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Profile Updated 03-01-2012

"The Dog Who Came to Dinner" is my first foray into writing humor fiction and I am enjoying it. My only previous experience writing humor was some poetry and small bits of prose, not really stories. I enjoy reruns of many of the sitcoms of the 50's, 60's and early 70's. I have noted my favorites in different genres at the bottom of this profile.

As far as reviews, I am appreciative of them - I welcome comments that will help me make my stories better. I would like to know if people enjoy the stories or not. If you have something to say about a story that you don't want to write in a review, just email me about it. I research all my stories to make them as authentic as possible, but if anyone sees any inaccuracies or oxymorons in my stories, please let me know and I will correct it!

About my stories: (small amount of spoilers here) (The most recent ones are at the top...read from the bottom up: oldest stories to the top: newest.) I always write a bit of background on each story, sometimes a lot, sometimes just a bit.

Erik's Valentine - A one shot based on the Phantom of the Opera musical, even though it says "Book" in the category; I couldn't find a listing under musical. Written as a February mini scenario for Phantom Manor, an rp site that I am on. A bit of drama and pathos...

Le Visage d'un Fantôme - A Phantom of the Opera story, based on both the Gaston LeRoux book and the 1925 Lon Chaney silent movie. It is rated T for some violence and a little blood. The movie ended with multiple endings; the only one that seems to have survived is the one where Erik is beaten to death by the mob and thrown into the Seine. My story starts there...what would happen if Erik had survived? He meets some OC characters, one of whom is based on silent film child actor Jackie Coogan's portrayals of very cute children, as in the movies "The Kid" and "Oliver Twist."

Lon Chaney was probably the first "anti-hero" in film. He portrayed many strange characters and rarely got the girl. His makeup and characterization skills are still legendary. When someone portrayed an evil or despicable character in these early stories, the morality of the time dictated that such a character must die, and Lon's characters usually did, to pay for their crimes. Okay, so how do I make a despicable character a hero in my story? Well, Erik is not really a hero. I have tried to make the story somewhat psychological. I have referenced his background and put in elements of prejudice.

I don't really see Phantom as a horror story, although it was written and filmed as one. I see it as the story of a man with a terribly affliction that no one can see past. Because he has never been loved, he does not understand how to give any. However, in my story, there are several people who are friendly and good to Erik and he is actually tender with them to varying degrees. I hope my story is successful in that it makes sense and entertains the readers.

Leonidas (Lon) Chaney died unexpectedly in 1930, at the fairly young age of 46. I make reference to this in my Phantom story when I say that Erik is 47 years old, implying that although Lon is no longer with us, his characters live on. I also make reference to another character he played in "The Unknown" when Erik, to disguise himself in a later chapter, uses a Spanish gypsy costume, the same one Lon wore in "The Unknown" as Alonzo the armless knife thrower. (Yes, that is correct!) 1930 was at the beginning of the talkie era, and Lon made one talkie, his last film, called "The Unholy Three." In it he plays a dual role, one of them being an old woman and he does her voice convincingly. He also does voices for parrots and for a ventroloquist dummy. I think he would have been wonderful in the talkie era and would have had as many voices as faces and characters.

Elementary, My Dear Max - This story is set in 1892. I have always loved Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic creation Sherlock Holmes. I loved reading about his logical solutions to the mysteries in the stories. So I jumped in with both feet (this is my second attempt). I don't think it's up to Sir Arthur's standards, but hopefully it will entertain you. I have made this a crossover with the Get Smart characters Max Smart and his wife 99 finding clues in the story and adding some 1960 - '70's type humour to the otherwise Victorian story. I have added some elements of fantasy/sci-fi which I hope will not challenge my readers' logic sensors too much.

Black Niko - This is a poem I wrote about one of my cats who was particularly a rascal. It can be sung to the tune of the theme to the BBC series Blackadder, on which it's based. If you are unfamiliar with the theme, you can hear it on You Tube.

