Pass the damn salt, please: A comedy of manners, language and relationships (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781442120211)

Dan McLaughlin was born in Hollywood during halftime of a Rams Colts game. Although the Rams scored a touchdown soon after his birth to tie the game, Dan McLaughlin was born in Hollywood during halftime of a Rams Colts game. Although the Rams scored a touchdown soon after his birth to tie the game, the Colts then scored 17 points to win. This, along with multi-decade stints at UCLA and as a government bureaucrat, has given Dan an appreciation for the subtle and sometimes capricious agency of action and words. Among his philosophical influences he cites Thomas Kuhn, David Springhorn, Paul Feyerabend, the Reduced Shakespeare Company and Bullwinkle the Moose. When not working as the local history reference librarian at the Pasadena Public Library, Dan can be found working merrily in the garden, pacing nervously during any UCLA game where the lead is less than 25 points, or walking sedately the beloved puppies with his even more beloved honey, Vendi. Dan has written four books and one musical. In reverse chronological order his works have been "Mime Time" a murder mystery about a mime about to be nominated the Republican presidential candidate of 2012 and the people who want to kill him; "Gott Mit Uns" a novel that tells the story of an 8 1/2 foot penguin, who is a goddess, who is pursued by two people, who are bureaucrats, through today's America; "Pass the Damn Salt, Please" a novel which explores the importance of language and politeness in relationships told entirely in dialogue; "ICE Girls" an award winning novella which examines the story of the Little Match Girl from the point of view of management; and the award winning musical "Oh No, Not Emily!" an operetta in which a modern fake Emily Dickinson poem is sold to a post-modern English Department. Before that he and Mark Sellin were the comedy phenomenon "2 Guys from the 70's" where they served to remind people of the emotional honesty of the 1970's. Before that, again with Mark and several other friends, Dan wrote, directed and acted in several plays at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Southern California, including their greatest hit "Ye Olde Tale of Goode King Arthur." Also from that era he created radio play versions of the Trojan Horse "The Big Horsey Ride" and the Odyssey "Going Home and Getting Lucky."