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Sunday, August 3, 2014

Warning: Potentially Offensive Material Ahead!

          Because I sent the link to this blog to a lot of people, I need to clarify something: this is where I intend to let it all hang out (figuratively speaking, of course).  You see, this is one of the only forums in which I can express myself in writing the same way I express myself in real life.  My sense of humor, for example, is rather unique in that it runs the gamut (more about gamut running later) from intellectual and/or witty to sophomoric and/or scatological.  If you'd like to know more about how I feel about the ludicrousness and arbitrariness (I'm not sure if those are real words, but I needed them, so now they are) about so-called dirty words, please listen to George Carlin's brilliant routine, "Seven words you can never say on TV":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqvLTJfYnik   If, however, you don't want ever to hear any dirty words in any context, then please don't listen to it, because you're liable to be offended, and I wouldn't want that.
     Some folks have told me that it's unseemly for me to use offensive language or tell dirty jokes.  Unseemly?  Why, because I'm 63?  Why does my age matter?  Am I any less respectable or wise because I sometimes feel the need to use what our society has arbitrarily deemed an unacceptable word or phrase to properly express myself?  Sorry, I just don't buy it.
          I've been doing a lot of writing lately.  My letters to the Flatbush Jewish Journal have become a welcome outlet in which I can critique and otherwise comment on some of the stranger phenomena that occur within my somewhat insane community.  But, as mentioned in the last post, I'm pretty limited in what I can say there, and understandably so, I guess.  Then there's the writing I do for my classes at Gotham Writers' Workshop.  I've been attending Gotham for a few years now, and I'm having an absolute blast.  So far I've taken Creative Writing, Fiction I, Fiction II, Humor Writing, Song Writing I, Memoir Writing I, and I'm presently taking Stand-up Comedy (more about that later, too).  Obviously I can be a little more expressive there than in the FJJ, but here's the place where I can really blow off steam.
          I wrote this post because I sent this link to my my kids and nieces and nephews and others who might want to know my intentions.  So now that you have been duly informed, you proceed at your own risk!