I’m having a great day. And although I am fortunate enough to have a life I enjoy most days, usually I’d say my days are good but not great. But if there’s one thing that really makes me happy, it’s doing creative work for a purpose beyond my own enjoyment. One way this happens is if the purpose is to make me money — as a freelancer, by far my favorite jobs are the ones where I can make use of my very particular set of skills.* I am seeking new clients so if you need anything written or edited please do let me know, but I am always happiest when I am being paid to write funny.

But the other thing that really amps up the value of creative writing for me is doing it with another artistically talented friend. This month has now brought me two collaborations in the works, the second of which involved someone I hadn’t spoken to in six years contacting me this week to suggest a collaboration, and today I sketched out a possibility for a first verse and chorus. And it has put me in an excellent mood.
And hopefully sometime in the next few months I will have a rap song to share with you.

I needed the mood boost because the Sammus concert I had been looking forward to attending got postponed by snowstorm.** Hopefully it will be rescheduled for next month. Meanwhilst, this coming weekend will certainly boost my mood, because the High Mud Comedy Festival is back in town, this year starring Mike Birbiglia, who I had the pleasure of seeing perform at the DC Improv back in 2001.***

On the gaming front I just finished Mass Effect 3, and have recently returned to Path of Exile after a 3-4 year hiatus. Boardgamewise Codenames continues to be our evening-starter of choice, and I continue to enjoy games like St. Petersburg and Great Western Trail. And I saw Black Panther in theatres, and it was good, and I wrote about it the day before I saw it because I knew you’d want to read about Black Panther (without spoilers)

* “Skills I have acquired over a very long career…”

** At this point we’ve had so many that in my mind it’s basically just one continuous snowstorm dropping 4 feet of snow, which takes a day off every few days so you have time to shovel out the driveway a bit for the next one.

*** Also, I made him a minor character in my novel.

The average frequency, in 2018, of mass shootings and specifically school shootings, respectively.

This is a depressing fact about which I have been sitting and thinking today. Some years ago I wrote and performed a poem about the frequency of mass shootings called Gunmerica, and I am always disappointed that it remains so relevant.

It’s hard sometimes for me not to be a hypocrite, since I’ve often complained to others that comparing two issues is not helpful, and each issue should be evaluated on its own merits. And yet, faced with such disparate responses from our government on the issues of guns (cause many deaths on a daily basis, yet still sacrosanct and can’t be regulated) and immigrants (who cause very few deaths and are the basis of our country, yet so many resources are devoted to keeping them out or removing them), it is hard not to draw comparisons. Likewise the spending priorities for trillion-dollar tax cuts for the wealthy (deficit funded, no problem!) and survival-level benefits for those in need (Medicare cuts, SNAP cuts, etc.).

But I know you don’t read this for politics.* So on the game front, I will say that we started Pandemic Legacy: Season 2, and it is quite difficult indeed. It may be more difficult on every axis — character powers are weaker, not all cities take four draws to outbreak, cities have multiple copies of their card in the infection deck, etc., etc. Plus with so many different rules from Pandemic, the lack of familiarity is a difficulty as well.  Videogame-wise I’ve been playing Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, which has some entertaining deaths, but is annoyingly on rails**.

Yesterday was my least-favorite holiday, but at least it gave me occasion to write some entertaining Valentine’s Day poems.

*you read it for the footnotes.***

***not that one, obviously, but the potential for other footnotes, which you have not yet read, but you hope may one day appear like a beam of light from heaven, only in a less potentially-apocalyptic fashion, and make you feel that reading the footnotes has finally been worth it, as if they were carefully crafted with awe and purpose, and not just typed up as a bucket of blather because the author once read Infinite Jest over a summer and ever since has made the mistake of associating preposterously long footnotes with some sort of intelligence and/or humor, two qualities the author wishes to appear to possess, although if he was so smart, he wouldn’t talk about himself in the third person.

November is the time of year when we are reminded to be thankful; the rest of the year is when we ought to be but aren’t reminded. Nonetheless, this month I find myself with more to be thankful to*. First off, someone finally bought my old house, and while I could complain about price or process, the fact is that not owning an abandoned house for another winter is a tremendous amount of mental strain I can now avoid, so I’m quite glad that’s done. My only big issue remaining is a health one, which I thank my loved ones for supporting me through, and hope to be healthy again in the not too distant future. After I get that resolved, I’ll just have the same problems as everyone else in this crazy country.

