Satire
The Very Latest In Wearable Tech…
Recently, I wrote a Lilo & Stitch activity book called The Galactic Federation Nighttime Handbook. It’s out NOW from Scholastic! And the reason this is a “Nighttime Handbook” is that many of the activities and writing prompts in the book are sleep-themed. That is, they revolve around concepts such as sleep, dreams, the stars in the night sky, pajamas, your bedtime routine, and that sort of thing. So if you’re looking for a book that will help your kid get into the right frame of mind to power down and get ready for bed each night, this book should do the trick.
Here’s the official publisher description of The Galactic Federation Nighttime Handbook:
Greetings, Citizen of Earth! Welcome to the Galactic Federation! Experiment 626, also referred to as “Stitch,” is away on an interplanetary mission. In his place, he’s recommended you to help the Federation complete some very important tasks! To be a successful Galactic Federation operative, you’ll need to think and act like one. The activities and writing prompts in The Galactic Federation Nighttime Handbook will help you do so. In addition, you’ll be the first to use the Galactic Federation’s newest piece of wearable tech: the Supreme Lateral Energized Exoskeletal Polygonal Multifaceted Auxiliary Sensory Kudzuscope, or S.L.E.E.P. M.A.S.K.
That’s right, the book comes with a free Stitch-themed sleep mask, which is blue, furry, and super-adorable. However, I decided to make the sleep mask part of the book’s narrative. So, as the book’s official description explains, this is no mere sleep mask. It’s actually a piece of wearable tech, called the “S.L.E.E.P. M.A.S.K.” And in order to complete some of the activities in the book, you’ve got to wear the S.L.E.E.P. M.A.S.K. while you complete said activities!
(But that only applies to a handful of the activities in this book. For most of them, you don’t need to wear the S.L.E.E.P. M.A.S.K.)
And I should also mention that this book is only available for distribution through the school market. In other words, it’s exclusively available through Scholastic Reading Events, so you won’t be able to find it on Amazon or on Barnes & Noble’s website.
However, you CAN get it via this website.
Last but definitely not least, if you’d like to see some of the other books I’ve written for Scholastic over the years, you can click HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.
The Ballad of Shirtless Lou
Happy May the Fourth, everyone! In the spirit of this Star Wars-themed quasi-holiday, I wanted to share a Star Wars-themed story. A few years ago, I wrote a LEGO Star Wars book called The Official Stormtrooper Training Manual, which was published by Scholastic in 2016. I decided to write it from the POV of a stormtrooper. So the idea is that an ordinary, lunkheaded stormtrooper is narrating the book. On the section of the book which deals with the “AT-AT” vehicles, I wrote the following joke (among many others):
“The AT-AT is often the first thing sent into a combat zone. The LAST thing sent onto a combat zone is a stormtrooper named ‘Shirtless Lou,’ who has the words WE WON painted on his belly.”
And I didn’t think anything more of the joke after that. Like I said, it was just one of many jokes I jammed into a very joke-heavy book.
But then, years later, while looking through the comments section on the book’s Amazon page (why I was doing that I don’t really know, it’s not a healthy thing to do), I saw the following comment from a parent:
“The text is full of silly jokes that crack my 5 year old Star Wars superfan up. There’s a reference to ‘Shirtless Lou,’ the last stormtrooper to go into battle, that made him laugh so hard that I ordered the Batman-in-swimsuit minifigure and swapped that torso with a stormtrooper so he could have his own Shirtless Lou, and he plays with him all the time. Shirtless Lou is always doing something silly during stormtrooper training and causing Captain Phasma all kinds of headaches.”
Reading that totally made my day. I was – and still am – very happy that somebody appreciated The Official Stormtrooper Training Manual enough to write such a flattering comment about it. And now I’m just upset that I never pitched a “Shirtless Lou” spin-off book, because apparently there’s at least one kid out there who’d read that book.
But the saga of Shirtless Lou doesn’t end there.
Later on, I noticed that someone decided to give Shirtless Lou his own entry in Wookieepedia, the (crowd-sourced, fan-edited) Star Wars Wiki. Here’s the Wookieepedia description of Shirtless Lou:
“Lou, nicknamed ‘Shirtless Lou,’ was a human male stormtrooper of the Galactic Empire. He was considered to be the last thing sent into combat zones, as he had the words ‘WE WON’ painted on his belly.”
Which is…fine. I mean, Shirtless Lou’s Wookieepedia entry is totally accurate, in a way. It never mentions that The Official Stormtrooper Training Manual is a humor book, which is kind of an important detail to leave out, but whatever. Again, I’m just flattered that somebody at Wookieepedia mentioned Shirtless Lou.
I guess my point is that my little one-off joke about Shirtless Lou was apparently a good one, because people seem to have taken notice of it. And as a writer, sometimes you never know which stories (or jokes) people will respond to, and which ones they’ll ignore.
Also, if they somehow work Shirtless Lou into the Ahsoka Disney Plus series, or the fourth season of The Mandalorian, that little shirtless dude will have truly made the big time.
I’m In the Weekly Humorist’s “Best of 2022” List!
Last year, I wrote a humor piece called, “Other Catchphrases John Wilkes Booth Considered Before ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis!'”
It was originally published by The Weekly Humorist in February 2022. Earlier this month, it was selected as part of The Weekly Humorist’s “Best of 2022” list!
Thanks for including me on the list, Marty Dundics and Kit Lively!
Also, thanks to my friend and fellow comedy writer Matt Cohen for helping me workshop this humor piece.
To check out the “John Wilkes Booth” humor piece, click on THIS link and go to page two (there are two pages of content in the “Best of 2022” list).
You can also see it by clicking HERE.
Oh, and speaking of The Weekly Humorist’s annual “Best Of” lists, another one of my humor pieces, “Thanks To The Pandemic, Nobody Cares That I’m A Centaur,” was on WH’s “Best of 2021” list (which came out around this time last year). You can read that “Centaur” piece HERE.
And if you’re interested in seeing some of the humor pieces I’ve written for other publications (including Points in Case, Defenestration, The Daily Drunk, and more), just check out the “Humor, Fiction, and Essay” page on this site.