Day 27: Halfway done and four days to go!

OK. So it's looking like I am not going to make my 30 sketches for this month. As of this morning, I'm at 15 sketches, and I only have four days left. I'll give it the old college try — really I will! — but I have a CCL show upstate tonight, a dinner tomorrow night, and work on Monday, so even if I could wring 15 more ideas out of my tired brain, I'm just not going to have time to write them all. (Unless I just write 15 two-line sketches.)

Still, I'm pretty happy with what I've accomplished so far. There are some good sketches in there, and some good ideas in the sketches that didn't quite work out, and if nothing else I'll probably have doubled my sketch output for the year — in the same month where I spent almost every weekend out of the city, did a showcase at Comix, auditioned for and got into a new comedy troupe, and survived another month as the de facto head of our understaffed department at work.

I haven't been keeping up this blog very well in the past week, but I've written three sketches, I think, since the last entry: "When Are You Getting Married," "Make It Look Like a Suicide" and "Upstairs, Downstairs." Here are two of the three. (Rachel gave me the beginning of the idea for "Married.")

WHEN ARE YOU GETTING MARRIED?

RACHEL and DAN are having lunch.

DAN
It was a great vacation. If you and Jeff want to get away some time, I highly recommend it.

RACHEL
That sounds lovely. So when are you and Sarah getting married?

DAN
Oh! What?

RACHEL
Oh, come on. You two are great together.

DAN
Well yeah, it's just — we're not there, I mean, we've talked about it, but —

RACHEL
You need to get on that! She's a keeper.

DAN
You're right. You're right.

RACHEL
I know I'm right. So? When?

DAN
Uh... some day?

RACHEL
(sighs)
I'm at least going to need a ballpark estimate.

DAN
Uh...

RACHEL
Come on. Just name a date.

DAN
I guess...

RACHEL
One year? Two years?

DAN
I just don't...

RACHEL
DAN!

DAN
I don't know! Two years!

RACHEL
All right.

DAN
(dazed)
Two... years...

RACHEL
See? That wasn't so hard, was it?

DAN
You know, I should probably be... where's that waiter?

RACHEL
Now. When are you going to have a baby?

DAN
What?!?

RACHEL
You two aren't getting any younger! Wait too long and your baby might be (whispers) retarded.

DAN
How am I supposed to know—

RACHEL
Well, let's think about it. (She starts writing in a small notebook.) Married in two years, you'll probably get started... right away?

DAN
Well... we'd want a house first...

RACHEL
OK. Good. Let's assume you're saving now. You'll need a year to recover financially from the wedding, but no reason not to start trying while you're doing that, am I right? So! Pregnant within the first year... baby... in three and a half.

DAN
I don't understand. Do you represent some sort of busybody consortium? What makes you think—

RACHEL
First affair?

DAN
ExCUSE ME?

RACHEL
First affair. When? Four years?

DAN
You're unbelievable!

RACHEL
What?

DAN
You're asking me when I'm going to cheat on my wife? A) Never, and B) Fuck you!

RACHEL
Oh, don't be so defensive. Look. Sarah will be tired. She won't feel sexy, she'll be cranky from lack of sleep, as will you, she'll be stir crazy and her nipples will be sore. And you, you'll react instinctively against all that responsibility, yearn for the youthful exuberance of those days just after college when you were earning your first real paychecks and you could finally drink legally in bars. You'll start hanging out with your co-workers more, and some young, marginally pretty assistant who's attracted to you because you seem like such a good husband and father —ironic, really, considering her unspoken desire to corrupt you — and who you're attracted to mostly because she's the physical opposite, for better and for worse, of what you've got now — will find a reason to work with you on a project after hours just so she can give you a blowjob in the office supply room. And for ten seconds or so, you'll forget that you've been marching somberly towards middle age, senility, incontinence and death, having never taken that backpacking trip across India you'd always assumed you'd get to one day. (pause) I'll put down four years.

DAN
You're a monster.

RACHEL
Hey. I'm not the one who left my wife and child for an office BJ.

They sit in silence. Dan is too shaken up to even think about escaping anymore.

RACHEL
So. When are you going to get remarried?

Copyright © 2008 Jeff S.

This next one is a nice short little sketch with minimal dialogue I wrote on the back of a couple of envelopes on my way to work. I'm fond of it, and would like to dedicate it to my friend Sarah Tebbe.

UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS

A COUPLE on a couch. They are staring at the ceiling, listening to the MOST RIDICULOUS CACOPHONY OF NOISES from upstairs.

WOMAN
Should we say something?

MAN
It's only a little after midnight. I'm sure they'll stop soon.

WOMAN
It sounds like they're doing whip-its while trying to catch a greased pig. And speaking in tongues.

MAN
I'll get the earmuffs.

The man goes to get off the couch. He lowers himself to the floor ever so carefully and tiptoes across the floor. One part of the floor CREAKS. Immediately, there is the sound of someone STOMPING UP THE STAIRS and BANGING AT THEIR DOOR. The man answers it. The crotchetiest OLD MAN is at the door, seething.

OLD MAN
What in hell are you doing stomping around the apartment like a goddamned giant elephant? It's past midnight! Some of us have work in the morning! Did you think of that before you started stomping! Did you?!?

COUPLE
(throughout his speech)
Sorry. We're sorry. We're so sorry. It will never happen again. Sorry, etc.

The old man stands there, panting with rage, fists clenched at his side, as the man closes the door slowly, saying sorry constantly. The sound of the OLD MAN'S FOOTSTEPS walking back down to his apartment. The man picks up earmuffs and heads back to the couch as the NOISE FROM ABOVE starts again.The couple watch the ceiling, clamping their earmuffs on to their ears.

WOMAN
It's so loud.

MAN
Like we can talk. We've already had one noise complaint against us tonight.

WOMAN
It sounds like a cougar trying to drag a panicked walrus across a chalkboard.

MAN
There's nothing we can do.

WOMAN
Maybe we could ask nicely...

The neighbor STOMPING UPSTAIRS and BANGING ON THE DOOR. The couple are apologizing before they even get the door open.

OLD MAN
It's after midnight, for Cripe's sake!!! What the hell are you doing yelling at the top of your lungs?!? What is this, a rock concert?!? It's like you're in my bed, yelling directly into my ears!!!

COUPLE
Sorry. We're sorry, etc.

OLD MAN
GAHHHH!!!

Same thing: the man closes the door. RECEDING FOOTSTEPS. The couple returns to the couch, miserably uncomfortable. The NOISE UPSTAIRS is insane. The warning alarm of a truck reversing. A kookaburra laughing. The sounds of a 19th-century whaling ship being torn apart by a storm.

WOMAN
(whispering)
Maybe we should—

The man shakes his head and puts his finger to his mouth. He points at the floor. She nods. She reaches for a cup of tea and takes a sip.

BAM BAM BAM! The downstairs neighbor. The man opens the door and the old man is shrieking on the floor in rage and angry. The couple apologizes profusely. The noise upstairs continues.

Copyright © 2008 Jeff S.

Day 18: Pantscakes

This sketch was inspired by a strange smell at the Broadway Comedy Club on Wednesday night. Rachel wrote the little mini-monologue by the mother.

Pantscakes (commercial parody)

A kitchen. A FATHER is dressed to run a race. His KIDS are tugging at his pants legs.

FATHER: Daddy has to run a race!

KID #1: But you said you'd make us pancakes!

FATHER (panicked): THERE'S NO TIME!

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): There's always time for breakfast with Pantscakes™!

FATHER & KIDS: Pantscakes?

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Pantscakes is the revolutionary way to make breakfast on the go! Throw away all those pots, pans...even your stove!

GRAPHIC: Pots and pans and a stove being Xed out.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): With the Pantscakes patented Biothermal Cooking System™, you can cook breakfast on the run, using the heat from your own crotch!

GRAPHIC: A silhouette of a man in the Da Vinci pose. A pair of cinched underpants, like a child's training pants, appear over his pelvis. His pelvis grows red and emits wavy red lines.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Before you head out for a jog or a busy morning of errands, simply pour Pantscakes batter into our patented Pantscakes Wonderpants™. In under 30 minutes of light to moderate exercise, your pants will be full of warm, fluffy pancakes, enough for a mid-morning snack for yourself or a full meal for the whole family!

Kids pull pancakes out of the father's pants.

KIDS: Mmmmm! Warm!

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): And don't forget the Syrup Sack, for an endless supply of body-warmed syrup and melted butter for those pancakes!

Medium shot of mother talking to camera.