Pay Day After Pay Day - This story is set in 1923. It is a sequel story to Charlie Chaplin's short film Pay Day. That film can be viewed on You Tube, and although it is not absolutely necessary to view the film prior to reading my story, it adds to the understanding of it, with the visual images. The Little Tramp in the film, and in my story, is married to an overbearing woman, Phyllis, who is constantly picking on the poor little fellow. Since the film ended on a somewhat ambiguous note, I decided to give it a sequel and hopefully fitting ending. As are all of my Little Tramp stories, it is meant to be a tribute to Chaplin, who so brilliantly entertained us with his charming antics.

Feline Sundaes - A Get Smart story in which I included F3, the little Siamese feline Control agent, who was introducted in my very first story, "The Dog Who Came to Dinner" and mentioned more briefly in a later story "It's a Smart LIfe," a take off onthe movie "It's a Wonderful Life." The story includes KAOS agents Seigfried and Shtarker. The relationship between Seigfried and Max has always intrigued me...they're not friends in the usual sense, more like best enemies, and have a certain respect for each other. It's a story with a lot of GS silliness in it; I hope you enjoy the story.

The Reluctant Hero - This story set in 1925, stars silent comedian Harry Langdon's Little Elf character. In this story Harry Lane, a likeable but not terribly brilliant young man goes out to find himself a job. I thought it would be fun to make Harry a "Hero" or as it would be called some decades later a "Superhero," as he is a most unlikely fellow for this job. He bungles his way through the story meeting some unusual characters along the way. Vernon Zent, (the man who runs the employment agency) by the way, is a thinly disguised version of Vernon Dent, a character actor who played in many of Harry Langdon's movies as well as Buster Keaton's, the Three Stooges and others. He was one of Harry Langdon's best friends. If you wish to see Harry Langdon in a movie on the internet, visit archve dot net or look at You Tube. There is a Langdon tribute there which is excellent.

I have written a bit about Harry under "The Secret of Sagebrush Creek". He came from a tradition of vaudeville, as many of the early clowns did. He had run away to join a circus at an early age and also worked in medicine shows. One of his early films has a medicine show as a setting. He had worked in vaudeville with his wife for perhaps 20 years before he was "discovered" by Mack Sennett (he was 40 years old when he made his first film) and joined Keystone as one of their comics. He was a headliner in the 20's, but with the coming of sound, as with many silent actors, the quality of his films dropped off, for many varied reasons. His voice, however, fit his character very well. He kept making films, directing, writing and acting almost until his death in 1944. He was about 60 years old. Some of the other silent stars enjoyed a revival in the 60's and 70's. Keaton was on television quite a bit, Chaplin added music and re-edited many of his films and re-issued them. Harold Lloyd's films were revived also later on. And these comics lived to see it. But Harry had died so early and there were no revivals of his films (except in cut form on a TV show called "The Funny Manns" that used clips from many silent films) that he is largely unknown today. With the restoration of several sets of Harry's silents and some of the talkies, Harry is once again becoming visible to the public on DVD. I hope my story makes you want to see some of his films. Please do. He is quite delightful.

The Music Box Waltz - A comedy/romance starring Chaplin's Little Tramp. There are two timelines represented. The earlier one was inspired by the restored Chaplin Keystone comedies. He completed 35 of them in one year, 1914. 34 of them still exist. In the earlier timeline, I have tried to recreate the slapstick and silliness of the early Chaplin Keystone films. In the later timeline, I have created another story line in which a much older version of the Tramp (in the 1950's) meets and befriends a little girl who is somewhat an outcast/outsider like himself. Along the way there is a bit of fantasy.

The Secret of Sagebrush Creek - This is a western, set in 1890, starring Chaplin’s Little Tramp. I have included another character from the silent era, Harry Langdon’s movie character, who I call Harry Logan in the story.(a name that was used in at least one of his movies.) Most modern film viewers are not familiar with Harry. Some of his movies have recently been restored to pristine condition, although some have been lost. He is considered the “Forgotten Clown” (the name of a compilation of his films.)

