Tuesday, 10/14

I had no idea I'd have to cut so many of the gags.

First of all...hope you had a great 3-day weekend if, indeed, you had a three day weekend.  I had yesterday off from this job but spent most of the day at two of my other gigs, including doing last night's TV piece, a light-hearted piece of fluff riffing off the fact that yesterday was a holiday.

The thing is...people only saw about half of what I wrote.

I think I may have mentioned in here before that I often have to cut a line or six from the first draft of the scripts I write, and I'm okay with that.  Often, what I edit makes the piece sharper and a little more concise.  But for some strange reason this week's bit came in long--way long--way and I found myself cutting (almost exactly) half the gags from it.

That's not a bad thing, as what I was left with was right on the nose.  See for yourself--

However, I did spend a bit of time coming up with and, in a few cases, researching a few more jokes, and even though no one asked for them, I feel like I should use them somewhere.

And where is that somewhere?  Yup...here.  So in no particular order, what did I end up cutting?

History gives us a couple of dates we could celebrate, including December 14th as either Yooper Independence Day or the beginning of two centuries of indentured servitude.  Why?  Because that’s the day in 1836 that the Toledo Compromise was signed and the UP became part of Michigan.

November 1st should also be a day off of work for everyone, if only to pay us back for the onslaught of tourists we get every year thanks to what happened on November 1st, 1957…the opening of the Mackinac Bridge.

There may be a couple of holidays that are just celebrated locally, or regionally, like March 8th, the first time of the year that the average high gets above 32 or, as Marquette residents refer to it, “Time to Wear Shorts Day”.

I also cut out a few jokes, including one about everybody having the day off EXCEPT for those of us working in TV, but since I had so much to toss out, that was just part of it.

Did the cuts make the piece better? They probably did. Was I sad to cut them out? Yup, if for no other reason than I actually put work into figuring them out.

But at least I got to use them here. So thanks!

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)