Rosie Almost Does Standup

I’ve had a busy summer. I was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) on June 26th at the “Rebound in Motown” Conference in Detroit. Many thanks to members of the NSNC for their support.

I’m asking all of my writer friends to join the NSNC via its website http://www.columnists.com. We are embarking on an exciting year. The organization is open to authors, freelance columnists (newspapers and magazines) and bloggers. Membership will benefit your writing career.

Recently, I teamed up with Giovanni "G-MAN" Gelati of BlogTalkRadio and produced a digital short story for you. It is a face-off in a fictitious Philadelphia comedy club titled "Dueling Microphones." He will be interviewing several NSNC members during the next few months about their new books in the GZONE.

We had a great time writing "Dueling Microphones" and promoting it on all the social networking sites, and I will be performing one of the sets live at The Helium Comedy Club, 2031 Sansom St., Philadelphia soon. It would have been last Saturday, but Irene upstaged my act. I will have something up on YouTube for you.

This week, I am one of the guest comedians at Stupidassquestions for 5 days. You can log on to the website and ask any stupid ass question you like, 24x7. Someone will give you a stupid ass answer.

Click here to buy a copy of “Dueling Microphones” at The Amazon Kindle Store for only 99 cents! You will love it!

We are trying to get it into the top 10, so help us out and buy a copy.

As if that isn’t enough, I just finished a sketch comedy writing class with Brian Kelly at the Philadelphia Improv Theatre (PHIT). If my family doesn’t disown me for being the brunt of a parody or two - like Uncle Harry the hoarder, who also has a foot fetish and keeps a pair of red stilettos on his night stand, I will bring a few sketches to the Shubin Theatre on a Friday night this Fall. Show times are every Friday night at 11:00 pm.

Workaholic, moi?

As always, you can pick up a copy of “Sitting on Cold Porcelain” at SMASHWORDS for only $2.99 (less than a gallon of gas), in all digital formats: Kindle, Nook, eBook, Sony, PDF, etc.

Thanks!
Rosie

Hurricane Irene Slams East Coast

"... and so, instead of heffalumps and woozles, the blustery day turned into a blustery night." ~ Winnie the Pooh

The news channel was reporting a nightmare. Aerial images of Hurricane Irene looked like the sky in the film “Independence Day.” I was babysitting with the grandchildren. They were scared, so I turned off the TV for a while. There were several emergency trips to the bathroom. Yellow journalists from as far away as Seattle, were taking pictures of downed trees in Hoboken, NJ.

I spotted a family of ducks running for their lives:




Storm damage in Central Park amounted to a pile of pine nuts and fallen cones:



Each of our vehicles was equipped with a window punch, batteries, flashlight, cases of bottled water, and giant boxes of Cheerios from Sam’s Club in case of a flash flood. The Jiffy peanut butter took the back seat.

All the airports and public transportation were closed.

I said a quick prayer to St. Anthony of Padua; I hadn’t been able to find my dentures for two days. I finally found them in the fish aquarium. No, the lights were not out; in my haste, I missed the cup.

The Angel fish were getting high on Fixodent. They were performing more aerial maneuvers than Asian carp. I was nervous as a cat, but not strung out like a chihuahua yet, and the kids were terrorized.

I didn’t know what else to do, we watched “Charlie Bit My Finger” 25 times on YouTube already, so I made up a Pooh story. I didn’t end the story. I told the kids we would do that in the morning. I was considering three endings. One of them involved Noah’s Ark, another how Piglet forgot to waterproof the house; finally, the blustery day.

This morning, I logged on to Facebook to find out if my friends were still alive. They are!

The kids are eating omelets, “Charlie Bit My Finger” is playing on the PC, and “Baby Monkey Riding Backwards on a Pig” is our family theme song of the day.

Go Phillies!

by Rose A. Valenta

While the Philadelphia Phillies prepare to beat the San Diego Padres, they reactivated former closer Brad Lidge. He has not pitched due to elbow and shoulder injuries. Lidge is the reason the Phillies won the 2008 World Series.

To paraphrase Maurice Chevalier, "Oh yes, I remember it well."

It took 28 years for the Phillies to take the World Series Championship; they did it with a 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on October 29, 2008.

South Philadelphia fans went nuts as Brad Lidge and the Phillies took out the Rays in a three-inning game, which had been suspended due to weather conditions. It is the first victory since 1980 for the Phillies and the end of the alleged Billy Penn curse.

