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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
February 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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Jaws 5-This Time It's Rechargeable10/25/2025  When Robot Fish Go Rogue: Jaws 5—This Time, It’s Rechargeable
Scientists, bless their optimistic little hearts, have built robot fish that eat plastic. The plan: release them into the ocean to clean up humanity’s mess. What could possibly go wrong? I'm not making this up. Scientists have annouced this. Now for my pitch to Hollywood: At first, everything was fine. The robo-guppies swam around like tiny metallic Roombas of the sea, gobbling microplastics and burping out cleaner water. Then someone decided to make them self-replicating—because apparently no one in the lab ever saw a sci-fi movie. A few firmware updates later, the fish started getting… bigger. A foot long, then three. A tourist in Key West reported seeing one the size of a jet ski with “what looked like a Nike running shoe hanging out of its mouth.” By the time the prototype reached the Pacific, it had evolved titanium teeth and a taste for yachts. So congratulations, science. You didn’t just save the ocean—you rebooted Jaws. The press release calls them “autonomous environmental remediation organisms.” I call them Great White 2.0—now with Bluetooth. They don’t just hunt—they sync. In fairness, this is probably how every apocalypse starts: with good intentions and a grant proposal. But hey, at least Spielberg’s finally got a sequel worth making. Picture it--Jaws 5: This Time It's Rechargable. Until then, I’ll be on the shore with my paper straw, watching humanity’s bright idea circle back for one last bite. Now for writing news. One...I've got to find a new title for the novel I'm writing, working title Code Name: Nobody. I had searched books, and the title seemed original, but unknown to me, turns out there's a movie called Nobody. The plot isn't the same, but has some parallels, and it will seem like I am copying. And there's a Nobody 2 coming out. Glad I found out now. Two...As I was recording the audiobook version of Paperback Writer: Now Appearing at Bingo Night, I realized that the book is too insider, too much humor that only writers would get, to appeal to a general audience. And I'll let you in on a something: Writers are a terrible audience. They secretly want all the other writers to fail, and take themselves way too seriously. The only books writers buy have titles like: Five Easy Hacks to Writing a Bestseller. Not me of course. I mean the other guys. I'll tell you more about the audiobook in coming weeks. Here's the title: I Shouldn't Say This Out Loud. Take a look around the website. Comments or questions to: [email protected]
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Mead? or Mead Lite?10/18/2025  Mead: The Drink I Thought Went Extinct With Vikings
Last week I was joking around and asked if you could buy mead in a package store. You know, mead — that honey-based alcohol people drank in the Middle Ages, back when “entertainment” meant standing at a campfire trying to convince people that you saw a dragon or mermaid...maybe after some mead. Kind of early stand up comedy. "Hey, you're a great crowd! Anybody here from Atlantis?" But no. Turns out you can buy mead. Real mead. Bottled, labeled, and available right here in my home state of Connecticut. Some of it even comes in fancy wine bottles, with names like “Dragon’s Breath Reserve,” maybe with a target demographic of the Dungeons & Dragons crowd. Apparently there’s a whole mead renaissance happening. Hipsters with beards are brewing the stuff in small batches. There are mead critics who write reviews like, “floral and earthy with notes of Norse nostalgia.” Well, that's better than saying, "tastes like the alcohol content was enhanced with antifreeze." I'm thinking money making opportunity. There doesn't seem to be any low calorie mead. Here's the pitch: Mead Lite. "Less filling so you aren't bloated when you start plundering and pillaging." I've already come up with the first authentic advertising campaign, as illustrated above. I'm assured that most Viking Women looked like this. When not thinking about mead I'm working on Code Name: Nobody.
