I want you all to know that you have been an incredible ride and I’ve really enjoyed writing for you. You’re an incredibly appreciative audience and I love that you all have commented so much and left me so much feedback. I started doing this as having much less confidence as both a writer and a comedian than I do now. So I want to thank you all for helping me to understand myself better, especially as an artist.

I want you all to remember that you’re awesome. Except that one guy who always left stupid comments on my blog.

If you want to keep track of me, I’m on Twitter and on Facebook, plus I have a terrible website here. I’m starting a podcast come January so hopefully that will be awesome and not suck.

Thanks again for all the memories. Seriously. You rock.

I would love to have one now, however.

In any case, this year I finally found out the horrible truth–Santa isn’t real. I’m sorry if that comes as a shock to anyone out there reading. Perhaps I should have put a spoiler warning on this post. But I figure that if I’m nearly 27 and just found out, then you should definitely know by now. If you’re a little kid, then you are too young to freelance. Go outside and play in the snow or something.

In light of that fact, I thought I’d post my Christmas wishlist and share with you what I would like this year which I now know I will never have. Enjoy. Or don’t.

• Frankincense
• Myrrh
• A lot of gold, because that would be awesome
• My two front teeth
• Three ghosts to take me on a magical journey through time and space to show me that I can indeed change my miserly ways and become of good Christmas cheer
• An angel to show me what life would be like if I never existed
• Puppets to show me that I can also change my miserly ways–I am pretty cheap and I should probably reexamine that next year
• A vacation in which my wacky dad gets into numerous situations that are zany
• A mystical creature that cannot be fed after midnight
• You

Now, here’s your assignment–guess which TV shows/movies/songs those references came from. There’s no reward other than virtue. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and all the rest!

I found this site that I enjoyed visiting immensely was hiring through Craigslist, and they posted a pretty darn good rate. I thought that was brilliant, so I applied for and got the job because I have a kickass portfolio and darn it I wanted the job. They could tell because I told them in an email. That, and I explained carefully in detail how I’d be willing to debase myself in any number of ways to get the job. I do not recommend that as part of the job process to be frank with you.

Anyway, I posted my first article and it was popular beyond my wildest dreams. I ended up getting almost 130 comments on just one post, and that felt pretty incredible. I’d never posted a blog post that was that controversial, well-read, or discussed before. Now and since, there is not a single post that’s appeared on that site’s blog that has been nearly as popular, so I was feeling like a stud. I started to wear my sunglasses at night, changed my attitude completely, and alienated my friends until a humbling event forced me to examine my life–at least that would have happened if I was in an ’80s movie. Instead I just got my paycheck and gratefully moved on.

I wrote a second article that was along the same lines. Essentially, I was to become their columnist, and I was excited. They told me that it would be on a monthly basis (what?) and that I would have to scale back from my previous length because they couldn’t pay me as much as they did for the first article (what??). So all of a sudden, that sweet rate was half of what I thought it would be. Still, monthly isn’t bad so I put it together and then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And you get the point. It turns out that they have some funk-ass publication schedule that apparently is none of their writers’ business, and that my article wasn’t slated to come out for another month beyond what they’d initially projected. Oh, and by the way, they don’t pay until publication, which I told them was a steaming pile of rabbit turds. They shot back that I should have read the writers’ agreement to which I cleverly replied that they never sent me and then they said that it didn’t matter so I didn’t feel so clever anymore.

So rather than get pissed, I went to their next-largest competitor, gave them a pitch they couldn’t refuse, and now I write for them. I just landed the gig last week.

The point of this story is that revenge is a dish best served garnished with fat wads of cash. True, my rate isn’t the same as what it was with them, but I’m posting so much more frequently that I’m getting the same as what I’d have supposedly gotten with them anyway. In this time of holiday cheer, remember: don’t forget to screw the jerks if they hold out on you. It’s what Santa would say.

In any case, I woke this morning bright and early so that I could put together a great holiday article for everyone. So I sat down and I wrote about how funny it would be if, in lieu of presents, you were to get someone a coupon for your services as a writer. That’s so funny, I thought, typing out the article carefully as the morning light failed utterly to strain through my window (I have poor positioning of my apartment). In fact, it’s so funny that I should go through the archives and read my own work again to see what other gems I have come up with. So I go back about a year from now and find out that I wrote the same damn article and I quickly switch from self-congratulating to self-flagellating. Of course it’s a funny idea, you boob. You wrote the damn article on it last year.

