Tag: satire

I’ll shake hands or kiss something for your vote; or kiss hands and shake something

image Tonight is the second round of elimination for the Performance of the Year award at The Public Blogger, where I’m among 10 nominees remaining after last week’s public vote. Thanks to all of your incredible support at the polls, fueld by word of my terminal health situation which thankfully turned out to be just undigested Trix cereal in my stool, your voting put me at No. 1 heading into this second week of competition — So THANK YOU!

(And General Mills, my lawyer will be in touch about the mental anguish caused by your cereal.)

Anyway, tonight at 7 p.m., the competition will continue with the second round of voting. Below, I have included a list of my fellow nominees — artists, poets, singer/songwriters, photographers and a humorist *wink* — along with samples of their art and links to their work. I have done this so that you to will have an opportunity to experience the nine other talented nominees in order to:

1) Form an unbiased decision for yourselves
2) Go to the polls tonight with confidence
3) Vote for me because of that terrifying health scare Continue reading I’ll shake hands or kiss something for your vote; or kiss hands and shake something

Nose whistling is the heart and soul of any great relationship

image It’s one of life’s little mysteries, the fact that I can fall asleep in front of the television during a documentary chronicling man’s loudest explosions, yet be kept awake by the sound of my own nose whistling. In my defense, this was a new phenomenon, and something that, under any other circumstances, would have been amusing. However, at 1:30 in the morning, having your nose emit a solid C-major every time you exhale is just plain annoying.

What made matters worse was that I wasn’t alone in my musical endeavors. My wife was also blowing her horn — I’m guessing in E-flat — which, between the two of us, sounded like a pair of jug blowers trying to tune up for the spring dance. Instinctively, I grabbed the earplugs from the nightstand and inserted them. As I quickly discovered, this is a little like covering your ears so you can’t hear yourself sing. I then contemplated the idea of inserting the plugs directly into my nostrils, but decided against it for two reasons.

First, I would be forced to breath through my mouth, which would lead to snoring and bruised ribs.

Secondly, should my mouth somehow fall shut during the night, the resulting pressure would create a pair of high-velocity projectiles ricocheting through our bedroom without warning — the mere thought of which would keep me awake. Continue reading Nose whistling is the heart and soul of any great relationship

Want to help kids at St. Judes? Drink your broccoli soda

image As I’m sure you can imagine, being a humor columnist, I am constantly working up a sweat. In fact, I can already feel perspiration forming. By the end of this paragraph, I will be a drippy, sweat-stained mess. Most people don’t know it can take hours to finish a column.

The reason has nothing to do with procrastination, writer’s block or even the ability to Google history of Star Wars universe; many of us humor columnists simply become too sweaty to operate our keyboards without sliding off and potentially endangering ourselves and others. Newsrooms everywhere understand this, which is why we are often placed in special cubicles that are refrigerated.

Or at the very least equipped with a drain pan.

Yet somehow, beverage companies continue to overlook us as potential thirst-quenching icons when developing trendy ad campaigns. Chances are, you’ll never see a commercial featuring a humor columnist at a keyboard with green Gatorade streaming out of every pore in his body. Or witness a humor columnist emerge from a droplet of Propel fitness water and do a back flip out of an office chair (which we often do, by the way, sometimes for no reason at all.) Continue reading Want to help kids at St. Judes? Drink your broccoli soda

Warning labels are impeding the Natural Selection process

(CAUTION: Before anyone gets hurt, I should warn you I’m actually over at Long Awkward Pause today! Feel free to get started here and then join me over at LAP. But please: No running…)

image There was a time when manufacturers included warnings on their products as a way to provide useful information that could potentially save our lives. Or, at the very least, our eyebrows and/or stomach lining.

However, that all changed more than a decade ago when McDonald’s had to serve up a McMillion dollars for the lady who didn’t realize that spilling hot coffee on yourself while behind the wheel of a car can lead to a condition commonly known as “The Open-Road Lap Dance.”

Taking a deeper look, that condition is really just an extension of the more common rule known as “Cause and effect,” which states:

‘Cause I’m dumb enough to place hot coffee next to the most vulnerable spot on my entire body, I am, in effect, going to do something even dumber by spilling it there. Probably before I leave the drive-thru.

Though the woman claimed to be unfamiliar with either of these two concepts, she WAS familiar with the judicial system, and how her coffee mishap could lead to litigation and a new home in the Hamptons. That landmark decision opened the floodgates to a barrage of wrongful injury cases aimed at sending a clear message to American businesses:

We will buy your products.
We will use your products.
And, God willing, we will hurt ourselves with your products and retire early.
(Read more at LAP!)

Selling books is great; making an impression is even better

(I’m guest blogging over at The Write Stuff today, where Marcia Meara has graciously invited me to share the experience of attending my first book festival as a published author — as opposed to the ones I went to because of the free bookmarks…)

image Two years ago tomorrow, I attended my first book fair as an author. Today, I’m going to share that experience in a post I’m calling:

Reasons to Hide Liquor Under Your Book Fair Table

Admittedly, it’s very exciting to walk into a room of 50 or so booths with publishers and authors offering their latest releases and services. And when you see your own booth tucked among them, with your book cover on display and a large photo of yourself hanging on the wall behind your table, you can’t help but pause and quietly think: I have ARRIVED as an author and, judging by its size, my nose arrived about an hour before I did.

