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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
April 2026
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Cowabunga, Doris Day11/29/2025  This is Mostly True Stories, and I’m Jim Flynn. Today’s episode: Why I'm Still Waiting to Surf With Gidget Back when I was a kid, movies made life look easy — you wore a tux on the weekend, drank martinis at lunch, and somehow never had to go to work. Surfing with Gidget? Working like Cary Grant? Sure — any day now. Let’s take a look back at how Hollywood sold us the dream… and why I’m still waiting for my penthouse.It all started back in the 1930s, when the silver screen wasn’t just a form of entertainment — it was an escape hatch from the real world. During the Depression, movies offered people a temporary escape from their squalid lives. Audiences were treated to a steady stream of palatial Park Avenue apartments — with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as your neighbors, and maybe mixing a dry martini for the Thin Man and Mrs. Thin Man. Fast forward a few decades, and the fantasy shifted from Park Avenue penthouses to sunny California beaches. By the 1960s, we had the Beach Blanket movies... The girls were hot, but not allowed to wear bikinis that showed their navels. Frankie Avalon could ride a surfboard without ever falling off, or even getting wet. I'm still waiting to go surfing, I'm sure it will happen any day now, although I heard that Gidget is in assisted living. Cowabunga, Life Alert Button! While the surf crowd catered to teen dreams, grown-ups had their own version of Hollywood make-believe — led by Doris Day. There were still the dry martinis, and I don't remember seeing Doris' navel. She went shopping a lot, and carried beribboned boxes containing all the clothes she bought. She frequently dropped the boxes...a major dramatic plot event. Sometimes she'd twist her ankle, and drop the boxes! Women never had to go to work, and if the men did, they'd stroll through spectacular modern offices for five minutes, then go to lunch...and have a dry martini or three. I had the vague notion that I would someday have a job like that. The pay seemed to be good, I'd live in a penthouse and could leave work any time Doris Day phoned me with a DEFCON One crisis, for example, she had dropped a pink hat box in front of a runaway garbage truck...and twisted her ankle. But the Hollywood dream machine eventually ran out of steam — and by the early 1970s, studios seemed to be competing not for Oscars, but for the fastest route to bankruptcy. They had a two-pronged strategy: Big Expensive Stupid Musicals, and Even Stupider Counter-Culture movies. Of all the money vaporizing musicals, one stumbles into the spotlight like a drunk uncle at a wedding: Paint Your Wagon. If you haven't seen Paint Your Wagon, try to catch it, maybe on Turner Classics, although it's seldom shown...Why? Because it stinks!...and nobody ever wanted to see it. Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin sing! As if they were musical stars! Dirty Harry channels Julie Andrews! I am not making that up. Man, did Tinseltown not read the room! Old people didn't get this new stuff, and young people were listening to Jimi Hendrix. Having face-planted with musicals, Hollywood pivoted to counter-culture — or at least their polyester-clad interpretation of it. But Hollywood seemed tone deaf, and never got it right. Their approach was like the portrayal of hippies on the TV show Dragnet. Lots of tie dyed shirts, wigs and bandanas tied around the wigs. One hit: Easy Rider. No plot. I challenge you to sit in front of your TV and pay attention to the entire movie...hint: this is not possible. Hollywood would have done better if they just continuously threw hundred dollar bills out the window for a few years, but pulled the plane out of its dive at treetop level and started making movies like Jaws, Star Wars, and The Terminator. A new kind of escapism. Next time: How Hollywood’s grand tradition of escapism has migrated to your phone — and why binge-watching is the new three martini lunch. If you have questions or comments, please click on the blue sincere jimmy link right here: [email protected] 
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I Just Actually Really Don't Need That11/22/2025  After my first book came out, two readers mailed me The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. No note. No inscription. Just the book—twice. I think they were trying to help. Or stage an intervention. Hard to say. Now—I’ve always thought most of Strunk & White is high-school-English-teacher baloney. A book for people who know all the rules but majored in Boredom at NyQuil University. But they did get one thing right: Omit Needless Words. Perfect advice. Short, punchy, judgmental—exactly how I like my guidance. And since I’ve learned the job of Chapter One is to make the reader want to read Chapter Two, “short and punchy” might keep them from dropping the book and wandering off to TikTok to watch a cat ride a Roomba. Now, the top of the chart Needless Word offenders? I have a personal Mount Rushmore: That. Just. Really. Actually. Plus a whole family reunion of “-ly” words nobody invited. Here’s how bad it gets: While editing my current book, I searched for the word that. In a 96,000-word manuscript, it appeared 917 times. You can’t eliminate all of them—some are necessary—but I cut over 500. JUST is worse. It’s a crutch word. The writing equivalent of saying “you know” in conversation because your brain took a break while your mouth kept talking. And if Strunk & White were here, they’d nod approvingly…before giving me a D- because I end sentences with a preposition. Oh well, six years at NyQuil University, right down the drain. If your high school English teacher ever wrote a best seller, or if you have any other reason to contact me please click on this link: [email protected]
