I have been having ongoing (albeit random, as the man is in a hell-week) correspondence with Marv Wolfman, trying to help him to get Blogger to work for him. I’ve also had e-mail conversations with Chris Giarusso (look in his sketchbook, under “Crayon Drawings”… see that Mr. Miracle? I requested it… whether it was done because of that request, I’ll never know, but I think it’s awesome, anyway), Peter David (the writer of my favorite comic, the now-dead Young Justice, and author of 98.7% of the novels based off of movies featuring Marvel Comics characters), and I’ve met a whole lot more comic celebrities, all of whom I’ve gotten along with. There is just one that I had not, until recently, been able to figure out why they seem to dislike me.
That one? Steve Gerber, creator of Howard The Duck, Hard Time, Nevada, and other countless characters. And, as I alluded to, I now figured out just why he must wanna beat my head in with a frying pan, if he even still remembers the incident (and, given some of the stuff he’s written on his blog, I’m sure he does).
See, back when I was just starting college, lo those many years ago, I contacted Mr. Gerber (I’ll call Marv “Marv,” Chris “Chris,” and Peter David “PAD,” since they’ve all signed their correspondence back to me in that fashion, but Mr. Gerber will remain Mr. Gerber until further notice) about being on a beta test of his comic book scripting template. He agreed, which I was thrilled about, and I soon joined the forum with some other fans of his work.
It was around that time that Mr. Gerber was writing the Marvel MAX version of Howard The Duck. MAX was the quickly dismantled “adult line” Marvel was putting out, which basically gave the writer the chance to swear a whole lot. Problem was, Disney, worried about Howard (a disgruntled realist thrown into adventures randomly, always wishing he could just find his way back to his home universe) getting mixed up with Donald Duck; so, after Mr. Gerber left Marvel in the 70’s, Disney and Marvel came to an agreement that would force Howard to wear pants, have a funny-looking beak, and be just a character designed in the most God-awful manner.
To overcome this in the year 2001, Mr. Gerber decided to throw a twist in his new miniseries, which he invited us to guess at what it would be. Some guesses were made, and I threw mine in as a joke, which went something like this:
Howard will be turned into a mouse by a disgruntled former-fairy-employee of the Disney Corporation, use the elves from the terrible “Howard The Duck Christmas Special” to launch an assualt on their headquarters, and then beat Michael Eisner into submission, thus becoming a real duck again.
Turned out that my details were wrong, as I knew they would be, but one part of my guess was correct: Howard The Duck would become Howard The Mouse.
I was rather proud of myself, and also, at that point, extremely poor. I had blown all the money in my bank account, and had to “borrow” swipes of friends meal cards to get food. However, there was a market in town, the owner of which was a huge fan of Howard The Duck. When discussing the new version coming out, I had made mention of the fact that I guessed Howard would be a mouse on a forum that was visited by Mr. Gerber before anyone else guessed it; when he asked what the prize was, and I told him there was none, he said I could take a box of donuts, if I could prove I guessed it first.
I was, of course, excited by the thought… I was a hungry college student, with the power of donuts clouding my judgment. So, I went back to the forums, and posted a quick, thoughtless message:
Steve- A grocer down in the town by the college I go to school at said that, if I could prove that I came up with the idea that Howard should be a mouse first, I could take some donuts. Help a starving college kid out!
What I should have said was, “if I could prove that I guessed that the idea of Howard should be a mouse first,” etc. By phrasing it the way I did, it sounded like a trap to start a big thing about Mr. Gerber stealing ideas from poor college students, which he couldn’t have any idea that I wouldn’t do… to him, I’m just a random e-mail address.
After that, even with an apology that I didn’t really think I needed to be making (since I didn’t really see what the problem was until now), Mr. Gerber has never again responded to my correspondence. Maybe one day I’ll see him in person, and get to apologize, although I doubt that will happen.
But it’s good to hope for.
I’m currently sitting in the SUNY Farmingdale library, waiting for my next class to start… in 2 hours. So, I figured I’d pop by here and write some stuff. Because, you know, that’s what blogs are for.
