Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large - Easy as Falling off a Blog

Dan Fiorella

Barely Home Companion - New Sound Effects (Jan 2003)

1/21/2022

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

2003 got off to a late start and there were only two January shows. I went with one of my go-to pieces, sound effects, to mark the new year. I referenced a lot of current events under the W. Bush administration in this short piece, some of which I can't recall. I liked playing around with the sound effects, but I wonder if the show thought I was parodying them and not just playing around with the format. They didn't use the sketch and I had no real way of knowing the reason for the rejection (as per usual). And, again, not a sketch that could be repurposed elsewhere. So, straight from the archives comes...

New Sound Effects

R.I.P. John Rawlins.

1/13/2022

I received some sad news recently. John Rawlins, an old college buddy and frequent co-writer, passed away last month. They posted his obituary here.

When I transferred to NYU for my junior year of college, I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do...or rather admit to myself what I wanted to do. I wanted to write. But in my neighborhood writing wasn't considered a valid career. I went to the student advisor, to try to figure out what I needed to do to get to write. He really didn't have much to tell me, but he did pull out a flyer advertising a meeting looking to form a new student organization, a college humor magazine, and said maybe I should check it out. I did. And with that, I had found my college tribe. I've written about the Plague before. It really was a important time for me.

Now, John Rawlins, he was one of the founding members of The Plague. He was a low-key guy with a droll, dry sense of humor. And how he could write. While I was attempting to mimic old time comedy, John was pulling together impossible ideas and creating outrageous material that oft times veered into the absurd. Our sensibilities couldn't be more different, but as we worked on the magazine, we developed a rhythm, a creative back & forth, that we put to use writing things together. There would come sketches, radio scripts, stage pieces, animation and more.

He was a film major. I remember a short he made about Christmas decorations. The Plague produced a stage show that we wrote, produced and directed. The results? We meant well. There was the time the Plague got to decorate the front window of the building that housed the student clubs and activities. We did a parody of an amusement park called the Plague-ground. John was front and center for each.

As college was winding down, we sought other venues to write for. I remember answering an ad for a writer. A guy wanted to do a "guide to college" parody. For some reason I talked the guy into letting the other Plague members write with me. We did several chapters, some pretty slick material, but the guy didn't care for any of it and the thing died.

I don't totally remember the exact events, but I know we took a class in stand-up comedy together. The only thing I remember about that is when the teacher asked John, who is from Jamaica, Queens, where he was from, John answered, "Jamaica." When the teacher asked "Queens or the island?" John replied, "the island." And he let the guy go on believing that he was from the Caribbean responding to each question with this deadpan wit. I was flabbergasted! You could just do that with people?? I couldn't wrap my mind around it, John was fearless.

From that class we met a guy who was "working" with some people who were doing comedy. He thought we were funny and invited us to join. Turns out that a group was looking do some type of film but wound up doing a comedy fanzine instead. It was called "Salvador Deli," and we wrote with them (I need to pull them out and scan them for the blog). That group ended up in NJ creating a comedy show for a public access station there. We wrote and acted in the show. As of now, the only two sketches I posted were ones I wrote or co-wrote and performed in. The first sketch was a cold open explaining what we were doing. John and I were two of the reporters. We're knelling in front of the camera because the "stage" for the press agent wasn't high enough and we needed the camera shot over our heads.

The other bit was something I vividly remember. I wrote it. The whole cast got to be in it, and although I was the weakest link in the sketch (why do I sound like Jerry Lewis when I try to act anxious?) I thought it played quite well. It was a parody of the very well-know Pepsi commercials of the time. John as the stricken consumer steals the show. He just underplays it and runs off with the bit.

Later on, John and I fell in with a comic, who had fallen in with a couple of actors who were doing a show on Manhattan's public access channel. We started writing sketches for them. Then we got cocky and starting writing ourselves into their show. At the time we got involved they had only done a couple of episodes, then went into repeats as they scrambled for production money and studio space. When the show taped its first new episode in months, John and I wrote a cold open to parody the situation by making it look like the show had a cult following. We convinced Big B and the cast that us writers had to do it because the idea wouldn't work if the cast was pretending not to be the cast. That's John on the far left, wearing Frankenstein make-up, explaining the premise of the fan club. That's my then-future wife seated to the right (she married me anyway after this). Note me mouthing the words as others read them off the cue cards..

We wrote a radio script, "Captain Useless," which we repurposed over and over again, trying to get it produced, even to the point of pitching it as an episode of Galaxy Rangers to attempt to spin it off as a cartoon show. I had used the original radio script as my writing sample to get the gig at Galaxy Rangers. And when I learned that they were still seeking writers, I got them to interview John, based on the radio script they had already read. He became one of their go-to writers, handling every turn of this western/sci-fi/space show adroitly and with remarkable humor.

At one point after collage, John was working in lower Manhattan which allowed us to meet up and work on Galaxy Ranger scripts. It also allowed us to eat lunch at the local Roy Rodgers fast food restaurant and buy the kids meals that featured the Galaxy Rangers.

We were also part of a theater troupe, Pen to Stage Productions, which was a writer-driven group. John wrote a lot of stage pieces for them. He got to direct. He got to act. He was a comedic force to be reckoned with.

As the years trudged along, we drifted apart. I was married with kids, he moved to Jersey. There was some minor interaction on Facebook in recent years, especially when other members of Pen-To-Stage created a homepage. I had to put him in touch with the Writers Guild when they came looking for him concerning some European money for Galaxy Rangers. When the GR issued their DVD collection, I was invited to participate and I immediately brought in John to be part of it. Between the two of us, we were responsible for nearly 1/6 of their season.

