Category: My Morning Kvetch - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

The Service Survey Says...

11/7/2018

You know what, American businesses? Stop harassing me about your employees' abilities. Or my experience at your store. I don't want to take your online survey. I don't want to stay on the line to answer a few brief questions upon the completion of our interaction. I don't want to evaluate your hires. I'm not your HR department. You keep telling me you're recording my call for possible quality evaluation, so evaluate it yourself. Just hire someone to listen. And I don't want to go to the site on the back of your receipt to take a survey that will then enter me into a sweepstakes where I might win a prize. I'm not answering your stupid questions on spec. At least Burger King will give be a Whopper if I answer its questions (I'm looking at you Wendy's). Hey, look, if I have a complaint, I'll write you a letter. And don't force me to rate your employee's performance when your company sucks and isn't getting my cable picture fixed. Most of the time it's not about that poor cubicle jockey forced to deal with the public, it usually about your management's crappy decisions, but none of your telephone surveys give that as a choice. I'm your customer, not your mom. You figure it out.

Asbestos????

8/8/2018

Breaking:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enacted a rule on June 1 making it easier for companies to use asbestos in products.

Has anybody been clamoring for the return of asbestos? I mean, seriously? This stuff has been proven dangerous. Men in HAZMAT suits show up when it’s present. My 80-year-old father had lung surgery to deal with a nodule doctors have been monitoring for most of his adult life because of exposure to asbestos in the Navy and on his job. There are lawyers on TV commercials every hour telling you to call them if you’ve been exposed to asbestos. Every person at Ground Zero after 9/11 is on constant surveillance after breathing in this crap.

Why this is happening? Were they looking for something we could all get that's compatible to coal miner’s black lung? Whatever made the EPA decide that we were over-reacting to the threat of asbestos? Was this some campaign promise I totally overlooked or something that was updated at the GOP Convention? I’m sure it’s not because the President says reports of asbestos’ danger was all the work of the mob. I’m sure it’s not because Russia is a major source of asbestos. No, it must be because it’s now just asbestos’ time again, like bell bottoms and vinyl records. What’s next? Cyclamates? Red dye #2? Leaded gasoline? Clackers?

Well, I guess the mesothelioma lawyers are happy about it.

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.

Monster Entertainment

6/12/2017

Dear Hollywood,

Look, I’m sorry “The Mummy” tanked…oh, who am I kidding, I’m not. I was angry about it since they announced it and the start of this whole Universal Monster “Dark Universe.” I’ve been mad about this stuff since “Van Helsing” came out. I grew up loving the monster movies of Universal Studios. From “Frankenstein” right up to “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein” (if you don’t know it’s one of the most solid Universal horror movies done in the Forties, I pity you), the movies were scary, funny, thrilling, and hokey. Sure, continuity is off, this was back before “franchises” existed and each movie kinda started from scratch, but they were fun and not calculated. Even the first time the idea of two monsters existing in the same universe occurred (“Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman”), it started off a joke idea that people grew to like.

Universal kept trying to revive its monsters, but without the iconic make-up that made their monsters iconic. Then came “Van Helsing.” I thought the idea sounded cool at first, take Van Helsing from the Dracula movies and turn him into a monster hunter, especially since the actor who played Van Helsing in "Dracula" played essentially the same character in "Frankenstein" and "The Mummy."

But it was a train wreck, who’s only acknowledgment of previous Universal monster movies was the vague notion that werewolves can kill vampires, which was first implied at the conclusion of “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.”

Anyway, the film got me angry. So angry, I wrote the sequel to the last Universal monster movie they SHOULD HAVE done. I brought it into modern times, I managed to explain why we haven’t heard from the monster is decades, and I folded in every bit of folklore from the movies I could PLUS give it a sense of humor about itself. It was a tale of thrills, revenge and villainy. Naturally, as soon as I started showing it around, Universal started floating the idea of a “Dark Universe” to compete with Marvel movies or DC.

Sure, I tried to do a rewrite, and convert the monsters into the more public domain versions of themselves, but the same reaction was had. Apparently you can’t pitch a movie called “Island of Frankenstein” without triggering those connections. Oh, well. I’m very happy with it and I love the big finale. So, I park it here, on my website. Enjoy.

island of frankenstein by api-211615770 on Scribd

My Morning Kvetch

4/20/2017

In March 2016, a new comedy website launched, featuring short online articles. It was The Morning Kvetch. Alas, there was no traction and the site no longer exists. So, I'm going to drag out the bits I wrote for them and post them here from time to time. So, let us present (the last in the series):

Lions & Tigers and Beards, Oh My!

My Morning Kvetch

4/16/2017

In March 2016, a new comedy website launched, featuring short online articles. It was The Morning Kvetch. Alas, there was no traction and the site no longer exists. So, I'm going to drag out the bits I wrote for them and post them here from time to time. So, let us present:

To Shave and Shave Not

My Morning Kvetch

4/14/2017

In March 2016, a new comedy website launched, featuring short online articles. It was The Morning Kvetch. Alas, there was no traction and the site no longer exists. So, I'm going to drag out the bits I wrote for them and post them here from time to time. So, let us present:

It Doesn’t Take a Village to Raise a Pet

My Morning Kvetch

4/12/2017

In March 2016, a new comedy website launched, featuring short online articles. It was The Morning Kvetch. Alas, there was no traction and the site no longer exists. So, I'm going to drag out the bits I wrote for them and post them here from time to time. So, let us present:

Charged Up

My Morning Kvetch

4/9/2017

In March 2016, a new comedy website launched, featuring short online articles. It was The Morning Kvetch. Alas, there was no traction and the site no longer exists. So, I'm going to drag out the bits I wrote for them and post them here from time to time. So, let us present:

Notes from the meeting where The Syfy Channel Executives Develop the New Show, ‘Van Helsing,’

My Morning Kvetch

4/5/2017

In March 2016, a new comedy website launched, featuring short online articles. It was The Morning Kvetch. Alas, there was no traction and the site no longer exists. So, I'm going to drag out the bits I wrote for them and post them here from time to time. So, let us present:

Desperately Seeking Vegan

comedy, writer, Dan Fiorella, Daniel fiorella, screenplay, sketches,radio,computer games, television writer