Hey all! Bill here with a quick editor’s note! Worcester Sucks hit 4,000 subscribers yesterday! A major milestone for this scrappy little local journalism outfit! I guess that’s more of an “editor’s gloat” but regardless… I’m proud!
Adding regular columns like Bad Advice and Aislinn Doyle’s WPS In Brief (and a new one soon possibly stay tuned!) has played a big part in the newsletter’s continued growth, and they make it more like the real alt weekly we all want to see around here!
The more paid subscribers I have, the more I’m able to build this thing out.
Anyway, on to this week’s Bad Advice.
My son is home sick and these are the things he told me you should be aware of this coming moon cycle. I expanded on some of them, but these are his ideas. I will be putting the money I receive from this column into his 529 College Savings Account. And yes, I know he is a genius.
Gemini- “You can draw D for Davin and then M for Mommy.” He’s learning to write his letters, so when I asked him, “what should I write?” this is what he told me. I take this to mean that you got to learn something new. If you’re the writer from last week, it is riding a bike. Maybe it is crochet, maybe it is cooking. Whatever it is, enrich your life.
Cancer- “Oops the bumper is broken.” He was playing with his toy van nervously because he was excited that he was doing work with dad. This tells me that you can maybe overburden something. You can take care or hold onto something too tight. You got to let things breathe or you’ll snap the bumper right off of a toy Hippie-styled bus.
Leo- “I don’t know.” In a society where media is essentially hot takes, hate speech, and war atrocity, it is good to know when to admit you don’t know something. I can guarantee a lot of the awful things that happen in government are just because a senator didn’t know something, made the wrong choice, and doubled down because he didn’t want to admit he didn’t know. Just admit you don’t know.
Virgo- “Baseball is throwing the ball and then striking it with a bat.” He’s exactly right. Sure, there are more rules than that, but he got it down to its essence. Bring yourself down to your essence. Forget the materials you own, who are you? Are you just a guy who likes scratch-off tickets, then that is all you are. If you get angry in traffic, guess what? If you like laminating, accept that.
Libra- “A zebra is a horse that is white and black.” It absolutely is. Whenever I thought about zebras, I would go into a spiral about evolution and genus and existence. Sometimes I overthink how we are here and why there are things around me and it makes my stomach feel sour. Sometimes I just got to remind myself that a zebra is just a horse that is white and black. Coffee is just hot water and beans, and trees are just breathing shade.
Scorpio- “A scorpion is a bug with a sharp end.” He just learned what scorpions are because he saw one in a cartoon he was watching. It is such a good feeling to incorporate something you just learned into a real-life situation. It’s like learning that Michael Mann was originally going to direct Saving Private Ryan and then decided that Transformers didn’t exist in the 1940s, so he asked Spielberg to do it instead.
Sagittarius- “I had a bad dream where zombies were trying to get me.” Part of the reason I am using my son as a prompt for these horrorscopes is because he is home sick. He had a fever last night and had a nightmare in the process. I am convinced he got sick from the BBQ we had last weekend where every child played the same harmonica. Don’t share your harmonica.
Capricorn- “My favorite song to sing is the Home Alone song.” This is true. It is not the theme song, though. When he references the Home Alone song he means Darlene Love’s “All Alone on Christmas.” It is a banger. Sometimes he calls it “The Ding Dong Song,” because there are church bells at the beginning of it. Darlene Love is a treasure, go listen to her discography.
Aquarius- “My favorite YouTube is white and black and red.” Based on this, I am guessing he doesn’t really understand what “favorite” means. I asked him what his favorite thing on YouTube to watch was and then he told me the colors of the logo from memory. To test the theory I also asked him what his favorite thing on Disney to watch was, and he said “blue and white.” Capitalism has a tight grip on us all.
Pisces- “We can sing happy birthday to anyone.” We absolutely can. There are no rules as to when or why we can sing to people. My son’s birthday is always right around or on Thanksgiving. Typically his friends are either away or sick for a party. So we made a family decision to have his birthday party in May for his half birthday when more kids are around and you can play outside. Don’t let society dictate when you can celebrate yourself. Only you can decide that.
Aries- “The monsters in Monsters, Inc. are silly and furry.” Truthfully he was getting a little distracted during this writing session because he wanted to watch Monsters Inc. Randy Newman wrote the theme and score for this and it is another reason to go down the rabbit hole of his work. “Short People!”
Taurus- “I like to dance and we can dance with Mommy!” Dance like no one is watching. Or dance like everyone is watching, on TikTok. Or dance like my son, who ends up just “shaking his booty” a lot. Or dance like some evil outside force is deliberately moving you. Or dance like a 1920s gangster is shooting a tommy gun at your feet because you owe him money. Or dance like a middle schooler who doesn’t know if his hands should go on her hips. Or dance like an uncoordinated celebrity trying to grasp their 15 minutes of fame.
Send any and all questions to woocomedyweek@gmail.com with the subject line "Bad Advice."
NEWS
This week is the week! The Sort of Late Show is Friday! (Doors at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m.) Come see Reporter Matt of WBZ Radio and Ellen Benson of WooSkates, who are our esteemed guests. Paul Henry doing comedy. Jake McKelvie playing some new songs and also debuting a new music video, that I star in (!!!). Tickets are $10. You can buy them online or you could hit me up on Instagram for some physical tickets if you want to avoid fees (@SirShaunConnolly), I still have a couple left.
I’ll also be performing at The Mendoza Line at the Dugout Cafe in Boston on Saturday. It’s an intimate room with some great comics on that one as well. Get tickets here.