MOTHER: But you can't have pancakes... I mean Pantscakes... every day!

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Guess what? You can cook so much more using the Pantscakes Wonderpants!

We see each food in succession, being pulled out of someone's pants.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Try scrambled eggs! Breakfast meats! Home fries! Even oatmeal!

Medium shot of mother talking to camera.

MOTHER: Between managing my clients at work; keeping up with my composting; shuttling the kids to power pilates; freecycling; fighting human rights violations; making sure my pets are eating organically; helping my community find shelter for orphaned calves, and volunteering my pre-used oils for biodiesel production, who has the time to make fluffy rich pancakes for a family of six (or an extended a foster family of eight)?

Product shot.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): For such a futuristic time saver as this, you might expect to pay upwards of $450,000, roughly the gross national product of Guinea-Bissau! But for this limited time offer, you'll get the Pantscakes Wonderpants, the Syrup Sack, ten gallons of Pantscakes batter and a trial vat of Pantscakes Eggs-traordinary Egg-flavored Scramble Mix... all for the low, low price of $79.99! And you'll never run out of batter, because we'll send you ten gallons of Pantscakes batter every month, for only $19.99!

The father finishes his race and is surrounded by his adoring family.

FATHER: I took third place in my age division! How should we celebrate?

WHOLE FAMILY: PANTSCAKES!

LEGAL ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Pantscakes are a novelty item, and are not recommended for human consumption. Consult your doctor if you are considering eating anything out of someone else's pants.

Copyright ©2008 Jeff S.

Day 16: Vito & Carmella at the Beach

At our rehearsal for our benefit show on Sunday, in which we are going to be lucky enough to play with the hilarious Stephen Guarino and Kate McKinnon of Logo's The Big Gay Sketch Show, I was complaining to my prolific teammate Michael about how I'm falling behind on this project. I had figured out on the way there that I would need to write a sketch a day for eight days and two sketches a day for seven days.

He reminded me that they didn't all have to be long sketches, and that I had at least one blackout sketch (more of a filmed sketchlet) that I'd been telling him for months about but had yet to write down. So I wrote this one down last night just before falling asleep.

Vito & Carmella at the Beach

A low-rent Mafia couple at the beach in beach chairs. He's reading a copy of Breaking Fingers for Them What's Dumb. She's watching a young, fresh-faced couple not far from them. The boy has buried the girl in the sand. She's smiling and giggling. He gives her a sip of wine, and kisses her.

CARMELLA
How come we ain't never done nothin' like that?

VITO
Hm?

CARMELLA
Them two over there. They're being all romantical. How come we don't do that?

VITO
What the fuck are you talking about?

CARMELLA
I want you to bury me in the sand.

VITO
Come on! I'm readin' over here!

CARMELLA
Vito!

VITO
All right! All right! Madonn'!

He gets up and picks up a nearby shovel. He proceeds to dig a deep hole, until he is up to his neck in sand. Finally, he's done. She stands by the hole, clapping her hands excitedly. He swings the shovel at the back of her head. She falls in, and he starts filling up the hole.

Monty Python stock footage of old ladies clapping.

Copyright ©2008 Jeff S.

Day 13: The Greatest and Most Ancient Evil That Has Ever Been, Ever

I wrote this on Saturday, on the plane down to Conyers, GA. I had a Chicago City Limits show at Heritage High School, the same high school that my friend Ashley Ward and her buddy Jack McBrayer (of 30 Rock fame) went to. It was neat to see pictures of the two of them in high school productions of whatever those were productions of. It was also my public debut of the Sarah Palin song I wrote last week. I was worried that it might be a little too risque for a conservative-ish crowd in a high school, but the racy parts at the end seemed to be their favorite parts.

I chose to write a sketch I've tried to write before, with no success. This time I jettisoned the other characters and wrote it as a monologue. Enjoy!

The Greatest and Most Ancient Evil That Has Ever Been, Ever

MWO-O-O-O-O-OH!!! YA-A-A-A-A-AHH!!! HO-WO-O-O-O-O-OH!!! You are in for it now, Bucko! You are in some serious hot water. Do you have any idea who I am? Do you have any idea what you have summoned with that trade paperback copy of the Necronomicon? Of course you don't, with your tiny, mortal brain, any more than an earthworm understands what it sees when — well, earthworms don't actually see. But that... that's actually a good analogy, right? Because your view of the world can't compare to my all-knowing, all-powerful... uh... power. You know what I mean. Or rather, you have no idea what I mean, because, like I said... you know... (trails off) MWO-O-O-O-O-OH!!!