First off, I dunno if you’re following the second-most entertaining blog in the universe, The Artist Formerly Known As TBSReview, but you should be. In between almost inciting a riot and ranting about his own kind, Brandon has been talking about the joy of going back to college, and the wonderful fun that it is.
Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to put the <sarcasm> HTML tag in there.
I’m not going to lie to you all, but my major, in the beginning, is boring. I’m talking “Hey, the paint on the grass that just grew 1/1000th of an inch dried!” boring. In later courses, I get to learn how to do all sorts of stuff, most of which can be seen on Alias (eD!=Marshall? No. eD!=Friggen’ Swank Marshall? You bet’cha!) But, for now, it’s “Intro To” this and “Essentials Of” that, blah-blah-blah.
Today is my first day of classes, and I’m stuck in school from 8 in the morning to 10 at night. Go ahead, pause, and let the sheer terror of that sink in; a 14-hour school day, once a week, for a semester. As if that weren’t bad enough, I have a 2 3-hour breaks, in which time I’m stuck on campus, one of the many joys of living in New York without a car.
So, I get to school at 7:40-something, get to my classroom, and sit down. At 8 on the dot, my professor walks in, and starts talking; she seems to be a nice enough woman, with a sense of humor I appreciate and a hate of fractions I applaud. But, after she goes over the syllabus, she does something that I personally believe should be against the law: teaching on the first day.
We’ve been on a brain-vacation since late May, early June. All we’ve done is (possibly) work and party. Coming back to this learning-intensive environment is far from what we wanna do, and the readjustment period is usually 2 days or so, enough time to hit each of our classes once and get back in the curve.
But, noooooooo… some teachers just feel that they have to edumacate us starting on Day 1, and this class was one of those. Bah. I stick through it, the clock tower chimes, and it’s off to the next class, “Intro To Criminal Justice.”
This class, unlike my last one, seems to have the potential to be canceled at any time… mainly because my teacher is so old, he may be canceled at any time! He seems like a nice-enough guy, a bit deaf, but he made a joke about bourbon, so he can’t be all bad, right? He hands out the syllabus and then begins to lecture… no, rant… about the Government, and how many people are uninformed about it. While I appreciate the sentiment, it’s the first day of class, and anything more than “Don’t skip class” is a tad too advanced for me to handle at the moment. An hour later, we’re outta there, and my first break begins.
My school just opened a new feeding-ground (to call anything here a “restaurant” would be weird) called “Toasty’s,” which is kinda like Subway with a George Forman Grill. For $5, I score myself a French Dip (well, what they call “French Dip”… it’s roast beef, provolone, and the glaringly missing au jus, which is a crime in itself) which, despite the fact that it’s missing the key ingredient to French Dip (there’s that au jus again!), is absolutely delicious. I’ll be back there Thursday, no doubt, hoping that they get their act together by then.
It’s 2 o’clock at this point, and it’s time for my next class: State and Local Government, also known as “Easy Street 101.” It’s basically a rehash of 7th grade social studies, which, as I recall, I did well in, so no big. The class went a little something like this:
Professor: Hi. Here’s your syllabus. Go home.
Really. I wasn’t there for more than 5 minutes, which, you would assume by the tone of the last few paragraphs, I’d be happy about. Well, I would be happy about it if I didn’t have to wait until 6 o’clock for my next class to start. So, I schlep over to the library to do some note taking, trying to be that “good student” I hear so much about.
About an hour after I start, I can’t go on anymore… my brain is shot, my nerves blown to hell, and my computer running out of battery power. I go to the back of the library, only to discover there is a spot for people with laptops to go and run on AC power so that they can keep working. A year in this place, and I had no idea that existed. Then again, I only found the dining hall today, too, so I guess that’s just par for the course for me.
And now, here it is, 4:46, an hour and 14 minutes until my next class, Computer Forensics I, begins. I guess I could go write something else, or maybe even go outside and walk around, or try and find a club to join, but I know what that will lead to: me getting caught up in something and being late to class. And, anyway, this chair is comfy.
