He survived the war, and they’d been celebrating all night long, mostly in ways neither of their parents would have approved of. “But,” he thought, “if they’d seen how close the Kraut fire came to my neck, I’d bet they wouldn’t say anything.” After they’d drunk the bottle of champagne she’d bought before he shipped, she turned on the radio, and they moved the furniture in her bedroom against the wood-paneled walls. He took her left hand in his right, and, blushing, put his left on her waist, nodding his head slightly as he did.

They swept around the room together, clumsy and lonely feet tripping over the carpet she’d worn thin with so many nights of fretting and pacing. They danced to their favorite slow tune, their favorite up-tempo, and they danced to songs that had nothing to do with dancing. They weren’t dancing to the music; they were dancing to the rhythm of each other, to the sound of two heartbeats, to two sets of lungs breathing the same air.

Labels: Stories

Father Rodriguez stared at the thick granite blocks that formed the walls of his cathedral. He was wondering how long he could stand to stare at them, how many more hollow words he could bounce off of them before he’d go insane. Father Rodriguez had never had a crisis of faith. He did not understand that it was a natural part of his calling. It was approaching midnight, and the cathedral was near dark, lit by a few scant candles and the odd crack of lightning. There was no noise save his own breathing and the falling of rain against the stained glass windows, occasionally punctuated by a thunderclap. No light came through the glass.

He opened his mouth, but found he had nothing to say. How will Sunday mass be any different? he asked himself. How can I shepherd when I've lost my own path? Then the Father heard another noise, a rumbling, coming from beneath his feet. The catacombs? A chill ran up his spine. Then the lightning flashed again, and in the archway leading up from the catacombs beneath the cathedral, he saw a dead man, risen. His teeth were dropping one by one as he took slow, staggering steps towards the Father, and his skin hung like loose rags from his yellowed bones. The Father dropped to his knees, horrified. “Resurrectio,” he gasped in the high language, arms too paralyzed to cross himself.

The dead man came ever closer, but still the Father could not rise. He bowed his head, and began to pray.

Labels: Stories

So things are going very well at the District; I have two new pieces in the paper this week, a restaurant review of Tiny Thai, and a Men on the Street thing that Dan and I did, that turned out very well. Plus, Katie is most assuredly working there now, too, after usurping Dave Wildman, which means it's now Pat, JJ, Dan, Me, and Katie, which is awesome and makes me very excited to keep working there. Check out the Table of Contents for this week on their website: it's chock full of Unionite references.

Now I'm off to interview two guys for a lengthy full-page article I'm doing for the District, which will be probably my next published work for them (aside from the Books Calendar). I'll have the story for the day up this evening, and since things have been kind of mushy lately, I'll try to put a Resident Evil zombie in there or something.

Sweet, dude, so...yeah.

Labels: Generalness

I am not writing about this for anybody's website or magazine, so: I get to just lean back, crack my fingers, and write that, "I thought it was pretty fucking awesome." I missed the cussing, but in pretty much every other way it worked for me. I loved the burnt out McClane...Miles and I talked before the movie about a review he'd read saying that now that he's surfing on fighter jets, he's lost his everyman status. Kind of an interesting point, but I think that the everyman aspect of the first movie isn't entirely what made it great: it was the "reality" of the situation. It was the realistic take on life, that they've followed throughout the series (there are tons of jokes about how much bad shit happens to him); to keep that take on the world they built, it wouldn't make sense for a guy who's done what McClane has done to be a happy, settled down married guy that everyone can relate to. He is a living tall tale. He is the tallest of the tall, in fact. Anyway, I refuse to be more articulate than that about this film: if you want a good summer action movie starring the man himself, go see DH4. You will believe a man can live free and die hard at the same time.

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

It was so well-planned it was disgusting, a perfect example of how little effort it takes, when that effort is well-placed, to demolish a country’s image of itself. There were two dozen teams, each made up of five people, armed entirely with firearms that they purchased legally at superstores. All the weapons were permitted, in the correct names. Two hours after polls opened, those two dozen teams walked into the two dozen biggest polling places in the country, and slaughtered the old men and women who had volunteered their services to furthering democracy. Many of them were veterans from the Do What You Can generation, still looking to do what they could.

