Can I be funny on paper?

I'm a funny guy. This entire blog is based on this premise, so I'm not gonna shy away from that point. There are some cases where I have actually made liquid shoot out of someone's nose. Now granted, that was twenty-five years ago, when we were ten, and a well-timed fart could make liquid shoot out of someone's nose, but I'd like to think that I've retained the ability, even though my humour has gotten more sophisticated than flatulence.

The problem is that my humour is dry. Dry like the desert. Dry like a martini. Dry like your grandma's shortbread cookies that you choke down every year with about three gallons of eggnog because you don't want to hurt her feelings. Now that's fine in person, because a knowing glance, a wink, a particular lean of the shoulders can convey the message that I'm kidding (unless you're my mother-in-law, who has no idea when I'm joking unless I tell her). But will that translate on paper? Here's the first rule of thumb: if there's any doubt about whether I'm kidding, I'm probably kidding.

For example, when I was in the grocery store, I saw a sign on a bulk bin of chocolate covered peanuts that said "WARNING: MAY CONTAIN PEANUTS". Now, if I said that any idiot with a fatal peanut allergy who looks at a box of chocolate covered peanuts and thinks, "Well, if there were peanuts in there, they would put a warning on it," deserves to die of anaphylactic shock, I'm kidding. Barely.

The second rule of thumb: if I offer any advice or instruction, I'm telling you what worked for me personally, and it is not my fault if it causes you pain, heartache or a horrible itchy rash. Any advice is offered on an as-is basis, take it or leave it. I'm not telling you how to live your life. I'm just telling you what I think.

The rest we'll work out as we go along. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to the party!

As many of you know I've been unemployed since last June. What you may not know is that when I took a career planning course last year, one of the things that came up as a possible choice for me was "comedy writer". It's something that I would love to be able to pursue, and to that end, I'm starting a blog to polish my writing skills.

I say 'polish', but in truth, I'm pretty much starting from the ground up. Each week, I'll take on a new topic that strikes my fancy, and give you a few hundred words about what I think. Hopefully, it'll be funny. If we're REALLY lucky, it'll make you think, too.

If anyone has any suggestions for topics that they'd like to kick around, I'm open to suggestions. Fifty-two blogs a year is a pretty tall order, and I'm lazy, so if you want to do half my work for me by deciding what I should write about, I can take Mondays and Tuesdays off. There are no subjects I won't tackle, and anyone who writes will get a personal response. Thanks for making my life easier!

So here we go! I hope this is not just an exercise in pointless navel-gazing, and I hope that other people actually enjoy what I write. If you like it, tell your friends! If not, then keep it to yourself, my ego is already fragile enough right now!

GP