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NewsI haven't updated this blog and much of this site in almost six months. This was due to a number of things: laziness, apathy, lack of time, forgetfulness. The few readers I had before probably left during my long hiatus, so I don't know if there is any point in updating anymore, other than for my own personal amusement. If there are any readers still out there, let me know through comments/guest book/feedback/whatever.

Here are some site and writing-related news:

- As of now, my book has sold twenty-three copies. Four of those were bought by me, twelve were bought by my dad for himself and other family members, four were bought by friends, and I'm not sure about the remaining three. I didn't expect my book to sell many copies, and I guess a part of me didn't want it to sell many copies. I really only liked half the stories. It was more of a get-it-out-of-my-system sort of thing. That represented one stage of my writing, and now I'm working on my next and, hopefully, better one.

- At some point, I deleted the "Delivery Men" reading because it sucked. I do like reading out loud though (to myself), and if I ever get good at it, I'll record another one. The "Delivery Men" section has been replaced by a "Videos" section, which isn't great either but might be a little better.

- At some point, I posted my story "The Assassination of God," which was written last summer. It's one of those stories I started, lost interest in, and forced myself to finish a couple weeks later. I thought the plot was kind of thin at first, since it took a novel-length idea and condensed it into a short story. But everyone who's read it seems to really like it, and looking back on it now, I think it's well-written and has a lot of good ideas. It was also published in ECESIS, the online magazine of Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

- I just now posted my latest story "Delivery Boys," a sequel/prequel to my story "Delivery Men." If you haven't read the latter, you'll have to buy my book or find it on the Internet. "Boys" isn't as good as "Men," but I think it's a worthy addition.

- I helped my friend and fellow writer Victor Alyn Davis edit and publish his first book Grains of Sand. He didn't like the end product (for some reason, he prefers the usual newspaper-quality paper over Lulu's high-quality paper), so he didn't bother marketing the book or fixing the text on the back cover (part of it is chopped off), but I promise it's a great read and a whole lot better than the piece of shit I wrote, so check it out.

- I recently gave permission for my essay "Banning Same-Sex Marriage: An Attack on the American Institution" to be included in the 12th edition of The Student's Book of College English by David Skwire and Harvey S. Wiener. It was originally published in the 14th edition of The Polishing Cloth, a collection of student essays at Georgia Perimeter College. I wrote it about three years ago for my English class. I don't know why people like it so much. It’s nice, but nothing I say is very original, and some of it is too touchy-feely for a formal essay. Like: “Those who suggest gays do not satisfy the qualifications for marriage have apparently forgotten about love, the true reason marriage exists.” Man, that’s gay.

- I posted a real blog entry "Vote for Barry" before this. Enjoy.

Anyway, I'll be busy this summer, but maybe I'll squeeze out a blog entry every now and then.
Vote for BarryI don't vote because: (a) I'm lazy; (b) I'm ignorant, and there are enough ignorant people voting; and (c) I can't think of a third reason, that's how lazy I am.

But if I had to vote, I'd vote for Barack Obama. If you were to take all the clips of him I've seen on "The Daily Show" and YouTube, it would probably add up to about ten minutes. But in those ten minutes, I've concluded that this guy is awesome. He's so damn smooth and articulate. The man can talk himself out of any situation. They could find a video of him in some midget orgy, and he would say, "Well, uh, midget blah blah blah...," and five minutes later, people would be thinking, "You know, he has a good point. Maybe I should fuck a midget too."

The thing I like most about him is that he doesn't cave under political pressure. During the flag pin controversy, a weaker politician would have put it back on and apologized and made up some dumb excuse. Instead, he pretty much said, "Fuck you, I'll wear what I want, bitch. Patriotism is about what you do, not what you wear." During the Reverent Wright controversy, a weaker politician would have disowned him and lied about knowing his racist beliefs. Instead, Obama admitted he knew about Wright's radical views, condemned them, and made an eloquent argument about how it's stupid to think that you have to agree with everything your friends say. Wright is his pastor, not his political advisor.

I don't know why the race between him and Hillary Clinton is so close. She's so obviously a douche bag, and her recent fib about her trip to Bosnia is the douchey-ist thing she's done so far. I know saying you don't like a candidate because they're a liar is stupid. All politicians are liars. I don't blame them. Being a politician is like participating in a perpetual job interview, and everybody lies in job interviews. Helping your mom plant tomatoes in the backyard doesn't make you an experienced agricultural engineer. But it's one thing to exaggerate and mislead, and it's another thing to completely make shit up. Landing under sniper fire isn't something you accidentally say on multiple occasions. Unless you're Rambo, it's hard to confuse events in your life with scenes from "Platoon." You have to sit down and consciously think up that crap. I don't want a president with that kind of sick mentality.