I have no ending to this essay, so I will just hit “post” now.
I live in New York, as most people know, since I’ve written about it enough. This, of course, gives me certain God-given rights: the ability to Jay Walk anytime I choose, the right to be miserable and pissed off, have an ego the size of the Bronx, and, finally, the right… no, duty… to make fun of New Jersey. So, for all you readers in Jersey, I apologize for this essay, but don’t let it offend you: sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. Also, I will disclaim this with a “This is supposed to be funny, so don’t get all whiney that I’m making fun of you… but I am just kidding.”
Actually, I like New Jersey, believe it or not. Yes, any time I get depressed, I take out my map of the United States, and dream of Jersey… because, just when I think life can’t get any worse, it reminds me that I could actually live in that state, and I smile, knowing my brethren across the Goethals Bridge (with a short stop in the limbo of Staten Island) are far worse off than I could ever be. Sure, they’re better off than any Red state I know, but still, it’s more fun to harass Jersey.
There are a few people of note who rose from the sludge of New Jersey to greatness: Kevin Smith, Jason (Jay) Mewes, Matt Damon, and, although I hate to admit it, Ben Affleck. And, for the life of me, I can’t think of anyone else, unlike the 27 million famous people that New York has spawned.
Every place has its own unique smell: Maine, the smell of pine and lake water, clean and pure. New York, specifically Manhattan, hot dogs simmering in a street vendor’s cart, noxious fumes from taxi’s, and horse crap (assuming you’re near Central Park). Jersey, too, is no exception: The smell of burning tires permeates every pore of your skin, like a plague.
Of course, when I refer to Jersey, I don’t really mean the whole state… the Jersey Shore is awesome, Atlantic City is pretty sweet, and there are some more absolutely wonderful places to visit. Then again, there is Hoboken, so I don’t know which way the scales really tip.
Anyway, there is a reason I’m making fun of this state that is so close to my own: one of my best friends is moving there come January, so making fun of it anymore won’t be an option… I’ll be visiting there so much that I’ll find that it’s a fun place to be, and I’ll feel bad about what I could say.
So, to the Nation’s Armpit®, I salute you! Thank you for the years that I’ve had, happily mocking your existence, and know that those days are coming to an end!
Who’s up for some Ohio bashing?
“I can’t go online,” my Mother exclaimed, with a tone usually reserved for the death of a loved one. “Come here, and try to fix it.”
Now, it is no secret that I am, by all accounts, a geek. Some say a nerd, but I don’t really care; it’s all about knowing how to fix those electronics that most find so annoying. Not only do I know how to do it, I love doing it. So, without pause, I jumped in front of my Mom’s computer, ready to figure out just what was wrong.
Honestly, it was a simple fix; the ‘Shift’ key had gotten stuck, so that every number in her password was all wonky. Having fixed that, and feeling pretty darn confident in my geekhood, I told her that all was well and to go about her business online.
Boy, was that a mistake.
See, at this point, when my Mom tried to sign on, the wireless router that we’re running didn’t allow for us to connect to AOL’s servers to sign on. Figuring that it was a problem that was with the computer, I told her to restart and try again, while I go check my e-mail from my laptop.
Problem was , I couldn’t get on with my laptop, either. Once that happened, I knew disaster had struck… my computer is absolutely clean, with no music, videos, or anything to make it get sick from viruses or spyware. I ran downstairs, reset the router, and began to fiddle with the settings via the interface you can run off of a web browser like Firefox. This didn’t help. Then, after a few more boring steps that will make this essay drag even more than it does now, I decided to reset my router to its original configuration.
Remember when I said that I made a mistake before? Yeah, I didn’t know the meaning of the word at that point.
Now, instead of just not just being able to go online, I couldn’t connect to the router to try and restore the settings. To do that, I realized, I would have to reconfigure the router. Which would mean going online via my DSL modem. Which my laptop does not have the software to do.