My point is that book fairs are about taking the opportunity to become three-dimensional to readers and making a connection beyond the printed page; it’s about revealing yourself to people in ways that are spontaneous, real and unrehearsed, and giving them an experience they can take with them and talk about with others. This led to another realization almost simultaneously: Why is there no liquor at this thing? (More at The Write Stuff…)

Adding scorpions could improve some spectator sports

image On the rare occasion I’ve found myself sitting on the couch watching golf on TV, I’ve often thought, How do dragonflies mate in mid-air?

That’s just how EXCITING sports like golf, bowling and some other “spectator sports” are for people like me, who need to have at least some element of danger involved in order to keep our attention. Otherwise we might as well be watching competitive knitting.

Although, to be fair, Jamie Lee Curtis did use knitting needles to fend off Michael Meyers in Halloween, so at least there’s the potential for a psychopath to suddenly show up at a knitting competition and be mercilessly taken down in a flurry of knitting needles. And then thoughtfully covered in a beautiful handmade quilt. Continue reading Adding scorpions could improve some spectator sports

Outlook for the future of education? It looks just… Pee Chee

Education Secretary Arnie Duncan promises no child's will get left behind when it comes to getting a Pee Chee folder.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan promises no child will get left behind when it comes to getting a Pee Chee folder.
When I was a kid, our school supply list consisted of a Star Wars notebook and a Pee Chee folder. The notebook helped us organize our assignments; the Pee-Chee folder was used for entertaining ourselves during class by drawing thought balloons for the athletes on the cover.

Football Guy: (Getting tackled) “Oh sure — run the old L-42 play, THAT always works…”
Tennis Girl: “If my skirt gets any shorter, I’ll be playing Olympic volleyball…”

You get the idea.

Just about everyone remembers this folder because, like Al Sharpton’s hair gel, it has remained virtually unchanged since 1964. What has changed, however, is the growing list of items parents must provide throughout the school year. This comes in addition to rudimentary things, such as clothing, snacks and a recent urine sample. The reason is simple: The government is tired of wasteful spending, particularly in the educational system, where a special task force has discovered that schools routinely get bilked into spending thousands of dollars on paper alone.

“And, shockingly, most of this paper has turned out to be blank,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Continue reading Outlook for the future of education? It looks just… Pee Chee

Camping with your teenagers is like one big (search) party!

image Our family loves to go camping. In fact, we make sure to get out and pitch our tent — without fail — once a year.

Traditionally, this takes place during the busy Labor Day Weekend so that as many people as possible can witness a 49-year-old man being attacked by his own tent. In my defense, I have to say our tent is very large; especially when it is laying flat on the ground.

If I hadn’t lost the step-by-step instructions that came with it, I’m sure the assembly process would be a lot easier because, as a man, I could use them to, step-by-step, blame everything on having lousy instructions.

What this means is that over the Labor Day Weekend my handiwork will again be mistaken for a hot air balloon that has crash-landed into our family’s camp site. Continue reading Camping with your teenagers is like one big (search) party!

A man’s guide to romantic cuisine — Step one: Insert beer into chicken cavity

image Men, by their very nature, are grillers of food. If you follow me on Facebook, then you know I love grilling everything from steak kabobs to bacon-wrapped bratwurst. This is because grilling, aside from providing men with a legitimate excuse to drink beer and play with fire, is actually a sign of romance and affection dating back to the discovery of fire itself.

We know this thanks to recently discovered cave paintings depicting what archeologists believe is a romantic meal prepared by a Neanderthal named Glork soon after the discovery of fire. According to archeologists, the sequence goes like this:

Painting one: Glork makes a small fire using a careful mixture of embers, dry leaves, and an assortment of twigs. He then douses it with liberal amounts of highly flammable liquid, creating a massive fireball that scorches the roof of his cave.

Painting two: Glork adds a marinated pterodactyl drumstick to the fire and begins drinking an unidentified beverage.

Paintings three through six: Glork continues drinking a lot more of his unidentified beverage.

Painting seven: Attempting to capture the attention of an attractive cavewoman, Glork uses the flaps of his animal skin to fan the aroma of dinner in her direction. In the process, he inadvertently exposes himself, leading to the creation of what archeologists believe is the very first “Kiss the Chef” apron. Continue reading A man’s guide to romantic cuisine — Step one: Insert beer into chicken cavity

When it comes to looking ahead, look no further than your behind

image You should be aware that the idea of promoting an important issue through a week of “National Awareness” has gotten… How can I put this tactfully..?

Really stupid.

There was a time when, in order to command the attention of our entire country for a whole week, you actually needed to have an issue that was important. It needed to be something that could save lives, improve society or, at the very least, boost the sale of Hallmark cards.

But not anymore.

I say this because, as you may or may not know, we’re in the middle of “National Psychic Week.” (For those of you who did not know this, I’m sorry — but there’s a good chance you are not psychic.) According to one website, the purpose of each week-long focus is to: “dispel skepticism [of psychics] through factual awareness.”

Thanks to an article that appeared in the Eugene Register-Guard, I have a better understanding of how it might take an entire week to dispel all that skepticism — especially after reading about Ulf Buck, a blind psychic from Meldorf, Germany, who claims he can read people’s futures by feeling their naked buttocks. Continue reading When it comes to looking ahead, look no further than your behind