Gotta Minute?

No Sense. New project.

I started this new side hustle project called No Sense.  It’s basically stories and observations from daily life repurposed as a joke. Initially, my first 8 attempts were just humorous stories but I wanted them to be more.  So I started playing around with

a one minute joke structure and this is way more challenging. 

It’s still storytelling but to keep it interesting I have several micro jokes that lead up to a punchline. The rules I’ve set up for myself are: the joke must be based on a truth of some sort, it should reveal a secret of some kind, needs to work verbally (the drawings are a bonus) and it has to be one minute long. 

I’m pulling material from everywhere. I made a list of topics/themes to help with the ideas:

+ childhood

+ teenage years

+ current mundane life

+ pets

+ fears and phobias

+ cancer (funny right? I’m healthy now but it’s therapeutic to look back)

+ fishing stories!

+ pop culture

+ office humor

+ the artist’s life

I’m going to try to cover 3 things in each blog:

+ origin of that week’s joke

+ the problem and solution (I learn something new every joke)

+ info about the community I’m trying to build 

Origin of “Unsinkable”

This story is mostly true. I had to edit a beat that was true but it was causing problems because it was stranger than fiction and was distracting the ending. The real reason my kayak flipped was from a manatee. These giants are all over the salt water inlets. They’re huge and harmless but if you roll up and startle them, they freak out. 

I was being super stealthy and quiet for a good 45 minutes. It was getting dark and a pod of manatees surrounded my boat. When I pulled up the anchor, it clunked against the side and a huge manatee was right under me. Flipped me like I was a toy. 

Challenge/solution

I always run into this problem of trying to stay too close to the truth. I have to remind myself it’s just a joke and I’m free to caricature/exaggerate. One of the punchlines I had for this was me discovering a warning on the boat (which there is) that says ‘this is not a life saving device’ but it just wasn’t big enough. 

The other challenge was that I had too much detail in this story.  And I only have one minute! I was trying to fit all kinds of fun facts like that The Discovery Channel had a show called River Monsters and they shot an episode about shark fishing right in the spot where this happened. But I had to cut it for length.

Ruthless editing is the takeaway. 

Live Show

U gotta minute? Want a live audience to practice on weekly? Read about the group I’m building here. Or just sign up (at the bottom)to get updates about when it will go live soon!