http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2022/08/164-stork-story.html

#164Blog Post - Wednesday, 10 August 2022

PostedBy Denny Hatch

News About the World's Richest Family  
Plus Denny's 45-Year-Old Bawdy Novel

Left:76-year-oldErrol Musk surrounded by portraits of his son, Elon. Last month Forbes magazinedeclared Elon Musk (founder of Tesla and SpaceX) to be the Richest Man in theWorld. (Net worth: $264.9 Billion.) Right: Denny's third novelpublished in 1977.

Personal Note: This blog post is entirely aboutlaffs. It has nothing to do with making money or how to write great copy.  

Theseare miserable times — COVID, Ukraine, every woman losing the right to her ownbody, 53 million Americans (including 12 million children) go to bed hungry and desperate forhandouts from food banks, outta sight gas and grocery prices and half thecountry raging mad the other half. I wake up every morning with a renewed senseof dread. 

Hey! Let's pause for a few giggles.

Below: Three Unbelievable Headlines and Lede Paragraphs from the Worldwide Media,Mid-July 2022.

SEED THE WORLD
Errol Musk says he’s been asked to donate sperm to impregnate high class womenin bid to create new generation of Elons
ELON Musk's father has claimed he has been asked to donate spermto impregnate high-class women and create a new generation of Elons. ErrolMusk, 76, previously said in an exclusive interview with The Sun thathe welcomed a second child, now three, with his stepdaughter JanaBezuidenhout, 34. Errolwas married to Jana Bezuidenhout's mother Heide for 18 years. In 2018 it wasrevealed that he had welcomed now five-year-old son Elliot Rush, nicknamedRushi, with Jana, who is 42 years his junior and he had raised since she wasfour. Now the Tesla CEO's father claims he has been offered the chance todonate his sperm by an unnamed South American company.
—Alex Diaz, The Sun (UK). 18 July 2022

Elon Musk’s dad, 76, ready to donate sperm to'high-class’ women: ‘Why not?’
• Errol Musk told The Sun (UK) newspaper that a company hasasked him to donate sperm.
• We are on Earth "to reproduce," he said when revealinghe had a child with his stepdaughter.
• Insider recently revealed Elon Musk had twins withone of his top executives last year.
The 76-year-old told The Sun: "I've got a company in Colombia whowant me to donate sperm to impregnate high-class Colombian women because theysay, 'why go to Elon when they can go to the actual person who created Elon?'.
—Andrew Court, The New York Post, July 19, 2022

Elon Musk’s Dad Reckons A Company Wants His Jizz To Spawn EvenMore Elons & Isn’t One Enough?
Greetings to everyone on God’s green Earth except Elon Musk‘s dad. Why? Because he claims a company wants to usehis cursed cummies to create a brand spankin’ new generation of Elons. It wasonly a few days ago we learned Errol Musk had a secret child with his step-daughter and if I’m being honest, that was enoughinformation about the bloke’s reproductive capabilities to last me a lifetime. But no, apparently the spotlight on this man’s sperm hasnot simmered down because he’s gone and told The Sun that his nut is in high demand in South America.
—Isabella Corbett, Pedestrian Daily, July 19, 2022 
 

ATale From My Oh-so Checkered Past
In 1977 I wrote and published a dark comedy — The Stork. It was thewackadoodle saga of two young bachelors who started a bank. Not just any bank,but rather a frozen sperm bank for childless couples.

This was not the aboutfrozen output of the usual donors — young men in college or starting out inbusiness who need to earn some extra money by selling their sperm.

Rather,these donors would be passing along genes guaranteed to have come fromdescendants of the richest, most powerful, most successful, most charismaticmen and women who ever lived in the annals of finance, business, military,politics, sports, theater, film, opera, royalty, the church, arts andsculpture, writers, and scientists. 

Average fee for a guaranteed healthy livebirth — the purchase price of a distinguished ancestor and those genes:$10,000. 

Thebook was published by William Morrow. It got five marvelous reviews. Just five.No reviews in The New York Times, The New Yorker or The WashingtonPost. The only large circulation paper that wrote it up was The LosAngeles Times.  (See below for that review, which is funny as hell.) Who knew William Morrow's publicity people were weak piss? 

Film rightswere optioned by Warner Brothers.

Ayear later it came out in paperback from Jove/Harcourt Brace and was publishedin the UK.

Whereupon— alas, with no movie having been made — it died.

Severalyears ago I gave CPR to The Stork. I self-published it on Amazon.com inKindle format. Not interested in making money, I priced it dirt-cheap  at$2.99. This was my baby, and I wanted to give it another shot at life.

