Because of lack of resources, I’ve taken to “producing” my sketch ideas with AI. This is not a recommended solution. See that logo? AI generated. And yet I had to run it through photoshop to really get it right. There were a couple of things I already had to tweak, besides. Anyway, on to more creative things: Chef Shift popped into my head while I was working on something else...the words Chef Shift popped into my head and I just built it up from there. It's a cute idea, but once I had the basic concept of the show, I decided to do it promo-style, so I just started to create photos of chefs and kitchens and judges. But trying to get the images to move, even briefly, got too aggravating. All my dialogue was created as off-screen lines, the video I created had to be edited in the software. I ask for a rock and rock chef waving romaine lettuce and it just had the lettuce hanging in midair waiting for the chef to grab it. Ask for a kitchen full of chefs to run around panicked, and AI just has them merge into one another. I thought something simple like having a group of chefs just cross their arms would be okay. Instead, they all do the Wakanda salute. Just to get a judge to wave a chef off, his hand was upside down. So, it's stills and short shots, and narration to carry it through. I hope you enjoy!
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So, I got roped into watching WWE Smackdown by my grandson. As we discussed the matches via Facetime, I was goofing on the various types of matches I saw, ladder matches, steel cage matches, brawls, free-for-alls and whatnot. That got me to thinking about all the money the WWE is leaving on the table (match) by not broadening their reach and coming up with new types of dangerous bouts. I wrote up some notes on the subject and submitted them to Weekly Humorist and they published it on their site. I always enjoy getting something new up. So, let's get ready to chuckle, and check it out! Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. This was an odd topic, because it basically combine two topics they've used over and over; drinks and horror movies. But it was different enough to work. There were a lot of fun ones. I went off topic a bit, submitted the Magnificent Seven & Seven (which was ignored) and then, in a bit of a stretch, I submitted Indiana Jones and the Shirley Temple of Doom. Okay, one, it's not a slasher movie (although the heart removal scene gif was used) and secondly, you can't get sloshed on Shirley Temples. But it got picked. I did 15 or so and got 8 included, so, yay me! Check out the fun from a couple of weeks ago at:
Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. Yeah, I kinda got lazy on this on, simply doing twist on the movie titles then taking the "curse" directive literally. I only got 4 used and they didn't use my favorite, it was "Frozen" but the GIF was the buffing circle. I liked it. But I did have to go to a list of animated movies to trigger some ideas. It's so weird, you know a bunch of movies, and suddenly, in this situation, you go blank or just keep thinking of the same 5 over and over. That's why I like to think back to the older, classic ones, to avoid the jam on more current titles.
Because of lack of resources, I’ve taken to “producing” my sketch ideas with AI. This is not a recommended solution. See that logo? AI generated. And yet I had to run it through photoshop to really get it right. There were a couple of things I already had to tweak, besides. Anyway, on to more creative things:
Pirate Patch was something I wrote back in 2004, originally for Prairie Home Companion. A quick little commercial pun, from back in the day when Big Pharma was pushing patches for everything as a drug delivery system to work to fight smoking, pain, addiction, hunger. It was rejected (my sketch, not the patches). I sent it around but nothing worked.
Doing the blog has reminded me of a lot of material I had forgotten about, but this sketch always stayed in the back of my mind, especially come "Talk Like a Pirate Day." So, I once I got to playing around with AI, I decided to use it. But here's the thing about AI; it's a bear to work with. After doing a couple of other things with it, I just gets annoying to use. And the idea of attempting to do an office set up with two co-workers conversing seemed like a daunting task and then trying to do a character who has to go through a before & after change? AI would totally change the guy's look. I'm sure an expert could pull it off, but I'm just a writer, so I decided to do it as audio. And even then, it's tricky to get audio that doesn't sound like a bored actor reading his lines. I finally got them to a point I was satisfied with, then realized I hadn't done the character's 'after' dialogue, so I just recorded myself as the post-pharm co-worker, because my goofy voice works in the role. And frankly, it just seemed easier that way. It's up at Sound Cloud and here it is for your enjoyment. Expect me to repost this every "Talk Like a Pirate Day."
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...
Yeah, it's been a while since my last PHC entry. I submitted my last bit to them at Christmas 2006, then nothing until April. And late April, at that. My memories of my time with PHC actually ended in 2005. I was surprised I had as many later submissions as I did. And no recollection as to why I resumed attempting to send PHC my material. I know for a fact nothing else got picked. There was no feedback. I even went through a time where a book publisher contacted me about a book I wrote but only if I could get GK to mention on air. I asked GK and never got a response. I didn't submit again until June, for the end of the season. I did resume in sending material in for the 2007-08 season, but more infrequently. I even have a couple of things into 2008. But we were winding down now.
As for the piece itself; One spring I got to talking with someone and graduation was coming up and for some reason we decided that there weren't any good graduation songs to celebrate with. And that bothered me. So much so, that I ended up writing two songs. Of course, they were parodies. The first was "My Diploma," a take on "My Chironna" with actually got produced by American Comedy Network. The second was this. PHC didn't use it. I did a pretty slick screenplay (Faking Reality) that got optioned about some high school seniors, so I worked a scene into that and used the song there. That is still in limbo. Thanks to the wonders of AI, I created a slick-sounding but totally non-parody version of the song, which I embedded below. Oh, Diploma! Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. Yeah, falling behind here. Since April Fools Day landed on Wednesday, WH decided to make it their hashtag game. It was basically an excuse to pull out any one-liner or jokey headline that I had rattling around my brain. I posted a bunch, and WH retweet almost all of them, but in the end, I only got 4 selected for the webpage. And again, the "winners" where mostly the WH posts. And weirdly, most of them were Trump-related jokes. I mean, when you think fake news, you think Donald. Check them out at:
Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. I've been off line for a couple of weeks, and missed a couple of games. The last one I got into was this one. I'm starting to realize how vague some of the prompts are; slap a thing, freaky a thing, it's all just an excuse to make up puns using the topic. I mean, I'll try and stay on theme but eventually I just go off on a pun run. I submitted my usual dozen + and got 8 in this time, so good for me. Enjoy:
Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. At first I thought it was just Monster Movies (hence "Spankenstein) then I got the hang of it. Fortunately slasher movies have longer titles, so it's easy to parody them. I submitted a bunch and got 5 in, so it's all cool.
Weekly Humorist, a humor magazine I often submit to and occasionally get in, runs these Hashtag Games on Twitter (X), where they name a topic and we submit humorous responses. These games play right into my gag reflex, so I always throw up something. I've taken to setting my calendar to get online every Wednesday to "play" (and by "play" I mean submit content to their website for free--I like to think of it as pun bono work). I always submit a bunch of them on X (Twitter) and some of them get selected for inclusion to their online site. This was one of those randomly vague hashtags, so it had a lot of possibilities. And I tried them all! Wreck synonyms. Bad meals. Stupid morning items. They all kinda work, although I did lean toward the "wrecked" version of puns. I really hit it when I took the cereal Total and made it Totalled. That was pretty good. Especially because one-word titles and names are hard to make a solid joke with. I submitted a bunch and got 8 in, so all's good. Oh, wait...Corn beef hashtag! How did I miss that??? Oh, well, check them out at:
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Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. Archives
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