There was no attempt to hold hostages or escape; all attackers went in and shot until they had killed everyone they could find, then they simply waited for the police to show up and killed themselves. Word spread immediately, and a disturbingly large amount of the carnage had been caught on camera. No one showed up to vote. America’s already low voter turnout plummeted to single digits, and when CNN reported that a sniper in Washington was picking people off in a parking lot by a polling place, the trickle of voters stopped completely. The nation was paralyzed.

The Supreme Court ruled that the results would be thrown out, and that the country would go to the polls again in two Tuesdays. National Guardsmen were deployed to guard polling places, and local law enforcement did regular sweeps throughout the day. Everything went off without a hitch. Except that really, it went off better than that: Americans, reminded of the foundations of their every day existence and determined to prove their resilience, came out in record numbers for the modern era, with most voter turnout estimates averaging around 75%. Those numbers did not go down over the next two decades, although the official Voting Day was moved to the fourth Tuesday of November, and a memorial was observed on the second. And the 120 Marines Special Forces who took the lives of the elderly, and then killed themselves, rested peacefully, knowing that they had served their country well.

Labels: Stories

SHE SAID: “You make everything into a homework assignment.”
HE SAID: “That’s no excuse for not doing the work.”
In a clearing on a hill by a lake, two knights circle each other clumsily, one in rusted silver armor, one in a rusted gold. The golden knight’s left foot drags slightly as he moves, helmet-feather tossed lightly on a breeze that is sweeping up the hill. Dust rises up around them, and they rush together––there is no game left in them. No fancery or choreography or mystery. They are two men smothered in bulky metal armor, wielding swords that are too heavy with blood and age; they are trying to kill each other. And there on the hill under a sun that does not care for them, they do. One dies with a sword stuck through his side, the other with one through his neck. All around them are the already fallen from each army; no one is there to pray over them as the soldiers of chivalry bleed red and black blood onto the silken grass, and pass from a world they never knew.

HE SAID: “You had sex with other men while I was at work.”
SHE SAID: “You had sex with other women while you were at work.”
The infant does not know that the breast belongs to its mother––he knows that his mother brings the breast to him, that there is a hard pebble at the very edge of the soft mound that gives it what it craves and needs. But the pebble slips away and turns, and is concealing itself––the child battles it, desperately, addicted to nourishment and life. Its tiny fingers grope and grapple, and finally bring the defeated pebble back into its greedy mouth.

SHE SAID: “I haven’t been happy.”
HE SAID: “I never let that stop me.”
A bomb dives through the bottom floor of the hotel and into the basement, and we do not call it going to war with them, we call it making war on them.

HE SAID: “Don’t do this to me, please.”
SHE SAID: “You did it to yourself. You did it all by yourself.”
The man with the beard cannot believe what he is doing; he is really being chased by the police. He is really running from them, and he can hear the news helicopters above him, and he thinks he can hear them beaming his image back into the studio to Tom and Mary, hear it beaming from there into the houses of America, into the living room of his first grade teacher, the den of his last lover. And he pulls the Beretta from his glove compartment and fires blindly back at the flashing lights in his mirror. That will do it, he thinks. He knows that they will kill him. He drives, and waits. He waits for them to kill him.

SHE SAID: “It is too fair. It is too.”
HE SAID: “It is not. It is not fair.”
The girl is only six years old, but she has had both of her arms broken twice, and he picks up her plastic chair, veins standing out on his neck, and prepares to do it again. She does not know that veins keep you alive, does not know that they carry blood to the heart; she does not know that she has them. She thinks that veins mean a monster has possessed her father, who she loves the way a poet-priest loves his God. She thinks that the monster needs to see her blood before it will let her father go, and he can hold her and sing sweet songs to her the way he loves to. She wishes that she could bleed faster, bleed more, bleed all her blood out, just so that he could hold her again, under an open window with sunlight and wind coming in, and sing her “Sweet Eliza, Sweet Eliza, unfurrow your brow.”

HE SAID: “Goodbye then. I’ll miss you.”
SHE SAID: “I’ll miss you too. I will. I’ve been missing you for two years already.”
HE SAID: “I’ve been here.”
SHE SAID: “No, you have not.”
The moon is coming up and the sun is going down, and for a brief moment they meet somewhere in the sky, somewhere we cannot see. Do they tip their hats at each other as they pass in the moment between day and night? Do they spit? Do they curse and swear and tear at the space between them? Or do they simply trace an invisible line that intersects twice a day, moving past each other not in love or hate, but in silent peace? All I know is they never turn their faces down on the blood below them, the blood in a raging heart, the blood on a wind-cooled hill. They pass us by, and never offer a word of advice, a nod of acknowledgment.

