RE: MS-WRITE NOW (Humor) It's Taxing!

IT'S TAXING!

DUHN-DUHN-DUHN...It's Tax Day!

If you're like me, it's all over, but the crying...and paying!

I'm always amazed at how simple public servants like myself, who cling tenaciously to their lower middle class status, can owe on their taxes. But, hey, I still can't believe I'm not fixin' to celebrate my 30th birthday, so I've got all kinds of denial going on up in here.

In order of this auspicious occasion, I have decided to post the synopsis here for my humorous mystery entitled, K-I-L-L- TV which features a murder that takes place on -- you guessed it! -- tax day.

You can circumvent this little attention-grabber and just go directly to the newly-uploaded-for-your-reading-pleasure Chapter 1 on my website, accessing it by clicking the freshly minted "KILL-TV" tab. The WEBSITE of which I speak is: www.dianedeanepps.com

And, hey, if you like what you read, why not order this beast? I've got one more kid child to put through college and if I have too many more tax years like this one that's looking more challenging than keeping my hindquarters above sea level with exercise.

It could be that not only will I be yodeling out to my daughter, "Junior college is an efficient use of our time and money this year," but subsequently, "There's nothing wrong with being in junior college four years and then transferring to the college of your dreams."

Ahhh, the American Dream. Not so much elusive as wily. Onward we go to that synopsis I promised.

SYNOPSIS FOR K-I-L-L- TV

It’s April Fifteenth. Tax Day. And while this is not, traditionally, a source of merriment for any citizen, K-I-L-L TV adds a new twist to Ben Franklin’s axiom about “death and taxes” by telling the humorously suspenseful tale of news director, Leslie Lloyd.

Fateful timing finds Leslie foraging around for a tape in the television station control room when she notices something is off besides the lights; station manager Lincoln Delaware Bradley III is dead.

Unfortunately, our alliterative heroine was known to disagree with the head honcho publicly, loudly and frequently. The fact that Leslie and Lincoln had one humdinger of an argument a mere day’s worth of hours before Lincoln’s death doesn’t escape anyone’s attention, least of all the police.

As if that isn’t enough, Leslie’s husband, that rat-bastard Bob, is leaving her, her income taxes haven’t been filed, and she’s in desperate need of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting—or ten.

An unexpected diversion in the form of a love connection with policeman, Jared Stanford, provides a welcome breather, even as a veritable Lombard Street of plot twists threaten to send her careening into a metaphorical wall representing her future.

The song title chapter headings set the tone for the intrigue as we get a closer look at Leslie’s life, friends and struggle to stay on top in the uncompromising world of broadcast journalism, as her

story plays non-stop on every station, including K-I-L-L TV.

RE: (Humor) Carol Wright is All Right By Me...'tis the season for crazy catalogs...

Carol Wright is All Right By Me

Start your retail engines and warm up those credit cards. 'Tis catalog season!

On more than one occasion I've written about the odd array of catalogs seeming to find their way into my cobweb-encrusted mailbox, my recent acquisition being Carol Wright Gifts.

I must tell you, this offering is quite a boon for a humorist in addition to the discerning consumer who long ago might otherwise have given up on finding “must have” items, such as bottle tops that turn drink cans into drink bottles. (Everyone knows a can is gauche. Now a bottle? You can really pour on the class with this receptacle.)

What caught my eye instantly was the “the world's first bake, slice, and serve brownie maker.” Come to Mama! Where have you been all my life? If only my metabolism would allow for it, I would purchase this necessity pronto, enabling me to fulfill my lifelong dream of baking and consuming the perfect brownie. (You so get me. I don't care so much about the baking. I'm all about the consuming.)

Then there's a particular favorite product of mine — Liftight life serum — if only just for the “before” and “after” pictures provided rather than the outcome. However, speaking of results; the handsome gray-haired model illustrating the aftereffects looks surprised such a procedure would work, let alone that anyone would buy it in order to “look years younger in just 90 seconds.”

If you're math-oriented, and I know you're out there, a 60-year-old who wants to look, say, 30, would need 450 seconds for each set of five rolled-back years, so the total seconds tallied for the full 30-year regression lands somewhere around 2,700. What is, no doubt, the outrageous price for such a miracle product you ask? Only 14 bills. It's a steal at double that price!

There is one issue with this time machine in a bottle, though, and it resides in the fact there is a warning about the elixir lasting a maximum of 10 hours. Consequently, you must be ready for a future whereby your life will play out as the NeverEnding Cinderella story only you'll turn into a wrinkly pumpkin.

