Category: Election Stuff - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

Barely Home Companion-Post-State of the Union (Jan. 2004)

1/20/2023

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...

If memory serves, this is the last bit PHC bought from me. It's massively re-written as GK inserts his "tax & spend" liberal ideals into the bit to garder "clapter" (that's getting claps instead of laughter for something said. It's not a joke, just a declaration that everyone agrees with). It's just odd how I attempt to write a tight sketch, it gets unraveled into a meandering routine.

It's back on the old PHC website (they had shrubbed it after GK had his #MeToo Moment a few years ago), but I'm posting my audio file below, so you may compare and contrast.

Post-State of the Union

Barely Home Companion - Bush State o'Union Address 2004

1/13/2020

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie 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...

Back in 2004 there wasn't a heck of a lot of post-State Of The Union follow-up comedy. But that year Bush took a moment to speak out against steroid use in baseball, and while it is a valid concern, many wondered why it came up in a SOTU address. But that remark was the inspiration for a sketch: other things the President didn't get to bring up or fully explain. The bit went well and was surprisingly true to the script I submitted. Yet, there was no credit for me, on air or on the website. I noticed that there's no credit for Keillor online either.

This is a bitter sweet sketch for me, it's the last sketch of mine that they used. I actually continued to submit to the show for the remainder of the 2003-2004 season, and the next two beyond--I was even sending material well into 2007, and occasionally after that--but none of it was acknowledged. I was not really fired, no one asked me to go away, I just petered out. I just wasn't making the cut and after a while of that I just stopped sending things in. It was sad and frustrating but unsurprising based on all my previous experience there.

Writing is a solitary profession. I always dreamed of joining that comedy room or being part of a team. I wanted to belong to something that I wanted to belong to. Style Without Substance, the WGAE, the Plague, PHC, workshops, but something always eluded me. Sometimes they ended and it felt like I was dropped to the curb. Mostly it involves my lack of social skills, I'm civil, personable but I'm an introvert and can't exist outside my comfort zone for long. When my excuse for being with people ends, I am incapable of maintaining that relationship. It's happened with classmates, committee members and co-writers. I just retreat to my hidey-hole and look for the next place to mail by submissions out to.

Years ago, I was once talking with my friend; we were both writing and we both had day jobs. I hadn't really told anyone at work about what I did on the side and I asked him if he had. He promptly said no. And it was never something he considered. To him, "writer" was his secret identity and his super power. Sometimes I forget that. I'm a writer. Yes, there's the day job and the family and the chores and the kids, but the core issue remains; I'm a writer. And the fact is, working on this blog has reminded me of that. It's not a stellar career but it it mind.

Anyway, on Jan. 24, 2004, PHC presented my State o'Union sketch (with my original script posted below).

Bush State o'Union Address 2004

Skit Happens: Election Edition - The Sarcastic Party

11/6/2018

This is one of those bits I wrote up that I really, really enjoy but no one else seems to. It's been bumping around awhile. It's not really topical but I've submitted it in one form or another to every venue I've been a party to over the years. It's a deep dive into my sarcastic passive-aggressive side that rarely gets unleashed in my bits but when it comes to watching pandering politicians who promise the moon but are just so insincere about it, I can go there very easily. Very.

But it is election time, and autumn is here, which means falling leaves, a nip in the air and UFOs... Yes, we're here to plug my Nick Flebber mystery, Space Case, a X-citing investigation for all you X-philes out there. Available over at Amazon!

The Sarcastic Party

Skit Happens: Election Edition - Barrack be a Muslim Tonight

11/6/2018

A quickie song parody from 2008. Remember back in the day people had to make up shortcomings about a president? Good times. I actually had a run of these type of songs back there, it was a weird, weird time.

But it is election time, and autumn is here, which means falling leaves, a nip in the air and UFOs... Yes, we're here to plug my Nick Flebber mystery, Space Case, a X-citing investigation for all you X-philes out there. Available over at Amazon!

Barack be a Muslim Tonight

Skit Happens: Election Edition - The First Ladies Club

11/5/2018

Ah, the excitement of of a new administration! The comedy troupe is always looking for female-heavy skits and I try to fill that niche. Sometimes. But the idea of a First Ladies Club seemed an obvious choice. So obvious, SNL did one as well, only more supernatural, with long-gone ladies appearing to Melania. Dated in certain ways, I note Barbara Bush is gone now. I don't know why I didn't have Rosalyn there. But there's stuff beyond the topical which still works. There's some snappy lines in there. The line about being the first lady but not the last is one I came up with for a political comedy play I wrote once. Nice running gags and character moments. It's not a classic, but it would have been a slick bit of comedy of its time...which has passed.

But it is election time, and autumn is here, which means falling leaves, a nip in the air and UFOs... Yes, we're here to plug my Nick Flebber mystery, Space Case, a X-citing investigation for all you X-philes out there. Available over at Amazon!