Labels: Stories

Shar and I saw Knocked Up again, since Robyn hadn't seen it yet and we've wanted to go again. Yes, there are other movies we want to see, but...I don't know, we really like Knocked Up. I've already written a little about it, but I'll just say this: what makes this movie really meaningful to me is that the majority of entertainment and art aimed at my generation has consisted of repackaging our childhoods in some way (not that I'm not excited about Transformers, but still...). We're the generation VH1 asked, "Hey, remember the 90s? That was like two years ago! Cool!"

We're the generation that proved to market analysts that nothing is more cost effective than packaged nostalgia, since it doesn't require new ideas and it will automatically appeal to their target demographic. High school students start Myspaces to "Keep in touch" with friends they knew in middle school. We've spent so much time looking back, that it's truly refreshing that Judd Apatow has been making TV shows and movies about growing up, and moving forward. And not just that, but about how growing up, while it can be a pain in the ass, is not only a natural thing to do, but a beautiful thing too. Maybe I'm just thinking about this because I'm on the cusp of getting, you know, married, but either way: Thanks, Judd. You regularly make me laugh and worry less about life at the same time, and neither of those are easy to do.

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

“Robert,” she said, standing in the doorway, wringing her hands, which were as taut and lovely as they were the day they’d met, eight hundred and five years prior, “I think I want a divorce.”

Robert lowered the newspaper he was reading, peered at her from over the top of it. “What?”

She nodded.

He looked around, his wrinkle-less face struggling to compose an expression that conveyed both the shock and the pain he was feeling. “But…Marianne. We’ve been together for…for so long.”

“Eight hundred five years, Robert,” she said, sounding tired.

“Right, right. How can you divorce a man after that long? I mean, we made it. Raised kids, died old together, came to heaven together…we’ve had hundreds of years in paradise already.”

“Honey, I know, it’s not that I hate you. It’s just that I’ve reminded you of how long we’ve been together thousands of times, I’ve asked you to clean up after yourself in the bathroom hundreds of thousands of times, I have a callus on the back of my knee from where you’ve been scratching me with your toenails for the last several centuries. I’m bored, Robert. It’s not your fault. Eternity is just so long. So much longer than I could have imagined.”

Robert’s sea blue eyes were tearing up. “I know, Mary. I know. But. I just. I still want to spend it with you. Please? We can have a second bedroom put on, or get different bathrooms, I’ll remember to cut my nails. I don’t want to be alone, darling.”

She looked at him, pityingly. “Robby…”

“Please, Mary. Just stay a few centuries more. Eternity doesn’t mean anything if I have to spend it alone."

Labels: Stories

It has been a long day. We're starting to get swallowed under by wedding planning, which was to be expected, but we had to lose all of today to flea fighting, which was both unexpected and really, really shitty. We did a whole "Move everything and spray the carpet" thing last weekend, thinking that would rid us of the flea problem. If there are fleas in hell right now, they are laughing at this assumption, still. For our half day's work, we got two and a half flea-free days before they came back, much stronger than ever. They bit me about four dozen times over the next few days, and ate a few of our guests alive, so, even though it's the first full day we've had to spend together in more than a week, we got up this morning at 11am, and immediately went to work. The weapon this time? Diatomaceous earth, a soil made of fossilized diatoms. Not only is it supposed to kill fleas, it is supposed to hurt them a great deal, by essentially melting their innards. That sounded quite alright by me.

First step? Move all of the furniture, and vacuum. Then completely saturate the carpet with the DE. Then we stamped it in real good, usually tap dancing to Old Crow Medicine Show or moshing to a punk band I enjoyed as a kid who shall remain nameless. Here's what a disassembled room saturated with DE looks like:


Then, wait two hours and vacuum up the DE. Here is Shar, doing this step, like a champ:


After everything was thoroughly vacuumed (lest this seem simple, I should point out that we had four major vacuum malfunctions from all the powder, and that it took us six hours to get to this stage), we had to move all of the furniture back and check everything again for fleas. We both felt completely covered in DE, which, of course, we were, since it was thin enough to get through our masks and completely cover our entire bodies. Here is an example (I wouldn't suggest clicking on it to enlarge it):


So a lengthy shower later, we were ready to finally start our day off together at around 8 at night. Fortunately, it's us, so we still had fun doing the flea stuff, but we still felt that a financially ill-advised visit to Black Angus' was in order. Then we retired to our newly de-flead domicile to watch Die Hard 3 (because that's how we roll). We were not even out of the opening credits when Shar noticed a flea on her shoulder. And then I notice two on my sock. We killed them, and haven't seen any since, but if I burn my apartment to the ground in the next few days, you'll know why...