I don't know much about John McCain, but he seems like someone who's got his shit together. The problem is he's 71 years old. With my poor diet and lack of exercise, I don't plan on living past 35, so he's died twice already by my standards. I think the Republicans screwed themselves on this one. They should have chosen Huckabee. Yeah, he doesn't believe in evolution, but at least he had that Chuck Norris thing going for him. I respect a man with a sense of humor.

So I think Obama is the best choice for president. But don't take my word for it. Take Robert De Niro's.
My Five Seconds of Fame, and How to Write FunnyI made Dilbert laugh: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/11/winners-of-the.html

Scott Adams, the creator of "Dilbert," recently ran a contest on his blog to see who could write the funniest blurb for his new book. The top winner gets a framed original "Dilbert" strip worth $1500. The twenty-five runners-up get autographed copies of his book. I was the fourth runner-up. Here's my winning entry:

"This book was so good, I showed it to my wife and said, 'This is how sex is supposed to feel like.'"

I don't have sex, the book, or a wife, but the funniest things in life are usually lies.

Thousands of people will read my blurb, laugh, and then forget about me. I'm like a comedy whore. By the end of the day, my comedy vagina will be huge, and all I'll have to show for it is a free book.

I also submitted three other entries, but they didn't win:

"After reading this book, God drop-kicked the Bible and resigned."

"So good my grandma came back to life, punched me in the face, and stole it from me. It's happened three times now."

"If only vaginas were this entertaining."

The last two were just filler, but I think the first one should have won. God drop-kicking anything is hilarious. If you think about it, pretty much all my jokes are about God, vaginas, and people punching me in the face.

I think some of the winning entries that placed lower than me were funnier than mine. Here are some of my favorites:

13. Even though this book killed my father, broke my brother’s legs, sold my mother into a life of prostitution, burnt our home to ashes, and left me an orphan on the street, jitter-bugging for pennies, I can not stay mad at it…it is just too funny.

Kevin Allen

14. I started reading Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey-Brain to my unborn child and it burst from my womb like that thing in Alien, grabbed the book and went back in. Damn baby, now I have to buy another copy.

Michael Rauma

Ernest Hemingway meets Ayn Rand...but then after the initial "hellos" there's this awkward silence, until he says something inappropriate like "nice tits" and she's all like "Say what!?", and they get into a slap fight.

SJC (disqualified)

From the monkeys who typed Shakespeare comes the stunning sequel!

Okgenuine (disqualified)

Imagine if your mom was on fire. That's what this book is like.

JVC Headphones (disqualified)

Before I found this, I was a pathetic, depressed, underappreciated, overworked, sexually impotent, joyless shell of a man. Now, I'm all those things with a funny book.

Kevin (disqualified)

Most of the other entries weren't funny at all to me. It's interesting to see what makes other people laugh. Carlos Mencia annoys the shit out of me, but obviously, enough people like him, or he wouldn't have his own show. On the flip side, I love Jerry Seinfeld, but I have friends who can listen to him without cracking a smile. There are few things that are universally funny, and there are few people who can be consistently funny.

A lot of times I'll write something that I think is funny, but then I'll reread it months or years later and cringe at its lameness. Here are some things I've learned about writing humor:

1. Keep it simple. People tend to try too hard. You want to be as concise as possible. The blurb about monkeys typing Shakespeare and the blurb about imagining if your mom was on fire are short and sweet. Blurb #13 borders on overdone but still manages to be funny.

2. Be spontaneous. Random humor is tricky. Random jokes get the biggest laughs because you don't see them coming. But you don't want to be so random that it turns people off (like "Drawn Together," in my opinion). The blurb about the unborn child bursting from the womb and the blurb about Ernest Hemingway meeting Ayn Rand are great examples. The images they conjure up hit you write in the funny bone.

3. Don't linger. Set up the joke, hit the punchline, and move on. I've noticed that sometimes Seinfeld's jokes will go on a line or two too long. Explaining or restating your punchline reduces its effectiveness. Telling a joke is like robbing a bank. Get in, and get out.

I don't think you can teach someone how to be funny, but you can teach someone how to be less not funny. As with anything, improvement begins with recognizing what works and what doesn't.