June 2002

Mock Cafe - 06/15/02

Did a few jokes about bowling shirt. Got a few decent laughs. Jokes about going back to work didn't go well. The bit about driving the rental car into the ocean had mixed results. Didn't work too hard setting up the stuff, and then I had an extra beer before the show. I told myself I was celebrating getting a new job. Anyway, it left me woozy and my set suffered greatly.
 

Mock Cafe - 06/22/02

So I've decided to stop drinking beer for a while. I've only been drinking three beers a week. I don't drink too much. I never drive impaired. The problem is that drinking those three beers every Saturday night has become a habit. Things are no fun if they are a habit. So I'm going to save the drinking for special occasions. I did a few jokes about not drinking. They sounded pathetic and begging for cheap applause. The jokes about my new job didn't go over very well. I didn't rehearse and forgot the funniest parts.
 

Story Submission - 06/24/02

First some background info. About a month ago I picked up a few Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines at a yard sale. I thought it would be interesting to read some crap. The gods of irony working overtime, I am now in love with these magazines. Yes, much of the writing isn't great, but most of it is good, and good for different reasons. Some have a great plot, some have great characters, some have great writing. Very few have all three. The thing that impressed me most was that I had much more fun reading these than any of the "literary" journals I've been reading, and to which I've been submitting.
 
Now for the weird part. What I've been writing lately, even before I discovered the mystery magazines, have turned into mysteries and/or detective stories. I just finished a story, which my wife describes as the best I've written, about a murdered artist, a family curse and a clueless comedian. In this story are two supporting characters that are represent everything I've been trying to do with my writing since I was a teenager. They are odd, but not self-consciously so. They are realistic, believable. So believable that my first draft of one of them actually existed in real life. I made up this character, gave him a name, and address and a profession. Then, while fact checking the profession in the yellow pages, I came upon an add for man in this profession, whose name was only two letters away from the one I invented, and whose address was only one block away from the one I gave my character. I had invented a real person. I had to change my guy to avoid people thinking I based him on this real guy.
 
So I've now sent this story off to AHMM. Supposedly, they respond quickly, so I should know soon if they share my enthusiasm for Carlson and Max. On a weird note, I'm reading Stephen King's book, ON WRITING, and his first rejection letter was from AHMM. Cool
 

Mock Cafe - 06/22/02

There was almost no audience tonight. Just comedians and three relatives of comedians. The non-drinking jokes bombed. The work jokes bombed. The bit about my wife's crocheting killed! I need to listen to my own advice. Again, for I've said this many time before, the real stuff is MUCH funnier than the stuff I try to make up.