My hero (Shar, not Batman. Batman is Shar's hero):

Labels: Generalness

The ice cream of my childhood always tasted like it was slow churned, thick and creamy. They don’t make it in that consistency anymore, except at the Ghirardelli factory in San Francisco, and who can afford to eat there every Saturday afternoon, when the sun is just right? We used to walk to the ice cream store, my family and I, and I would get a double scoop of mint chocolate chip and orange sherbet, which I pronounced sherbert. My dad would always correct me, not because he wanted me to change how I said it but because he wanted the cashier to know he knew how to say it.

When I got old enough that I could stay home during the summer, I wouldn’t usually even bother to go out to get it: I’d just stay at home with my little sister and wait for it to come to me. My sister had the ears of…what has good ears? If there’s an animal that has ears like an eagle has eyes, that’s what my sister had. Not for everything, though: just the ice cream truck. She could hear it five blocks away, could trace the route it was taking just by rotating her head slightly. The moment the first note hit her ears, she’d take off to chase it down, and I’d tear into our room, grab our change bucket, and then follow her. She would always get the pink baseball mitt with the baseball gumball, and I always got the Ninja Turtle one, because it had the best flavors (cherry and grape), and because it came with two gumballs.

It seems like entire seasons were defined by ice cream, then: the stickiness it left on our hands, the way they got all gritty when we played basketball afterwards. The way the cheap pharmacy cones tasted when I’d get them on rainy days.

Last week I went back to the store my parents used to take me to. They don’t serve orange sherbet anymore, so I just got the mint chocolate chip. It didn’t taste the way I remember. The ice cream was too thick, like play dough, and the chips were so chalky I could barely choke them down. And as I sat there, three blocks from where I grew up, a divorced middle aged man surrounded by young families, I kept asking myself over and over again: what did I used to taste in this, that was so good? Did they change the recipe, or am I the one that changed? What was so fucking great about ice cream?

Labels: Stories

The Tyrannosaur stalks the swamp, head bobbing back and forth among the trees. Her legs are so powerful they move the earth as she steps. The claws on her feet are so big and sharp they scar the earth wherever she moves. She hears something coming her way, breaking low branches as it comes. She opens her maw and screams, a roar that shakes the trees that dare stand before it. The rustling stops. Then it starts again, moving away from the Tyrannosaur. It is the late Cretaceous, but she does not know that. It is 80 million years before the birth of a man she won’t ever hear of.

She turns her towering frame towards the rustling, and decides to follow it. She does not bother to try to be quiet, or disguise herself in any way. Her brain isn’t big enough to discern what creature she heard rustling just from the sound, but it doesn’t need to be. She is bigger. She is faster. She is stronger. She’s proved her supremacy time and time again in bloody, skin-ripping battles, with monsters bigger and smaller than she is. With every step she’s closing in on her quarry, now. It is not big. It is less than half her size, and the fear is coming off of it so strongly that the Tyrannosaur can see it, like heat waves. She will make this fast. She is not hungry, nor are her children. She is the ruler of the world. She is bored.

* * *

Doug leaned on his cane and stepped over a dusty red rock. His knee was aching already, and the team he was volunteering with had only been out prospecting for two hours. There were at least ten more hours under the Montana sun before they bunked back down, at the cabin where Doug could eat, and shower, and stretch his bad leg out, and read his book before he fell asleep. Doug wasn’t unhappy, though, he was out here for fun, in this miserable badland in the Hell Creek formation. His wife had brought him on his first dig the year before, as a fiftieth anniversary present, and she’d made him promise he’d come back this year, even though she wouldn’t be able to come with him.