I see what you're thinking now. Literally, I might add. Grey skin, horns, eyes in a circle on my chest. You're thinking, "Oh, no! I've summoned a demon! What should I do?" Well, guess what? A demon? Would be like a trip to the ice cream store compared to what you have now, buster. Demons?Are you kidding me? They're like puppies to me. No, more like Sea Monkeys. That's how PUNY they are, compared to me. I don't even care about them, in case you were wondering. I might check out a demon for a second and then I'm all, NEXT! Because it's pathetic how much they, how much they just SUCK. As far as I'm concerned. (makes weird, pathetic magician gesture and half-hearted explosion sound)

That is to say, not a demon. They're like a fad to me, is how much more ancient and evil I am than them. And please DO NOT say I am like Satan. POSEUR! I HATE that guy! King of Hell... what has he done that's so great? I was around WAY before him, which you would know if you knew anything. If he hadn't been besties with God at one point, no one would even know who he was. Coattails much? And then they get into a fight and he pretends he's too cool for God, which, you know, "Go Evil" and everything but still.

God, by the way? Johnny-come-lately. Acts like he was the first guy to create a universe... uh, excuse me! I'm sorry, are you checking your email? Could you not? You're in the presence of a being older than your God... how about focusing for at least a second? Evil monologue over here! Thank you.

Don't give me that look! Seriously... do you know what I'm capable of? WHA-YO-KA-CHA! Ahem. So, pretty much everything old and evil and powerful you can think of, to me? Is like some piece of Chinese novelty crap you buy at your "Spencer Gifts." Cthuhlu monster? A coffee mug with boobs on it. Galactus, devourer of worlds? Who, by the way is real? Met him once? Not sure how Marvel Comics managed to get that right? Fart machine. After a couple of weeks, they break, or the batteries run out, or you just think why would I ever want to see this fart machine again, and you throw them away. That's what I think of your worst nightmares. Only my couple of weeks is millions of eons... do you get what I am saying to you? I WILL fuck YOU UP!!! So that's... you know... what you get... for...

(Trails off, looks around the room.)

Is that a Boris Vallejo poster? Cool. I knew it. That warrior girl is HOT.

Copyright © 2008 Jeff S.

Day 12: The Subway Pitch

This idea came from our Secret Hospital rehearsal for tonight's show at Comix. Yet another sketch that comes from me laughing at Michael making faces.

This one's kind of obscene. Don't let your kids read it.

The Subway Pitch

IN BLACK, A VIDEO PROJECTION

Michael, masturbating, his crotch off-camera. He keeps gagging and almost vomiting. This continues for an interminable 15-30 seconds. Then a Subway logo appears on the screen.

LIGHTS UP. DAN, JEFF and RACHEL in business attire. Dan looks at the other two anxiously as they think about what they've just seen.

RACHEL
So...that's...our new pitch to Subway.

DAN
Forget "pitch." This is ready to go. They give this the greenlight, we don't have to cast it, we don't have to shoot it. It's on the air tomorrow as is.

JEFF
I don't know...

DAN
I know what you're thinking. It's a little risque.

RACHEL
I'll say.

JEFF
I'd go so far as to say it is a lot risque. Can I see the remote?

They watch some of it again. He pauses it in a particularly funny place.

JEFF
I'm not completely sold.

RACHEL
It does speak directly to their target. Males 18-35 will relate to this.

DAN
(excitedly)
Right? I mean, think about it....what do all 18-35 year-old guys like?

RACHEL JEFF
Football! Masturbation!

JEFF (cont'd)
I'm just not quite convinced that the whole vomit thing is optimal for selling sandwiches.

DAN
See, though... this isn't about food.

JEFF
It isn't?

RACHEL
(pretending she knows what she's talking about)
No, it's not...

Through the following speech, Rachel sort of repeats the important words of Dan's sentences in a diffident murmur.

DAN
It's about attitude. People don't pay attention to commercials anymore. They fast-forward through them. They leave the room. This commercial reaches a generation that has been sold to 24 hours a day for their whole lives. If they sense they're being sold to... EHHH! The alarm goes off.

RACHEL
They will not be fast-forwarding through this commercial.

DAN
Or if they do, it will only be because it's funny to watch him masturbate fast. Check this out.

They fast-forward through it. Through much of the rest of the scene, Rachel is rewinding, fast-forwarding, playing and pausing the commerical.

DAN (cont'd)
See... when you see this, you don't know what's going on. You search for meaning and the commercial tells you to fuck off. It's the commercial equivalent of those guys who are dicks to girls they want to hook up with. This commercials all, "You should use conditioner. Your hair looks like straw." And the next thing you know, you want to make out with it. By buying a 12-inch Italian sub with a combo.

RACHEL
He's sold me...I'll say that. Dan, what are you doing tonight?

JEFF
It's an intriguing argument. Here's the thing, though. From what I've heard from the other account managers, you've submitted this same clip for the last five commercial pitches, and no one has ever approved it. In fact, we've lost every single account, probably forever. FedEx. Mrs. Fields. Citibank. BMW. And... there was one more....

DAN
The March of Dimes.

JEFF
Right. The March of Dimes. Don't get me wrong.... now that I've finally seen it, I see its genius, but—

DAN
This commercial will be the best thing that ever happened to whatever company has the balls to run it. I'm not shooting a new commercial until I sell this one.

JEFF
All right. We'll pitch it.

DAN
Yes!

JEFF
WHOO! This is scary.

DAN
You won't regret it.

JEFF
This is why we pay you the big bucks, right?

RACHEL
(looking at screen)
Where did you find this guy?

DAN
Oh, that's just my roommate. He was really hungover. He didn't know I was taping.

LIGHTS OUT. A video montage of various trade magazines trumpeting the success of the new Subway campaign and a new trend in marketing.

Copyright © 2008 Jeff S.

Day 11: Falling Behind, and Godspeed, Abner Blackstone!

It should have come as no surprise to me that once my nights started to fill up again with rehearsals and other obligations, I would start falling behind on my schedule. I basically missed having sketches done for Friday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and if I want to catch up I should start writing two sketches a day whenever I can.

This morning, I got up early to at least finish the monologue I started at the park on Sunday, on an evening that was too distractingly beautiful to get any work done. Here's a first draft, too long, but basically what I was going for.

God Speed, Abner Blackstone!

1908. A small town in Missouri. The Mayor addresses his constituents on a festive day.

THE MAYOR
Thank you. Thank you. You are too kind. Citizens of Squaw Valley! I am overjoyed to preside over this ceremony as we bid farewell and bon voyage to our own Abner Blackstone, as he prepares to undertake his historic voyage...to the moon!

Now, as your mayor, I have spoken to each of our esteemed townspeople in regards to this historic day. And I know that when you cogitate on Abner's "undertaking," as some of you so practically put it, that your breasts teem with all manner of hopes and fears. Is it even possible, most of you wonder, for man to loose himself from his earthly shackles and swim in the distant, grey seas of the moon? I can only answer this question with another question: It is 1908...why are we not standing on the moon this very moment?

Why is Squaw Valley not already celebrating its first year as the moon's first colony, learning how to plant moon corn from its crafty, heathen natives while making plans to steal away their fair-skinned brides for our pleasure? We've already conquered this continent by means of locomotive—why have we not already brought the moon under our yoke with Abner's majestic cannon schooner?

I am convinced that even our newest and most stubbornly illiterate townspeople know the story of Abner Blackstone's struggles over the past decade. One could imagine it was only yesterday that Abner abandoned his lucrative position as the town's Indian killer so that he might build the world's first flying machine. We told him he was insane! We told him he was foolish! We told him that a bath once in a while might be a good idea. All true. But this same man had his eyes fixed firmly on the future, and however insane, foolish and pungently perfumed he might have been, he was also a visionary, like Eli Whitney, or the founders of the Ku Klux Klan. He had no time for our eartly concerns when he preparing to be our very own Daedalus.

Well we all remember his long nights stubbornly affixing feathers to the flapping steel wings of his air machines with great slatherings of glue. Clearly we can picture his giant Indian rubber sling shot up at Hendricks' field, high above the town. "It won't work," people shouted! "The metal is too heavy! No matter how many chicken feathers you glue to it, your machine will sink like a stone." Do you remember saying that, Silas? And you, Mildred?

And right you were. One after the other, as we all pick-nicked in the grass in anticipation of being a witness to history, one after the other his machines barely stayed airborne an inch or two past the edge of the cliff before plummeting to the Earth. And the men would wipe their hands off on their trousers and take the long path down to the bottom of the valley to extract Abner from his rapidly growing pile of twisted metal and feathers. As he recuperated, and tried to become accustomed to his new prosthetic limbs, he would read news-paper accounts of his rivals, the demonic Wright boys of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and he would roundly curse them.

What a dark day it was when the news-papers announced that some weeks before, the Wright Brothers had achieved their goal, and snatched Abner's dream away from him. Abner went into a sort of retirement for the past three years, secluding himself in the bell tower of First Presbyterian Church and throwing feces at anyone who tried to get him to come down. I gave the order that the stair-way to the tower be boarded up, and as far as we can tell, Abner survived on a diet of raw pigeon and rainwater. More feathers for his flying machines, some of us mused.

Little did we know that Abner was plotting his next move. Up in that tower, he was reading and re-reading a book by Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon. Before I knew what was happening, our Abner had thrown himself from the bell tower, and, after he had been forceably hosed down, but before his newest leg fracture had even healed, he was busy building this masterpiece you see before me now: the largest cannon in the world, and inside it, the decommisioned whaling schooner The Merry Gentleman.

Minutes from now, once I am finished my long-winded speech—you know me, Roscoe! It's my nature!—our Abner will climb up the cannon, strap himself to the helm of The Merry Gentleman, after which Doris Montague of the Social Club for Ladies of High Birth will have the pleasure of lighting the fuse that will ignite the 400 pounds of gunpowder at thebase of the cannon.

There are those of you who will say—pessimistically, by my reckoning—that Abner's wooden cannon-schooner will simply blow into a thousand pieces, driving shards of wooden splinters and Abner's bones through the bodies of us, the rapt spectators. Some of you will say, while we're in the habit of such negative imagining, that, for that matter, four hundred pounds of gunpowder will blow apart the cannon itself, and maybe that it wasn't such a good idea to let all the children sit at the front to get a good view.

To those people, those who would hunt down dreams and shoot them in their sleep like so many Cherokees, I say "Poppycock!" Because I can clearly see in my mind's eye Abner Blackstone, of Squaw Valley, Missouri riding his cannon-schooner through the trade winds of space, harpoon at the ready in case of star-monsters, singing a merry song. I see him landing on the surface of the moon, and after stopping to wave to those of us who are watching with our telescopes, proceeding with his mission of subjugating the heathen Moonmen and putting them to work. I know that I'm not the only one who has paid in advance for my very own perfectly legal moon-slave! Doris here has already fashioned a wardrobe for hers, made of red velvet to cover his godless nakedness.

So, for those of you who scoff at dreams, take a step back and unfurl your umbrellas, while those of us armed with hope gather round to wish Abner adieu on his historic mission. On behalf of the town of Squaw Valley, I wish you Godspeed, Abner Blackstone! When you get back we will enjoy your moon cheese with wine and crackers!

Copyright ©2008 Jeff S.

Day 6: Who says sketches can't be musical?

I didn't write any sketches yesterday...went to the Boat Basin after work to watch my co-workers drink margaritas while I drank stupid water. I figured I would have plenty of time this rainy weekend to catch up and maybe even stock up on sketches for the busy month to come.

I decided I would like to try two things this weekend. First of all, I would really like to write more monologues. Or any monologues. I was inspired by Rue Brutalia, when they played with Secret Hospital, by a sketch Will Hines did for National Sketch Writing Month, and by Charlie Sanders' recently posted FunnyOrDie short. It would be nice to be a little more selfish in my writing, even if I'm not considered the character player of the group.

The other challenge I planned on giving myself was to write a song or two. Chicago City Limits is doing a political show now, and I thought it would be nice to write an original song to go with the usual roster of song parodies. I told Rachel about this idea on the way to brunch, and by the time we got to the restaurant, we had my song and an idea of hers both halfway written.

I rushed home afterwards and got out the guitar, nailed down the lyrics and chords, and recorded it on one track of GarageBand. (I was surprised that the pickup on my acoustic guitar picked up my voice so well.)

So here you have it, my sketch #5 for your listening pleasure: Sarah Palin.

EDIT: I re-recorded the song to change a mistake in the lyrics.