NEW RELEASES
A live version of this blog
Besides being the co-chair of the romance committee, I will be speaking on a panel just like Kelli. Her’s is about cover art and promises to be quite amusing. I’ve seen some of the slides from her presentation and they’re great.
My talk is on Sunday at 11:30 at the Integrated Learning Center room 137. My co-panelists are NY Times best-selling authors Rachel Gibson and Karen Hawkins. Come to my talk, have some lunch, then pop back over to Kelli’s at 1pm. It’s like I planned this for your convenience.
I’ve been really scared about the panel for a number of reasons.
1) I don’t like public speaking. My problem isn’t that I can’t speak in public, rather I can’t shut up. As soon as I’m nervous, bad things happen. Granted, it’s funny for the spectators, awful for me.
2) I don’t feel like I can really speak about writing with NY Times best sellers. I haven’t sold anything like what they have.
However – all those things being said, the name of my panel is You Had Me at Funny: Using Humor to Advance Plot is definitely something I can write about. But still, I had reservations. What was I going to say? What?
Karen sent some questions for us to think about that might move us in the right direction. One of them was, why do you write humor?
Then today happened. Today is such a ridiculous example of my life that I can’t wait to tell you about it. Just not today. I gave my schtick to Kelli over the phone and she was laughing away then said, “To bad you can’t use that at your talk.”
Seriously. I’m using the whole thing – nearly word for word – because it’s nonsense like this that makes me write comedy.
If not comedy, then Greek tragedy. It’s all in the perspective. Fortunately, my glass is generally half full of carbonated water.
Come to the talk on Sunday and hear the story live – with visual aids. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait till next week.
Trust me, it’s a doozy.
If they’d let me have a goat I’m sure it would be happy to chauffeur
Once again, I found an outstanding article in the Daily Picayune. This one once again appears thanks to the recent tradition of re-publishing stories from 100 years ago to celebrate the centennial of our state.
This one is especially funny, hysterical even, and I’m confident that if newspapers wrote more irreverently humerous articles like this one, the industry wouldn’t be in nearly as much financial trouble as they are now.
Sit back and enjoy.
Dec. 8, 1912
A goat, one of the animals who have helped to make Bock Beer famous all of the civilized world, held up Doctor H. E. Crepin yesterday. Although it was a hold-up pure and simple, the goat took nothing from the physician but patience – and Mr. Goat took all of that.
Like all other affairs of its kind, the hold-up was the result of an unfair advantage plus a sudden onslaught. The doctor was making a professional call in the south end of the city and had left his automobile in front of the patient’s house.
The automobile was all alone, no one to guard it and nothing to do – it is presumed that it finally grew lonesome. In the mute language of distress it sent the C.Q. D. for aid (Morse Code distress signal)and soon a rescuer hove in sight. Casting aside all formalities of introduction, the rescuer, who proved to be the goat, assumed charge of hte abandoned car and climbed upon the seat. After examining the dashboard carefully the goat gave up in disgust – it was not equipped with a self-starter, and it is just as hard for a goat to crank a car as it is for some other people, so the goat gave up in despair and decided to wait patiently until the physician arrived and assumed his responsibility as chauffeur. (It may be that the goat knew how to start the car but was not a licensed chauffeur under the new law.)
Upon the doctor’s return, another war was inaugurated, and according to the war correspondent, the doctor signed the protocol but refused to revictual the stronghold – whereupon the goat withdrew without giving up his arms or dignity.
Doctor Crepin in an interview said that he has often taken dogs to ride, and it is possible that the goat knowing of this considered himself welcome. The result of the affair is a positive statement from the doctor that he will not take any goat, whatsoever, to ride in his car.
Was I right? Funny, huh? I feel like I might have been a reincarnation of this reporter.