It’s also been a good month for appreciation of my work. One of the things about being a writer is that you never know if anyone’s reading or enjoying you, but whether it’s someone letting me know they enjoy my raps in the comments, or someone mentioning at a poetry reading that they enjoy my columns, I thank the people who give me feedback on my work.

Boardgame-wise, I have a review up for Concordia, and I’ve just started a campaign of Pandemic Legacy Season 1 with a few of the folks from my weekly game night, so I’ll probably review that once we’re done. And I thank them for providing a nice welcoming place for me to game on a regular basis.

*I’ve always preferred “thankful to” rather than “thankful for”, because thanking is an active verb that takes a direct object. Don’t be thankful FOR your relationship, be thankful TO your partner since they’re directly responsible for your great** relationship.

**If your relationship is very far from great, remember that it is not mandatory.

So, that election happened. And I went into hibernation* for the winter, in which I think I’m hardly alone. But, in spite of the snow, Spring is here, and it is a time for renewal** — at the very least, renewal of me posting on this blog occasionally. And while I could provide you with a litany of links to every game I’ve played and every article I’ve written this year, I’m going to stick with favorites. So.

My favorite column I’ve written so far this year was about food, which is totally my favorite thing to eat. As I would tell a chef named after the thing he prepares, “Hey Food, Don’t Make It Bad“. My favorite new boardgame of the year is the mightily epic The Colonists, which is like a worker placement game taken to the next level. And the videogame I’ve been playing most recently is the not-terribly-new Victor Vran, which is a Diablo-esque aRPG, but with nicely smooth combat.

In other news,  you may recall that early last year, I had co-written a musical with my old friend Sam Hammersley (and my new friend Thom Mesrobian). The musical was a Hamilton parody about Trump becoming president, it was the smash hit of the Orlando Fringe Festival last May, and if you’re wondering what such a thing would sound like, I can direct you to this YouTube clip of my favorite song.

Well, Sam and I have now recently finished writing a brand new musical which will be playing this May in Orlando’s Fringe Festival. This one is wholly original, rather than being a parody. But it makes up for it by having more puns than you have ever heard in a musical before. It is called “Punslingers”, I am very proud of it, and I will probably post about it again next month, so if you know anyone who might be near Orlando come May, you should tell them to plan to see our musical.

Meanwhilst, next weekend is the High Mud Comedy Festival here in North Adams, and even if I’m only performing at the aftershow rather than the main stage this year, it still should be a good time.

*Hibernation: For when it’s too much to Bear.

**Because I had nearly a dozen books out from the library, and couldn’t finish them all in 3 weeks.

With the inimitable Tom in town, lately I’ve been going for more long walks to have interesting conversations*, and one conclusion I had come to recently is that most problems are caused by other people. I’d recommend avoiding people in order to reduce the number of unpleasant experiences you have, but it turns out many of life’s pleasant experiences also involve interaction with people, making the whole thing much more complicated.

One nice interaction with people I had recently was WordXWord, which was as always a delightful week of spoken word, even though I wasn’t competing this year. It was also nice to have a few people tell me that they read and enjoy my column, because I get very little feedback about it generally speaking.**  Specifically speaking of which, here’s my most recent column: Oh, The Humidity

While I haven’t yet played No Man’s Sky because I can’t really justify buying games on release, I have been dipping back into both Terraria and Starbound, which scratch the same sorts of itches, and which have the advantage of optional multiplayer. Even if multi-player Terraria oft ends up being other more-skilled VGG friends handing me their cast-off equipment, the bad jokes are what make it all worthwhile.

I’m hoping to write some slightly better jokes for this week’s Third Thursday Comedy Mic, which I should probably do instead of extending this blogpost. Oh, but first I’ll mention in case you missed it previously, last post links to my old house, now for sale at a very good price, please share the link with anyone you know who might be interested in buying it. My life would definitely be improved by a swift sale of that house. And I’ll fry you a burrito.

*One of my favored activities in general, although aside from Tom my list of regular coambulators had recently been reduced by one, which is inconvenient since it had already dwindled to one. But walking and talking is surprisingly engaging, for something that isn’t the Internet.

