​​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 guess this is scatological...sewer suggests matters of the fecal kind, so we try to open the scope a bit to other bodily fluids and functions.  Some extended the range to a wider range of sewer-themed items (my alligator-pun got passed over) and now I'm kicking myself for not thinking of Mock Ninja Turtle Soup or some Ed (Won) Norton or It-themed item.  Oh, well.  But I got 6 in so that would probably have been my max anyway.

​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 a decent twist on the hashtags, despite my lack of knowledge of any video games post 1980.  And making obscure Watergate and cyclone reference would seem to be a handicap, but I got in 5, so that's pretty good.  And I even managed to get political.  I mean, villainous covers a wide range of topics.  

After signing a bill allowing schools to resume offering whole milk in schools, President Trump went on to explain that “whole milk” is a legal definition.  And that it's spelled with a 'W’.  It seems this isn’t the first time this issue has come up:


“Whole Lotta Love”- the Led Zeppelin song famously not about holes.

“(He’s Got) The Whole World in His Hands”- in addition to noting which spelling of “whole” it was, it had to be noted the hands weren’t Trump’s…because they’re so small.

“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”- a classic from the American songbook, this Gershwin song was not about cancelling a construction project, despite how much Trump claimed it was.

“When You’re Smiling (The Whole World Smiles with You)”-Honestly, he thought the song was about one of those toothless hobos so it’s assumed it’s not just the word “whole” he’s misunderstanding.

“Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On”- to be fair, he often confuses this Jerry Lee Lewis song with a stripper, Lotta Hole, who he knew in Atlantic City.

“A Whole New World”- not only was it necessary to explain the spelling of the title of this song from “Aladdin,” but he had to be told he didn’t negotiate a peace treaty between Agrabah and Ababwa.

Weirdly, he keeps calling the movie “Holes” “Wholes.”

                                                                                  The End

Recently our company updated our office software.  It'll be "transparent" to you, they said.  When we opened up our PCs that Monday, there was a lot of stupid changes.  I mean, I get "updating" something to make it process faster, interact with other programs better, or run smoother, but how is changing the color of stuff an "update?" And where's my cursor??? I had a lot of opinions concerning our updates.  Knowing our tech guys are deaf to our complaints, I decided to vent in a piece of prose that the Weekly Humorist thought was amusing and they published it.  So, here are my thoughts on software updates:

​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.

Food puns; Those are fun, right?  I mean, to be honest, I didn't get a lot of the jokes, but then my knowledge of appetizers is from Chili's.  I've been coming into the games a little late, so I try to check out what's up, as not to repeat or copy anything.  But here, someone made a post about the movie 12 Monkeys and I instantly thought monkey bread and we were off to the races.  I got 8 picked, so that was good.  They didn't pick my favorite.  A number of people posted variations on "Artichoke Dip."  I decided to flip it and post "Choke Artie Dip."  I thought it was cute.  Anyway, as we reach the End Times, leave some room for:

Falling a bit behind, busy digging out from a major snow storm.  I almost didn't bother submitting to.  It's been very sex-related lately.  I guess they have their reasons.  I was ready to click off then a joke popped into my head, so I submitted it.  Then another, then I did the usual thing, googling a list of space movies and synonyms for "nookie."  wound up doing the usual dozen or so and got 7 in.  Enjoy!

So, we met with the the troupe who were doing a 1/2 hour comedy show called "Big B's Traveling Sideshow" (Or "Travelling."  We never quite settled on that).  They had a sponsor.  They had four people who could do characters, impressions and seemed to be able to perform comedy.  They had a music guy who wrote them a theme.  They had head shots.  And they had moxie!  So, they used two of our sketches in the previous show, then they went "on hiatus."  

We were invited to continue submitting.  Then we took it a bit further.  We started writing ourselves into the show.  The guy who introduced us knew us as writers, but the show was very much DIY, different friends and actors would drift in and out from show to show, so we took advantage of that opening.  And we had begun writing new material specifically for them.  They had characters they wanted to repeat and bits they wanted to make running.

But here's the thing...they had recorded all of 2 shows and because they lost the original studio they were shooting at, the group was forced to keep repeating the same two shows over and over in their time slot until they could secure a new space.  And that was how we shook things up, both by writing material for them and about them, but also, acknowledging the long delay between shows by "adding" new people.  It was something that I had learned (probably from John Rawlins) to work with what you had and to address the situation you were in.   We had used it for a comedy revue with did in college.  I've used it ever since in PHC sketches, Style without Substance shows, and in comedy packets submitted over the years.  Meta is my favorite thing to do.

