This might help you understand why I’m worth reading. Maybe.

I’m not a very good writer. Sure, I have ideas and stories rummaging around through this ornate, oblong sphere that I call my head, but that doesn’t make me a good writer. That makes me an artist. The problem is that I don’t want to be an artist; anymore, that is. After I sent in to join the Artist’s Association of America (“Where No One has to Actually Produce Anything”) and got rejected on the basis of my inability to use watercolors, I determined that being an artist was not a wise move.

Artists don’t make any money anyway. And I want to make money. I want to make a lot of money. I want to pay absurd prices for spoiled, over-seasoned food that’s sold in high level restaurants by chefs that call themselves masters of “French Cuisine”. Besides, what kind of life is worth living if you can’t use Benjamin Franklin’s likeness to wipe up after yourself? That’s the kind of life I want; the life of someone important. And I want to make it in the big leagues by being a writer.

Thus, the question remains, how do I become a good writer? Does practice make perfect? Is it something that you’re born with and I should give up today because I was born a gangly, smelly, no-talented methane producer? Can you learn it in America’s schools (“Training Tomorrow’s Leaders How to Live on Welfare”)? Does it take, grit, hard work, and determination? The answer is no. And I learned this from a very credible source.

“And who is this source”?, you astute readers may ask while spilling your burning hot coffee on yourselves and the ketboard in front of you, angry for downloading this article to begin with. Well, I will tell you. I learned the secret to being the best from a man who, from the earliest days of his life, knew what it would take to be the best. This man wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth; no, he had two. So what if his godfather is the most revered man in the history of his industry, do you think that made his childhood easy? Yes it did. This noble man grew up on streets paved with gold and still found an easier way to get to the top. His name is Barry Bonds.

Hearing that name conjures up three vast, yet powerful emotions in people. Some love him. Others hate him. The rest are positive that I just made up a name off the top of my head. But rest assured, he is real, and he is my hero. Why is he my hero? Because this man was born with more talent than the rest of the baseball world combined and he still found an easier way to the top. He did it with steroids. That’s right folks, one of the best players in baseball history decided to make himself better by using illegal performance-enhancing drugs. And I want to be just like him when I grow up. That’s how I am going to make it big as a writer. I came up with a formula for a humor-enhancing steroid, and I’m going to start using it to make me a better writer. Before you burn your hard drive as a testament to my stupidity, hear my fool-proof plan.

Steroids are drugs that affect the muscles, helping force them to grow. It speeds up your body, making it stronger, faster, and generally more maneuverable. I figured out that there is a formula to make a drug that makes people funnier. If they make it for sports, why not for the comedy writer? We’re important, aren’t we? Imagine with me a drug that actually makes people funny. This is the greatest invention in the history of the world! Never again will you have to sit through your boss’ incredibly inappropriate jokes about “dirty” Mastercard commercials. No more fake laughing through your father-in-law’s puns, or your boyfriend’s obsession with the word “supposebly”. People will actually be funny. Take this example. You start with an average person; the type who thinks it would be funny to tell a joke about what a salmon would say when it swam into a wall (for those of you completely humor-illiterate types the answer is “dam”). You inject him in the rear (Major League Baseball’s most chosen location for steroid injection – “It’s a team thing”) with my humor-enhancing substance, and then within minutes he would be spouting out hilarious anecdotes about a drunk man prancing around in a Chester the Cheetah costume at a bat mitzvah. I’ve already sold the drug to Dave Barry – he shoots up on an hourly basis.

That about wraps up my article on how I plan to become a rich and famous author. But before I go, allow me to calm your concerns on the most well known side effect of steroids – impotence. Many may be afraid of taking my humor-enhancing supplements, but let me assure you that there is nothing to be afraid of. Never once during testing did anyone become impotent. Of course, all the subjects in the test were comedians. Impotence is a pre-requisite for the job.