Tag archives: humor
Someone asked me in my humor workshop once, what attributes are needed to come up with columns on a regular basis. I told them it helps to be a klutz, because pain plus time plus distance equals humor. I also told them it really pays to have insurance. Another great thing about being uncoordinated, I […]
“Mother Earth provides and we are blessed to receive her bounty as nourishment. But watch out! That which grows from soil tastes like soil.” – Starfire Dickinson The above quote is wholly invented, but Starfire Dickinson is a real person. In other words Starfire Dickinson is also completely made up. But you’ll agree the opening […]
We took the table in the corner looking out. It’s not because I’m worried about East Coast Mafioso figures coming to rub me out, or DEA agents wondering why I smell like a hemp field on fire (those days are but a mere pipe dream now), it’s just that I like to observe the everyday […]
After I needed help getting out of our sagging couch for the umpteenth time, I said yes to my wife’s suggestion we shop for a new one. This was not easy for me. I’m a big believer in longevity, super glue and duct tape. When Pat and I got married one stipulation was that none […]
I’ve been wearing the same outfit – a black short-sleeved HEMA® tee-shirt and Levi’s – every day since April 2016. This is a fact. Please note the happy-go-lucky photo parked at the end of my every column. That photo was taken several years ago and I am wearing that tee-shirt or one of its cousins […]
The sign said “Old Faithful” with an arrow pointing straight ahead toward a surreal, steamy landscape with benches where hundreds of people waited. Pat, my “faithful wife” said: “I’ll just jump out here and save you a seat.” By the time I found a parking spot and hiked back she said: “You missed it.” We’d […]
One of my most popular epigrams says, “When all other means of Communication fail, try Words.” And it is illustrated with an image of Shakespeare. Scholars are still debating how anyone with so provincial a background could have had such a mastery of verbal expression as Shakespeare had (or whoever wrote the vast body of […]
It was raining hard for our first-ever Grand Teton paddle boat ride down the Snake River. “Put on your safety vests,” Guide Steve told us. “If you fall in, remember: nose and toes up. If you try to stand, your feet could get stuck between rocks and you’ll drown. Had a photographer recently, following the […]
There are eight million stories in the naked city, but only 8,600 or so in our own sun-soaked jungle, baby. How do I know this? Because I’m your town crier, baby; your chronicler, your truth-teller and tour guide to the dark underbelly of this coiled serpent we call Montecito. Me? You never saw me, you […]
You’re the top, you’re Mahatma Gandhi. You’re the top, you’re Napoleon Brandy. You’re the purple light of a summer night in Spain. You’re the National Gallery, you’re Garbo’s salary. You’re cellophane. Cole Porter’s famous lyric was surely written about the human race. Yeah, we’re the top! [cut to outdoor shot – two strangers on Coast […]
In times past, it was more important for many things to be sharper than we now care about. This applied not only to weapons, such as swords, spears, and arrows – but also to culinary ware, when animal parts often went directly from the place of killing to the place of cooking. And, in pre-modern […]
About a hundred years ago – or so it seems – I worked. Oops, put the period in there too soon. I meant… I worked in manufacturing making knitting needles in Laconia, New Hampshire. It was a darn good job. You’re probably picturing large needles used for making baby blankets for that new niece, and […]
Throngs of people, er, dozens of people, er, okay one person in my humor workshop once asked me what skills it takes to be a humor writer. I leaned back and thought a while. “Excuse me, are you sleeping?” “Huh? Oh, ah, no, of course not, ha-ha, it’s one of the skills required for all […]
I occupy a very particular demographic; balding older men who don’t know how awful they look in skinny jeans. We are many. It’s nearly an epidemic. A teary woman in the Vons’ parking lot shakily pointed her finger at me and used the word “plague,” which I thought was going a bit far. And for […]
I decided to buy the latest iPhone. Mine was so old that Siri could no longer remember stuff. “Siri, where’s a good place to get a burger and fries.” “Hi Eddie. I’d suggest Howard Johnson’s.” “I think they went out of business.” “Whoa! Don’t tell President Nixon. He loves their sarsaparilla.” So, off I went […]
Our glowering POTUS has wrecked all our excited rumormongering with the usual blunt force. Isn’t it in the interest of a benevolent despot to keep his cards close to the vest? Promulgate an air of mystery? I suppose after all these years of having been enslaved by the deep state we should be grateful for […]
Okay, my version probably won’t do well on the hip-hop music charts, but I think it will resonate with some readers on the hip-lumbar charts. It all started one morning at breakfast when my wife said: “My back is killing me.” Being a sympathetic guy, I suggested she call the police and report a sacroiliac […]
“Pass the salt, willya?” “I swear if you keep using that much salt, you won’t live to see 130,” my wife told me. “I hope you’re wrong. I want to see the great-great grandkids graduate.” I cleared my throat. “Oh no, you’re not going to sing again are you?” I strummed my air guitar. “Imagine […]
Except for the overly loud, vapor-spewing Southwest jets, flying-lesson prop planes doing multiple touch-and-goes, and that obnoxious Osprey that sounds like two helicopters in a weird sexual entanglement, it’s nice being close to Santa Barbara Airport. Even though we had a 6:23 am flight, we knew we could be at the airport in less than […]
My friend and I meet one evening at a seafood place – one of those enormous restaurant/bars with maritime junk hung all over the place in case you forget the theme. Tonight it is thronged and seething, the dank air heavy with excited human congress. The World Series is hollering out of a dozen enormous […]
