OTHER HUMOR
Here are a few samples of columns and other things I've published over the years
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KEEPING TABS
Keeping Tabs was a weekly supermarket tabloid review I wrote under the pseudonym Wayne Hamtramck. It was published in my humor tabloid and on a Web site and was very well-received. Except by my ex-wife, who wasn't too keen on having supermarket tabloids laying around the house.
If I had made an effort to market it, Keeping Tabs might have been more successful. I still think it has possibilities.
This is a sample of one of the original columns.
By the way, the pseudonym Wayne Hamtramck is derived from a city in Michigan. I came across the name in the early '70s, when I had a nightly truck run from Cleveland to Detroit. For some reason, the name Hamtramck stuck in my mind.
Years later, a guy by the name of Warren, who owned Pengwyn Books in Columbus, and I were talking about pseudonyms and we thought it would be perfect. He came up with Claude Hamtramck. I didn't like the name Claude. While looking on a Michigan roadmap to confirm the proper spelling of Hamtramck, I noticed it was in Wayne County.
Watch out for that “see” note!
Talk about a tough act to follow! Jazz trumpeter Gerald Chardeau put so much “oomph!” into a high note he blew his eyeballs out. According to the SUN, a Paris nightclub audience was horrified when the 22-year-old musician’s peepers popped out of his skull and landed on a table in the front row.
The 22-year-old musician collapsed on the stage and died of a brain hemorrhage.
Dr. Emile Balzac warns horn players that hitting high notes can be detrimental to your health. However, the doctor admits that such occurrences aren’t commonplace. “This is the first fatal accident I know of in which a musician suffered a rain hemorrhage and actually blew his eyes out,” says Balzak.
In Other Stories:
SUN The good news is: scientists have taught chimpanzees to talk. The bad news is: they didn’t like what the chimps are saying. SUN scribe Fred Sleeves says that one chimp tipped off scientists that apes are plotting to take over the world. Although it may have been bluffing. ••• Apparently not all animals are out to get us. British scientist Philip Marcell says a Yeti saved his life. Marcell was the lone survivor of a party of 12 people stranded on Mount Everest. Marcell tells the SUN, “He lugged me a long way and left me in a comfortable clearing, then turned around and walked back up the mountainside.” It’s unclear whether the abominable snowman returned to rescue the others or eat them.
WEEKLY WORLD NEWS Speaking of which, cannibal chief Daki Haimbe found a novel food source: mail-order brides. WWN reports that, so far, Haimbe has ordered and devoured six women. New Guinea police inspector Eric Inebe says, “He was calling for mail-order brides the way most of us call for pizza delivery.” ••• In April, WWN revealed that the Hubble Space Telescope had photographed Heaven. Now some evil Russian scientists want to annihilate it with missiles. “This is no joke,” exclaims an unidentified State Department official. “These are old-line Communists who were raised as atheists and are now only grudgingly admitting there is a Supreme Being. They believe that, by destroying Heaven with a direct nuclear attack, they can eliminate God.”
NATIONAL EXAMINER Wild chickens are terrorizing Hancock, Md. The wild cluckers are tearing up gardens and terrorizing residents. The people of Hancock are helpless to defend themselves because, technically, the birds aren’t running afoul of the law. Town manager Louis Close tells the EXAMINER the chickens can’t be shot because the Department of Natural Resources says they’re considered wild birds and protected by state game laws. ••• Remember despot Maummar Khadafy’s flowing locks of curly brown hair? So does he. But Khadafy’s trademark tresses are nothing more than a memory. The EXAMINER reveals that the Lion of the Desert has been hiding out in Brazil, undergoing hair transplants. How about a new brain to go along with those locks?
GLOBE A former lover of TV preacher Jim Bakker is dying of AIDS. An exclusive GLOBE report says ex-PTL executive John Wesley Fletcher knew he had AIDS when he had sex with Bakker and Jessica Hahn. Bet that was one “free-will donation” Bakker wasn’t counting on. ••• Where were they then? A feature entitled “Stars & Yipes” reveals what some celebrities did before hitting the big time. F’rinstance, did you know that “ER” star Anthony Edwards made commercials for Country Time Lemonade and McDonald’s? Or that — at the tender age of eight — John Travolta performed the Twist at a fireworks show in Englewood, N.J.? And, furthermore, did you care?
NATIONAL ENQUIRER A Canadian grandmother fought off a crazed muskrat — with a bag of bingo markers! Margaret McDonald of Cobden, Ont., tells the ENQUIRER, “It came rushing out of the bushes straight at me. The next thing I knew the muskrat rushed me and bit my ankle. Fortunately, I remembered the nylon bag I was carrying contained six plastic bingo daubers.” ENQUIRER reporter Philip Smith writes: “Her first swing stunned the pelt-wearing punk.” It was curtains for the rogue rodent after that as McDonald flailed away till the critter succumbed. ••• A schizophrenic woman with 11 personalities sued her husband because he had turned her malady into a freak show. Susanna Van de Castle charged that hubby Robert would take her on TV talk shows and draw out her various personalities for the audiences’ amusement. Mrs. Van de Castle was awarded $350,000. Still to come: divorce proceedings. Wait till Mr. Van de Castle finds himself paying alimony -- to all 11 personalities.
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