The First Ladies Club

Skit Happens: Election Edition - Debating Debates

11/4/2018

Remember a time when Clinton and Trump were arguing about when to hold debates? Remember when when Trump looked like an idiot and we all thought Hillary was going to win? Boy, did this skit get dated!
I mean it was bad enough that we were starting to inundate TMI Hollywood with political sketches, since they were mostly dealing with pop culture, but then 2016 was the first pop-culture presidential election. Hillary here is so confident. Trump is flailing. OK, so maybe not all of it dated. The biggest trick in these things is trying to find you're own take on a character and not just do an SNL sketch the way they were defining them. It's hard. I often find myself writing in the voice of the SNL version of the person. But the sketches were now better fleshed out, there was a decent POV and a good closing gag. So, there's that. And now it gets to see the light of day...

And, of course, this whole celebration of fall is to help remind folks that my book, Space Case is available over at Amazon. It sure beats stepping on a rake!

Debating Debates

Skit Happens: Election Edition - Clinton House of Balloons

11/3/2018

A cute little trifle I wrote after the Democratic Convention concluded. It's short, a black out more than a sketch, but it was something everyone noted about the Clinton's and the balloon. The big meme was "Find someone who looks at you the way Bill looks at these balloons." So, a commercial parody. Who knew they would actually have to consider this as a job after November?

So, Space Case, my second Nick Flebber mystery, which just happens to take place in the fall, is available at Amazon. Grab a copy today. I'll be glad you did.

Clinton House of Balloons

Skit Happens: Election Edition - Face the Press

11/2/2018

It's election time, so let's pull out those election sketches. Yes, I have written election sketches. And here's the first to prove it...
It's a weird one and dated as all get out. Apparently, the National Enquirer got some traction during the 2016 primary campaign by reporting that Ted Cruz had had affairs. So, let's toss them into the mix of a standard Sunday morning news panel with all the hot-shot newspapers, right? I sure didn't know that Trump had the Enquirer in his pocket, and that the publisher and he were besties. And, yeah, I treated the Enquirer as if were still publishing the supernatural stories that they had long since transferred to my old employer, The Weekly World News (which I cop to in the sketch). This sketch is very of its day. And typically anti-Bernie, as was my want.

But it is election time, and autumn is here, which means falling leaves, a nip in the air and UFOs... Yes, we're here to plug my Nick Flebber mystery, Space Case, a X-citing investigation for all you X-philes out there. Available over at Amazon!

Face the Press

Skit Happens: Post-Halloween Edition - Post-Holiday Depression

11/1/2018

Okay, here's another bit I stumbled across in my files. It's dated 2007, but that's long after I cease being involved with PHC. But the skit is such a PHC bit, the pacing, the delivery, it had to have been a Ketchup Advisory Board piece originally. It looks like I attempted to update it to two guys talking instead of a MARRIED couple, so it must have went to the radio syndication companies, too. It feels like I just lobed off the standard Ketchup monologue opening and the song and sign-off. I'm just not certain. It certainly is a strange bit for me to attempt to resurrect. But it's one of the few post-Halloween sketches ever written, and it may have been a sequel to my post-Christmas Ketchup sketch that PHC did produce! Happy All Saints Day!

So, to remind people that Halloween WAS coming and I STILL have a Halloween book to sell, here is...

Post-Holiday Depression

Bubble Life

7/12/2018

People keep claiming that, as a New Yorker, I live in a bubble. Let me tell you about my bubble. There are 8 million people in my bubble. My neighbors are like 50 feet from my front door. Every day I have to travel to work by train, boat and subway with thousands of other people. I work in an office with people from around the state, country and planet. And if that’s not enough, my bubble is so special, that people from all over the world travel here just to visit. These people crowd our sidewalks and Burger Kings. Businesses are run from my bubble. Companies erect skyscrapers with their names on them to mark their section of the bubble. International decisions are made here. As well as other decisions; like, for lunch I can choose to get some egg rolls, or pizza, or empanadas, or curry chicken, or a hamburger, or a Philly cheese steak or a hot dog. Or some of each…

My kids went to school with hundreds of other kids. Neighborhood kids. Kids from the other side of the borough. Military kids stationed nearby. Kids with whom they had to work, compete against and share multiple childhood diseases.

It’s a crowded bubble where people have learned to get along. There are rules and laws that the vast majority agree to live by if we are all going to get along and move along. We can have tall buildings that don’t constantly burn down, ferries that don’t capsize regularly and trains that don’t crash and kill hundreds often.

Yet I have to listen to people carry on that where they are is the real America. They tout places that don’t get a lot of visitors until it gets flooded or a twister rips through. They carry on as if somehow they have their fingers on the pulse of what “real Americans” want because their neighbors live “down the road a-piece.”

The whole point of coming together as a nation is that we are stronger together. As a country, we are a mutt, made up of all the people that couldn’t hack it in the old country. They all brought their customs, traditions and foods here. But they’re here because they wanted to be here, not because their parents happen to live here. America was their goal.

They also brought a sense that what’s good for the least of us is good for the greatest of us.

I don’t understand what other people, in their big empty states, are getting so cranky about. They live isolated lives, worried about things that just don’t happen. They hold grudges against others they don’t know because some loud-mouth tells them too. But mostly I don’t get why these salt-of-the-earth, hard-working Americans elected a loud, elitist, lying, crooked business man and pseudo-billionaire from New York City as the face of the nation. If this is what real America should be, I’ll stick to my bubble, thank you.

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