“Who’s on First?” was perhaps the most famous sketch of Abbott & Costello. It is essentially seven or eight minutes of word play that cracks me up every time I come across it on da’ net. It is the continuation of themes common in the Burlesque era of entertainment, which is where the act of Abbott & Costello got its start.
Mark Twain rose to fame with stories such as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County which was required reading when I was in school during the Paleolithic period. The gist of the story is that a man feeds buckshot to a frog in order to win a bar bet. Want to know more? Read the story.
I saw myself following in the footsteps of such great American humorist with my last two blog postings. I could have seen Abbott & Costello doing the dialogue in Do you know what… to great effect. In the burlesque sketch, The Baker Scene, there is even a Watt Street. This sketch is given as the provenance of Abbott & Costello’s most renowned sketch.
My posting My New Plan to Make My Fortune is about hijacking Santa’s sleigh for fun and profit. I could easily have seen either Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut grabbing the reins attached to the nine reindeer and running off with the Christmas presents for all the good little boys and girls around the globe. Both gentlemen strike me as lusty enough to appreciate the charms of a curvaceous Sweet Young Thing. And I know Santa is. Have you seen the twinkle in Mrs. Claus’s eyes? There has got to be something hot going on between the two of them.
Assuredly, I am suffering from an almost terminable case of hubris, trying to place myself in such esteemed company. Apparently my sea legs are still wobbly. It seems I may have missed a trail blazing on the path to Great American Humorist and geed where I should have hawed. While I have been very much under the weather the whole of last week, heavy drugs have not been part of the convalescent protocol. Nor have I invaded anyone’s medical marijuana stash… hat box, hat box. Señora went so far as to give me a new nickname, the same as Donald Sutherland’s character in the 1970 classic film, Kelly’s Heroes, Oddball. Hmmm… I suppose if the Foo shits, wear it???
Cruising the online news this morning, I feel somewhat vindicated though. I came across this article: The Worst Opening Sentence Written This Year Has Officially Been Found. In 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest was established. Every year, the BLFC “has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written.” Your impatience is palpable, even through the Internet, and for that reason, I will go straight to punch bowl and give you the worst opening sentence of 2022:
“I knew she was trouble the second she walked into my 24-hour deli, laundromat, and detective agency, and after dropping a load of unmentionables in one of the heavy-duty machines (a mistake that would soon turn deadly) she turned to me, asking for two things: find her missing husband and make her a salami on rye with spicy mustard, breaking into tears when I told her I couldn’t help—I was fresh out of salami.” ~~ John Farmer, Aurora, CO
I love that sentence. I could have seen yours truly scribbling it on a piece of toilet tissue as I meditated in the throne room. My goal for 2023 is to at least get a Dishonorable Mention in this contest. John Farmer definitely set a high bar (low bar?) of achievement, but any goal worth striving for is usually not on the gee branch of the trail.
The winner in the Crime Detective category was a gem too:
“The detectives wore booties, body suits, hair nets, masks and gloves and longed for the good old days when they could poke a corpse with the toes of their wingtips if they damn well felt like it.” ~~Jim Anderson, Flushing, MI
However, I am not sure I would not have selected as the overall winner, the winner in Children’s & Young Adult Literature:
“Three bears arrived at their den to discover a yellow haired girl sleeping, and as she was neither too hot nor too cold, neither too soft nor too hard, but just right, they ate her.” ~~ Neil Prowd, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Check out their website, there are a whole lot more of these awful (but funny) sentences.
As any of my backpacking partners will tell you, I may have geed when I should have hawed, but follow that rabbit trail I will. So…Be scared, very scared. Señora is hoping my health improves quickly. Frantic she is that I might write an elves romping with Mrs. Claus story.
And so it goes