I Believe...

...that I will never understand how most criminals straight up go to prison when caught, but if you have enough money, you'll just be forced to retire with a million-dollar golden parachute. Today's thugs need to trade in their hand guns for neck ties.

...that granted, Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" kicks ass, but Klaus Voorman gets my Chase vote for his burning bass in Harry Nilsson's "Jump Into The Fire." Crank it up.



...that the best part of what I do in my life is take what's silly very, very seriously. This is Nat Topping as The Great Sea Serpent in "The Saga of the Viking Women" lamenting about how it's not easy being said serpent. It's a beautiful song composed by Nat and it just may bring a tear to your gill.



...that I'd rather support your theater company by seeing your work and I'd rather see evidence of your support of my work by seeing you in the audience.

Now on Amazon!

Hey! I have a book on Amazon. So, that's cool.

I Believe...

...that I tend to avoid major events in the city because I hate dealing with crowds (read: idiots), especially in the heat. However, if you can pocket yourself in with a cool group of friends, fireworks along the lake are worth it and you have someone with whom to mock the boneheads.

...that not returning e-mails and phone calls isn't a gender thing.

...that I can buy hot dog eating as a sport. One must train and prepare. You can't just show up and expect to wolf down 60+ wieners in ten minutes. Hunting, fishing and bull fighting are not sports. When your opponent is an unwilling participant, it's not a sport. It's a gladiator event. Or a date.

...that, I get it, you made fireworks all by yourself or you took a trip to Indiana and bought some from Three-fingered Larry. Leave it to the professionals. They do it better and will save you an annual visit to the emergency room.

...that I love farmer's markets, but I really think the "farmers" should stick with food that was, at least, homemade and somewhat healthy. Candles, jewelry, artwork, take a hike. It's a farmer's market, not a flea market.

(In case you didn't know, my Wednesday "I Believe's" are always in response to my friend, Don Hall's, "I Believe's". Check them out by clicking HERE.)

Where YOU Can Buy "365 Sketches" Around the World

"365 Sketches" is starting to make its way into the world.

Here are some places where you can acquire it to complete your collection of books written by Joe Janes.

ON-LINE IN EUROPE

Eruditor.com

Langton Info Services, England

ON-LINE IN THE US

Lulu.com

ON FOOT IN CHICAGO

Quimby's at 1854 West North Avenue in Wicker Park. There will be a live in-store event on Saturday, August 21st at 7pm featuring me and some of Chicago's finest comedic actors performing monologues from 365.

The Book Cellar at 4736 North Lincoln Avenue in the heart of Lincoln Square.

The Second City Training Center on the fourth floor of Piper's Alley at North Avenue and Wells in Old Town. There will be live event on Friday, August 13th at 7pm in the de MAAT Studio featuring Michael Gellman and 8-10 scenes from the Strawdog 365 event. Tickets are $5 and available at the door.

I Believe..

...that I have reached a time when my television has become one of the least important features of my living room. For getting my news and entertainment jones, it is being taken over by my Macbook Pro and my Nano. If you had told me this as a kid, I would have envisioned watching the news on my wristwatch TV while flying to work a jet pack on my back.

...that those who pointed up how Obama fired McChrystal because the general didn't agree with him missed the point and have forgotten the trail of unemployed "voices of reason" Bush left in his wake because those folks didn't tell him what he wanted to hear.

...that sleep rocks. I sleep well and have great dreams. Sometimes I only sleep 5-6 hours, sometimes I sleep eight. I never have what I would qualify as insomnia. If I can't sleep, I use the bonus time. I stay up and do something productive, like writing or the dishes or watching porn on my wristwatch TV.

...that it has been a very wet June with some amazing thunderstorms. But I'll take two days of thunderstorms for every one day of clear skies and temperatures in the 70s. Love it.

...that I find the economic downturns happening around the world fascinating, because when it comes down to it, the only people who say what value money has is us. Consider the tulip.

I Believe...

...that any artist who makes the claim that they don't care about the audience is lying. Or an idiot. There's no point in telling a story, no matter how good, to a wall. The wall is nonplussed.

...that people stop thinking for themselves and for the benefit of others when millions of dollars are involved. Millions of dollars that go into their own pocket. See: BP oil spill, health care reform, mining and oil drilling "regulations," food and drug safety, trade deficit, foreign relations, etc.

