Dawn of the Sketch

January 19, 2012 //

I found the first half of this a few months ago; I’d written it several years ago and forgotten about it. I wrote the second half recently.

MEETING DAWN WELLS

A hotel check-in desk. A woman approaches.

CLERK: May I help you?

DAWN: I’d like a room, please.

CLERK: Say, aren’t you Dawn Wells? Mary Ann? The actress? Well, you’re the actress, you were Mary Ann in the show. Ginger was the actress in the show. Ha ha ha ha!

DAWN: Yes. It’s me.

CLERK: Wow. You look great.

DAWN: Thanks.

CLERK: I mean, how old are you anyway? You look very good for your age.

DAWN (uncomfortable): Listen, I just want a room.

CLERK: Sure, sure. Single or double?

DAWN: Single.

CLERK: Interesting. So – is the lovely Mary Ann meeting up with anyone later?

DAWN: I don’t think that’s any of your business.

CLERK: Right, right. I’ll put you in 125. You can see the outdoor pool from your window. Hope it doesn’t remind you too much of that island. Ha ha ha! Did you bring a bikini? I mean a swimsuit?

DAWN (impatient): How much do I owe you?

CLERK: Come on. If Angelina Jolie walked through that door, I’d charge her double. For Dawn Wells, it’s on me.

DAWN: That’s very nice of you, but I think I’d rather –

CLERK (comes from behind the desk and takes her hand): All I ask is one thing. Let me come to your room. Mary Ann has been one of my TV dream girls since I was seven. You’re right up there with Bailey from WKRP in Cincinnati. I had a poster of you on my bedroom wall as a kid. Okay, not really, but I wanted one. I want to hold you. I want to visualize you in cut-offs and a halter top. I want to caress your shoulders and whistle the show’s theme song. I want you to shove a coconut cream pie in my face as I scream “I see a ship!” What do you say?

DAWN (thinks): I’ve got a Gilligan costume in my bag. You up for it?

CLERK: Anything for Mary Ann Summers.

DAWN: Great. Give me ten minutes. I left my whip in the car.

THE END

Categories humorous, Sketch comedy

I Was a High School Busybody

January 19, 2012 //

Under my yearbook picture, Heyworth High School, Heyworth, IL, 1982. Comments follow.

“I Like to Rock” — April Wine song. I was, and still am, a pretty rockin’ guitarist.

Student Council 1,4, Rep. 1,4 – Yeah, I don’t remember much about student council, except that it made me feel important for some reason.

Speech Team 2,3,4 (State 4) — Now we’re cookin’. I was as surprised as anyone when I made state finals in original comedy in 1982. I got sixth out of seven on a pretty weak and contrived structure with a few decent jokes. The kid who won deserved it, but he was an arrogant asshole, so he also deserved a swift kick in the nuts.

Homecoming Candidate 4 – Again, a shocker. Homecoming king candidates are popularity contest winners, and I never thought of myself as popular.

Band 1,2,3,4 – Tenor sax, baby. I won first superior medals at every contest. I really liked the sax, but I never had my own; I always borrowed the school’s. I’d get one if they didn’t cost a gajillion dollars.

Chorus 2 – Don’t remember this.

Football 1,2,3,4 – I liked football. It was easily my favorite school sport. But I never really tried that hard. I guess I knew that most of the other kids were more talented than me, and I focused more on the artistic stuff. Still, hardly anybody gets cut from the team in small towns.

Varsity Club 2,4 – Don’t know what happened to 3.

National Honor Society 3,4 – I was a pretty smart mofo.

Musical 2,3,4 – The musicals were Gypsy, Guys and Dolls, and How to Succeed in Business. In each, I’d have a small part onstage, sometimes even a song, then spend the rest of the show playing in the pit band.

Golf 3,4 – Lord, did I suck at golf. I took it because track was too hard. I only qualified for one meet. I think I stuck with it because the really good golfers on the team were nice, accommodating guys.

IL State Scholar 4 — Again with the smartness.

Swing Choir 1,2 – Actually, this was at Carlyle High School (IL). I moved to Heyworth my Junior year. I know dancing around to showtune-type songs sounds a little effeminate, but I got to put my hands all over girls.

German National Honor Society 2,3,4 – Achtung, baby.

All-Conference Band 3 – Don’t remember this.

National Forensics League 3,4 – Not CSI stuff. Speech. Idiot.

Categories High school, humorous

The Republicanization of Gump

January 19, 2012 //

I first read Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump in the late ‘80s, and it was immediately one of my favorite books. I found it incredibly funny and original, and I’d never read anything quite like it.

So when I heard Hollywood was making a movie based on the book, I was excited. If they do this right, I thought, it could be one of the funniest movies ever made. Then I heard that Tom Hanks was starring. Okay…but Forrest in the book is a big hulking guy, more of a Randy Quaid type. But I like Mr. Hanks, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it anyway, so I hoped for the best.

For some reason I didn’t see the movie in the theaters, but it got sterling reviews, and everyone I knew who’d seen it loved it. So I rented it on VHS when it was released.

Talk about disappointment. Granted, the film is technically well-done. And it beat out Pulp Fiction for Best Picture, so that’s impressive.

But where’s the humor? In the book, Forrest has dozens of hilarious adventures: he’s a professional wrestler (named “The Dunce”), an astronaut in space with an ape and a cranky woman (who gets hit in the face with a glob of floating ape pee), in a movie with Raquel Welch (he’s costumed as a monster), a harmonica player in a band with Jenny, stranded on an island with cannibals…in addition to his adventures in the movie.

And two major differences, the first of which is minor, the second, not so minor. The book’s phrase is “life ain’t no box of chocolates,” which, to me, implies that life is rough. The altered phrase “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get,” implies hope once in a while. Okay, a little feel-good is fine.

But I what bugs me the most is Jenny. At the end of the book, she’s fine. No dramatic tear-jerking AIDS death. In fact, she’s never even sick. The screenwriter, Eric Roth, chose to kill her off for cheap pathos.

Now think of the core moral of the movie: hard work makes you rich; drug-using hippies die of AIDS.

So thanks, Hollywood. You took what I feel is a modern comedic masterpiece of literature and made it a Republican’s wet dream.

Tags Gump, Literature

Categories Gump. Literature

Is this the Internet?

January 18, 2012 //

Hey, lookie, I figured out a blog thingie.

I guess I’m here because a lot of interesting things course through my head. I like posting on Facebook, but if I posted every cool, entertaining, and insightful thought that runs through my cranium, I’d be on there all day, and people would get sick of it real fast. I’m at least thankful I’m not one of the plethora of people who has incredibly uninteresting things flowing through their heads — and feel the need to post every 10 minutes.

I write quite a bit. I’ve written a comedy sketch, some personal stories/observations, songs, and poems. I’ve started a couple of screenplays (God knows where those are going), and have a great idea for a one-act play.

My point is I need to purge my head sometimes.

God bless you and you’rn.

Categories New user