Next we have the perfect-posture back support, which is to posture what the chastity belt is to virginity. If you can slip into this rather daunting apparatus, you will likely achieve the desired result.

I will admit to giving more than a cursory glance to the sonic molechaser, but in my defense that was on a day when I was acutely irritated at our front yard wildlife known as Odocoileus virginianus. (The white-tailed deer.)

As a result of the voracious appetite of deer for deer-resistant foliage, I was forced into a first, second, and third planting of my vegetation, so I was a wee bit miffed.However, once I viewed the illustration featuring — I kid you not — a cartoon mole running away from a pencil-sized stake with its little mole paws up in a stick-'em-up-and-give-me-your-money gesture mouthing, “Eek!” I lost my thirst for the ruination of deer hearing.

I just consider anything we manage to grow my contribution to the propagation of a healthy food chain and utter a sacrificial, “Damn!”

Carol Wright is similar to other bygone catalogs that were ever-present in my grandparents' household, a relic of the popular pastime that was shopping by mail.

In business since 1952 and founded by a housewife out of her Mount Vernon, New York, apartment, Lillian Vernon is one of these. I remember my grandfather spending hours looking through catalogs, ordering items he didn't really need simply because it tickled him to get stuff in the mail.

He's been gone for over two decades now, but I am reminded of love not loss whenever I look at the Geisha doll he ordered for my grandmother so long ago.

I don't order from the catalogs I receive very often, which may explain why the delivery of them is so sporadic. I guess that's why I also don't need to order the featured pamphlet, How to Solve the Little Mysteries of Your Life.

One mystery down; just another couple hundred to go.

Re: (Humor) Julia's Child...the cheffing gene skipped a generation, landing firmly on Generation Y-ME?!

Julia’s Child

My kids are often the subject of my columns. Truth be told, so are my pets, my husband, and anyone, (or thing), that crosses my path, really. That’s how it works when you’re an observational comic.

Because of this my friends require assurance whenever they do something even marginally amusing, “Oh, no! That’s not going to be in your column, is it?”

Uh, no, huh-uh. Of course not. Certainly not without a drastic renaming, rewriting, or retelling applied to the whole thing.

Which brings us to this week’s installment spawned by my spawn. I didn’t even have to leave my house for this one, thereby negating the need for a change out of my “house shorts” or a comb-out of my “house hair.”

The topic? Food. Specifically: The cooking of it.

A funny thing happened on the way to my snazzy black and white checkerboard-floored kitchen. I met up with my youngest who was cooking.

Lest I under-present this finding, she wasn’t just cooking, she was cheffing. In fact, it looked like minute number twenty-two in a professionally produced thirty-minute Food Network show.

I stood there motionless and mesmerized in the presence of this culinary whiz, what with the professional chopping, scrumptious smells wafting, and foodstuffs sizzling.

Though I’ve prepared adequate feed-the-machine offerings for my family over the years, (something I’ve detailed in a column or ten), it is not my special gift.

Consequently, my style of cooking can best be described as home cooking with a dash of low fat applied to it: Low Home Cooking.

And speaking of lo, lo these many years I’ve yearned for an in-house chef. Did the universe hear my not-so-silent pleas?

After two decades of serving tolerable meals no one is more amazed than me at the bounty procreation has gifted me with in the form of children who produce gastronomic delights. Perhaps this culinary mutation occurred in self-defense.

It is the youngest, however, who has gone beyond all measure, as she rolls out, often literally, delicacies and delights that confirm my belief in miracles.

Gourmet Girl can magician together three seemingly ordinary ingredients she excavates from my understocked larder and – wha-la – the creation of an exquisitely memorable repast.

At first I’m sure folks thought I was bragging in that parental Lake Woebegone, “all the children are above average” way, but then Julia’s Child proffered her homemade fare to the masses. All that’s left now is the shouting – for more!

And her inspiration? Well, it’s a Dean, but it’s not her Mama Dean. It’s Paula Deen. Therefore her not-so-secret ingredient for everything is about two sticks of luscious butter.

Oh, the rivers of beautiful, sunny, delicious butter that flow through these sumptuous meals. We’re talking down-home biscuits and gravy, the best hamburgers I have ever chowed down and mouthwatering casseroles, cobblers, and candies, oh my!

At any moment I’m expecting Guy from that “Dine and Dash” program to show up at our house touting our dining room as an unknown gem of an eatery in the Gold Country.

The cuisine my culinarian produces would make a fitness trainer weep. This is both due to its innate ability to tip the scales unfavorably in the Battle of the Bulge as well as for the sheer beauty of the bounty that lies waiting to be forked in at record speed.