A little sand-colored horned toad scurried across the heat-baked soil in front of him. He batted at it playfully with his cane, flipping it over. The toad righted itself and ran away. Doug smiled, then squatted painfully to examine the rock pile at the base of the hill. The sun caught a glimmer off of something Doug recognized, and his heart beat just slightly faster. He picked the claw up: it was the pes claw of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He recognized it from Doc’s lecture at the cabin the night before. It was in surprisingly good condition for being in a runoff pile, and Doug called Doc over excitedly. He felt the grooves on the side of the claw, where the tendons would have been, able to slash with astounding ferocity. Norman set his cane down beside him, and ran his fingers over the point of the claw. It was still sharp. He shuddered a little, despite the heat.

Labels: Dinos, Stories

The universe is in danger, and Sally Fines is the only one who can save it. She read in the paper, had been reading in the paper for a week now, that an entire hour was going to fall out of the world at 2am that night. The newspaper seemed so cold and matter of fact: they just told everyone to set their clocks forward one hour. They didn’t tell the truth, the truth that Sally knew: that when that hour disappeared, all of existence would disappear. Unless she could stop it. She was going to hold the rift closed, even if she had to use her bare hands.

For seven days Sally had been making preparations, buying supplies. When the night came, she cleared off her coffee table, sweeping magazines, coasters, and an unopened bottle of prescription medication onto the carpet. She put the red shoebox she’d found on the right side of the table, the blue one on the left, then filled them both with cat litter. She lined up chopsticks in two rows, one at the top and one at the bottom. In the clearing in the middle she placed sticky lint roller sheets, side by side by side, until the whole area was covered. Then Sally grabbed two chunks of her hair, grimaced, and ripped them out, sprinkling them over the adhesive surface.

She looked at the clock, small trickles of blood snaking down her forehead. It was 1:58. She poured lighter fluid on the hair and set it aflame. 1:59. She put her hands in the shoeboxes, and pushed down with all her might. It was 2. It was 3. She could feel everything coming apart. She pushed harder. She had to keep it from breaking. She has to hold it together. She has to hold it together.

Labels: Stories

McSweeney's sent me (and all their other email suscribers) a note this morning to let us know they won't be going anywhere. On the brink of tears, they thanked us for all our hard work, spending our dough and spreading the word about the sale and auction. McSweeney's, you're welcome. There's no need to blubber. The note actually is kind of a cool look at indie publishing, too, and you can find it up at their website here if that kind of thing interests you. It'll probably only be up a short time, so act fast. And the sale is going on for another two days, so http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifif that interests you, act even faster.

Labels: Generalness, Save the Books

If I scrub it, it comes off faster, but if I peel it slowly I can get big chunks in one swipe. My skin started peeling yesterday. It is still peeling today. It’s not peeling the way it does when I’m sunburned, or when my eczema is acting up. It’s peeling like a snake, like a reptiles. And it’s all over. I went to see a doctor and he told me he didn’t know what was going on. He referred me to a dermatologist, and she told me she didn’t know what it was either. Then she told me, in all seriousness, that sometimes people just peel, and that I should wait it out. Seriously.

I’m starting to get worried. I started to get worried yesterday, when I noticed that my eyes were peeling. Today, my vision is milky, and it’s hard to hear, like I’m swaddled in cotton. Every time I move my mouth, flakes from my tongue get stuck in my throat. I got all claustrophobic from it this morning, started rubbing myself all over, trying to flake it off, trying to get it all off of me, but it didn’t do any good. After ten minutes, there was a pile of my own skin around my ankles, but it was still coming off me.

My girlfriend left me. Not because she thought it was gross, but because she thought I might be contagious. She thinks this is some kind of rare sexually transmitted disease, that’s how paranoid she is. She was convinced that I’d fucked another woman, and now my skin was peeling off. But it’s okay. It’s okay that she’s left me and it’s okay that I’m peeling and everything is okay. Because now I get to find out what’s underneath. I’m becoming something, something different. I’m shedding. I’m becoming.

Labels: Stories

I honestly wasn't sure we'd make it this far...fifty days. Fifty stories. I don't think they're all worthy of being on billboards, though they'd certainly fit, but all in all I'm incredibly proud of them, and I thank you all sincerely for reading this far. That said, I'm not even one seventh (not one seventh!) of the way to the end of the year.

What I'd love is feedback, either as comments on this post, future posts, or at skio84@mac.com. People have left really nice things for me so far, but I'd love to know what else you'd like to see from the blog, what you think works, what you think doesn't, any ways I'm missing to promote it. Really anything. I've loved working on the blog and hearing from you all so far, and I'm excited to keep things going. Look for more anniversary-related announcements in the future...

