I’m on the Fish Out Of Water Podcast to talk about Writing!

This week has been a little bit busy, so I don’t know if I’m going to get a new chapter of Riz Raru in… The Case of the Sticky Fingers, but I have something almost as good… me on a podcast!

Jeremiah and Ryan talk to me about how I go about getting writing jobs, how I come up with ideas, and then I give them notes on one of their pieces of writing. It’s inciteful!

Check it out here: http://boardwalkaudio.com/fishoutofwater/14-joe-cabello/

(also available on iTunes)

Also, if you’d like a copy of my Star Wars parody, Scrote One, sign up for my email list (just click here) and I’ll send you a copy! If you read it and enjoy it, I’d love a review on Amazon.

FISH OUT OF WATER

Fish Out of Water is a comedy writing podcast hosted by Jeremiah Burton and Ryan Tweedy. Each week they have a new guest join them and talk about various types of comedy writing from television to the internet to live theater. It’s a podcast where comedians get to nerd out about writing comedy and talk about what makes them laugh.

Best Superbowl Joke Wins a Copy of Scrote One

The person who writes the best Superbowl Joke (in my opinion) will get a paperback copy of Scrote One: A Star Wars Parody (or just buy it for as low as $1.99 on kindle).

Name(required)

Email(required)

Superbowl Joke(required)

Submit

Δ

Also check out my new series, Riz Raru in… The Case of the Sticky Fingers

GoodReads Giveaway of my Star Wars Parody!

Hello GoodReads users!

I’m doing a giveaway for my Star Wars parody, Scrote One. It’s super hilarious, and you can even read a sample HERE.

If you don’t have a Goodreads account, sign up for one. It’s easy, ya lunkhead.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Scrote One

by Joe Cabello

Giveaway ends January 18, 2017.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

If you want to read it NOW, you can get it for $1.99 as an ebook, or $9.99 as paperback. That’s cheaper than a 12-pack of beer, and much funnier.

I also have Volume 1 (HERE) and Volume 2 (HERE) of short stories and essays for only $0.99 each!

A New Star Wars Parody Book!

Hello!

I’m doing pre-orders on my new Star Wars Parody Book, Scrote One: A Star Wars Parody!

Last year in anticipation for The Force Awakens, I wrote The Farts Awakens: A Star Wars Parody, which you can read a sample of here.

SYNOPSIS: The Rebel Assliance makes a risky move to steal the plans to the Death Shart, setting up the epic saga to follow.

Please check out the FUNDING PAGE for more details. If you love Star Wars, and just love silly things too, this is a really fun book (written in screenplay form to capture the cinematic feel of Star Wars)

Westword Problems (Westworld Parody)

The AI in Westworld is extremely advanced, not unlike our own. But that may not be a good thing.

Check out some of the other videos on my channel, and my patreon page.

TMNT: Out of the Shadows – Why It Sucked.

Some of these thoughts also apply to the 2014 TMNT. Also, spoilers ahead.

---

I didn’t have high hopes for the 2014 TMNT, yet was still disgusted by it once I saw it.

I had higher hopes for Out of the Shadows (OOTS) because it had Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady, and the Tartaruga Brothers truck. I knew I shouldn’t have had high hopes, but my desire to be contrarian made me want to love it before I even saw it.

I was wrong.

Twenty minutes into the movie I had a rash from all the face palms.

The Bad

The turtles personalities

The charm of the 1990s turtles was that they were caricatures of teenagers. They were silly and made jokes as if they had frontal lobe damage, and were teenagers in the most cartoonish way. These new turtles act more like real teenagers, which is absolutely awful to watch. No one likes teenagers. They’re moody, horny, and mean. This is exactly how the new turtles are.

I can’t understand why anyone would want to hang out with these turltes, other than the fact that there are considerable cool points if your friends are ninja turtles. I find nothing redeemable about them.

They are also horrifically ugly.

The CGI paradox

The CGI doesn’t look bad. It’s actually really good. The problem is that the CGI makes it easier to incorporate gadgets and give no weight to the turtles’ actions.

Rocket-powered skateboard. Holographic touchscreen computers. Electric boe staff. All of these gadgets ruin the charm of the turtles.

What’s so charming about the turtles is that all they have is their skill. They’ve practiced ninjitsu so long and with such discipline, that they actually stand a chance against gangs of men with guns and swords. Once you give them rocket-powered skateboards, high-tech weaponry, and abundant resources, it takes away from their real skill – ninjitsu.