**Notwithstanding troll comments on the Berkshire Eagle site, because the commenters there are only slightly better than YouTube commenters. “All the rude invective, now with 50% less offensive language!”

As regular readers* of this blog know, a few months ago I moved. I still live in North Adams, but I am now further from town. My old house is much more conveniently located to town — just a few blocks from Main St., grocery store, bank, everything you could want. I lived there a dozen years with no car (although there is a garage – and a shed!). It’s a charming old Victorian house with a prime location, and I have put it on the market for less than it’s worth because I would really like to sell it soon. Perhaps you or someone you know might want an entire awesome house for $69k or so? Check out and/or share this listing:

Charming old Victorian house just blocks from town

That’s the most important news, because seriously, I really need to sell this thing ASAP. Turns out that new houses are expensive, and having two houses at once is way too expensive.

In other news, how is it already August? This year has really flown by, and I am not ready for anything. Among the things I am not ready for is WordXWord, happening next week. This year happened so fast that I didn’t even make it to any of the preliminary events this year, and so consequently I am not competing in the slams this time around. But I’ll still be reading some poetry in one or two of the auxiliary** events, and it’s an honor just to be nominatedparticipate.

Boardgaming continues apace, and I think my favorite new-to-me game this summer is Orleans, which isn’t terribly innovative, but is a lot of fun. Other new-to-me games include Oh My Goods (a very cheap smallbox game with some meat) and Costa Rica (the most vicious Push your Luck game I’ve played in a while.)

I realize by this point my post already has more links than a Jimmy Dean Sausage*** festival, but I still want to point to some recent columns, one about Harry Potter in the Berkshires (yes, that’s our Mt. Greylock the new school is at!), and one about Pokemarriage Go.

And that’s it for my July update! The August update should be up by September.

*I know I don’t have many regular readers, but sadly I don’t even seem to have a single regular updater. Uh, sorry about that, dear reader.

**”one or two, of the auxiliary” might refer to “can I remember how many l’s and r’s are in this word?”

***Sadly, this post not sponsored by Jimmy Dean Sausage. Or anyone else. Hey companies, send me free food and I’ll mention you. Hell, doesn’t have to be a company. Dear reader, bake me some cookies, I’ll mention you. I take the will write for food thing to a whole new level. Like, a lower one.

As some of you may know, and the rest of you are about to find out, I have co-written (with my old friend Samuel Hammersley, and my new friend Thom Mesrobian) a musical called “Simpleton: The Legend of President Trump”. This is a parody of Hamilton, about what would happen if Trump won the presidency. And it opens this weekend (May 19th) at the Orlando Fringe Festival.

Early previews have been filled with lots of positive buzz, and apparently the media and festival staff gave the show a standing ovation at the big tech rehearsal. Our first actual review was fairly positive, saying:

The lyrics by Mesrobian, Samuel Hammersley and Seth Brown hit more often than miss and have a healthy number of zingers. The cast, too, has energy to burn and spits out the rhymes with gleeful enthusiasm.

So I am pretty dang excited about this show. Writing it was an absolute delight, especially as Sam and I were very often on the same wavelength, and together we created something I’m really proud of. It’s a very limited run for only the 10-day duration of the Fringe Festival, so if you know anyone who will be in Florida from May 19th-29th, please do encourage them to get tickets while they can, and go see our show.

I don’t have much in the way of other updates, because also I just moved houses, so everything has been a whirlwind of chaos. Although I guess letting you know I just moved is an update. See, my brain still isn’t working.

Thanks to Tom Lehrer, I cannot say “National Poetry Month” without singing “National Brotherhood Week” in my head, since it scans the same. Nonetheless, it is indeed National Poetry Month, and as per usual I am writing 30 poems in 30 days. Here’s the one I wrote yesterday:

“Poem By A Star-Bellied Sneetch”

I am a Star-Bellied Sneetch.
I have an elegantly long neck,
Beautiful white tufts,
And a pleasantly round yellow belly,
On which, yes, there is a small green star.

I didn’t ask for the star, I was born with it.
I didn’t ask to be treated better than anyone in the pre-McBean era.
I didn’t ask to be treated worse than anyone in McBean era One.
Or better in McBean era Two
Or worse in McBean era Three
You get the idea.
I didn’t ever give McBean any money to remove my star,
Because that green star is part of who I am.

