An oldie but a goodie

In honor of Stew's birthday, allow me to take a moment and present one of our earlier comedic efforts. Some of you, particularly the more easily bored ones, may remember a website called Modern Humorist (sp. of course.) Stew and I sent many rejected submissions there. We assume they were rejected because of all of them, we only received two messages. One was to Stew's original submission, to which the writer, a helpful bloke named Peter Saltpork (the name has been changed to protect the guilty), helpfully advised Stew on how to get published in Modern Humorist. He stated they were looking for "unreal" ideas. "We're looking for square pegs in round holes," he revealed. In my humble opinion, to date, that remains the funniest line to ever come out of Modern Humorist.

The online site has stopped developing new material, presumably because they ran out of round holes to put those square pegs in. However, there is one submission we made that I would like to share on this occasion, because I promised myself it would see the light of day after it inspired the folks at Modern Humorist to respond a second and final time (let's just say it was a polite but snippy response regarding #12 below.) We had sent several submissions in without response and decided that there must be some good reasons that they hadn't got back to us. Here then, are those reasons:

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Top Reasons Modern Humorist Doesn't Get To Your Submissions
By Stew Miller and Earl Fando

As pointed out on our submissions page Modern Humorist is unable to review or respond to all of the submissions it receives due to the staff's busy schedules and lifestyles. In order that you may better understand the hectic work pace we deal with, we have listed some key reasons we haven't had the time to get back to you.

1. Staff's 286 can't handle new "fancy" e-mail applications.

2. Editor too busy trying to save Mario's girlfriend from clutches of that rotten
Donkey Kong.

3. ModernHumorist.com actually front for "axis of evil" propaganda
machine.

4. Swimsuitmodels.com is across the hall.

5. Thought submissions were pixies trying to replace their brains with
those of N'Sync. Realized that the water cooler was laced with PCP.

6. Staff too busy with bitchin' game of Dungeons & Dragons.

7. Three words: Oprah! Oprah! Oprah!

8. Editor thought he saw Santa's elves dancin' around the ghost of
Elvis. Water cooler again.

9. Staff got tickets to Gallagher show over at the Indian casino. Ain't
got no time for lame submissions, there's Gallagher to be seen!!

10. Replacing submissions with calls for jihad against The Onion.

11. Cleanup duties from Modern Humorist "Live" (anyone know how to get puke stains off a wooden floor?)

12. Editor had to go get broken crack pipe fixed.

13. Busy scouring "Milton Berle's Private Joke File" for new "unreal" ideas

14. Staff stumped trying to work out "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" for Margaret Thatcher

15. Fighting off landsharks (Actually that was from Top Reasons NBC Saturday Night Live Writing Staff doesn't get to submissions)

16. Staff still can't get over loss of Jim Varney.

17. Too tired from all night "Taxi" marathon. Can't get Tony Danza's
tight derierre and sonorous voice out of their minds.

18. Busy with phone: Madonna won't return our calls.

19. Constant strip searches from John Ashcroft's staff.

20. Staff hypnotized by "Tom Jones" elevator muzak piped in offices.

21. Locked out of offices and Osama has the key. (How were we to know?)

22. Busy calling to get on "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" show. With no one watching these days it's our best chance ever.

23. Didn't realize white powder in envelope was anthrax.

24. Still in a funk over Cruise/Kidman break up

25. Busy weeding out constant Miller/Fando submissions


Stew Miller and Earl Fando are the authors of the still unpublished "It All Started With Ed or A Yeti In Times Square". They will write for money or food, but only really good food. No Argentine currency please.