The Billy Penn curse affected all of the major Philadelphia sports teams since the construction of the One Liberty Place skyscraper that had the audacity to tower over Billy’s head atop City Hall. It was built in 1987. From 1987 to 2008, no Philadelphia sports team won a major league victory. Then in 2007, Comcast decided to put a Billy Penn statue atop the Comcast Center, the tallest building in the city. Billy liked that.

When the Phillies won in 2008, it ended the curse.

Tens of thousands of fans were celebrating in the streets, as South Broad Street was closed to traffic all evening. Seventy six arrests later, Police Commissioner, Charles H. Ramsey, was overheard saying "I got a touch of a hangover, don't push me," in response to a fan yelling "Where's the whiskey Mr. Macklin?"

Mrs. Giordano took off her usual black mourning attire for the occasion and wore a long red dress by Target. She was so excited over at Mama Mia's that she took the "evil eye" off of the Ray's Evan Longoria free of charge. Philly cheese steaks were on the house.

"Hey Vito, looka Joey! He looka just like that guy, Spencer Tracy, alone ina his boat," she said, refering to her favorite Tracy film "The Old Man and The Sea."

Vito Salerno took pity on Joey Maddon after he found out that the Rays got thrown out of their hotel after the last game was postponed and they had to find accommodations at a stable in Wilmington, Delaware. The fans had everything else booked within a 100-mile radius.

Vito bought Joey a few boiler makers, broke out his Castiglione, and sang "O Solo Mio."

Mayor Nutter was telling fans, who were planning to call out sick from work, to wait until Friday. The World Series Parade began at noon on Friday, at 20th and Market Sts. and ended back at the Sports Complex.

"You can be joyous, but you can't be a jackass," he told news reporters. I think he was referring to media behavior at the parade, especially pinhead Bill O’Reilly, who doesn’t know Jack Schitt about the legal system or baseball.

GO PHILLIES!!!!!

© 2011, Valenta, All rights reserved.

To read my column Skinny Dipping click here

To buy my book “Sitting on Cold Porcelain” click here

Nikita Khrushchev's Great-Grandmother?

I didn't get a chance to ask Joe McNally of National Geographic if he took this photo in Moscow, but now scientists are convinced that all of us have some Neandrathal DNA. If I'm not mistaken, Nikita had a woolie fetish and was obsessed with shoes and wrestling.

Now I know why we humans have such a tough time supressing our primal urges, like throwing the TV remote control out of a 10 story building in a single bound and sympathizing with Black Eyed Peas. It also explains loud snoring, culinary oddities like eating undercooked steak and eggs, and hanging out in sushi bars.

Read the article Click here

I won't even go into fast cars, contact sports and Olympic Games, Okay? I have enough trouble understanding Bruno Mars music.

When was the last time your husband mimed "Get me a beer" with a mouth full of buffalo chicken, while you cupped your ear "ey?" and grunted, right?

Now we know!

A Salute to the Average!!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for average t-shirt franchise

Somewhere along the way “Average” has become an adjective that applies to everyone else. Parents are screaming about testing, obviously inaccurate, that shows that their child is average. I have adopted the position that being average makes my child stand out from the crowd.

Think about it. In ballet class, every parent thinks their ballerina is superior, above average. My child is an average dancer, the only one it seems, so when the recital comes around, the entire superior above average dancers will be crowded onto the stage all dancing together and being compared to each other. My average dancer will be dancing a solo, since there are no other average dancers at the studio. There will be no one to compare her to; therefore, she will dance beautifully with no discernable mistakes and receive a standing ovation.

Then there are those SAT test scores. My child is average and will score that way on the SAT test. Because of this, others will look much smarter and more intelligent than they really are. In fact, the worse my child scores on the test, the better others will look. I can foresee desperate parents recruiting average students to enroll in classes designed to help them dumb-down before the tests in order to tilt their child’s scores upward. However, because my child is just “average”, she may qualify for all kinds of grants and incentives to help colleges and universities look like they are non-discriminatory and serving the needs of the average person as well as the super elite.

Being average can also keep you from being clobbered in dodge ball in required P.E. classes. Far superior athletes will be chosen first. The average will be chosen in the middle and the poorly skilled will be chosen last. During the game, the far superior athletes will go after the poorest players first. The average person, hiding in the corner, will be pretty much ignored until the end. By that time the far superior athletes will have worn themselves out pulverizing the easy targets and will lose their steam when it comes to attacking the average. The average players will take advantage of the situation and will triumph. Having defeated the top far superior athletes, the average will come to the attention of professional dodge ball coaches who are recruiting.