It also wrecks the suspension of disbelief.
1990:
Friend: Wait, so they live under the sewer system and no one has ever found them. Seems ridiculous.
Me: Shut the fuck up. It’s a movie.

2014:
Friend: Wait, so they live under the swer system, have a dozen computer monitors, high tech computer systems, and rocket-powered skateboards and no one has ever found them. Seems ridiculous.
Me: You’re… right…. 😦

There is something profoundly awe-inspiring about seeing someone actually pull off a high kick, or take a blow. The CGI can’t effectively evoke the same level of mastery or peril. Although the CGI looked good, bring back the suits. Get Donnie Yen amd three of his friends and get it done.

Splinter

Splinter sucks.

One way to make a character instantly unlikable is to give him pure black eyes. He’s just a smug, almost-evil twat in this series.

The Shredder

He didn’t have his mask or armor at the beginning of the movie because he was incarcerated. I get that (though it would be absolutely bad ass if he was being transported while wearing his armor, even if it didn’t make any sense. If it’s bad ass enough, it doesn’t need to make sense.)

BUT for him not to have his armor on for the rest of the movie until the VERY END? Unacceptable. That’s. Not. Shredder.

Also, this is his armor. It sucks.

He’s so weak in this movie that there’s no resonance at all when he gets betrayed by Krang. We should be saying “The mighty Shredder was betrayed? But he’s the mighty shredder!” Instead it just happens and it’s like “of course. Look at his shitty armor. Why wouldn’t you betray him?”

Casey Jones

What happened here? His mask sucks. He’s not bad ass at all. He’s just a baffoon.

They made him a cop, which I hated at first then thought, “Oh maybe they’ll have a cool vigilante dichotomy about him. He’s a cop, but he’s also the crime fighter Casey Jones. That could be cool.” That’s not the case at all. He’s just a bumbling cop. He might as well have not been Casey Jones.

He also tapes rollerblade wheels to his shoes.

The Good

Tartaruga Brothers Truck

I know I complained about gadgets, but this one actually works.

1. Its canon.
2. It’s more analog than high-tech. Mikey has nun-chuk arms and it shoots sewer lids.

April O’neil

So there’s a lot of issues with Megan Fox’s April O’neil that I don’t care to get into, but her cartoonish acting was a breath of fresh air compared to the shitty turtles, Splinter, and Casey Jones.

Actaully a lot of the reason I liked her in it are sexist reasons, so I’m sorry.

Bebop and Rocksteady

They were funny, bad ass, and they felt canon. If anything I needed more of a brawl between them and the turtles.

Krang

Krang was on point. There needed to be more of him.

Everything Wrong with Captain America: Civil War

Spoilers ahead.

In the writer’s room:

Writer 1: Let’s have a big moment. How about War Machine dies during the fight between the heroes?
Writer 2: Great. That’ll be a huge moment. Let’s have him break his back instead.
Writer 1: Definitely! Then we’ll immediately give him robot legs and fix him.
Writer 2: Perfect. That way it’s like nothing ever even happened.

Writer 1: Remember all the heavy societal implications and themes from the comic book Civil War series?
Writer 2: Yeah?
Writer 1: Well forget about those. Let’s get started.

Writer 1: How should Zumo get access to the heavily guarded Winter Soldier?
Writer 2: A fake mustache that makes him sorta look like the guy he’s impersonating. We won’t put any guards in there either. And we’ll put Winter Soldier in a restraint he can break in one second and a glass enclosure that breaks in five punches.
Writer 1: Won’t people he a problem with that?
Writer 2: *leans back in his chair* I think we’ll be juuuuuust fine.

The scene that guilts Tony Stark:

Woman: You killed my son. You Avengers are terrible. You should have let those aliens, Ultron, and whatever else just keep doing what they were doing.

Tony convincing the Avengers to sign:

Tony Stark: We have to sign the accord! We’re dangerous! (to self): Please don’t bring up that it was me who created Ultron.

Tony Stark, Spider-Man and Aunt Mae Scene:

Tony Stark: Remember when the internet was confused how a hottie like Marissa Tomei could play Aunt Mae? Let’s do a scene all about that.

The final battle:

ME: This is going to be great. The heroes have already fought each other twice, now they are going to fight FIVE SOLDIERS (!) who are stronger than the Winter Soldier. This is the perfect way for them to come back together.
Zumo: I killed the five soldiers. Now you have to fight each other again 🙂 Could have been  cool though, huh?
ME: 😦

Iron Man: Hey, Winter Soldier, I’m going to make a Manchurian Candidate reference about you and then five minutes later get pissed off that you killed my mom while you were under mind control, something I was totally aware of. Fuck it though. I’m just mad beyond logic even though I’ve been logical this whole movie.