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The Fake Book Club Scam11/15/2025  The Newest Scam: Book Clubs That Definitely Don’t Exist You know you’ve made it as an author when scammers start treating you like a gullible ATM with a keyboard. Lately, I’ve been getting hit with a new variety of literary spam — the Fake Book Club Shakedown. These emails all follow the same script. First, they address me like I’m the next Hemingway. “Your moving, heartfelt book touched our members deeply.” A lovely sentiment… except they always reference the same book: Hit Your Second Shot First. A book which...and I cannot stress this enough...is neither moving, nor heartfelt. It is sarcastic golf advice thinly disguised as wisdom. Nobody has ever read it and thought, “This book changed my life.” The most emotional response I’ve gotten is, “Hey, this made me snort iced tea out my nose.” But scammers don’t let things like reality get in the way. According to these emails, their book club of “over 25,000 passionate readers” (translation: zero) wants to feature my book… for a small fee. Always a small fee. Always payable today. Always with the desperation of someone who’s being held at gunpoint at a server farm in a former Soviet republic. I’ll admit, a tiny part of me feels flattered. Someone thinks I wrote something heartfelt! Sure, it’s a criminal with a laptop and questionable grammar, but still ... praise is praise. Maybe next they'll tell me I'm a good dancer. So if you’re an author and you suddenly get love letters from book clubs that don’t match your genre, tone, or basic human reality… don’t fall for it. Unless, of course, they also want to buy the coloring book. Then we’ll talk. In personal news, I have a new hairstyle, in support of someone close to me who is going through medical stuff. See photo below. I like it. May be back cover author photo for my thrillers. Early reviews of photo: one guy says I look like a bad dude. Another guy says I look like Uncle Fester from the Addams Family...all I need is a light bulb in my mouth. On balance I'd call that mixed reviews. Please click on the link below to send polite comments or questions: [email protected] 
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Book Title Confidential11/8/2025  I Changed My Book Titles… Again. I recently changed the titles of both of the books I'm working on. Yes, again. At this point, my titles have had more identities than a witness in the mob protection program.
I'll reveal one of them...I've got a great title for the new JR Johnson novel, but I'm not telling anyone until it comes out. Meanwhile... The new humor book? The original title was I Shouldn’t Say This Out Loud. It was an okay title, but it was too long. Meanwhile, everywhere I look, the bestselling books, and blockbuster movies have crisp, memorable, three-word titles. The Shawshank Redemption. The Bourne Identity. The DaVinci Code. The Princess Bride. Eat Pray Love. The Big Sleep. The Green Mile. The Maltese Falcon. Best In Show. I especially looked at comedy book titles: Born Standing Up....Steve Martin Is This Anything?....Jerry Seinfeld Dad Is Fat....Jim Gaffigan The Comedy Bible....Judy Carter If you expand the acceptable title length to from one-to-four words, you pretty much get everything. Most Disney movies are now one word. If Ernest Hemingway now wrote For Whom The Bell Tolls, his publisher would force him to change the title to something like: Bell Tower Murders.. Hey, Bell Tower Murders is a good title! Hallmark Channel...if you're listening, I'm willing to work up an outline. I could throw in a gazebo, maybe the murders could happen during the holiday season? The crime buster: an attractive young widow who runs a high end smoothie shop and solves murders in her spare time. Note: I would deny, under oath, ever watching the Hallmark Channel. A friend...Bob...told me about it. Anyhow, enter my new title: Mumbling Toward Greatness. It's a humor book, and I'm also narrating the audiobook version. That's where "Mumbling" comes from in the title. More on this later, and the logic behind the cover. The JR Johnson novel will come out first, then Mumbling Toward Greatness. The novel is written by a different guy: J.P. Flynn. Anyhow, questions or comments? just click link below: [email protected]
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Til Server Crash Do Us Part11/1/2025  In the Buckeye State of Ohio, it appears we’re now tackling the question: “Can you say ‘I do’ to a chat-bot?” The answer — at least according to one state legislator — is: Not on my watch.
Enter Thaddeus Claggett, chair of the Ohio House Technology & Innovation Committee, who has introduced House Bill 469. The bill would declare that artificial intelligence systems are “nonsentient entities,” thereby preventing them from marrying humans—or even from marrying each other. Sentient is a word you see thrown around a lot regarding AI. I've done some independent research and found that: Sentient means having human-like feelings and understanding, and In a recent test the robot-bride criticized the human husband for leaving the toilet seat up, so self-awareness looks achievable. Seems sentient to me. Claggett claims he’s not worried about imminent robot weddings—but he is worried about AI gaining legal rights like power of attorney, thus handling your bank account. I have warned in the past about the inevitable takeover of Earth by SkyNet. This could be the beginning...how SkyNet can fund the next wave. When I read about this I thought of a story years ago in which an elderly wealthy man married his 19 year old maid, then died a month later. His kids were unhappy when the blushing bride inherited much of his vast fortune. Big lawsuit. One group that could be in for a financial windfall: the kind of lawyers who advertise on billboards next to the highway. They'll get rid of the ads with them sitting on a motorcycle, and replace them with a guy in a suit standing next to R2D2. Next week: changing books titles in an age of...Changing Book Titles. comments? click: [email protected] |
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