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Flutter Bee or Butterfly: You Be the Judge10/11/2025  Confessions of a Fake Linguist As though I don’t already have enough things to waste my time on, about fifteen years ago I started dabbling in etymology— which, for the record, is not the study of bugs. I honestly thought it was. To be clear, I wasn’t trying to study bugs, but when I told a friend I was interested in word origins, he said it was called etymology. Etymology...word origin, entomology...study of bugs — same number of syllables, kinda sounds the same. So yes, I began my casual but inquistive journey by confusing words with insects. And I know I’m not alone. Half the people reading this probably still think “etymology” is what happens when you swat a butterfly with a dictionary. I’m not asking for a show of hands, you know who you are. Speaking of butterflies, that’s where things really go off the rails. Linguist John McWhorter — brilliant guy, smooth talker, probably owns an ascot — insists that butterfly evolved from the Old English flutter-bee. I like that theory. It makes sense. A bee that flutters. A word that actually describes the thing it’s naming. But other linguists say he’s dead wrong — and they’re furious enough to clutch their pearls and drop the Oxford English Dictionary on McWhorter's foot. And not the pocket version. The real one — which I found out weighs 138 pounds. That's a lot of dictionary to get dropped on your foot. If it ever happens, linguists will call it an etymological footnote. And as my grandmother used to say, “Why is there never an etymologist around when you need one?" Personally, I’m rooting for McWhorter. I want to live in a world where words make sense for once. Because if butterfly didn’t come from flutter-bee, then some medieval guy looked at a colorful insect thought it looked like butter? Well, they did drink a lot of mead back in the day. And what's mead anyhow? Can you buy it at the package store? And, would you believe I'm getting thousands of requests for the audio version of Paperback Writer? Would you believe hundreds of requests? No? How about one non-relative who asked me? Anyhow, I'm still working on it. Notice the new, improved cover! Makes a great gift for people who want to add a green book to their decor. Those of you new to the blog may want to cruise on over to Amazon to check out the book. It's humor for people who have short attention spans, and are old enough to have watched Leave It To Beaver in its original run. Just click on the image below: 
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Murdering a Song in the Key of T10/3/2025  I’ve been walking around for seventy-plus years thinking a teetotaler was someone who swapped whiskey for a steaming mug of Earl Grey. “Tea-totaler.” Made sense. They don’t drink booze; they drink tea. Simple. Logical. Completely wrong. I used the word in the new book I’m writing, and spellcheck corrected it...took out “tea” and replaced it with “tee.” Turns out, the word has nothing to do with tea and everything to do with one emphatic Brit with a stammer. Back in the 1830s, the temperance movement was trying to get people to quit drinking. Not just cut back. Not just stop before participants forgot their friends were recording them on Karaoke night, and the results might live forever on the internet. Quit entirely. A British guy named Richard Turner gave a speech about taking the “Total Abstinence” pledge and, while hammering the point home, apparently said, “T-T-Total.” The double T stuck. People began calling themselves “Tee-Totalers,” meaning totally total about sobriety. So the “tee” is just a letter — not a beverage. The original teetotalers weren’t clutching teacups; they were white-knuckling it through Victorian happy hours saying no to everything fermented. BTW, Queen Victoria sipped sherry on occasion, allegedly for medicinal purposes. I feel slightly betrayed. English loves to lure you into false confidence — “tea kettle,” “tea party,” “tea-totaler” — and then laugh behind your back when you’re wrong. Next thing you know, I’ll find out “hamburger” doesn’t have ham in it. Oh well. Anyway, if you’ve been mentally picturing genteel sober people sipping Constant Comment, you’re not alone. The truth is more boring and somehow funnier. Booze is a double edged sword...I’ve yet to see a promotion for Teetotaler Karaoke Night. Who says being a writer doesn’t broaden your knowledge? And in the last few minutes I leaned to spell Karaoke! BOLO---Be On The Lookout for: Code Name: Nobody. 
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Want A Simpler Life?...You Go First9/27/2025  I tell myself I want a simpler life. I picture mornings with coffee, golf, and a phone that only makes calls. Spend the afternoon writing. But then the world dangles new gadgets. Take golf. Back in the day, the game was simple: hit the ball, find the ball, hit it again. Now there are launch monitors, swing-speed apps, and guys filming their swings like they’re auditioning for The Masters: TikTok Edition. I am not making this up: one guy in my very casual golf league carries two separate electronic devices that tell him how far he is from the hole. He double checks on every shot, even if he’s 20 feet in front of the green. He’s a new guy. I don’t think he knows I’ve written a golf book, Hit Your Second Shot First, in which I encourage carrying an electric cattle prod to speed up the pace of play. I even toyed with writing another golf book: Nobody Gives a $&^ How Far You Used to Be Able to Hit a Golf Ball. It’s a feel-good book of realistic motivation for the senior golfer. Tech isn’t simpler either. I keep an address book now — not for friends, for passwords. Written in pencil, cryptic notes like CoolGolfApp? or WeirdSiteIDK. I’m looking at one right now I think is probably a Lithuanian crypto exchange I accidentally own shares in. But I’m sure they’re completely on the up and up and would never sell my identity on the Dark Web. And Apple? Keeps “upgrading” my phone until it’s so stuffed with mysterious apps and photos that the only fix is to buy a bigger, pricier one. Yes, I want to rebel. I want a simpler life. But what if I miss the next great gadget? Or worse — what if everyone else already has it? Want to get in touch with me? Call on my iPhone/Rangefinder/Cattle Prod device. If I don't answer I'm probably using the function that counts my steps and converts from the metric system. The combined monthly connectivity fees are more than the mortgage payments on my first home. or you could email me at: [email protected] if you're interested in golf, please take at look at Hit Your Second Shot First on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09CGMTCBQ I’m working on the next novel....Code Name: Nobody.  |
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