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Blog of Jim Flynn
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AuthorJim Flynn is a humorist, writer and novelist. He is available for speaking engagements. To contact email: [email protected] Archives
May 2026
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Pretending to Work While Watching TV1/31/2026  The Cookie Channel Financial TV is not news. It’s ESPN for rich guys. Same graphics. Same urgency. Nobody actually knows what’s going to happen. You ever watch CNBC for ten minutes? A stock has a green arrow. Now it has a red arrow. This must be important. They’ll put dramatic music under it like we just launched a missile. Meanwhile, every financial advisor in America says: “You’ve hired us to steer the ship. Long-term planning. Don’t even look at your statement until your grandchildren can drive.” They say short-term moves don’t matter. “Noise,” they call it. Then they spend eight hours watching the noise on a giant flat screen in their office. That’s like a nutritionist saying, “Sugar is terrible,” then watching the Cookie Channel all day. Because CNBC is hypnotic. All the colors. All the hype. It’s a football game — and your favorite team plays every day. There is no Long-Term Financial Planning Network. It would be so boring it would make C-SPAN 2 look like Raiders of the Lost Ark. And let’s address the production decisions. CNBC has good-looking women in tight clothes. So for the sake of gender equality, I propose an immediate change: The men have to wear outfits just as tight. I want to see some of those paunchy middle-aged guys in spandex. You might want to do some sit-ups, Joe. They’d look like a ’70s rock band that went on one too many reunion tours. When CNBC isn’t throwing up flashing graphics designed to cause sensory overload, they interview CEOs. Here’s the inside scoop from every CEO: “My company is great.” Just once I’d like to hear a CEO say: “Well...I’m a nepo baby. The board of directors is a bunch of drunks. I have dyslexia and read the numbers backwards. I recommend viewers sell this stock before something terrible happens.” That… I’d watch. ************************** Important Announcement: Some of you asked for the paperback version of Press The Button when the audio comes out. Since it’s already written — and I enjoy doing things the easy way — I’m doing it. Because the book was written to be performed aloud, I’ll tweak it a bit so readers don’t feel like they need to applaud between paragraphs. And it will have several bonus chapters that are not in the spoken version. Real life has also thrown me a couple of curveballs lately. Just enough to remind me I am not the main character in the universe. The novel is still coming. Questions or comments? Please click: [email protected] 
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Hot Dimes...Fool Your Friends!1/24/2026  Another change in plans. Very exciting. And, frankly, designed to satisfy a public waiting for something—anything—to cheer up 2026. Due to a bunch of factors that would bore you into a medically-induced coma, here’s the new plan for Press The Button: 1) First release: An audio comedy special. Soon I’ll be releasing Press The Button as a downloadable audio comedy special you can purchase directly from my website. You’ll be able to listen on your phone, in your car, on your tablet, or on your computer. And for you digital knuckle-draggers… yes: there will also be an actual CD you can load into any CD player still alive in North America. 2) Later release: Paperback and eBook on Amazon. After the radio version, a written version will be released on Amazon. I’m billing this as a Comedy Special, and here’s the beginning: ******************************** Dedication This special is dedicated to my grandmother, Rose. Because without her… I might’ve become a normal person. Outwardly...She was a loving, old-fashioned grandmother-- always wore a hat in public. Not a Bubba Gump baseball hat. An old lady bonnet with a lethal hat pin sharp enough she could’ve shanked a guy in a prison yard. Maybe she did. I didn’t know her before I was born. Beneath that exterior she had a subversive sense of humor. She kept a cartoon in a scrapbook. New York street vendor. Sign reads: HOT DIMES — FOOL YOUR FRIENDS! When people came over, she’d show it off like it was the Mona Lisa. Most of them didn’t get the joke. I did. And I’ve been selling hot dimes ever since. So Gram… thanks for nothing. I mean, you gave your grandson the gift of wanting to be a comedian. Is that a gift… or a curse? I would’ve preferred a trust fund. Anyhow—here we go. Welcome to Press The Button. I’m driving the bus—everybody sit down.  If you want to be notified when it’s out—especially the CD version for the proud non-digital citizens—sign up here: [email protected]
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Elevator Eavesdropping1/17/2026  Before the excerpt from Press The Button, this week's BREAKING NEWS: A reader has notified me that The Hallmark Channel is available in France. It is streamed in English with French subtitles. The Hallmark Channel's A Pickleball Christmas was shown in France. Apparently French has a word for pickleball racquet. It translates to: Giant ping pong paddle of shame. Some other time I'll get into my conspiracy theory that pickleball was invented by orthopedic surgeons as a way to increase business. ****************************** An excerpt from Press The Button: When I was working as a stockbroker, er, financial advisor, I needed to have an outlet for my creativity. Since I couldn't sit around writing all day, I had to pick my spots. One venue I enjoyed was the elevator.. They say you really get to know a person in a foxhole. Or after seven years of marriage. Or during eighteen holes of golf. I say-- just take the elevator with me. It’s quicker. And nobody gets trench foot. I especially love it when I catch someone eavesdropping. Because I immediately go into a stage whisper-- loud enough for the eavesdropper to hear—and say something like: “Spielberg called again last night. Wants help writing Act Two. I haven’t worked with him since Jurassic Park.” Or-- “And it turns out, I didn’t have Ebola after all. I don’t even need to wear a mask anymore.” (cough a little) Or "My therapist says I'm making progress. No panic attacks in elevators... almost a month." I call it a talent. Human Resources used to call it "a recurring pattern." I might launch an online course: Elevator Improv 101. I’m available for birthdays, bar mitzvahs, and elevator-themed improv festivals. Pro tip-- after you drop your line, exit at the next floor. Unless the eavesdropper does too. As my grandma always said, “Leave them wanting more.” She was often asked to take the stairs.  Want to sign up for this blog every week?