It’s frustrating really because when you write, there’s only so much that you do before you realize that you’re starting to copy yourself. So long as you’re copying your best stuff, then I say good luck to you! After all, you’re not exactly plagiarizing by stealing from yourself. And just for your reference, spelling plagiarizing is extremely hard without spell check.

That’s why I’m green, though. I’m keeping it so real that I’m going to just recycle my own stuff. If anything, I’m just ripping off the funniest writer I know–Bill Cosby. Please don’t read anything he’s written. You already have anyway.

Okay, so creativity is actually like a fickle three-year-old and you’ve got a house full of Brussels sprouts and that poor child is going to starve unless you figure out a way to get him to work with you. I’m not being sexist, by the way, by referring to the three-year-old in this hypothetical scenario as a boy because little boys are total jerks. Little girls listen and do what you ask of them, but little boys are just the worst. And I should know, I was one. But in any case, creativity is not a faucet you can turn on and off. I think that the euphemism juice, in addition to being just ugh oh god it is just so nasty to talk about it that way, implies that somehow you can get into a flow.

I do not experience flow. My flow is more like LA traffic at rush hour when there’s an overturned truck full of angry bees, and the cops are all on strike and their replacements all forgot their epipens.

Creativity comes in stops and starts. You have to just start typing, really. If you’re stuck, go take a walk. It’s more than likely that you’re failing to feel inspired because nothing is inspiring you. Honestly, I watch TV to get half my ideas. I’m not grifting them–they just help me write better jokes because I have a frame of reference. I’m a comedian, and therefore weird, off-putting, and incapable of relating to people normally. I have to use this teevee device to help me understand what normal people find interesting and funny because I find the weirdest crap funny and interesting that no one does. That’s what makes me funny to begin with. Technically, that’s what makes you funny too, if you’re ever interested in being funny. That’s the nutshell of comedy, essentially: being socially retarded or close enough to it.

Here are a few other things I wrote down to help you regain inspiration.

• Stop being uninspired.
• Um…

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

No, I’m sorry. I really don’t want to punish everyone. Instead, let me be sincere by saying that I am very grateful to be here a year later (a year! That’s like three hundred generations of fruit flies who have lived and died) and tell you all that I’m deeply flattered and eternally stunned by your readership. For whatever reason, I produce these goofy-ass posts and you guys really like what I write. For the most part. So I want to thank you all for reading what I do because I’m amazed that people find me funny at all.

On that note, I should probably start being funny again for Thanksgiving or else you will hate me. Then I’ll become an embittered gravy-drinking husk of a man who has to scream dictation to his laptop instead of actually typing. I’ll balloon up to 800 pounds and have to be cut out of my living room–as well as my couch–just so I can haul my tubby butt to Arby’s for ten thousand Beef and Cheddars. I’ll spiral into depression, then get on The Biggest Loser (at that point I’d be a shoo-in) to go from obese to fat. I’ll change my life completely, and then become a spokesperson for Subway and Jenny-O Simulated Chicken Cutlets and all manner of Diet Colas.

Wait a minute. Why the hell am I trying to be funny? That sounds pretty frickin’ sweet. Peace out, suckers.

…it turns out that it’s really hard to gain 800 pounds. Also, I’m sick from eating an entire bucket of fried turkey complete with deep fried mashed potato balls. Can you ever forgive me?

Of course you can. It’s Thanksgiving. Merry Thanksgiving, everyone.

In any case, we have never really talked about writing for the elderly. They’re an ever-expanding market as baby boomers become angry old man boomers, so it’s expedient to learn how to write for the elderly. They’re a specific niche, so let me share a few ideas to write for them.

1. Don’t use slang. It really throws them off and it angers and confuses them greatly. They don’t know what we’re talking about with our foshizzles and Tweetubes, so try to avoid talking about them. The elderly can become frightened easily and might use their powerful jaws to bite at the thing nearest them, which might well be their computer. Do not become responsible for literally thousands of elderly jaw injuries sustained by nipping at their monitors.
2. Do not use any goddamn profanity.
3. TYPE IN ALL CAPS. THIS HELPS THEM READ EASIER. THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO CHANGE THEIR TEXT SETTINGS FOR THEIR BROWSER. THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TEXT, SETTINGS, OR BROWSERS ARE.
4. Pander to them. Topics they love are World War II (in fact, any war, and I’m not sure why and it worries me a little), murder mysteries in which young whelps are brought to keel by a savvy older lawyer, knitting, baking, gender discrimination, hard candy, and denture adhesives.
5. Don’t insult their intelligence. If they’re reading your work online, you can assume they know how to use computers at least a little. This would be a great time to tell them that they need to pay the standard Internet Article Per Usage Rate and provide a link to your PayPal so they can pay the requisite $50 for reading your work. They will gladly snap open their pocketbooks.

