By Jim Hagarty
When I was 15, I thought I had to be working very hard at a job to get ahead.
When I was 25, I thought I had to be working very hard at a job.
When I was 35, I thought I had to be working very hard.
When I was 45, I thought I had to be working hard.
When I was 55, I thought I had to be working.
When I was 65, I thought I had to be.
By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker
There once was a man named Bruce
Whose BMs were overly loose.
I advised, like a dork,
He invest in a cork.
Now I’m treated to daily abuse.
By Jim Hagarty
So science has developed the “smart” gun.
A smart gun, or personalized gun, is a firearm that includes a safety feature or features that allow it to fire only when activated by an authorized user.
Good for science.
Meanwhile, God is apparently busy trying to create a smart authorized user. Along with a smart unauthorized user.
He is said to be not even close to perfecting either one and it is rumoured He has gone back to creating Earth-like planets Americans can move to when things get a little too crazy.
By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker
There once was a man named Sal
Who was my last and only pal.
But he moved far away
And hates me today
But at least I still have his gal.
By Jim Hagarty
There is a country song about a singer who is driving along near Montgomery, Alabama, when he spies a hitchhiker by the side of the road. A long, lanky fellow in a cowboy hat.
The driver pulls over to pick him up. The grateful passenger is Hank Williams. Fifty years after the country music icon died in the back seat of his car.
A similar thing happened to me today.
I never met my Grandpa. He died in 1950, a few months before I was born.
But there, on the side of the road, was a hitchhiker. A thin man of medium build, dressed in what seemed like Sunday clothes, wearing a neat straw hat.
I pulled over and was soon astonished that the man was my Grandfather. It was quite an experience. He was startled too to become acquainted with the grandson who had picked him up.
“Where are you heading?” I asked him. He gave me an address. I wasn’t familiar with the place. I pulled out my iPhone.
“Just wait a minute. I will enter the address in Google Maps.”
“In what?” he asked.
I tried to explain. He was fascinated with the little device I held in my hands.
“Do you mind if I go through the drivethrough?” I asked my ancestor.
“What is a drivethrough?” he asked.
He didn’t want anything. I ordered a drink at the restaurant speaker. He was startled when a voice took my order.
I was handed a paper cup at the window. I explained it contained coffee.
“In a cup made of paper?” he asked.
We drove along. A female voice on my phone told me to turn right, turn left.
Then the phone made a strange sound.
“Hey, I just got a text,” I said.
“A what?” asked my forebear.
I pulled over to answer the text. And an email that had also come in.
Then the phone rang. Grandpa was startled. I answered the call. He knew what a telephone was, but had never seen one not attached to a wall and a receiver that didn’t have a cord.
We drove a few more miles. I pulled over again.
“Do you mind if I check my bank balance?” I asked.
“That’s fine,” said Grandpa. “But where are you going to find a bank around here? And it’s Saturday. They are all closed.”
“No,” I laughed. “I will check it on my phone.”
After that, I showed him a video of two puppies chasing a tennis ball. He turned white. He had died eight years before the farmhouse he had built was outfitted with its first black and white TV. He had never heard the term TV.
We started driving again.
“Do you mind if I pop in a CD?” I asked my grandfather.
“A what?”
Music boomed out of the car speakers. He jumped a bit in his seat. I turned off the music.
We drove along in silence for a while, then I pulled into a gas station to fill up. I started getting out of the car.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Don’t worry,” I answered. I walked up to a big machine, stuck my card in a slot, removed the pump handle and filled up my tank. Replaced the handle, got back in the car, and started to drive away.
“Don’t you have to pay for that gas?” asked Grandpa.
“I already did,” I replied.
We drove along. I pressed a button and rolled down the windows. It was a hot day. The sight of the windows going down on their own surprised my Grandfather.
We passed a Chevy Volt as we drove along.
“Why is that car moving but not making a sound?” asked Grandfather.
I started to explain about electric cars.
He interrupted me.
“Could you let me off at the next corner?” he asked me.
I pulled over. Said a painful goodbye. He got out.
As I drove away, I saw him looking astonished at a young man who went whizzing by him on a motorized skateboard.