Then I thought to myself, “Hey! I could just go online and get it! That’d be easy!!” This is the same train of thought that I had last week, when my Mom’s DVD burner wouldn’t work, leaving the computer without a disk drive, and I decided that using the restart discs would take care of the problem, even though the computer couldn’t read them.
However, at this point I had a thought, which went a little something like this:
I have AOL. I need something from online. AOL features dial-up service. I need something from online. AOL dial-up is slow. I need something from online. I could cook a seventeen course meal in the amount of time it would take one page to load. I need something from online. I have seen people die in less time than it takes for a dial-up connection to download software. I need something from online. Please, God, kill me now. I need something from online.
Sometimes, you realize you have to die a little to live again, so I decided that desperate times called for insane measures. Donning my “Suicide Squad” hat, I ran upstairs, and grabbed my “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass” copy of AOL 9.0 to install on the laptop, and went to work.
I hate, hate, hate the AOL software, which is why I never installed it on this laptop to begin with. It’s slow, it’s buggy, and it is ugly as anything out there. But, being that it’s all I have left, I installed it, hoping that maybe my memories of AOL and dial-up were exaggerated.
God, my memories weren’t just wrong; they were optimistically tainted by time! This is slower than I ever remember!! My Father came home, and we both tried to find the phone number to get in touch with our ISP: he would go by phone, dealing with tons of automated prompts, and me going online and trying to find it. Not only did he get through to a human before I even got a single page loaded, he got the number, called for pizza, took out the dog, built a brick wall around the block, reinvigorated the disco dance craze of the 70’s, brought peace to the Middle East, found a way to animate the dead, became a pop culture icon that millions of children love and celebrate, wrote the next season of Lost , filled in for Regis on Live , cured cancer, and won a Tony for his leading role in the musical skewering the smooth song-stylings of Yanni titled “Live At The Acrapolis!”
Six hours later, I finally got the page fully loaded. Turns out AOL doesn’t support Flash, though, so I waited for nothing. Go, me!
Finally, at 10:00 tonight, I got through to someone at tech support for my ISP. The man had no sense of humor, but he got me the help I needed to get back online.
Now, I just need to fix my router so that I don’t need to input my password every time I wanna log in.
Yeah. Like I’m real anxious to play with that anymore.
This is a reprint of an essay I wrote on Brandon’s blog last month; I wanted it saved here, too, so that everyone could read it.
“I’ve got to do this theater-thing tomorrow,” Brandon IM’d me, using far less proper grammar and spelling. “Can you do me a favor and update the blog tomorrow?” Great. I have a hard enough time getting my blog, shamelessly plugged as
edthemusical.com, updated every day with something insightful or funny every day; now, I gotta do this, too? Yeesh! However, unlike on
edthemusical.com (tell your friends!), I can be far less worried about what image I’m projecting on here, since my family doesn’t know that this blog exists, let alone that I’m updating it today. So, if I come off as an arrogant jackass, I won’t have to listen to my Mother, telling me that I am wasting my time trying to break into a creative field, and should try something far more stifling, like computer programming.But this still does not give me a topic on which to write; I’m absolutely terrible on writing something when I’m not particularly in the mood to write, which is the position I am in now. A deadline is a deadline, though, and I’ll be damned if I miss it, and also be out of Brandon’s will, which would totally screw me out of a 24-volume VHS collection of midget porn.That, my friends, is not gonna happen.
So, instead of doing what Brandon usually does, which is write reviews of something-or-other, or what I do on my blog, which is whine that I have nothing to write about, boo-hoo-hoo, I will give you, the darling reader, a glimpse of what it’s like to try and write something funny. Enjoy!
