Patrick A. McGuire, Bloggonian
For years I told jokes on street corners for tips, dreaming of one day owning a granite counter top. No luck, so I entered a monastery. I now do stand-up at daily prayer services. The monks' vow of silence means they can't laugh. I can't even laugh, although sometimes I sob quietly in the can. This blog is a cry for help. Send money or granite. I accept Pay Pal.
Category Archives: News You Can Use (Sort of)
Holding your water
It’s hard to get across to new writers that for all the effort and pain they put into writing their poem, their novel, their hip-hoppery, those brilliant scribbles are nothing but a first draft. I learned the hard way. I … Continue reading
Posted in funny, Mockery and derision, News You Can Use (Sort of)
Tagged burro, Innisfree, Kipling, rewrite, satire, Tennyson, tinterns, Wordsworth, zany
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Questions Without Answers Without Question
• Why do things like antlers and lawn furniture and Swedish meatballs come out your nose when you go into a coughing jag? • Why do they call the Secret Service secret when we already know it’s not a secret? … Continue reading
Posted in Absurd and/or zany, News You Can Use (Sort of), The human comedy
Tagged absurd, blorking, BOOM, funny, gravity, satire, swedish meatballs
3 Comments
Burbling borscht
As I often do while trying to think up new ways of saying nothing, I anchored my elbow on the arm of my desk chair and, into the splay of my fingers, I rested my chin–which, one might describe (if … Continue reading
Posted in Absurd and/or zany, Mockery and derision, News You Can Use (Sort of)
Tagged absurd, funny, Monsignor, satire, yardstick, zany, zepto chip
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Run, you peckerwood
Can’t get started on your Great American novel? Don’t despair because A.) It probably won’t be any good anyway. B.) It will never get published and C.) It probably won’t be any good anyway. Still, to avoid writer’s block when … Continue reading
Posted in Absurd and/or zany, News You Can Use (Sort of)
Tagged fromage, funny, lobotomy, mezzanine, satire, woodpecker
6 Comments
Wake up and smell
Saw a movie the other night where Denzel Washington demanded kidnappers give him Proof of Life that the person he was trying to ransom was still alive. Still alive. Or as Monty Python would have it “Not quite dead yet.” … Continue reading
Posted in Absurd and/or zany, News You Can Use (Sort of), The human comedy
Tagged cremation, doobie, foo foo, funny, humor, satire
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The duck commander
While waiting at a stop sign for further instructions, I started thinking about the presumptions made by the boys and girls down at the highway department. When they decide what goes on a highway sign they presume that we—the un-neutered, … Continue reading
1955 green linoleum
The New York Times interviewed me for a feature on novelists who are unpublished because they aren’t tall. Or, in some cases, because they are too tall. I agreed on the off chance a publisher might see it and say … Continue reading
Posted in Absurd and/or zany, News You Can Use (Sort of)
Tagged absurd, funny, linoleum, Moby Dicked, satire, Spanish Inquisition, Stendahl
6 Comments
a hint of light 