A Funny Thing Happened To Me On The Way To My Funeral,Used

Product DescriptionThis is Mel Calvert's second book. His first one 'How I Quit Smoking and Lived To Tell About It' is currently available on Amazon.com and in Kindle Books.This one, written in the same lighthearted and humorous style as his first, is a gathering of jokes, stories, quips and anecdotes from his fiftyplus years in the world of show business. As a comedian, he worked his first gig in Las Vegas at the Fremont Hotel on the same stage with a nineteen yearold kid named Wayne Newton. This hilarious story is told in detail along with other equally humorous tales from his appearances in Vegas.From Las Vegas he takes us on tour with him and his beautiful partner and wife of over forty years to many exotic foreign ports around the world with stories from each of them guaranteed to lighten your day and make you glad for your time spent.If you have a sense of humor, you will definitely enjoy 'A Funny Thing Happened To Me On The Way To My Funeral' by upandcoming new author, Mel Calvert.From Kirkus ReviewsCalvert (How I Quit Smoking and Lived to Tell About It, 2012) shares the often humorous story of his life as a traveling entertainer performing comedy, music and magic both in solo performances and with his wife, Sunny. These short tales offer a brief glimpse into Calverts career as an entertainer, including how he got started in show business, some of the people hes met along the way and the different places both in the U.S. and abroad where hes performed. Anecdotal tales about his life as a performer are blended together with clean jokes, many of which will be familiar to most readers. Calvert even tosses in a little wordgame riddle, the solution to which he buries in the text at a much later point. As a proud family man, he includes short sections on each of his children. Blackandwhite photos that accompany the text feature the author performing, family and friends, locales mentioned in the book, some funny signs and even a couple of Internet memes. Despite this strange mixture of information and a somewhat disjointed style, the book is quite readable, with the first and second chapters consisting of almost nothing but jokes before switching to a memoir style accented by jokes in Chapter 3. The authors breezy, informal style makes it feel like hes an old friend casually relating these tales. It doesnt hurt that he focuses on the humorous stories from throughout his life, such as his early days flying: I believe I am the only student pilot who has ever landed a plane backward. His tales of performing tend to focus on entertaining events along the way, such as the day a waiter was enlisted to press the play button on the cassette player at the start of a dance number, though he hit fast forward instead and chaos ensued. The humor runs the gamut from clever to corny, but the lighthearted, upbeat tone makes for a charming read.About the AuthorMel Calvert was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1930. His father, Kenneth Calvert, worked for his father, Elbern Frederick Calvert at one of Ohio's first Ford Dealer's, Calvert Motors, in Harrison, Ohio. His mother, Mary Ruth Calvert, was graduated from Nursing School at Cincinnati's Bethesda Hospital, from which she retired as Head Nurse in the late fifties. Mel entered the United States Army Airborne during the Korean conflict as a Private, rose in rank, was commissioned a Second Lieutenant serving as an Infantry Communications Officer and received an Honorable Discharge in 1953. After a long career in show business as a musician, comedian and magician, Mel has found his forte as an author and was recently published in the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association's (AOPA) Pilot Magazine. Watch for more offerings from his pen on Amazon.com.