel his world change around him, and you feel yourself change, too. You know you are now part of some experience of the sage magician and comedic master who has entertained thousands of people throughout his career. You feel the moments he is falling for his bride, and you shiver with him in the cold British Isles. You become part of Mike Close.

This is the magic of That Reminds Me: Finding the Funny in a Serious World. Yes, you will laugh. Yes, you will shed a tear. You may have a shiver or two. You will recognize yourself in his words if you're lucky. But, what is most impressive is that you will definitely feel as if you've found a dear friend in the man, even if you've known him for years, or heard all of these jokes before. This is one heck of a book, from one hell of a guy. Which reminds me.. let me know if you've heard this one...