Bad Santa! (More Humour, and pass the scotch)

(Appearing on Sleuthsayers today - Repeated here for my regular readers.)

Santa, I have a complaint. 

Put bluntly, you are simply not up to the task anymore.  

In fact, I am going to suggest that if there IS a Santa, he is doing a terrible job and needs to be replaced.

Let me explain.

After the events of today, I'm about to propose a new category of writing award, one that has been previously overlooked.  One that, at the very least,  I feel would add great amusement to our field:

Unluckiest Author of the Year

                                                 (this is me)  

Ideally, this would be a money-winning category, but no doubt if I won it, the cheque would be lost in the mail.

To wit:

Friends will remember that - exactly two years ago - the entire 2nd printing of my YA book Crime Club fell off a container ship into the Pacific ocean (along with 17 other containers).  Just in time for Christmas sales.

(Pass the scotch. )

Santa, we had a long talk about that.

This year, I've had a thrilling thing happen.  I had a column in The Globe and Mail (Toronto and National editions) that was picked up by Reader's Digest for Canadian and World Rights.  In addition, they asked me to write more for them. As one industry professional said, Reader's Digest is the "pinnacle archive of our times."  So it was kind of a big deal, for me.

Headline in The Globe and Mail today:

READER'S DIGEST TO CLOSE ITS DOORS

(Pass the scotch.)

The column was to appear in the Feb. 2024 issue.  I sent my invoice yesterday.  

To be fair, the door that is closing is the Canadian issue.  The column might still appear in Lichtenstein and Bolivia - who knows?

But I'm willing to bet all my royalties from the 2nd printing of Crime Club (ha-ha), that this invoice will go unpaid.

Really, Santa, can't you do something about all this bad stuff happening right before Christmas?  I mean, one understands that there's no good time for bad things to happen.

BUT REALLY???

Have a heart, Big Guy!  I'm starting to lose faith in you.  Oh, what's that you say?   Your goal is to give me 'spectacularly zany' material with which to continue my comedy career?

All I can say is, there better be a lot of scotch under the tree this year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE!

The real me, before scotch.

 

UP THE TABLOIDS! reprinted with permission

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I have it on very good authority that we will all soon be eaten by Aliens. You may not believe it, but they even have pictures. I’ve seen them. In the National Enquirer.

I’ll bet you think this type of reporting is believed only by people with the intelligence of woodworms. But frankly, the supermarket tabloids cover a market that daily city papers are frightfully lax about reporting. After all, it is in one’s interest to keep up with the ongoing sagas of our neurotic top celebs, if only for the relief in confirming that “Hey - I am not really nuts! SHE is nuts.”

Okay, so I can’t come down too hard on the rags. I’ve actually been published in them. (I’m talking short stories here – things that were supposed to be fiction.) And they paid me a hell of a lot more than The Globe & Mail and Toronto Star ever did.

Besides, tabloids are educational. Mind-boggling scientific facts also get top billing in these papers. I read recently of a woman called Eartha Bog who talks to her plants. Lots of people do that, but she also claimed they talked back.

I’ve thought about this a lot.  I mean, really: who needs a bunch of talking plants nagging you around the house all day? Mine would probably say things like:

Violet: Ugh! When was the last time you dusted?

Ivy: Putting on a little weight, aren’t you dear?

Which brings me to my all-time favorite tabloid story, entitled “My Alien Lover left me for a Younger Woman.” The lady in the checkout line behind me pointed it out.

“Oh My God – even Aliens do it!” she said.

“Yes,” replied the first woman in line, shaking her head. “But do they do it better?”

Postscript: I talked to my editor once regarding the veracity of the people who were quoted in his paper. He told me that those alien stories are not lies. They are fully believed by the people interviewed for the article, who may just happen to live in a specialized hospital environment. I’m not kidding. He told me that.