Wickedly funny
Richard Lovrich wants you to have a very bad day.
What do you get when you take micro stories, a delightfully warped worldview and a wicked sense of humor?
You get Richard Lovrich’s book “Have a Very Bad Day.”
We can all relate because we’ve lived through many bad days since the pandemic began. Sometimes, laughter can be the best remedy, especially when the targets of the jokes are despicable characters, capable of all sorts of mayhem. Lovrich, a former art director at the Albany Times Union and creative director at Proctors, has gathered some weirdly amusing tiny tales into a book he designed and published through Troy Book Makers.
The book and the practice of creating was cathartic for Lovrich, a Guilderland resident.
In 2011, Lovrich was diagnosed with a rare lung disease — Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency — and has since become a fierce advocate on behalf of others with the condition. The diagnosis prompted him to pursue some of his artistic dreams and face some fears.
“When I was diagnosed, it dawned upon me that I shouldn’t be carrying the burden of what I thought were unnecessary fears, like being able to speak in public. So I decided to take that on and also take on a few art projects,” he said.
The stories will appeal to fans of “The Twilight Zone,” Edward Gorey and Charles Addams. “I was at my family doctor’s office really often and that’s where I
got my dose of Addams and ‘The New Yorker’ and that’s where it started,” said Lovrich, who grew up in the Bronx and suffered from asthma most of his life. “He was a big influence on me as a child.” The stories of Edgar Allan Poe were another source of inspiration. “All you had to tell a kid from the Bronx (was)
that Poe lived in the Bronx for a while and that was all I needed.”
Lovrich debuted the stories as Facebook posts. “It was really an art project … the Facebook thing. I had it in my head to write a thousand short stories. I exceeded it. I wrote about 1,100, sat on them for a while, then returned to them about four years ago and then edited them down into four categories.”
While nothing was off-limits, he stayed away from being preachy and avoided politics, for the most part, aiming to make them as short as possible with their own arcs. And there’s a lot of science (one of Lovrich’s
fascinations) with a few quantum physics jokes thrown in.
He went on to read the stories at galleries and local bars. After some feedback, he realized the audience wasn’t sure if he was telling one long story or multiple short stories. To delineate the breaks, he used slides of milagros charms and tiny objects, like Cracker Jack prizes, from his collection, along with each story title. Those images helped with the design of the book and its website.
“I have had stage fright my entire life,” Lovrich said. “It wasn’t until I started to read my own stories that I reached a comfort level that I would say was tolerable for me and for the audience. … Of course that helped me understand which stories to include in the book.”
Here’s a sampling: Will, Way: Felicity was having one of those days. Woefully she also had a chemical weapons stockpile.
Chilling: Anger, shock, fear — among all human facial expressions, that of joy was the most fleeting, the most impermanent, and Dale had yet to capture it, despite a basement freezer full of faces.
Top Job: Luke’s master’s degree had not prepared him for the fast paced and cutthroat world of pizza delivery.
“I was at my family doctor’s office really often and that’s where I got my dose of Addams and ‘The New Yorker’ and that’s where it started.” — Richard Lovrich