​​​​​​​​​​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 guess I'm doing this to remind myself about all the material I've written over the years.  I have no memory of this sketch.  It's a quick commercial parody for a dumb product, which I must have backed into with the name of the product.  I'm reading it and it definitely reads like a PHC sketch, with the couple at odds over the whole concept.  I should check to see if I peddled it to the other radio outlets I was dealing with at the time.  It really would fit in most places.  Maybe I need to mind the files for internet content.  If only I had production abilities or connections.

They didn't use the bit.  And the show was taking a few weeks off before doing a series of shows on the road, some within Minnesota. 

My short play, "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Sobriety" will be part of the Hudson Classical Theater Company's WAGG short play festival March 22 & 23 at the 102nd Street Field House.  It's a free event, but you need to reserve a seat at Eventbrite here.  ​

​​​​​​​​​​​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.

Can't say this was one of my strong efforts.  I submitted a dozen and got 4 selected, but they picked one of my weakest puns (Pander Express) but one of my stronger (Dairy Drama Queen).  There were some solid entries, but a lot of weak ones that made it.  There's always next week...

Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News.  During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.")  It took me a while to get the hang of the paper.  I spent a couple of months grappling with Dear Dottie and her advice column.  When I got phased out of that position, I had to try to work my way back in with some straight forward fake news stories. ​

There was a lot of weird stuff going on in President Bush II's terms.  Inflation.  Bank stuff.  Jobs going overseas.  It was a joy to combine outsourced with outer space.  I think I was really pushing the limits with this one, but I just stayed in the logic of the premise and it worked within the WWN universe.

​​​​​​​​​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...

Just some random silliness.  Pirates were becoming a recurring theme in my comedy.  Video pirates who were recording Hollywood movies to bootleg, porch pirates stealing packages, Last Pirate Standing, a game show video (that actually went to air), medical eye patch commercials.  It's a fun thing to write about.  Getting them picked is a different story.  There had been stories about schools putting on productions of plays without getting permission.  Some where they didn't even get a script, a teacher transcribed a play from memory.  So, it seemed like the most logical next step for piracy, me bucco!

​​​​​​​​​Back in the aughts, Cracked magazine was owned by the same company as the Weekly World News.  During the rocky final years of Cracked, our editor, in an attempt to give the writers a pay check, had us contribute articles to WWN ("the humor magazine that nobody knows is a humor magazine.")  It took me a while to get the hang of the paper.  I spent a couple of months grappling with Dear Dottie and her advice column.  When I got phased out of that position, I had to try to work my way back in with some straight forward news stories.

This article came about from a long running disagreement with a writer friend of mine.  He was very much of the school that "Gone with the Wind" shouldn't be shown on any more, and felt it was just a bad as "Birth of a Nation" in depicting racial stereotypes.   I knew he was a big Marx Bros. fan, so I finally countered with the argument that would he ban Marx Bros. movies because of the Chico Marx character?  And he was a huge Buster Keaton fan, so I asked him if we should ban "The General," since it also portrayed the Rebels in a sympathetic light.   That was different I was told.  But the discussion always lingered.

I had done a sketch about colorization and the logic of that sketch was perfect to expand upon to give a make-over to old movies, especially now that TCM was now making a point to show old, non-PC movies.  I thought it came out pretty well.

​​​​​​​​​​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 last game caught me off guard; sure, it was another musical one, but the combo of bullying and ballads got me.  Sure, a lot of people don't really post ballads, they just grab any old song title and play with that.  I, on the other hand, pulled up a list of the 40 best ballads and worked my way down, while checking a list of synonyms for "bully."   Made up the usual dozen and got 8 picked for the site.  Yay, me!

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I've really been taking in all the SNL50 content.  I've enjoyed it all, but it's made me melancholy as well.  The idea of writing for SNL was always a dream.  Anytime I had a chance to submit, I jumped on it.  The topic came up again and again.  And I've written about it here again and again.  Now, 50 years later, the possibilities for it happening are diminishing.  Writing the prose piece and putting this video together were my ways of becoming part of the celebration.

After watching the Beyond Saturday Night documentaries, I finally got an idea for a sketch.  I was going to write a documentary from the fans' POV.  But here's the thing, out here in the 'burbs, I really don't have what you might call a comedy support group.  So, thinking it over, I (along with my inner ham) decided to do it from ONE fan's POV.  And then I figured, WTH, I'll just be that fan.

I have SNL books.  I have SNL Christmas ornaments.  I had recently unearth some SNL related magazines.  I had posters, t-shirts and the internet.  A definite approach was coming together.   In the end, I had too much stuff.

I wrote out a sketch.  I was liking it.  Then, at work, I decided to see if I could record myself, as a character, talking about SNL.  I did.  I realized afterward that I was using my "inside voice" on the video, but it worked for the character and didn't attract attention at the job.

I searched the internet to find some images I wanted to reference.  I had to figure out how to get my phone video onto my PC.  Then I had to convert my .MOV file to MPG4 file that my editing software would recognize.  I found the original SNL theme.

I attempted to record a VO myself, but both my microphone and my voice weren't up to the task.  I found an online site that converted text into an announcer's voice.  I found an image of the SNL documentary title card and matched up the fonts for my title to superimpose on it.

 Over the next few days I started to edit the bits I had together.  I was disappointed in one of my video takes so I decided to re-do it.  Only, I decided to record it in my car, instead of my office or at my PC.  It "opened up" the video a lot.  

It was actually fun putting it together.  Editing it, cleaning up takes, overlapping things.  But I was becoming aware of time.  I couldn't let it run too long.  I figured it should be 5 minutes max.  Ideas were dropped. One piece I really like didn't work in the body of the video, then I thought it would be one of those scenes that plays while the credits roll.  But the sound wasn't that great.  I couldn't reshoot it because I wouldn't be able to get that location privately again for days.   I decided to re-do the audio, and convert the video into a series of screen caps.

Titanic it ain't, but I really like the way it came out.  I uploaded it Youtube, sent it out on FB, LinkedIn and Twitter.  People are watching it and liking it.  I hope you will too. So, I've got the video below.  Thanks for checking it out.

​​​​​​​​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 back to when the worse thing a vice-president could do was shoot someone in the face?  But, then, like now, there was never any pushback on it.  Dick Cheney shot a guy and got away with it.  In fact the guy had to apologize to him.  This was kind of a inflection point with the GOP to where in the future a candidate for office could brag about shooting people on 5th Ave. and not lose support.  

I don't know if I thought PHC would use a sketch like this.  I mean, I thought it worked.  And it was topical.  And I thought a decent take on the news, but maybe it was a bit too stringent for the radio show.  Didn't get picked.  But it's a good snapshot of another time and place.

Here's a little comedy journey.  I've been trying to keep up with all the SNL50 content hitting the airwaves.  I got to see the 4 documentaries they released in January '25.  I loved them.  And with all the hype about the anniversary for the past year, it only hit me last week about a parody.  The idea started as a documentary parody...the fan-viewpoint.  They issue was I don't have a lot of access to people, what being anti-social and all.  So a DYI version of the idea worked itself out.  And it was pretty good.  I started to think personally, and realized all the SNL-related stuff I had on hand.  I could essentially record something on my phone and create a video bit.  I could.

Thinking about it, I considered my other options.  Once the concept had been hashed out, I could write it up as a prose piece and send it to my usual contacts.  So I did that.  I thought it had topically.  I thought it was a different approach to the idea.  And the comedy sites should like a take on SNL, we're all fans to one extend or another.

They didn't bite.  So, to get it out there, I was going to have to go full DYI.  So, I present here the prose version of my mockumentary: