I am a Wordicane

Today, I was a wordicane (pardon the portmanteau). This morning I combined two video scripts, maintaining the messaging of one and the humor of another, to create one Frankenstein-esque video script for a major software company. After that, I rewrote forty pages of scripts for a major semi-conductor company while adding four more pages of original material. Then, I wrote two on-air segments for my weekly Fox appearances. Then, I outlined about forty minutes of original material for a new project I am working on. Then, I went to a meeting to brainstorm ideas with a production company so I could write six more video scripts for a major cleaning products manufacturer and several more for a law firm. Then, I went to a meeting that (thankfully) had nothing to do with writing.

Last weekend I attended a talk given by Todd Hanson and Joe Garden of The Onion. They explained how writing comedy is about the least funny endeavor that any human being can undertake. They spoke of the trial and error, the hundred failures for the one success, and the absolute lack of joy that accompanies creating joy for others. They told the familiar story of journalists showing up hoping to catch the wacky hilarity and unbridled zaniness of the writing room, only to find a morbidly serious group of curmudgeons quibbling over minute pieces of verbiage. I sat quietly laughing to myself as the rest of the audience politely contained their disappointment. It was all so validating. It's how I imagine it must feel to sit in an AA meeting and hear someone else relate the same trials and tribulations that you arrogantly thought were unique to your own suffering.

Hello. My name is Caleb, and I'm a comedy writer.

"Hi Caleb!"

Dominic Papatola of The Pioneer Press once accused me of plagiarizing The Onion. He stated in a review that I had "directly pilfered" a joke from that particular week's issue. The joke, which I made in an improvised rant during the show, was basically that illegal immigrants were fleeing back to Mexico because that's where all the good American jobs were. There was a remarkably similar joke on the front page of The Onion. However, I did not steal it.

Dominic didn't question me about the joke or make any effort to substantiate the claim, he just wrote it and allowed it to run in the Sunday edition--which means that upwards of six people may have actually read it. If he had asked me, he would have discovered that it was a joke I had made years before during the 90s when Perot and Gore were having their now mostly forgotten debate about NAFTA. I had imitated Perot in an improv set at the BNW and gone off on a rant about how at least NAFTA would solve the immigration problem, as the illegal immigrants would all go back to Mexico to get the really cushy American jobs. If I plagiarized anyone, I plagiarized myself. Of course, I never got the chance to plead my case. Instead, a "journalist" simply ran what could have been a career ending accusation for any writer.

I've probably never been angrier in my life. Last weekend and today brought why I was so angry into sharp focus. I work damn hard, and the accusation that I would steal someone else's material just cheapens a lot of time and effort.

The story gets more interesting. For the last couple of months, I have been performing a sketch about a terrorist cell that moves to Los Angeles with plans to blow up something. However, they become so sucked into American pop culture that they can't motivate themselves to act on their plans. They eventually decide to postpone their bombing until after the season finale of Lost airs, as they want to find out what's going on. What makes this whole thing even funnier is the very week when Garden and Hanson came to speak, this story ran on the front page of The Onion. Uncanny.

Obviously, The Onion did not steal from me any more than I did from them. It just shows that comedy writers are all cut from the same cloth. There is a collective subconscious at work out there, and we're all tapping into it somehow.

I don't expect Dominic will be accusing The Onion of plagiarizing me, as I am not worthy of being stolen from in his eyes. If only I had been afforded the same consideration.

Comedy is hard work. People who don't do it don't understand it (case in point: Aaron Sorkin). It's dirty and messy and bone-crushing. It hurts. But then again, anything worthwhile always does.