Columns

Keyboard_on_a_German_mechanical_Olympia_typewriter

Humor Columns

My humor column “As I Was Saying” (award-winning, baby) has appeared in newspapers nearly continuously since 1991, earning five Best Humor Column Awards from the Missouri Press Association, two from the Kansas City Press Club, and one from the Erma Bombeck Workshop. In 2009, I was named the best humor columnist in North Dakota, despite the fact that I’ve never worked in North Dakota, nor visited there. The award-winning plaque has another writer’s name on it, and is not in my house. Being plagiarized is a bitch, folks. This is my award-winning plagiarized column. It’s about buying Tampons. I just typed the last four sentences with my middle fingers.

Before I get to my regular weekly humor column, I taught a Travel Writing class in England in 2013. Here’s my work from across the Pond – An American Offutt in London.

Below are my regular columns. More are on the way.

At 50, a lot of things can be wonky

Worst-case scenarios for 2016

Manly Holiday Movies: If it’s Christmas, it must be bloody

The light side of the Force is pretty dark

Coffee will either kill us, or turn us into superhumans

Dear Young People, Look Up From Your Phones

FD&C Blue No. 1? Mmm, my favorite

Parent Date Night. Yeah, that’s funny

 

Paranormal Columns

From September 2006 to May 2014 my newspaper column “From the Shadows” brought true paranormal tales to readers who really like to get freaked out. I covered the weird, unbelievable, and flat out scary. From ghosts to shadow people, time travelers to a mind-reading dog, real life gnomes (gnomes. Creepy, creepy gnomes) to a man who had sex with an alien. They are all in the archives of “From the Shadows.”

Here are a few choice selections:

The Evil Little Man

Ghosts, Flies, and Scratches

Night of the Harlequin

 Mike Marcum and the Time Machine

Jim the Wonder Dog

Enjoy the darkness.