A new studio was secured.  They were going to record a new show.  And the writers talked the troupe into addressing the lengthy hiatus the show had been on.  We wrote a "cold opening" dealing with that.  We then cast our writer friends and friend-friends into the  "cold opening".  The premise (which is explained in the sketch) was the people have been watching the repeats over and over and now had become a fanatics about the show, going all "Rocky Horror Picture Show" on it.  We begin with one of those "Previously on..." openings, showing clips with the characters we'd be dressed as, so people would understand what we were dressed as AND the lines we were going to quote and reference.  Then a friend walks into the viewing party and the fans introduce him (me) to the show.  Very meta.   And super weird, considering no one was probably watching, really.  Then an announcer comes on to "explain" what happened and state that there will be an all new show tonight.  It turns out the cult doesn't want new material.   After writing it up, we have to make the argument to Farley and Bea, that they couldn't be in the cold open because they couldn't play their own "fans."  And THEY BOUGHT IT!!!  Crazy, right?

The sketch is a mix of actors and non-actors, me being one of the bigger non-actors.  We wrote up cue cards on filing folders.  We made costumes. I had a Halloween Frankenstein make-up kit we utilized.  We brought props.  We rehearsed a bit.  If you watch me (the new guy) I am literally moving my lips reading everyone else's lines along with them.  It was a long night.

I worked on this with my sometimes co-writer, the late John Rawlins, (Frankenstein) who had the driest delivery this side of the Sahara.  My then girlfriend (and present wife) even got roped into it.  It was our first toe-dip into show business.

And then things petered out.  No one was happy with the new studio.  As noted previously, you could hear the control room mics on the soundtrack.  I'm pretty sure there were additional issues, but I no longer recall.  They got the 3rd show aired and then...nothing.  Farley and Bevis were a couple, and we think they were having relationship problems.  There was mention of personality disorder.  We met with Farley once or twice after (I remember him living in the actor apartments over on 10th) and things were considered but nothing became of any of it.  No more Big B's.  No more sketches.  We didn't stay in touch with the actors and the writers I was friends with I remained friends with for some time after.  

The last time I really thought about the show was when I was digitizing all my VHS tapes and then posting them to YouTube.  We were young and any chance could be THE chance, so we would do what we could with what we had.  And that would fall away, and we'd look for something else, a writer's workshop, a stand-up school, a Village Voice "Help Wanted" ad.  It was a lot of journeys and a lot of cross fingers in those years.  Which is probably why I have arthritis in my fingers now.

​Anyway, the Cold Opening from Manhattan cable TV in 1981!  And again, sorry about the picture ratio.

​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.  Oh, and I just notice the exclamation point at the beginning is the wrong way for Spanish.  There were a couple of things I already had to tweak, besides.

Now, as for Cake Hoarders, I'm starting to get the hang of it.  I picked this material because it is a series of cuts to different people, so I avoid the stress of trying to keep the people looking the same from scene to scene.  Based on budget, I had to bounce between creating "talking avatars" and "talking pictures."  The first is a video of a person talking and motioning.  The second is a very Clutch Cargo effect of lips moving on a picture.  

The sketch was written for radio, but I actually switched some dialogue to simple visual reactions (the line "whoops" becomes simply a face-palm).  And one verbal gag (about reusing material) I turned into a visual gag by actually reusing clips over and over.  Subtle?  Maybe.  But jumping between different AI sites does create different levels of image quality.  Still trying to figure out which site is giving me what I need.  Some sites are incredibly stupid and not paying attention to me at all!

In the end, I think it comes off well.  The writing is there, so I hope that carries the audience through.

We are set up in a new studio after having the show on "hiatus" for what felt like months.  It was third show for Big B's.  More on that with the next chapter on the cold open.  John Rawlins and I had written this sketch a while previously and we both always loved it.  Inspired by those stock photos they put in the picture frames you buy, it was an idea for a ridiculous product to solve a ludicrous problem in a totally ineffective way.  I always loved the line about developing her first roll of color film.  And for reasons that elude me, I'm in the sketch with the wacky Jordan Auslander.  Big B herself, Bea Bevis, was paired with Carole Real. 

I'll be honest, I'm a ham at heart, so I was very excited to be in this sketch.  I worked hard on it.  I had a new perm flown in.  I thought we pulled it off, DESPITE the fact that you can actually HEAR the control room on the audio (This was the "new" studio that they had found and it was barely an improvement over having no studio).  I remember getting a copy of the show and bringing it home to show the family.  Now, you have to know, the family wasn't too big on compliments.  They showed their love via insults and put-downs.  After I showed them this sketch, they began calling me Otto.  And not in a fun way.  After that, I didn't share much of my writing life with them for a long while.  

I once again note: the picture ratio is off, like your smart TV that gets confused between new TV shows and old TV shows.

I know Jim Farley liked the character and really ratcheted up the insanity of the guy to the point where he had the plant lunge at him at the end.  Weirdly, one of my strongest memories of Farley was in this time, they were renaming the main post office in Manhattan, right next to Penn Station after his grandfather, James Farley, and Jim Farley was going to the ceremony (as he should) but somehow was going to turn it into a "networking" thing to advance his career.  Pretty sure that didn't pan out.  And now they turned the James Farley Post Office into the  Daniel Patrick Moynihan Train Hall (the new Penn Station) because it was the twin of the old Penn Station, which they torn down to put up Madison Square Garden.  That's the creative life in NYC.

And again, sorry about the picture ratio.