I put the CD back in.
“I’m so lonesome, I could cry,” sang Hank Williams.
A tear ran down my cheek.
By Jim Hagarty
I’m not sure what the job description for a humour writer might be, if one was ever written, but it would probably contain some fuzzy stuff such as “observes human behaviour and characteristics and comments humourously on the data collected by such examinations.” A more simply stated directive might say, “Pokes fun at everybody.” An even briefer outline would be, “Class clown.”
Having written humour for several decades now, I know a little of which I speak. I have come to the conclusion that we humour writers are incredibly insecure and spend our lives looking for laughs wherever we can find them. In the process, we develop a few human characteristics of our own.
First of all, we have egos the size of cathedrals. This translates onto the page as an almost insufferable superiority, albeit one that is skilfully hidden, lest our readers think us to be pompous. Our basic premise is this, however: anyone who thinks, acts, or looks differently from us, is a perfect candidate for our ridicule because, basically, to have the nerve to have ways that are not similar to our own is to be hopelessly wrong.
This is why becoming educated is a poor career move for a humour writer because as he discovers the real reasons why others are the way they are, he will inevitably lose his appetite for putting them down. And therefore, his “edge.”
The second main thing to know about the breed known as the humourist is that we were born without a conscience. There is almost no situation in life that we will consider off limits for mockery, whether it be religion, poverty, marriage or terminal illness. In fact, we love to laugh at death. The truth is, it scares the life out of us. As does marriage, religion and the prospect of poverty.
We are the original whistlers past the graveyard.
Finally, the most significant thing to know about the humour writer is that absolutely everyone we meet, sooner or later, will come into our sights. Our targets include wives, children, co-workers, friends, pets – basically any living thing that makes the mistake of wandering into our view. When one of them objects to being pummelled in print, we react with hostility, “Learn to take a joke, will ya!”
I had reason to be reminded of this last point recently when I had coffee with an old friend who is a humour writer like me. I hadn’t seen him in a while and as we sat down in the coffee shop, I removed my cap. As I did, I noticed his eyes fix in some surprise on the top of my head and his eyebrows shoot up as he noticed how completely hairless my scalp had become since our last get-together. I knew what he was doing and thinking, as I, like him, am a keen observer of my fellow humans.
I thought nothing more of it at the time, but I might have guessed the outcome of his consternation at my clear-cut cranium had I mused on it a while.
Six days later, my mouth dropped open as I read a column by my friend on the subject of male baldness and the various steps he has noticed his balding friends are taking to either cover up or cope with their condition.
My friend, of course, has a full head of hair, and so, inevitably, would find much mirth in those around him who aren’t so follicly endowed.
Had I been betrayed?
Not really.
More like repaid.
And educated.
“So, that’s how it feels,” I thought. It wasn’t the end of the world. My name wasn’t in print for all to see.
But the incident reminded me about two other features of the class clown.
We are painfully thin-skinned, better at giving it than taking it.
And we often sat alone at lunch in the school cafeteria.
If you doubt the truth of any of this, consider the fact that I have just written about my “friend” who wrote about me.
Humour writing, after all, is also primarily about getting the last word.
By Jim Hagarty
My brain would be a lot happier if it didn’t have Thoughts in it.
I have met a few people in my life who have no Thoughts in their brains and I have to say, they seem downright blissful.
Thoughts are a bunch of undisciplined ruffians. They go where they want, do what they want. They remind me of some of the students I had when I was teaching college. Those students loved anarchy. What they didn’t love was listening to a bespectacled, balding, old guy who wore threadbare blazers and tired old Hush Puppies.
Sometimes Thoughts co-operate and it’s wonderful. Your wedding day. “Hooray!” say Thoughts. Or a lottery win. I once won four free pitchers of beer in the Lucan hotel. My Thoughts were over the moon about that till everyone in the pub came over and drank the four pitchers dry.
But mostly, Thoughts love to wander. And they like to go where they are not welcome. Especially into lands filled with forbidden fruit trees.
Sometimes, they hike off for a day to the Past. The adventure might start off all right, but they soon get bogged down when they run into the three-headed demon known as Regret, Remorse and Resentment.