Okay, the $64,000 Question: Is The Stork Funny?

Whensomeone named Denny Hatch writes a spoof called "The Stork (A Novel AboutBreeding)," the reader is entitled to know eggsactly what's going on.Briefly, this: Tim Smith is 30ish, fed up with playing cupid at his father'sAberdeen-Angus stud farm and eager for a little pocket money—his tax-wise,curmudgeonly sire has all his possessions listed in the name of the farm, andalthough Tim drives a car and any oil sheikh would admire, he rarely has muchmore than parking-meter change in his Bill Blass suit. He decides to split, tomake it on his own as a consultant on human artificial insemination using aknowledge of genetics gained down on the farm.
 

It'sa bummer. All across the country gynecologists are content with thecontribution made by their anonymous donors—mostly medical students in need ofa few dollars—and unanimously turn him down. Tim's sophisticated computerdating system is designed to produce perfectly matched-up zygote. The wholeprogram is bailed out by an opportune arrival—one Mike O'Shea,leprechaun-of-all trades, who hits upon the supreme finishing touch to Tim'shuman mating scheme: promising parent that their artificially induced offspringwill bear genes of distinguished ancestors.

O'Shea,that elegant elf who claims to know everyone who's anybody, is to supply thedonors of pedigreed seed.  Authenticity and effectiveness of the of thedonations are guaranteed to each recipient. Theservice is confidential—only the parents know their little darling is abyproduct—several generations removed, of Napoleon (even Josephine)—andanonymity of recipients is stringently maintained. 

Withthe aid of a gynecologist who supplies professional respectability and plentyof persuasion, whose efforts are abetted by a field sales force that alsofunctions as an acquisitions team, Tim and Mike thrive mightily. The cash rollsin by the tens of millions. Can anything go wrong? Of course it can—everythingcan, and will. The pace quickens nicely at this point, and the resolution ofthe book's many threads into one outrageous, coincidence-supportedGötterdämmerung is one of the thigh-slappingest scenes I have ever read. It isalso gross beyond words. But by this time the reader has either becometoughened to the author's raunchiness or put the book down, period. 

Afterall, a story whose central theme involves the onanism of various quadrupeds andbipeds can hardly maintain the tone of Little Women. So let us forgivethe author his sins (after all, he's probably willing to forgive us oursins—anybody who'd have his dust-cover picture taken with a parakeet on hishead is in no position to cast any first stones) and lean back for some heartylaughs. 

Excerptsfrom Other Four Reviews
Hatchis described as a direct- response advertising specialist. He writes as thoughunder the influence of Thorne Smith, H. Allen Smith, O. Henry and Bob Hope’sstable of writers. —The Jersey Journal

Whenhe isn’t regressing into the sophomoric and the freshmantic (“seed money,”“notary pubic," "El Seed”), Hatch unreels this fantasia withapproximately the right mix of slapstick, word-play, and documentary mockseriousness. He also decorates the doing with many irreverent au-couranciesthat the stork is not one for the ages, or even next year, but for the momentand for those uninterested in real people doing vaguely real things, TheStork makes a lively enough delivery. —Kirkus Reviews

Thetext is larded with atrocious puns and far-fetched headings, but it all makesfor enjoyable if sophisticated reading. —Library Journal

Onedefinition of “ribald” is possessing rough convivial wit.” That’s Hatch foryou. Some readers will find this a riot. Others will not. —Publishers Weekly

YouAre Invited to Have a FREE Peek at The Stork.
Toread the first few chapters of The Stork — FREE — go to the Kindle edition and click on "Send a Free Sample." If you find itamusing, the Amazon Kindle or Barnes & Noble Nook Book edition is availablefor $2.99. I honestly believe you'll find it to be a hoot.

My wonderful Hollywood agent, Marvin Moss, died a number of yearsago. At that point in my life, I quit writing novels and stumbled into the junkmail business in order to pay bills.

Dear Readers, The Purpose of This Blog Post:
I Come — Hat in Hand — Asking for Your Advice.

I have not had an agent for years. I have no connections to the literaryworld or the entertainment industry. I can offer a wild, very funny story basedon a premise that has suddenly come alive thanks to the world's richest family.It's a fun read. I honestly believe it would make wildly amusing feature filmor tv series).

Any ideas?

Thank you.

Takeaways to Consider

• I'm not asking for free advice.

• Whoever comes up with the connections that enable this eccentric— and, at the moment, very relevant — bagatelle to have a new life is eligiblefor a hefty part of all royalties. —dennyhatch@yahoo.com

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