Friday, 6/23

I think it would have made for a great gag.

This past Monday on "Life in the 906" I basically did a two-minute stand-up routine where I rattled off "official" things about the UP (as an example, the official bird of the UP is the mosquito). I had a lot of fun putting it together, and from the comments I've received it seemed to go over quite well.

And that's a very cool thing, especially because of the fact that the whole bit, like a few of the things I do, came to me pretty much fully formed in a dream one night.

Like most of the bits I do for TV the timing for this one came in long. I only have two minutes, and I usually find myself cutting out the fat of a piece and then, if need be, trimming away some of the meat. That's what happened this time around, as I found myself 45 seconds long. Since the whole piece was pretty much just a bunch of one liners, I had to decide which could stay and which could go, and that means that no one got to hear about snowmobiles, "chooks", smoked whitefish, or the Mystery Spot, among others. I was okay with losing those gags; I probably would have cut some of them for rhythm, anyway. But there was one I was sad to lose, even if I wasn't totally sure that it was appropriate.

You see, the category was going to be "Official old person of the UP", and I was not going to say a thing.

I was just going to show a picture of Karl Bohnak.

Karl is, of course, a contributor to 19 News, just as I am, so in a way it would have been hilarious. But on the other hand, I would really need to have run it past Karl and the rest of the news staff, and I wasn't sure if I might be either crossing a line I shouldn't or be telling a little too much of an inside joke. Either way, I wasn't overly comfortable with it as it stood, so I dropped it.

Even though it might have been the topper to the whole bit.

As it stands, I was quite happy with the way things turned out. It may have been one of the best pieces I've written so far, and despite a couple of technical glitches from my very fast-paced delivery and the inability of the visuals to keep up with that pace, I think I, in the parlance of stand-up comedians everywhere, killed.

And that is always a great feeling.

Check it out for yourself. And while you're at it, have a pretty fantastic weekend, to boot!

(jim@wmqt.com)