...that art is designed to impact how we think and look at the world around us. And how we respond to it. Just as algebra develops how we think in school, so does art. Without art, all we'd have is math. Without math, all we'd have is art. Both are important. Equally important.

...that the general populous needs to wake-up and keep electing officials who are smarter than we are, like Obama. Stop electing people who are just louder and more inciting.

...there was a theater conference in Chicago? I was too busy not going to the Just For Laughs festival. There were too many Chicago plays and sketch revues outside the formal gatherings for me to see.

Write Every Day?

Well, if you're a writer, why not?

365 Sketches seems to have inspired debate amongst writers about the value of writing every day.

Comedy-Rule-of-365

Some interesting reactions. Took me by surprise because "write every day" wasn't the point of me doing "365 Sketches." I don't believe in writer's block. There is simply writing or not writing. Got writer's block? Write something. No more writer's block. I also believe writing can be an act of improvisation. All you need is to start with something - a location, a relationship, a title - and begin writing. Discover the scene as you write. "365 Sketches" is my demonstration that writer's block is a load of hooey.

Does writing every day make you a better writer? I think it does. It develops your writing muscles and allows you to handle and process any ideas that come your way. It trains your brain to write and orient towards the writing process. There seems to be some misconception that this also takes a lot of time. It doesn't. Just writing ten-to-thirty minutes a day will do this for you. And even if you're just writing a sketch-a-week, that's plenty of time to develop and polish a first draft. During 365, I would typically spend an hour to an hour-and-a-half on a first draft and then leave it alone until it was time to post the scene before going to bed. Then I would format the scene and do whatever tweaking or editing I wanted.

But just like doing push-ups every day, there's a benefit, but you'll end up looking like Stretch Armstrong. There's other things to do to round out your development.

- Challenge yourself to write different things. 365 is a variety of scenes, songs, dada/absurdism, poetry, audio bits and monologues. Learn new things and use them. Take classes to learn new things, read books and magazines you wouldn't normally pick up. Be curious about the people you encounter. Readers of "365 Sketches" will get some education about Shakespeare, coffee, Viagra, morning after abortion pills, Robinson Crusoe and different genres. They'll also learn about things that happened to me and friends of mine. And write stuff you'll have fun writing. That's why you'll find 365 loaded with zombies, vampires, aliens from space and unicorns. Shut up about the unicorns.

- Get feedback. I posted my scenes live everyday and invited feedback in the comments section. Here's the thing about feedback - listen to it all and do what you want. Make changes because they resonate with you.

- Seek out feedback from people you trust and respect. In addition allowing myself to receive feedback from anyone, I also sought out feedback from Robot vs. Dinosaur. These are my peeps. They'll give it to me straight and make useful suggestions.

- Don't write every day. That's crazy! Be consistent. Write regularly. Treat it like a part-time job. But only write five days a week and give yourself breaks. Only write every day if you're trying to prove a point. Writing every day can lead to burnout. I did not write a scene on day 366. I took a month off before writing another scene and going back in to the archive to see if I wanted to rewrite any of the 365.

At the end of the day, did writing 365 sketches make me a better writer? Yes. When we put up all 365 sketches live at Strawdog, I was worried that the shows would simply diminish in quality. We did 26 shows, each one featuring two weeks of material. Happy to report that show 26 was one of the best of the lot.

But, Joe, you allowed yourself to rewrite. Any suck ass scenes you posted you made better during the rewrite process. Well, check it out for yourself. The originals can be found on-line and you can compare them to the book. Most of what I did in the rewrite stage is fix typos and trim or add a line here or there. Anything that received a significant revision is noted under the title in the book. So, what does that say? That I'm just damn good? Well, yes. But it's more a testament of the training and experience I have received in writing and improvisation (Second City, iO, WNEP, Robot vs. Dinosaur, Improvised Shakespeare, Chicago Dramatists, Columbia College). I know how to write scenes with interesting characters that have a beginning, middle and end.

Anyone can write a sketch a day for a year. Anyone. What made the difference for me was painting myself in a corner. I gathered support from my friends before starting it. I posted live on-line every day. I had the intention that they would all be performed live and got directors on board during the process. If I had just declared I was going to do it and then wrote them all on my own, I likely would not have finished. Or I would have cheated and crammed writing five scenes into a weekend most weekends. And most of them would have sucked. Posting every day and knowing people were reading them and that they would be produced gave me the drive to make them the best I could and to strive to not repeat myself.