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Writer Industrial Complex1/10/2026  This week's excerpt from Press The Button. ********************* Remember these ads? Soft sell: “We’re looking for people who like to draw.” Right next to a picture of Norman Rockwell. Like Norman himself was running HR. Hard sell: A photo of an artist at an easel, looking straight at you. Caption: “Fed up? With your present job? Your pay? Your future?” Which—yes. Obviously. That’s why I’m reading magazine ads like they’re fortune cookies. Nobody’s thinking, “No thanks. I love my current job walking behind circus elephants with a shovel. It was worth it, four years of majoring in Art History.” These ads were for the Famous Artists School of Westport, Connecticut. Westport had a vibe. You couldn’t throw a Frisbee without hitting a famous artist-- or a guy who told you he was a famous artist. He had opinions. Mostly about the use of shadows. The Famous Artists School had a selective admissions policy. If you sent them money… you were selected. They offered mail-order art lessons and a big stack of expensive books. But that wasn’t what they were really selling. They were selling hope. Hope is the most profitable product ever invented. Right after gym memberships. The Famous Artists School peaked in the 1960s. Then technology changed. Drawing faded. So now we write novels. Because writing-- isn't threatened by technology, right? And there's not much competition. Except for six million people writing vampire romances. And Artificial Intelligence. The modern version of the Famous Artists School is what I call The Writer Industrial Complex. There’s a lot of money in writing. I know because I’ve personally contributed. The money isn’t made by people writing books. It’s made by people explaining—very confidently-- the easy hacks to writing success. We’ll get into that. As soon as I finish this webinar I already paid for: Unlocking Your Seven-Figure Author Mindset. Actual writing not included. Well, you better be successful writing. Because the circus went out of business. And now the elephant is writing a dystopian vampire romance. *********************** As long as you're here: Be Sincere Even When You Don't Mean It is having a resurgence in Australia. Why Australia? I don't know. But haven't you always wanted to be like Crocodile Dundee? Take a look, over at Amazon. The audiobook version features terrific narration by Gary Williams. also available in paperback and eBook versions. just click on the image below 
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 Before my weekly passage from Press The Button, BREAKING NEWS: In my never ending quest to see if the Hallmark Channel has run out of movies with the word Christmas in the title, I stumbled across a real made for TV movie called: A Pickleball Christmas. I watched a bit of it, and can honestly say it is the best Pickleball themed holiday movie I've ever seen. When Cassidy Winters, a small town girl who left to become a big deal real estate agent in Chicago returns home to help her grandmother who broke her hip while playing pickleball at Golden Paddles Village, complications arise. Cassidy's old high school flame, Luke Marlowe, stuck around and is now a gym teacher and pickleball entrepreneur. Could romance be rekindled under the watchful eyes of the geriatric pickleball ladies? Really? Yeah really. I'm not making this up. I am not capable of making this up. Golden Paddles Village? ******************************* And here's an excerpt from Press The Button that would not make a Hallmark movie: The December Roll Call I do a lot of jokes about dying. It’s my defense mechanism. Some guys yell. Some guys drink. Me? I make celebrity death my hobby. Keeps me busy. It’s too cold now for golf. And it’s the end of the year, which means one thing-- the big They Died This Year montage of celebrity obituaries. Every year I’m sitting there thinking, “Wait… this guy was alive? Since when?” They start with the big names-- movie stars, athletes, celebrity felons. But once they run out of those, they start scraping the bottom of the pop-culture barrel. Pretty soon it’s people you forgot ever existed. Like Zippy Mitchell. Remember him? He played the bilge pump operator on The Love Boat. A role so minor they could’ve replaced him with an actual bilge pump and nobody would’ve noticed. And every time I see a name like that, I wonder-- How does a guy like that make a living for the fifty years since that show ended? Did he invest wisely? Marry into a wealthy plumbing family? ********************* Thought: The term Golden Paddles Village should become a euphemism for the place celebrities go, who are, well, featured in the year end montage. As In: Coming up, immortal celebrities who are now playing eternally at Golden Paddles Village.  Remember: I write novels too. Darker, same voice, more bodies hit the floor. Stay tuned. Questions or comments? click here to reach me: [email protected] |
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