Even though he was out of sight, he was always on my mind. I dwell in the past a lot, but when there are such unique and special people I've run in the course of my life that's a good thing. I'm thankful his family thought to contact me. I'm sorry I let people drift out of my life. I'm not a people person as a rule, but with people like John Rawlins, exceptions should be made.

Barely Home Companion - American Plumbing Foundation 2 (Dec. 2002)

12/27/2021

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

This one has me baffled. It's a sequel to something, but I thought this was the only plumber association skit I wrote? I scrolled back in the blog and can't find one. I guess this is just what happens at my age, you write sequels to sketches you never wrote. It was something I had kicking around the hard drive and pulled out it out for the holiday season (?). I didn't even bother to mention holiday meals to tie into the season. I totally get why they didn't use this one.

American Plumbing Foundation 2

Barely Home Companion -Letters from Santa (Dec. 2002)

12/20/2021

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

Yet, I was pulling out material from my Christmas catalogue of comedy. This was originally a prose piece that I posted at Themestream.com and other "pay-per-click" sites, and decided to attempt to adapt it into a radio sketch. It came out okay at best. A lot of topical humor for a PHC bit, with references to Enron energy crook Ken Lay, and PETA while the original had even more of those. There's a couple of double entendres that probably didn't help my cause but it was so short it would be over before you had a chance to get offended. So, it was a pass from PHC. If I ever find the original prose, I'll have to post it around here.

Letters from Santa

Barely Home Companion - The Virginia Monologues (Dec. 2002)

12/13/2021

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

Remember that play, "The Vagina Monologues?" What if you could turn it into a Christmas sketch? I had written this up in a flurry of Christmas material one holiday season. It was a sketch, a prose piece (a critic's review) and this radio version. It was dicey going in. I mean, these lines are barely double entendres, they are single entendres. But I liked the idea of mixing Christmas with pretentious theatre. Was it rejected because it was too risque or because I wrote "flume" instead of "flue" ? Who knows? But, at least I got it published over at the Big Jewel humor site.

The Virginia Monologues

Barely Home Companion-Guy Noir Saves Christmas (Dec. 02)

12/6/2021

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

This sketch is a part of a much larger narrative. I talked about it here, but to recap; while my screenplay "Lost Claus" was kicking around, I decided to adapt it into a sketch for PHC. The sketch is essentially the opening scene from the screenplay and a reworked interview scene at the North Pole with Santa's daughter. Oh, and the confrontation with the villain. And then kind of leapfrogged to the happy ending. I thought it was pretty amazing. PHC passed. Happily, the sketch version went on to some greener pastures. I turned it into a flat out radio script and began submitting it around. It won a contest and was produced (here). It was then later produced by another radio troupe.

In retrospect, it was probably a long shot a best. It was pretty long (Almost 20 pages). I thought I nailed Guy Noir pretty well. It was filled

Guy Noir Saves Christmas

Barely Home Companion: To Grandmother's House We Go (Nov. 2002)

11/25/2021

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

PHC would do these little musical vignettes from time to time, a series of black-out type scenes alternating with a song. I gathered a series of jokes and opinions I had and cobbled them together using "Grandmother's House We Go" as the thread. I even had to add a few verses of my own to pad it along. Uncle Al's rant I lifted from a prose piece I wrote about the pilgrims. I shoved that in there as well. It did not make the cut. So, here it is, as some Thanksgiving leftovers...

To Grandmother's House We Go

Barely Home Companion: Unbearable (Nov. 2002)

11/25/2021

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

Okay, this is one of those scripts I totally forgot about. It's like I was reading it for the first time when I pulled it off the hard drive. I'm trying to think back to the time...TV book clubs were starting to become a thing, with Oprah's leading the way. Then there was a big book, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" that was making the rounds, which must have been the inspiration for the title of the skit. And guess I was hitting back at this wave of pretentious writing that was going on at the time. People weren't writing books, they were writing tomes, these very thick and very prestigious works of fiction that were all the rage. I remember an author turning down a chance to be Oprah's pick, but I don't recall if that was before or after my sketch. And there were a book, a memoir, I believe, that was discovered to be a fraud. It was a strange time in the publishing business. And I had to think, "Pretentious books? Garrison Keillor would love to see a sketch about that, I bet!" Turns out, not so much. So, let's drag this bit out of the comedy carbon chamber and post it here...

Unbearable

Barely Home Companion -Box of Pumpkins (Nov. 2002)

11/11/2021

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

Yes, I had a recent successful sale with Bag o'Leaves so, naturally, I would try to go for a sequel and maybe create a running bit. I came up with Box o'Pumpkins. Maybe it's a little less ridiculous than a bag of leaves, but really, not much less. Another goofy, fun idea, right? And this time I tried to follow the rhythms of the produced version of my last sketch. Since it got rejected, I didn't bother trying to follow it up with "Box o' Dandelions" or "Pail of Clover" or "Bucket of Sand." Perhaps I should have kept pushing the concept. But, then, as now, I'm easily discouraged.

Box of Pumpkins

Barely Home Companion-The O'Reilly Fear Factor (Nov 2002)

11/4/2021

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

I had written this for one of my other outlets and it didn't get used, so I rewrote it for PHC. I knew it wasn't going to get picked. Too TV for Keillor. They did do a Bill O'Reilly character at times on the show, but this was pushing it. But, some weeks it was hard to come up with something new, so I'd recycle. I believed if they stopped seeing something from me every week they might forget about me, even if it was something I didn't fully believe in. That is a reason which makes it really hard to stay motivated.

The O'Reilly Fear Factor

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