Funny

I had an immense comic moment yesterday. I walked my dogs in the ice storm, and NO ONE was out. It was dusk. And as I came out of the woods, I saw a figure shrouded in black. I didn't have my glasses on (they broke five months ago and in the insanity of my life, I have not had time to replace them). All I could see was a black hood, black cloak, blackness from head to tow. The figure was watching me. Intently.

Back story: We have a ton of Canadian geese in our neighborhood. They live at the pond at the end of my block. They crap everywhere, and you are not supposed to feed them. I don't feed them, but I don't get as freaked out by all the goose crap as my fellow neighbors appear to. And at ONE house, in the early morning, you will find dozens of them sleeping on their lawn. I wondered if it bothered them. Like my house, they are a three-generation home. They also happen to be Muslims.

Back to the shadowy figure. As I got closer, the figure seemed to panic a bit, and turn in circles, not knowing where to go. When I got still closer, I smiled and waved. It was the GRANDMA from the corner house, with her black hijab, and wrapped in her other garments--layers of them all black. And she had a sack of bread. She was "illegally" feeding the geese.

I winked at her. I don't care if she feeds the geese. And if she doesn't mind them sleeping on her lawn, I find the whole idea pretty comical. She was trying to be so sneaky about it.

I bring the whole thing up because while I find it hilarious, I am sure the neighbors who hate the geese will find this an outrage because people can get their panties in a wad about nearly anything.

And all THIS I bring up because I started out as a comedy writer and I am again working on a comedy. And the tricky thing is I am--up front and center--a New Yorker. Admittedly as liberal as they come, so far to the left I fall off the map. And what I think is funny when I write isn't necessarily what the rest of the world thinks is funny.

Now drama . . . is drama. Tragedy is tragedy. Weepy romance is weepy romance.

But comedy is tricky.

And right now I am struggling with making a lawyer funny. So brainstorm with me for a moment. What kind of cases would YOU think are funny?

I Need a Laugh

Amuse me, blog readers.

To me, nothing is better than writing a great one-liner into my work-in-progress. I think I am a frustrated stand-up comic.

My favorite lines are from The Roofer. It is NOT a comedy. But even killers and mob men can be funny. Both lines are "stolen" from real-life, from my dad. I repeat them often. For comic effect--not for how I live my life.

A day without larceny is like a day without sunshine.

If you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough.

One of my favorite one-liners of all time was uttered by mathemtician Paul Erdos (once again, I am nudging Stephen to tell me his Erdos lecture story). It is:

God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers.

I love that! A great math theory joke. Only a math geek like me would enjoy it. But isn't it funny??

One-liners can be used to calm down an angry situation, to add levity to a serious one, to reveal an awful lot about a character (and Lord knows, my dad is a character).

So . . . I am facing a horrid week with horrid deadlines, personal stresses and assorted bits of hell. Amuse me. What is your favorite one-liner from your work-in-progress? Or one you just like to utter to amuse yourself.

Peace,
E

P.S. I forgot to add, if YOU need a laugh at the expense of MY ridiculous life, read the Demon Baby post that is up right now. I promise you, you will never look at vanilla ice cream the same again.

Dante's Third Circle of Hell

I love my kids. I really do. There's probably not anything I wouldn't do for them. I would walk through the fires of hell. Thus . . . I spent yesterday at a concert with these young men. I tried to go with an open mind. But, in fact, hell doesn't begin to describe it. Every song sounded the same, the sound system sucked, and mostly what I heard were teenybopper girls SHRIEKING. High-pitched shrieking. I spent $20 for tickets--multiplied by younger daughter and two friends--and $25 on T-shirts. It was 95 in the shade. And when these young men came out for a bow, I stood up, screamed, "THANK YOU!" and then I was shrieking. Shrieks of joy.

Which goes to show you, even hell has an end.

We've been talking on the blog about mining your life for your books, stealing people's traits . . . and when you write comedy, I would venture to say it starts to get personal. I think the best stand-ups are the ones who talk about their real life. A comic riff, like Seinfeld, on nothing. Or everything. In my comedic books, I have riffed vicariously through my characters on egotistical authors, thongs, the self-help guru who will sleep with any young thing but his wife, turning the big 4-0, the fact that I can't cook, fear of flying, the time I took six xanax to get on a plane flight and lived to tell about it (they were only .5 milligrams, and for the record, they did NOTHING to calm me), evil mothers-in-law (she actually temps in hell), the way the NY Giants screw me every season, my insane love for the Yankees, and disobedient dogs. And so, I imagine, I will one day use my visit to this particular circle of hell in a book.

And while I was there . . . I was strangely comforted by that thought. You see, those are two hours I CAN NEVER GET BACK. And so it's nice to know, "Heck, I can use this."

OH! AND . . . on the way home, the girls were starving and BEGGED me for food from this restaurant. I had never been to one. Never eaten their food. Never knew! I was appalled!!! Do you know they have a cardboard stand-up cut-out of a COW in front? My baby son said, "Look, Mama, it's a MOO." And I was struck by the fact that they have a cute black and white "moo" out front . . . and yet people were driving through to EAT the cute moo. This reaffirmed my commitment to vegetarianism. AND please? A moo? Sick. SICK! What is this company thinking putting poor Mr. Moo there? Oh, yeah. Material.

Thoughts? When life hands you a bit of insanity, are your comforted by the fact that it's material? And how was YOUR weekend.

And special birthday wishes to Spy and Karmela.

I Can't Make This Stuff Up

I think I gave up the idea of being a journalist over this little thing called fact-checking. Basically, I am lazy. I also didn't like having to ask just the right question to get just the right quote from a taciturn source. So now I get to MAKE UP dialogue and insert whatever I want into my characters' mouths. It's a lot easier. Yes, my entire career choice has been dominated by the idea that I prefer to sit around in my pjs and make stuff up for a living.

Except . . .

Yesterday I walked into my family room. My parents are visiting. And Grandma taught two-year-old baby to call a certain political figure a "STINKIN' FACIST." And Baby says it perfectly. So now, political figure steps up to podium, and Baby points at the TV and says, "He's a stinkin' facist."

No. I am not lying. I am not making it up.

Now, the funny thing, I suppose, is since I happen to agree with my mother's politics, I don't particularly mind. I had taught him the word "neofacist." Mom just upped the ante. My father said he wanted to teach Baby to say "stinkin' f*cking facist." He was stopped. However, I presume on my child's vocabulary journey, that's just a stepping stone away around his grandfather.

But here's the thing. At some point, I will use this in a book. Maybe it's because my family is eccentric. Maybe because my sense of humor leaves me laughing about this and not aghast. But I'm going to use it. I don't know when. But it will happen. It might be five books from now, but it's definitely usable material.

And so, I have decided, being a novelist is very much a matter of making stuff up for a living. But it's also about going through life looking for material. Much like a stand-up comic, I suppose. And then figuring out a way to use it.

So . . . is that how you, as a writer, go through your life? I know there are some fantasy writers who post here regularly. I wonder if they still use real-life stuff or it's all completely made up. Thriller writers . . . see somthing on the news and decide to use it? What is the process?

Because for me . . . I make most of it up. But . . . well, I guess not really, afterall.