They don’t
make comedies like they used to.
Nowadays,
you don’t see comedians like the Marx Brothers, or WC Fields, or the Keystone
Cops. Groucho Marx could elicit belly laughs just by the way he rolled his eyes
or waggled his thick painted-on eyebrows. The Keystone Cop films were famous
for their chase scenes—just good old-fashioned fun—while Harold Lloyd swung
perilously off the end of a clock hand.
As a kid, I
watched the Marx Brothers and WC Fields, Joe E Brown and Mae West. One of my
favorite scenes in the Marx Brothers many hilarious films comes from A Night at
the Opera. The boys are in their stateroom on the ocean liner, and it’s one of
the most famous comedy sequences ever in which any number of people end up
inside this tiny stateroom, and you sit in the audience wondering who else can
possibly fit.
There were
also romantic comedies too, films like Jimmy Cagney in Boy Meets Girl, in which
he presents the formula for every love story ever told: boy meets girl, boy
loses girl, boy gets girl. Of course, it’s fun to turn that trope around and
change it to: boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy gets boy. Because two men in
love? You can never go wrong, right?
I loved
Doris Day as I was growing up, and she made some very funny romantic comedies.
In one, she was dragged out of bed by an irate Rock Hudson and carried through
the streets in her pajames to the scene of the crime—the bachelor pad she had so
viciously “decorated” for him, thinking he was nothing more than a playboy on
the make. In another film, The Glass
Bottom Boat, Doris got a job with the Space Agency and met a handsome
astrophysicist, played by Rod Taylor, who took a liking to her, but the
suspicious people at NASA thought Doris was a Russian spy, and things just went
crazy from there... Of course, all’s well that ends well. You can’t very well
have a romantic comedy that ends badly, that makes it a tragedy, doesn’t it?
That’s what
I’ve tried to do with Yes, He’s My Ex. It started out as a flash fiction
on my blog, a simple story about an
ex-boyfriend who couldn’t seem to get it through his thick head that they were
over. But then things began to happen. A cry for help leads Tim into a race to
save Sonny. Goofy gangster, a dumb ex-boyfriend, and the FBI... what else can
happen to Sonny and Tim? Read Yes He’s My Ex and find out!
Thanks for
having me here today, it’s been fun!
Blurb:
Sometimes
Sonny Scrignoli forgets he’s Tim Mansfield’s ex. He waltzes in and out of Tim’s
apartment like he still lives there, driving Tim crazy. Is it really so hard to
remember they’ve broken up? Then again, maybe Tim should quit having sex with
him.
When Sonny disappears for two weeks, Tim can’t help but be concerned. A strange phone call and a mysterious cry for help leads Tim on a desperate search for his ex.
Sonny’s in big trouble, and it’s Tim to the rescue! He’s the only one who can save his ex from a fate worse than death. Bumbling gangsters, a thick-headed former boyfriend, and secretive FBI agents lead Tim and Sonny on a merry chase full of laughs and quirks.
When Sonny disappears for two weeks, Tim can’t help but be concerned. A strange phone call and a mysterious cry for help leads Tim on a desperate search for his ex.
Sonny’s in big trouble, and it’s Tim to the rescue! He’s the only one who can save his ex from a fate worse than death. Bumbling gangsters, a thick-headed former boyfriend, and secretive FBI agents lead Tim and Sonny on a merry chase full of laughs and quirks.
Excerpt:
Sonny’s
real name is Mario, but he’s been called Sonny since he was a small bambino, as
his mother puts it, so Sonny it is. Sonny stands almost six foot tall in his bare
feet, which are surprisingly small for a man, almost dainty. He has chocolate
brown hair that grows thick but not long, and generally looks tousled; blue eyes
so dark that sometimes they look purple in the proper light, framed behind silver
wire spectacles; a generous nose and wide sweet lips which have been known to give
the most amazing head this side of anywhere. Put that with the body of an Adonis,
and you have Sonny.
I had Sonny, but not anymore. He seems not
to realize that, though. At least not most of the time. Hence the part where I see
him more often than should be considered normal for someone who’s my ex. Which is
where I began.
Sometimes
I think he forgets that he has indeed attained that past participle ex-boyfriend
status. Granted, it’s only been six months. His mother tells me he just needs time
to adjust, please don’t be too hard on her boy. Yes, I still see her too. On a rather
regular basis, in fact. Hard not to, when she’s my mother’s best friend. Lucky me.
Lia’s a nice lady, I love her to death. But she has this deep-seated belief that
Sonny and I are going to get back together again, a belief he seems to share. Along
with my mother. And most of our friends.
No one seems
to listen to me when I say snowballs rolling along the floor of Hell have a better
chance of survival than our relationship. Least of all Sonny. I guess that’s why
he keeps coming over here, because in some strange deranged naïve corner of his
mind, there’s still an us, and he isn’t an ex. So he wanders over whenever he wants.
Sometimes he calls, sometimes he doesn’t. Today he called.
Sometimes
I just get tired of telling him no. Some days I don’t even get that far. Today,
I didn’t want to waste my breath, so I just said, “Fine. As long as you promise
to behave.”
By behave,
I mean quit assuming we’re going to have sex. Even if sometimes we do. I know, I
know, he’s my ex, right?
Sometimes
I just don’t know where to draw that fine line, I think. No wonder the boy’s confused.
~*~*~
Meet the author: Julie Lynn Hayes was reading at the age of two
and writing by the age of nine and always wanted to be a writer when she grew
up. Two marriages, five children, and more than forty years later, that is
still her dream. She blames her younger daughters for introducing her to yaoi
and the world of M/M love, a world which has captured her imagination and her
heart and fueled her writing in ways she'd never dreamed of before. She
especially loves stories of two men finding true love and happiness in one
another's arms and is a great believer in the happily ever after. She lives in
St. Louis with her daughter Sarah and two cats, loves books and movies, and
hopes to be a world traveler some day. She enjoys crafts, such as crocheting
and cross stitch, knitting and needlepoint and loves to cook. While working a
temporary day job, she continues to write her books and stories and reviews,
which she posts in various places on the internet. Her family thinks she is a
bit off, but she doesn't mind. Marching to the beat of one's own drummer is a
good thing, after all. Her published
works can be found at Dreamspinner Press, Amber Quill Press, MuseitUp
Publishing, Torquere Press, and eXtasy Books, and coming soon to Wayward Ink
Publishing and Prizm Publishing. She has also begun to self-publish and is an
editor at MuseitUp.
You
can find her on her blog at http://julielynnhayes.blogspot.com, and
you can contact her at tothemax.wolf@gmail.com.Links:
Blog: http://julielynnhayes.blogspot.com
Twitter @Shelley_runyon
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julie.l.hayes.7?ref=tn_tnmn
Dreamspinner buy link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4845