Zumo: Hi, everyone. I’m Zumo. I was a bad ass killer for these death camps and death squads and stuff, but I was also a family man with a wife and kids. I have time to kill people and be a good father, yet neither of those will get developed well. Bye! Have fun attacking each other for the third time.

PremiumMasons

Dear PremiumMasons Support Team,

I’d like to cancel my PremiumMasons membership. At first when I found out the Freemasons were offering a paid subscription service I was very excited. As someone who has enjoyed the unadulterated power and wealth from being a Freemason, a premium service sounded like a good idea.

Unfortunately the additional services were lackluster. Being able to choose an animated avatar for the app was cool, but not quite worth the $49,999.95 per month. I was interested in the feature that would guarantee someone in my bloodline to gain public office one day, but since that isn’t something that directly benefits me, it didn’t really sell me. Beyond that, it doesn’t appear that PremiumMasons is all that better than being a Freemason.

I’d like to ask for a partial refund for the second month’s billing (today!) I guess I had my billing date wrong.

He Was a Dracula – Chapter 1

He sloppily folded his crushed velvet tuxedo, threw it on top of his dresser, and slid into his pajamas. A boring plaid number, but they were comfortable and consistently warm, no matter what cold, dark recess of the dresser they had dwelled in. Perfect for a nice, long sleep. It was 9:30am and he had earned it.

He’d just come back from a particular difficult night of fighting crime.

It had been months since he’d worn his pajamas to bed. For hundreds of years he promised that he’d never get so lazy to sleep in his crushed velvet tuxedo every night, yet that’s how things had ended up. The tuxedo was as comfortable as a hug after all, and with its multiple pieces, it took a good amount of effort to put on and take off. It was a uniform made for men with plenty of time. Not the normal attire for the year it was, 1984, but he’d given up on living the normal life of a man. He wasn’t a man at all, actually.

He was a Dracula. The 7^th to be exact.

And he was brutally heartbroken.

Woe was him. His name was Woe. He was also very sad.

He had become the 7^th Dracula exactly 60 years, 364 days, 12 hours, and 59 minutes ago. He hadn’t been around long enough to stop keeping exact count the way his predecessor had by the time they had met. In fact, he still had a good 120 years before he reached his predecessor’s years of service.

His predecessor, a Dracula by the name of Lestat, had told him to stop keeping track of the minutes and hours and days. He warned him that he’d go mad if he did this, though it was perfectly understandable that he did. He gave Woe many different warning throughout his training, as was his job. To pass the torch. To ensure Woe was well equipped for his job as Dracula.

Lestat had been a great mentor. No one, not even Woe could argue that, however, that wouldn’t stop Woe from making the grave mistakes that lead him to his current state of loss and agony.

He had made the terrible, no-good mistake, a mistake he was warned about in his training countless times, of falling in love.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had made the second most terrible, no-good mistake a Dracula can make as well. A mistake he was also warned of countless times, though, one wonders if he hadn’t been warned about the second mistake, then maybe he never would have even considered even making the first mistake, as if this warning was proof that the other could be broken – the mistake was turning the woman he loved into a vampire.

I say he turned her into a vampire, not a Dracula, and that is for a specific purpose. They are two different things in the same way a square and a rectangle are two different things. The way a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle could never be a square. I will explain all that later. For now, what is most important are the intricacies of what made this broken heart all the more brutal, which lead to the events of this story. The story of the 8^th Dracula, the greatest hero the world had ever known.

It all started when Woe turned his love, Emily, into a vampire so he could be with her eternally.

What he did not foresee, is that despite this gift, she would leave him.

---

 

This is a story I’m working on based on a side character in my book I’m editing, Lessons in Debaucery. I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. It’s obviously not very far along, but I hope it gives a good indication of what the story is all about. This will be less of a straight comedy than Lessons in Debauchery, but will most likely still have lots of funny elements because I can’t help it.

While Lessons in Debauchery is a sea of one-liners, He was a Dracula, is a heartfelt comedy.

Please give your feedback in the comments section and I’ll keep writing and posting it. I think I’m going to post this exclusively on this blog until it’s done or someone yells at me to stop.

The Longest Haiku! See what’s inside!

My new book, The Longest Haiku, is now available on Amazon! Money I make from it goes towards my medical bills from my recent shoulder injury, so I’d love it if you buy it or share it on social media. You can check out the table of content below after the link.

Buy it on Amazon!