And the search begins anew...
Nuts, lost another outlet. I just found out that The Big Jewel pulled a Mad magazine and is no longer posting new material. This happened back in August, which shows how much I was paying attention. The last time they published anything of mine was in April, where I got two pieces up in April. Maybe I should have realized something was up. They're keeping the site up for now, archiving all the material they've posted over the years. They didn't pay a nickle, but I always got the sense they were a respectable place to publish material and I always had to run a gauntlet of editors to get the thumbs up or down. My stuff is there. I'll miss having that forum to work with whenever a prose piece idea hit. But the guy who ran it was dealing with other successes and was finding it harder to maintain the site, so at least it was for a good reason.
And the search begins anew...
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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... Here's a bit that kicked around in several forms. A PHC sketch. A non-PHC sketch. A prose piece that kicked around until it found a home in my local paper before they were online. Then I expanded it and posted it on my blog. It's a list. It's puns and word play. And it's all of a theme. I enjoy writing those. We present this holiday comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper, Lost Claus is available over at Amazon. So buy your copy today and avoid the post-holiday rush! No-Wellness
This was the first thing I sold to ACN radio. Granted, it was massively rewritten, but the idea of substituting "Santa Claus" for "San Jose" was totally mine. For the season, I pulled out the original parody lyrics, then I'm pasting the produced version below. I liked my version a lot, even working it into one of my screenplays.
Do You Know the Way to Santa Claus
by Dan Fiorella (sung to the tune of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?") Do you know the way to Santa Claus? I've been away so long, my life's gone wrong, I need a pause. Do you know the way to Santa Claus? I'm going back to find some peace on earth with Santa Claus. Noel is a great big season. Spend a hundred now, and spend some more. In a week, maybe two, you're back in the store. Changing gifts and stuff back into cash. And all the toys you treasured so Are broken now and in the trash. I need to believe in Santa Claus. He's got a lot to give, not just to kids, but to us all. I was born and raised on Santa Claus. I'm going back to find some jingle time with Santa Claus. The North Pole should be a magnet. It's the place where Christmas spirit reigns. Free of greed and the deeds that drive you insane. Santa is the man who shows the way; With peace on earth, good will toward man and that's the point of Christmas day. We've all got a friend in Santa Claus. Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo. Do you know the ways of Santa Claus? Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo. Can't wait to get back to Santa Claus! Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo. 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 sequel, as many of my Christmas bits were. When my kids were little, we went through a major Barney phase. So I wrote a bit called "3 Tenors Sing Barney," which involved most kids songs. I liked it. So, come Christmas, it was just a matter of switching up the songs to the sillier songs of the holidays. I really thought this would work for PHC, what with it being opera and them being on Public Radio and all. They didn't go for it. Maybe they didn't have enough tenors working on the host back then. It's really not something to retool at this point. So, anyway, buy my book, Lost Claus. It's a stocking full of merriment! 3 Tenors Sing ChristmasThis sketch may have been rejected in more formats than any other sketch I've written. It's a massive, epic, pop culture undertaking that probably was never going to get off the ground. Even the title came uneasily. I finally settled on "Christmas Corral" because it sounded like "Christmas Carol" and I thought corral sounded like I had to "round-up" a bunch of characters. It was a stage sketch that no group I knew had the resources to perform. It was a radio skit, where I figured having people voice multiple characters might make it viable; however it was too pop-culture (so forget PHC) and too long (forget ACN). Then I pitched it to both Mad and Cracked, thinking it might work as a comic story. Both passed on it. So, it just sat on my hard drive...until now! Enjoy this wacky, silly sketch! We present this holiday comedy to remind you that my Christmas Comedy Caper, Lost Claus is available over at Amazon. So buy your copy today and avoid the holiday rush! A Christmas CorralFrom 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... The show always came into NYC every December. Without telling me. Anyway, so it was always a push to do holiday stuff and New York material. I like to think I did a decent balance of both, finally hitting the sweet spot with my "Yikes, Virginia" sketch. One of the sketches that didn't fly was Brooklyn Airlines (pun intended). Too embedded with stereotypes? Built solely on the use of the work "freakin"? Yes, yes it was. But what it lacks in subtlety is more than makes up for in brevity. But I would have killed to hear Garrison Keillor say that tag line. Brooklyn Airlines |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. Archives
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