The Olympic coaches will then rethink the average child’s abilities and increase their interest. The professional recruiters will then become more aggressive and will up their offers. Once your child accepts, signs the five year no-cut contract, and is shuffled off to training camp, you can relax. Soon the coaches will discover that your child really is average and will be benched, safe from being pulverized by other powerful dodge ball athletes…but the no-cut contract is binding. The money keeps coming in and average wins again.

With the income, your child can open an Average Store. T shirts could sport logos that say “Robbers, don’t bother. All credit, no cash”, or “Jenny Craig, Go Away, My weight is Average”. The IRS would ignore your child’s business, because, after all, it’s just average. It’s a win win situation.

So the next time your friends begin bragging about their super superior children, just smile and say “No need to thank me; if it wasn’t for my child, yours would just be average. Want a t-shirt?”
~~~
I hope you enjoyed this guest post today by my friend, Jody Worsham. She adopted two children while in her 60s and has a humorous perspective on parenting. Please visit her website The Medicare Mom at the link below:

“When I found myself in the role of parent at age 61 to a one day old and a three year old, I began writing humor; actually I began living humor. This age and stage has given me a different perspective on car seats, potty training, homework, and the golden arches. Oh, and let’s not forget the fun and fumbles of parenting-past-your-prime which has resulted in The Medicare Mom - http://themedicaremom.blogspot.com ” ~ Jody Worsham

'Crushed Nuts' and Buried Treasure

I am happy to report that the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) has nominated me to the Board of Directors: Read the announcement

Thank you so much to everyone who left messages on my Facebook page and Twitter account.

I am looking forward to attending the NSNC "Rebound in Motown" Conference in Detroit this week. I will be posting photos. Details of the event can be found at http://www.columnists.com.

If you are a columnist or blogger, check out the entire website, then click on the *Join or Renew* Tab to find out how you can also become a member of the NSNC. Testimonials are about half-way down the page.

Of course, I don’t need to explain why networking is so important to you for achieving career goals and enhancing your personal development as a writer. It is one of the main reasons why many people join. It is an invaluable learning experience. Exchanging ideas with other writers will motivate you to get back on top of projects that you might have put aside because you needed mentoring or the information necessary to get your work published or syndicated.

If you are not a writer, but came here today looking for something funny, here goes:

I have been procrastinating mulching my garden and also submitted an Extension Form with the IRS to file my taxes late. True, I enjoy fresh herbs, vegetables, and fruit; but messing with earthworms is not something I like to deal with. Plus, I’m allergic to fertilizer. I break out in hives. So, I’ve been looking at all the limp stuff out in my back yard that require food and water. I am my father’s daughter, and Dad could have won the National Sandbagger Championship back in 1955, when he sent “Nothing to Report” on a 3"x5" index card to the IRS because there was no such thing as an Extension Form.

I made coffee and started listening to "Crushed Nuts," a hilarious set of CDs (yes, two of them)by The Bob & Tom Show. I was on Track #28 "Red Flag Accounting," when this article pops up on my laptop about a guy finding 650-year-old treasure in his herb garden click here to read it .

Excuse my lack of typing skills right now, I have five earthworms hanging off my index finger and a beetle just scurried under the “A” key.

© 2011, Valenta, All rights reserved.

To read my column Skinny Dipping click here

To buy my book “Sitting on Cold Porcelain” click here

1st Annual F Harold Comedy Festival is at The Walnut Street Theatre

Move over NY and LA, here comes Philly! Philadelphia Comedy is gaining a stronghold. Folks who love comedy will find all art forms represented in the City of Brotherly Love: standup, sketch, and improv. The main source of information is a Philadelphia Comedy Blog called WitOut http://www.witout.net, where you will find a complete listing of performers and venues.

Last year at this time, I signed up with the Philadelphia Improv Theatre (PHIT) to take an Improv Level 1 class. My instructor was Rick Horner. I recently signed up for sketch comedy writing at PHIT and attended standup classes at The Helium Comedy Club with Brad Trackman. Yes, that's in addition to writing a humor book called Sitting on Cold Porcelain. Okay, so now I can stand in front of a mirror with a mic and command all my funny extremities to become double-jointed and write my own press release. I can't decide on a favorite comedy art form, I like them all.

