Monday Ramble #57 “I Wrote A Book”

Monday Ramble # 57 I Wrote A Book

People ask me why did I decide to write a book, and I tell them I didn’t make the decision consciously. When I was a kid and I watched Saturday Night Live and Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts flashed on the screen, I thought they were the funniest things ever.

Thoughts like these:

“I’ll never forget the time my friend Stew went skydiving. Boy, what a mistake that was! First of all, his parachute didn’t open. Second, we didn’t have the right address, so before we got there we got lost and went driving all around for almost an hour. And third, when we finally did get there, Stew tried to back out and we had to talk him into going.

“The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw”

“The other day I got out my can-opener and was opening a can of worms when I thought, What am I doing?!” 


See, if you smiled a little bit, that’s what used to happen to me. I would even laugh out loud and forget what the hell I was pissed about some days. Of course I would look around and I’d be at some odd job, or living in my childhood bedroom, or I was trying to devise a plan to pay my phone bill, and then I’d instantly remember why I was sad about my life. But for a brief moment when I read something funny online from Jack Handey I was good.

I wanted to do the same thing for other people, but I was never good at being a comedic rapper. I mean I have some funny songs, a few tracks that make you move, but for the most part I enjoy doing records that are enlightening without preaching, and the words make you feel something other than humor. So the day I received Jerry Seinfeld’s Seinlanguage comedy book, just like when Hov saw the dude in his hood rapping in front of everyone, I thought “I could do that.”

I had already been jotting down random thoughts that I figured I could give to a comedian friend of mine but they never really sounded funny out loud. So with all that said, when I began writing blogs for hiphopgame.com and hiphopdx.com, I was sick of blogs that just name-dropped and promoted whatever the hell I had going on. I wanted to touch on something else that was insightful, slightly comical but would still be accepted by a hip-hop audience; so the topic “Is It Me?” was born.

What I didn’t realize about the Internet back then was the power of direct feedback, and how it can make one feel as low as dirt or on top of the world. I stopped reading comments on my music because I can’t take it if something coming from my heart gets stomped on, but when people said they almost laughed at my writing it pushed me to continue.

So long story short, I put a bunch of rants about nothing together and I started reaching out to publishing companies. But I realized with maybe 2,000 fans or people that know me; I would need to reach more than just a music audience with a book. And since I know everybody poops, the marketing genius that I am came up with the idea to do a bathroom book.

I’m not really a genius and every company turned me down. I came up with mondayramble.com to target folks at work that needed a few minutes of distraction that might spark a thought, or even produce a giggle. A lot of these rambles come from the book and of course I began writing new ones since I wanted fresh topics that captured the present time.

Now I’m almost 60 blogs in, Red Head Publishing gave me a shot and The Toilette Papers: The #1 Number 2 Book is here. I know the grind in this business is slow, and I’m not expecting to be a best-seller over night. But I am excited to have people supporting and hopefully enjoying my sporadic excerpts.

So with this short story about having an idea that was just in my head, and over a few years turned into something tangible…and then was met with adversity that was overcome by reaching out to people…I hope to inspire you a little bit. I hope to inspire myself actually because I can’t seem to enjoy any accomplishment or believe in myself the next time around. We moved almost half of the 100 copies made available over the weekend so I have to be thankful for all of you out there. And I also thank Jack Handey and Jerry Seinfeld. Check out the promo.

Buy My Book Here