But it’s not who I am.
I’m a Sneetch who likes reading under a truffular tree.
I’m a Sneetch who enjoys cooking
No, not green eggs or ham, that’s racist.
My specialty is actually potatoes au gratin.
They are delicious.

I’m a Sneetch who goes out to the theatre sometimes.
I’m a Sneetch who probably watches too much TV,
But hey, I’m only Sneetch.
I never claimed to be perfect.

I’m a Sneetch who fell in love once,
And it was wonderful,
And then it was terrible,
And then it was over.

I’m a Sneetch who fell in love a second time,
And so far it’s going well,
But I’ve learned not to count your elephant-birds before they hatch.

I’m a Sneetch who has lived his entire life
With this green star on my belly
This small green star
Such a silly little thing
Over which so many Sneetches have made such a big deal
And then some want to pretend like it’s not there?
I am a Star-Bellied Sneetch.
That green star is part of who I am.

But it’s not who I am.

******

Meanwhile April kicked off with the Night of Fools just off Main St. that went so well that my monthly comedy mic has moved to that venue (next show: April 21st!). As usual, I’m still writing my column, most recently about Classic April Fools Pranks. And I have continued my humorous advice podcast with Lex, we’re up to more than half a dozen episodes of Problem Solvers …ish, most recently an episode where we discuss What do to when kids ask about Santa. We still could really use some more listener problems, so if you have any issues you’d like to briefly summarize so we can help you find a solution and/or entertainment, please do go to our site and click on the link to leave an anonymous voicemail.

Videogame-wise, I’ve still been playing through Divinity: Original Sin with a friend, and it’s a pretty fun co-op RPG. Also picked up the South Park game for myself, which is amusing IFF you like South Park. And boardgame-wise I realize I’m late to the party, but Codenames is amazingly good fun and Vlaada Chvatil is a mad genius. Best party game in a long time.

This blank intentionally left lined.

You’d think monthly updates would not be so difficult, but it’s so easy to lose track of things.

Hopefully by next post I’ll have big updates on my collaborative comedy, both musical and podcast. What I can say now is that I am proud, excited, and honored to be doing a few minutes of stand-up to open for Tig Notaro in March, which is clearly a new high point for my stand-up comedy career.* I also wrote columns about how I needed new shoes and dealt with jury duty.

A number of new boardgame reviews up in the past two months, although my two favorite games were probably King Chocolate and Grand Austria Hotel. Interestingly, the two games are almost opposite; Grand Austria hotel is a number of interesting mechanics and random cards all interwoven into a very satisfying colorful game with a lot going on, while King Chocolate is a no-frills elegant little game with simple rules and pieces but tons of emergent gameplay.

In the video game world, finally beat Risen, which like most of the Gothic-series games, had a slow difficult start but certainly got more and more compelling as the game continued. Started playing Divinity: Original Sin with a friend in Canada**, and still mucking about with SolForge and enjoying the deckbuilding even if I’m not terribly good at it.

Speaking of things I’m not terribly good at, so far so bad with my usual new years resolution of getting together with local friends more often. But the year is young yet, even if I feel older*** every day.

*Sorry, 2-hour-long gig to unsuspecting patrons at Applebee’s, you’ve been demoted.

**”We are living in the future, and it is glorious.” This continues to be my reaction to real-time gaming with friends in other countries.

***Mostly due to aches and pains. Although since I technically am older every day, I’m not wrong.

I’m the first to admit that I do not have a reputation for optimism. I tend to take a more realistic view of most things, that other people might call cynical. But in terms of big-picture things, like “is a pervailing racist sentiment gathering steam or the last throes of a fading mindset”, I am perhaps more optimistic than the current polls warrant. In a few decades it will be better, not worse, I tell myself.

I am also optimistic about my comedic writing, since next year should see me collaborating with old and new friends to make some funny; further details once there is something to show you. But in the meantime, you can read about my plea to our town’s mayor to stop the War on Thanksgiving, or you can take my fast, fun, and frustrating multiple choice quiz of Name That Fascist!

In gaming news, I’ve got a review up for a newish little filler game called Trambahn, and most recently have been playing the Echoes expansion for Innovation, which remains one of my favored boardgames. Videogame-wise, having finally finished Arx Fatalis (an old game, but an interesting one to explore), I have started up Risen.

Also, in spite of being sick recently, I am in love and so life is good. Optimism.