Harry Langdon started out in medicine shows and vaudeville, as many of the early film clowns did. He developed a character which, from the start of his film career in 1924 only evolved slightly. Sometimes called “The Little Elf,” Harry’s character was very different from anyone else. He is a man who looks like a child and his actions are childlike. He is rather small; his face is round with huge expressive eyes and a very sweet smile. His reactions are slow, not frantic as many other clowns. He is indecisive and reacts to other people, usually not starting any action himself. He is in the class of “dumb” comics, similar to Stan Laurel’s character, whose childlike innocence make them so charming. Harry brought his character over into the talkie age and at first, he sounded very stupid, but he quickly made the voice match the character with just the right mix of naiveté and innocence.

I wanted to try putting Harry in a story. Obviously pairing the Elf with the Tramp never happened in the movies, but I tried anyway for the story. Harry at one time was teamed with Oliver Hardy, Vernon Dent and others, so it probably is not too off the wall. The Elf and the Tramp are a good contrast…In my story, Charlie is smart and savvy and he gets irritated with Harry’s slowness and sometimes idiotic actions. All of the other characters in the story are my own creations. I hope I have done at least a fair job with the characters and that you enjoy the story.

Ageless - A Twilight Zone story. I love to write about the Victorian era and the first thirty or forty years of the twentieth century. This story is set in the early 1930's and contains all my own characters. The main character, Henri DuChaine, goes through some amazing changes and meets up with evil. How he deals with it is what the story is about. I have tried to make this somewhat of a morality tale; showing how easy it is for even someone good to succumb to temptation and become a changed person. I have used some French words in the story; hopefully everyone can understand them from the context. One of the names I used, Miri, I had first heard in Star Trek: TOS. I used it for the little girl who appears in the story. It is not the character from ST:TOS; it is simply a name that I like.

Comedy Becomes Data - Data, always curious and in his never-ending quest to find out what humor really is, decides to write a Holodeck program that includes some of the early comics of the film era. Geordi and Data become part of the scenarios and they not only experience humor in America, but also in British TV, in the form of Fawlty Towers. During this time, in "real" ST:TNG life, the Enterprise is sent to negotiate peace between two warring factions of a race that looks rather humorous themselves. Will Data ever figure out humor? Will the Enterprise be able to negotiate peace between the Naibens? Will Data and Geordi be shot at sunrise? Check out the story and find out! I have rated it K simply for slapstick violence. I have included a cast of characters at the end if you are not able to figure out who some of the characters are. I have given them names of some of the roles they played in their movies, so it may not be immediately apparent.

Laverne and Shirley's Nifty Halloween - Laverne and Shirley have an odd, but strangely romantic Halloween. This story includes two characters from the silent era, one of course being Charlie the Little Tramp and the other...let's see if anyone can guess. The story includes humor and a bit of fantasy and romance.

The Mysterious Highwayman - Another "Little Tramp" story. The tramp is working at a ranch where he finds a mystery and decides to poke around. He also falls in love later on in the story. It's a mystery/adventure with some humorous moments. Rated T for some mild violence and (mostly humorous) alcohol abuse.

The Singer and the Tramp - Another "Little Tramp" story. This one has the tramp falling in love with an opera singer's voice and that starts his adventures in this story which leads to a murder mystery and a court trial. This story is a drama with some humor and of course the mystery. Rated T for the murder and trial discussing it. (Nothing gory though.)

The Magical Carpetbag - This story is a Get Smart story that includes Charlie Chaplin’s character “the Little Tramp” from the silent movie era. This story starts in Maxwell Smart’s childhood. I have explored my version of his childhood earlier, in my story, “Oh Brother, How Time Does March On.” This story is another episode in Max’s young life. The story is basically a drama, but contains humor, slapstick and otherwise, pathos and an element of fantasy.

Since the Little Tramp never spoke audibly in the movies, obviously for my story I had to give him a voice. I chose to give him a working class English accent, which would have some Americanisms mixed in because he had lived in the US for quite some time before meeting Max. The real Chaplin came from the Cockney part of London, and though, when he spoke in later films, that accent was not evident (at least to me), I thought it would be appropriate to have his Little Tramp speak that way.