I have kept in touch with Rick Horner via Facebook and found out that he has organized the 1st Annual F Harold Comedy Festival for people like me, who love all forms of comedy, so I attended opening night on June 7th, and asked for an interview. I was amazed at the talent represented on stage. His goal is to give the Philadelphia community an "opportunity to see a cross-section of local talent."

The Festival runs until June 12th, so you can still buy tickets at the Walnut Street Theatre, Studio 5, box office.

You will love it!

Following is my interview with Rick:


Q1
Opening night at the F Harold Comedy Festival was fantastic. Can you tell me more about the performers in the lineup?
What an opening night! John Kensil is a popular local stand up comedian I was fortunate enough to book, The Hendersons are a brand-new long form improv group debuting an awesome show at the F. Harold!
Rosen & Milkshake are an incredible rockin' Philly favorite, hot off the heels of a dynamite performance at Duofest (an improv festival specifically for duos only), and Carolyn Busa is one the hottest comedians performing all over Philadelphia!
Grimmacchio, who also had a terrific performance at last weekend's Duofest, delighted audiences Tuesday to a sold-out crowd, and Ryan Carey had a tremendous set of his stand-up! Aaron Hertzog can be seen all around Philadelphia either doing solo stand-up or performing with one of his improv groups, Hate Speech Committee, Get a Room, or The Hendersons!
I was lucky to have Pat House close out the night with some of his wonderful stand-up - and Pat will be hosting all of Sunday's shows as well. All talent, all Philly, all handled beautifully by a great group of volunteers - Emily Davis, Cara Schmidt, Mark Dames, and Greg Maughan.

Q2
Where do you yourself perform Improv in Philadelphia?

I perform in three duos!

WhipSuit (performing tonight!) has a regular performance every third Friday of the month at O'Neals pub, 611 South 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 (great food and drink specials!) at 8:15pm.

Horner & Davis (performing Saturday night!) and Suggestical, An Improvised Musical perform all over town, with the Philly Improv Theater at the Shubin Theatre, 407 Bainbridge Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147; and with Polygon Comedy at other venues like Tabu Lounge & Sports Bar, 200 South 12th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107.

I also coach improv (currently coaching Rintersplit (performing Thursday) and Iron Lung (performing Friday night!) I am available for additional improv coaching gigs at ick1019@gmail.com or 267.278.5250.

I also run the Improv Incubator weekly at the Community Education Center in West Philadelphia (3500 Lancaster Ave, Philadelphia PA 19104) which is a social and creative mixer where the entire Philly improv community is invited to meet, play, and perform scenes.

Q3
Did you grow up in the area?
I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and I love Philly and all of the amazing talent inside and all around it!!! Now I live in Telford - if you can find it, come visit me and I will have coffee with you.

Q4
What do you do at PHIT?
I am a recently-retired House Team Director at PHIT (former House Team Activity Book). I am also one of the many instructors there - actually I have a class that is starting soon, Improv Level 201! Improv Level 201 is Wednesday nights from 7 to 9:30 starting Wednesday 6/22/11 , and there are 7 spots left (plus if you register by 6/15/11 you can save $50)! Commercial over. You had me as a teacher Rose, so you know I'm all about making students work hard, get better, and look good.

Q5
What are your long-term goals for the F Harold Comedy Festival?
It is so amazing that so many great companies are producing great comedy — PHIT, ComedySportz, PHIF, PJI, The N Crowd — I could go on and on. F. Harold is a little different from other things happening in Philly because it is a blend of the parts of comedy that seem to be finding so much overlap in the city already, thanks to Philly Improv Theater and The Philadelphia Joke Initiative. They have fostered a true sense of cohesiveness between stand-up, sketch and improv and the goal of the F. Harold is to allow all the talent Philly has to offer the opportunity to both demonstrate and exhibit each other, and showcase new ideas and people.

Q6
If people from out-of-town want to get a feel for Philly comedy, where are the best places to go?
I am going to give you some websites:
ComedySportz (http://www.comedysportzphilly.com)
Philadelphia Improv Festival (http://www.phif.org)
Philly Improv Theater (http://www.phillyimprovtheater.com)
Philadelphia Joke Initiative (http://www.contactpji.com)
Polygon Comedy (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_223016407708844)
The N Crowd (http://www.phillyncrowd.com)
Helium Comedy Club (http://www.heliumcomedy.com)

Q7
Do you have a blog, Facebook page, twitter account where folks can learn more about you and F Harold?
Yes! The wonderful web page developed by Jess Carpenter (performing Saturday night!) with logos and flyers created by Cara Schmidt and Chris Calletta: F Harold Presents and links to all other social media.