The first rule of being funny, according to Dave Barry, a nationally-syndicated humor column writer and who’s life was the inspiration for the CBS sitcom “Dave’s World,” is that if your friends find you absolutely hilarious, odds are that you’re not. You can do a series of jokes about people you know with your friends, using common knowledge (at least, to you and your peers) that the rest of the world has no idea of. Have you ever watched a comic crash and burn because they didn’t do topics that the audience could relate to? I have, and it’s really, really ugly. Lynching is usually involved, and, as someone who’s current major would require going into government work, I can’t get into the bloodshed, which is a total drag, since those comics deserve to die.What you’ve gotta do to know you even have a tiny bit of ability to be funny is to write or perform something that someone who has no idea who you are thinks is funny. It’s easier to judge it when you’re performing, since everyone can tell the difference between a polite laugh and an actual laugh. I recommend, if you want to be a comedy writer, take a creative writing class with the most humorless professor on campus. If you can score a grade above a ‘C’ by doing nothing but writing things that you think are funny, you’re golden. If not, and you still want to be in comedy, may I recommend a field where creative talent is not a requirement, such as being a comedy writer on UPN.
However, just having a basic ability to be funny isn’t enough; no, you also have to have something to be funny about. You can’t just come up with a topic off the top of your head, either. You must understand your audience. For example, you cannot do a series of pussy and beer jokes for a combined meeting of Alcoholics and Nymphomaniacs Anonymous. Well, you could, but it’d be in bad taste. Well, it’d be in bad taste, but it might help you score with a nympho, so that’d be cool.
Moving on.
There are also certain topics that one should, as a rule, avoid bringing up in a comedic essay, as they are sure to offend just about everybody. If that is your intention, fine, but the person who you are writing for may never invite you back, which may or may not be a good thing.
Topics to avoid:
- Famine
- Plague
- Exception: The Black Plague
- Rape
- Exception: When metaphoric, i.e. “Boy, that prostitute really ass-raped me with the hidden fees.” This sentence is often muttered by Brandon on a Friday night.
- Exception: Prison jokes, i.e. “So, you heard about the time that Martha Stewart’s cellmate tried to dildo-rape her in the butt? She couldn’t do it, since Martha was such a tight ass!”
Topics that are always golden:
- Midgets
- Exception: When writing for “Short People Today” magazine, do not refer to them as “midgets.” Instead, try calling them “freakishly little people.”
- See also “Circus Midgets”
- Mimes
- Prostitution
- Exception: When writing for a church newsletter.
- Carnival folk
- Sexually Transmitted Diseases
So, you’ve gotten down the topics that are quality joke material, you’ve discovered that someone other than the people who see you every day think you’re funny, what next? Just how do you get published in this cutthroat world of comedy?
Answer: Begin a blog.
Tons of unfunny people, such as Ariana Huffington, have blogs that occasionally try to be witty, so you, Mr.-or-Ms. Comedy Writer, could probably write one that a whole lot of people would be happy to pay to read, and you’re offering it for free! Wow!
But it’s not as easy as all that, I’m afraid. Take this blog, for instance. Brandon is, by and large, a funny guy. However, I’m sure this site doesn’t make as many page views a day as it should. “But, eD !, how could that be?!” I hear you cry. “Especially when Brandon has such hot, funny, intelligent, single friends like you to fill in for him in a time of need?!”
Answer: Advertising.
See, people can’t go to your site if they don’t know it exists. Take my blog, edthemusical.com. No one knows about edthemusical.com, really. But, now that I’m dedicating myself to writing something funny on edthemusical.com every day, maybe people will show up at edthemusical.com for a quick chuckle. However, edthemusical.com is a site that gets very little exposure, unless if some schmuck like Brandon gives me access to his site to throw some free plugs out there, since I’m way too poor to be able to afford to pay to have it advertised elsewhere.
If you find a blog that is like yours, shoot an e-mail to the person who runs it, asking if you can do a link-swap. Most times, blog writers are a very friendly group who are willing to help out new bloggers get their site known.
If, after reading all this, you still wanna try your hand at “Writing The Funny,” go for it. If you’re bored silly, well, then you’ll be relieved to know Brandon will be back in charge tomorrow. And, if you found me even the least bit quality, then check my blog out… in case you weren’t aware, that’d be edthemusical.com… and I’ll try to do it again tomorrow.
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