At one point, Charles Chaplin had thought about making the Tramp speak, but then thought better of it, for being silent, he could be a more universal character. Although the silent era ended in 1927 with Al Jolson‘s “the Jazz Singer,” Chaplin continued to make silent movies until 1940, with his first talkie, “The Great Dictator.” In this movie, there is a character who resembles the tramp, and speaks audibly, but he is called the “Jewish barber” and Chaplin said he was not the tramp. He spoke with Chaplin’s rather elegant British accent.

Incidentally, silent movies were never really "silent." They were originally meant to be accompanied by live music and sound effects. Of course, the quality varied from theatre to theatre. In the 1970's, Chaplin added his own musical compositions to many of his full length silent films (the ones that he hadn't written music for earlier) and some of the shorter ones. He was in his eighties when he did this. At that time the films were restored to pristine condition and now are available on DVD in the restored form. Very different from the jumpy dirty images and chopped up films that we used to think of as "silent movies."Many other great silent films have been restored in the same way with music added.

What is the difference between a hobo and a tramp? A hobo is a person who is out of work temporarily and forced to the itinerant lifestyle. This person would be down on his luck and would try to procure a steady job and join regular society when possible. The American version of the tramp was one who also was itinerant, but took jobs only when necessary to have money to eat, etc. He was a person who didn’t necessarily want to settle down and traveling about was his lifestyle. A tramp in Britain would be mostly a city-dweller.

In the early years of the 20th Century, there were thousands of hobos and tramps who rode the rails, both freight and passenger trains. It was a free, but dangerous way to travel, for not only were the rail police ready to arrest those they could capture, but many hobos and tramps were injured or killed hopping trains, falling asleep on the “rod” under passenger trains, slipping off the top of passenger coaches, being crushed by shifting loads in boxcars or having limbs cut off when a door closed suddenly on them among many other dangers.

The Little Tramp Skates Again - My favorite silent comedian is Charlie Chaplin. He was extremely talented, besides being a great actor and comedian, he wrote, directed, produced and acted in most of his later films, formed his own studio, United Artists, in which he was able to have creative control over his movies as most other actors did not. Chaplin was very innovative in the techniques that he used as moving pictures were just starting and there was nothing to draw on that had gone before. He was a talented musician who wrote musical scores for some of his full length films. He sang in several films. Incidentally, he edited the films by hand and found out that he was allergic to, of all things...chemicals on the film!

The Little Tramp takes many of his comedy routines from the British music halls where Chaplin’s family worked, and Chaplin himself started on the stage at a very young age. Chaplin had a very impoverished childhood, with an alcoholic father and a mother with severe mental problems, who was committed to a mental institution several times. Charles and his brother Sydney were taken away from her several times and sent to the work house at an early age. Much of the pathos and poverty of the Little Tramp comes from that background.

According to the , a comedian says and does funny things while a clown does ordinary things in a funny way. So if you think about it, many comedians are also clowns. Chaplin is a specific type of clown, the Tramp. Think of Red Skelton and Emmett Kelly for two examples of that type of clown. Chaplin wears less makeup, but he definitely fits in that category.

The Little Tramp evolved quickly, from an annoying bit character in the early Keystone comedies that didn’t have much of a plot through some of the later shorts that have a better plot in which the Tramp starts to be an interesting character. In Chaplin’s full length features, the Tramp becomes a fully developed, funny, sympathetic and mostly sweet character. My personal favorite Little Tramp films are “City Lights” and “The Kid.”

I have written this little story called “The Little Tramp Skates Again” as a tribute to the Little Tramp character. I wrote the story trying to emulate the silent movie style, which is difficult in a medium of only words. The “skating” part was used because in several films The Little Tramp skates like a ballet dancer and I was so taken with that, I wanted to develop it a little further in a story. Other comedic ideas were similar to those used in the Chaplin films and other silent films of the time (being kicked in the pants constantly, the food fight, etc.) It is a very simple story, more like a vignette.