I’ve even instituted a little game I like to play that marginally amuses our chef-in-residence called, “Surprise me!”

I tell her, “I’m thinking basil, apples, and chicken for a meal. Surprise me!” Just thinking about the results always sets my tail to wagging.

The only problem is that I’ve noticed lately it’s getting a wee bit more difficult to lift the aforementioned tail, but oh, how it’s worth it.

Hum, worth. Mrs. Butterworth. Gosh, I could really go for some of those homemade banana nut pancakes Chef girlardee makes.

Do you think her teacher would mind if I texted her while she’s in her math class?

KILL-TV...a humorous mystery that takes deadly aim at your funny bone...

March 7, 2010

KILL-TV..the humorous mystery that takes deadly aim at your funny bone...

For anyone who is mildly interested, I've got a new book "out there," called KILL-TV and I'm doggoned excited about it and the fact that I've been asked to be the speaker for the Sierra Writers Group this week, Wednesday, March 10, 2010, at 6:30 p.m., at the Madelyn Helling Library, 980 Helling Way, Nevada City. The book is available at this event and through my website www.dianedeanepps.com, as well as through amazon.com, but it's free -- the event silly, not the book, so if you're bored, come hang out with me on Wednesday. We can take a picture together!

Folks have asked me about this new book, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to tell you a little bit about how this puppy came into being. KILL-TV is one of my "what if," stream-of-consciousness moments parlayed into a plot. As a mere lass in my twenties I spent several years working in the radio and television industry where lessons abounded daily, minute-by-minute deadlines were de rigueur, and my video-to-script writing cost me all use and feeling in my verbs.

"Back in the day," when I discovered the magic wrought by shoulder pads and their seemingly mysterious ability to make my waist appear smaller than it actually was, I came up with another mysterious point to ponder: What if I wrote a comical and suspenseful story that was based upon a combination of irritating characters I’d worked with in broadcasting and, lest there be any residual hostility on my part necessitating expensive counseling, I just plain killed ‘em off?” You know…cheap therapy.

This began my year-long journey into the development of my most ambitious novel to date, KILL-TV, just by virtue of continuity, scene changes, and plotting gyrations.While some kind folks, to whom I am not related, have commented that I am mildly amusing, humor does tend to always find its way into anything I write. Having said that, maintaining a humorous tone, snappy dialogue, and a fast pace can be a daunting task, but it lent itself well to the setting of the broadcast journalism world, a world that looks pretty danged different from the inside out.

I’m often asked why I left the “glamorous” world of broadcasting for my full-time gig as a teacher of Generation Y-ME?! to which I reply cleverly, "Because." Truth be told, as I neared thirty, I was subjected to the tandem aural experience of hearing my biological and sociological clocks ticking; I wanted to contribute to society and use what little experience I had gained to serve people other than myself. Go figure how that kind of thinking can be achieved and channeled through a girl who refused to shop anywhere, but at a store rhyming with, "Lacy’s," until she was…well…thirty.

It may be said that humor is in the mind of the humorist – okay, you got me – I said it and I’m not so sure it makes sense, but just keep in mind, this is my wrap-up and I’m trying to sound all smart, profound, and what-not. With a book that is touted as "humorous," the trickiest part is creating a connection with the reader by accessing the commonality of the absurd and the things that make us all laugh.

Being funny is extremely subjective and when I’m fortunate enough to be in front of someone, whether I’m doing stand-up, or just performing one of my "bits" gratis, I at least have the dual advantages of vocal and facial inflection. Writing does not offer this and no amount of exclamation points, italicized words, or clever dialogue can make someone laugh if the tone hasn’t been set first.

In writing, one way I establish tone is to rely upon situations that have happened, but then exaggerate the heck out of them. This is how I created the scene between Leslie and the recently deceased, Lincoln, where she gets her cute little knit top stuck on his tie clasp. As she attempts to set herself free by rocking back and forth in his lap, she creates the illusion that she is in an unseemly coupling with the boss, and this is in full view of anyone walking by in the outer hallway area, which is just on the other side of the control room glass partition. Combining the horror that a character would feel over discovering her dead boss with a slapstick type of physical interaction that is misinterpreted by a key character is no mean feat, but I hope I’ve succeeded.

It is my fervent hope, desire, and wish that I have created a tale in KILL-TV that amuses the masses who will graciously welcome these characters into their lives, even briefly, and perhaps beyond if the alliterative protagonist, Leslie Lloyd, agrees to a future foray into my next book.

Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Diane-Dean-Epps/e/B002BLQGOU