If you needed proof of that statement look no further than this edition of The Sentinel. This, our annual humor edition, will leave you scratching your head, smirking dismissively and saying to yourself “uh … yeah” with our hit-or-miss attempts at satire, zany madcap comedy and potty-mouth jokes.

While this edition may leave you feeling like we’ve bruised your funny bone (if we can find it at all), just remember that we may be groping in the dark for a cheap laugh but we actually do a pretty good job of serious journalism.

Then again, things are never all THAT serious here at The Sentinel. We pride ourselves in being a small-market paper that serves hard-boiled news with a side order of sarcasm (sunny side up, please). All the same, we do look forward to our annual joke edition, when we get to pretend we are working for folks like the Onion or The Colbert Report. And, yes, it’s true — we would all rather be working for the Onion or Colbert Report. I don’t know why it is, but if all actors secretly want to sing, all journalists secretly want to be comedians. Perhaps it’s the cynical detachment that a reporter cultivates over the years that makes for a good sense of humor. For whatever reason, I have known countless journalists who are absolutely hysterical. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any of them to write for this edition.

But seriously folks, we love North Portland. You’ve endured our barbed witticism, our snide remarks and snarky comments for nigh on four years now. So in the spirit of not testing your tolerance too much, be warned there is fake news in them thar hills. No matter how many times we say it, or how we label it, we usually catch a few of you off guard.

I once got an angry phone call about an article we did in our first April Fool’s edition. The headline was "Man bites dog, says tastes like chicken."

The caller was a dog lover. He was fuming mad that we would even joke about something with such malicious anti-dog sentiment. I explained to the man that the headline was a spoof on an old journalism axiom about covering only the unique: Dog bites man is not news, Man bites dog is. There was a pause on the line, then he said, “Oh, yeah, I should have remembered that. I went to journalism school.” True story.

Thank you, thank you, folks. You’re a great crowd, two shows on Sunday.