But the land Thoughts most like to occupy is the Future. The Future is like the planet Mars. You know it exists. You’ve seen the pictures. You can even catch a glimpse of it sometimes in the night sky. But like Mars, no human has ever set foot in the Future, and my guess is, no one ever will.
But that doesn’t stop Thoughts. I don’t personally see the attraction, but Thoughts just love to play around in the Future. Must be the adrenalin rush. Because they aren’t there very long until they run into an even scarier three-headed monster: Fear, Terror and Panic.
It’s damn hard to keep Thoughts at home where they belong. Home is the Present. And like any home, I guess, it can be a bit boring, maybe even messy. It is often the place where Excitement goes to die.
Now and then, exhausted from their scary journeys into Forbidden Lands, perhaps, Thoughts will park it in the leather recliner and be happy to take a day off.
Brain is forever grateful for those times.
I don’t know where they get their energy, because Thoughts rarely sleep.
They’re too busy planning their next roller coaster ride.
By Jim Hagarty
I started a blog two weeks ago to entertain the masses.
And to make money.
So I did an Internet search on how to start a blog.
Mission accomplished.
Then I did some more searching, this time on how to make money from a blog. Imagine my surprise: There are a million ways. Or are there?
I finally settled on the words of advice from a blogger who makes $100,000 a month. That is a nice round figure, I thought, and he seemed pretty humble. So I became his disciple.
There were sites I found by people who make many times more than $100,000 a month but I am not a greedy man. I can get by on $1,200,000 a year.
My guru had 20 suggestions. I looked them over carefully. They seemed to make sense.
His biggest pearl of wisdom came when he discussed his opinion that the riches won’t come from the blog itself. Instead, they will happen as a result of what I am able to sell on my blog. And what I need to sell is my expertise.
I need to think of myself as a teacher. Imagine what it is my readership needs, assess what it is I have expertise in, and then match those two things up.
Expertise. Hmmm.
I took an hour out of my day and just sat and thought about my expertise. What is it, I asked myself, that I am an expert in? What things do I know that many people don’t know and how can I align that knowledge with the needs my readers have?
My brain started doing its brain thing. The session extended into a second hour. I encountered some difficulty in singling out something I know that most people don’t know and need to know.
Ideas started to come. I know how to prevent my breakfast cereal from becoming soggy. (Hint: Pour the milk in the bowl first, then the cereal.)
I know that the best way to trim your fingernails is to use a toenail clippers.
Good ideas, I knew they were, but the wheels ground to a halt.
Then, jackpot!
This winter I discovered how to easily peel that pesky free coffee sticker off the side of a McDonald’s coffee cup. Without giving too much of the secret away, the answer is to peel it off while the coffee is still inside the cup. The hot coffee melts the wax holding the sticker to the cardboard.
I was elated.
Following my guru’s next steps, I am going to write an e-book about easy sticker removals and post that for sale on my blog.
I will compound that success by coming up with a beautiful, hardcover, coffeetable version of the e-book. I will sell it for $29.95. Correction: $39.95.
Third, I will organize a speaking tour about the subject of sticker peeling.
Fourth, a YouTube video.
And finally, I will offer courses on the subject. On-line and off. The eight-week, real in-person course will cost students $599.00. Correction: $799.00. And bring your own McDonald’s coffee cup, contents still inside.
I was over at the local Chevy dealer today. They have two new Corvettes in the lot. One cherry red, one silver. I can’t decide which one to get.
Ah, what the hell?
I’m going to get both of them.
By Jim Hagarty
I don’t speak cat and can’t understand cat speak.
I am even worse when it comes to cat typing.
My cat Luigi just walked across my keyboard and this is what he wrote: “hjyunuyjuhk”.
Anyone fluent in Catlish might be able to help me out. Drop me a note if you understand what this means.
The best I can come up with, based on 10 years of close association with Luigi, is: “gotnokibble”.
By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker
There once was a bug named Fred
Who burrowed down deep in my bed.
A long fart in my sleep.
Now from Fred, not a peep.
I believe the wee fellow is dead.