I hope you like the story and that it will make you curious to see some Chaplin films, if you haven’t already. Many of the great silent films have recently been restored to almost pristine condition. The intertitles have been replaced and the film sequences restored to their original place. Music has been added that enhances the experience of the film, instead of irritating and taking away from it. The silent media was wonderful in the hands of a master like Chaplin and I must also include Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, along with Laurel and Hardy, as some of the other silent films stars who wrote, directed and produced their own films in the early days of film making. I am constantly amazed at how these films, almost a century old now. seem so fresh and new.

It's a Smart Life - A Get Smart crossover with the movie "It's a Wonderful Life." My take on what might happen if the GS characters were in that movie. Rated T for dramatic situations. Includes humor.

An Odd Branch of the Family - A sequel to "Oh Brother, How Time Does March On." Please read that one first if you haven't - this one will make more sense. Max goes in search of his brother Jake and gets involved in a murder. Rated T for dramatic situations. Includes some humor and some pathos.

Mission: Impossibly Smart - This is a Get Smart/Mission Impossible crossover. Mission: Impossible was a great show, innovative in its use of music and very little dialogue to tell the story in a dramatic fashion. Because this was a dramatic show, it was a little hard to write humorously. By inserting the Get Smart characters instead of the usual M:I characters, it was easier to write as a humor story. This story is rated "T" because, while it is a humor story, there are a few things maybe not appropriate for kids under 9. There is no sex or bad language; just a little off-stage violence.

Elise of My Dreams - This is a Get Smart/Laverne and Shirley crossover. Laverne and Shirley was, and still is, another of my favorite sitcoms.

Oh Brother, How Time Does March On! - (Get Smart Drama) - This is my first fanfic drama. I wanted to explore Max's past, using some hints from the original series. Most of course, had to be made up. I have rated this story "T" for drama, strong emotion and minor violence. If you are unfamiliar with my take on the Smart twins, read my story "Spyin' the Family" which introduces Sarah and Shawn.

Stealth in Manhattan - (Crossover: Get Smart/Bill Dana Show) For those who don’t know or remember the Bill Dana Show, Dana created a wonderful character named José Jimenez who, on the show, was employed as a bellman at a hotel. Don Adams played his sidekick, Byron Glick, the house detective, who was a prototype of Maxwell Smart. I thought it would be interesting to have two of Don Adams’ characters meet each other. Mr. Phillips, their boss and hotel manager, was played by Jonathan Harris, who went on to “Lost in Space” fame as Dr. Smith. Ironhand is a character in the Get Smart episode, “Ironhand” from the 5th season. This story also contains characters from two other shows, “I Love Lucy” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Am I Max or Am I Max? - (Crossover: Get Smart/ST:TOS) I revised the last part of this story after receiving a comment that it was confusing to tell who was who. I appreciated that comment and absolutely agreed with it. I hope that my revisions will make the story clearer. My favorite character in Star Trek, the Original Series was Spock, so I gave him the most lines in the crossover part, which unfortunately in the context of the story, wasn't very much.

Vacation in Mayberry - (Crossover: Get Smart/TAGS) The Andy Griffith Show is a rural comedy that ran from 1960 to 1968 appx. and took place in a mythical and idealized town called Mayberry, North Carolina. It was a place I often wished was real so I could live there, LOL!

Spy In the Family - (Get Smart) My take on the Smart twins who are usually given the names Zach and Maxine. I changed the names to Sarah and Shawn because I wanted them to be different from some of the stories that had been written about them and also whenever I thought of the name Zach, I thought of Andy Dick. I wanted them to look like Max and 99 and also to be an "ideal family."

The Dog Who Came to Dinner - (Get Smart) My first fanfic. F3 is based on my own Siamese cat. Believe it or not, I have had so many people think she was a Chihuahua dog, that I had to put it in the story.

About me: I am an Orthodox Christian. I am strongly pro-life. I am conservative in politics, leaning toward the Constitution Party. I am pro Constitution and pro second amendment. I am concerned about retaining our Consitutional rights. I am against racism and anti-religious movements which would take away our religious freedom. As the Bible says: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."