Do you have any other tips for writing for the elderly? Let me know via semaphore flag.

Here are a few tips:

• Develop a standard boilerplate response so that you can type out pretty much any old thing in response to something that someone said. Think of faint praise–after all, people are vain, and you can come off as awfully nice by saying that they wrote a really nice post. Just be sure to skim the post first. Nothing’s worse than being on some cancer survival blog and telling someone that their tale of chemotherapy was really funny. Well, unless it was.
• Kill whatever self-respect you may have had. It will stand in your way of success.
• Indiscriminately post on any blog that you feel like. Your employer is clearly dumb enough to think that spamming is effective, so take advantage of that and spread the love as far and as wide as you can. Is your blog about luxury goods in Latvia? That shouldn’t stop you from posting on a multiracial Brooklyn organic-obsessed mommy blog. She might be into impulse trips to Eastern European countries, after all!
• Learn filler phrases. The vast majority of the content of any post is pretty much crap. If someone’s skimming, you could type out the entire lyrics to the Meow Mix theme and no one would notice: meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow. This is also known as the Lady Gaga method. Do not shy away from rah rah ah ah ah ahs or roma romamas.
• Get a new bank account because you won’t know what to do with your abysmally low pay!
• Learn some non sequiturs too. Sometimes you can just say any old thing and people will STILL approve the comment and STILL click through. I do not for the life of me understand why, but then, it isn’t my job to understand human nature. That is why I am a humor writer.

If you have any tips to spam commenting, please leave them below. In fact, spam me below.

You Can Get by with One Client

That’s certainly what I did! I get paid a bazillion words to do a monthly column and I don’t see any reason to go find other work because I have it so sweet. Instead, I just write my pithy little columns myself and my editor just eats them up. That poor sucker. He doesn’t even check my work. It’s a sweet deal. Hi-5!

Marketing is Wholly Unnecessary

Because I’m such a big deal, people just sort of line up and ask me to do jobs. Of course I don’t because I only have one client but if I wanted to work other jobs I could. I don’t have a website or platform or anything, I’ve spent nothing on business cards, and I have never marketed myself beyond just being awesome in every way. You’re welcome, everyone.

My Job has Nothing Wrong with It

At all. There’s no such thing as a downside for me. All I do is I come in, like a rockstar, and type away at my column. Next time I write one I’m going experimental–I’m going to write precisely one word. I bet everyone will go nuts for it. I am going to have to clear it with my editor though because I get paid by the word and that would sort of suck to make rent. People don’t get the artistic, sometimes.

Stop Asking Me About My Job

Seriously I am not going to talk about how there’s something wrong. Maybe YOU are the one who has the problem. Stop trying to find things where nothing’s bad. You probably like to sit around and critique other people’s work while your own sucks. Stop being such a dillweed.

I’m Going to Get a Soda

This interview is over. And the soda is likely to be of the Coca-Cola variety although I could be tempted into a Fanta if the price point is right.

If you’ll notice, I lost focus through this article as per usual. You’re welcome. I’m going to take a bow and head out now.

At any rate–the point being that living my Wednesday without internet (and subsequently without cable because the damn cable company can’t damn find their ass with a flashlight, two hands, an alpaca, and a curiously friendly guide named Tak) was a terrible day for everyone involved. I was unable to get work done because I didn’t have the ability to post it, and I didn’t feel like it because I didn’t have my beloved television to inspire me to continue writing. Instead, I did the unthinkable: I left the house.

I quickly came back inside. That was stupid. How is the cable guy gonna come by if I’m outside? Also, there were some teenagers across the street and although this is pure speculation, I am pretty sure that they were high on the drugs and might have roughed me up for money or, worse, might have made fun of me for being outside blinking in the sunlight during the day. I fantasized that they were going to pelt me with cigarettes that I imagined they were probably smoking like a bunch of delinquents.

I got so bored that I actually read a book.

The cable guy came by and ended up saving me precisely when he said he would, between noon to perhaps three or four days after my actual repair request. He fiddled with some switches outside and spat on the ground, scratching himself. He called a number from his cell phone and my cable instantly blinked on. I’m so glad that I waited for him to make the phone call on my behalf. After all, being a helpless simp who is hardly technically proficient, I was unable to tell that the lines and static on my TV and lack of internet indicated that my CABLE wasn’t WORKING so I needed a big strong man to show me.

Anyone else been without cable? Oh GOD let me know I’m not the only to suffer through this.