For now, if you liked todays mega-sized 50th story, check out its character's prior adventures.

The Campmaster's story can be found here.

Mulligan's story can be found here.

And Bobby Larenzo, my main man, has two stories prior to this which can be found here and here.

Hope you enjoyed: I'll see you all tomorrow.

Labels: Generalness, Mission Statement

The Campmaster was holed up in a ratty hotel half a mile from the ocean. He’d made his way down from Northern California, killing indiscriminately as he went, before reaching Orange Country and bunking down. He was surviving entirely on instinct at this point. He had forgotten his own name, existing now only as the cheesy name the press had given him after he’d killed a Camp Scout troop two months back. If you were a telepath, if you could hear his thoughts, you would hear nothing looking into his head, as he stares at the TV news broadcast, at the reporter talking about him, showing his picture. He was not thinking, he was not feeling. He was waiting.

* * *

Detective Mulligan was having a shitty year, with the second serial killer in as many months loose in Huntington Beach. This new one, the Campmaster, made the neurotic idiot he’d taken down five weeks ago look like a goddamn marshmallow. The sick freak had racked up over forty murders since his first spree in Pleasanton, and the latest had been at the elementary school not five miles from Mulligan’s house. That, he took personally. On top of all that insanity, the Feds had sent a memo saying they had reason to believe a big time South Florida hitman was on the loose in his city, too. Mulligan was in his car driving, investigating one of a hundred anonymous tips that had come in that day. Every since the news had broke that the Campmaster (“Christ,” he thought, “Why do they always have to name these idiots?”) had gone to ground in the city, the lines had been flooded with bullshit tips. Mulligan was supposed to investigate them. He should have had backup with him, but he had a feeling about this tip, and he’d told his partner to fake sick in the bathroom. What he was intending to do to this son of a bitch wasn’t fit for other eyes to see.

* * *

Bobby Larenzo, hitman extraordinaire, had heard the anonymous tip, since the first thing he’d done after getting his wife settled in their Mariott suite was to bug Mulligan’s phone. His boss’s niece had been killed by the Campmaster, and he was in Huntington to kill him before the cops could. His boss wanted him killed in ways cops weren’t allowed to kill. And he wanted pieces of the body that cops weren’t allowed to take. Bobby knew he’d get to the hotel faster than Mulligan: he just hoped for the cop’s sake that it was a lot faster.

* * *

When Bobby kicks the door in, the Campmaster has his hands covered in blood. The hotel manager, after calling in that he’d seen a man like the one on TV in room 53, went up to distract and delay him, to make sure he didn’t leave before the police arrived. The Campmaster killed him before he could say a word. Bobby does his best not to retch at the scene, but even he’s never seen anything like what’s happening in front of him. He throws a knife, relying on his inhumanly perfect aim to get him through this. Impossibly, the killer reaches over with his left hand, swifter than lightning, and snatches the blade out of the air, inches before it severed his right hand at the wrist. “No,” Bobby whispers, pulling out his second knife.

They dance, both minds empty, both existences absorbed wholly in movement as they slice from one side of the tiny room to the other. Bobby realizes it’s taking too long, and decides to fight dirty. He throws his remaining knife at the man’s chest, knowing he’ll dodge it. He does. Then Bobby pulls his gun and fires three shots into his stomach. Still, the killer advances, knife clutched in his bloody grip. Bobby shatters his wrist with the butt of the gun, and the man screams. For the first time, Bobby realizes he is in fact a human being. That relieves him. He grabs his knife back from the Campmaster’s dying hand, and is preparing to disembowel him when the door is kicked in. “Fuck,” Bobby mutters to himself.

“Freeze!” Mulligan shouts.

Bobby drops the knife and turns slowly, arms raised. He starts crying. “Please, officer,” he says. “I hafta do it. He killed my Tommy, my Tommy, I promised my wife I’d pay him back, I promised I’d make him pay.”

Mulligan’s eyes soften, and Bobby gets a little stomach-sick as he realizes this must be one of those fabled “good cops,” the kind they didn’t have in Miami. Mulligan moves the door back over its frame. “I won’t stop you,” he says.

Bobby was not expecting this. He decides to try and finish without killing the cop, turning and bending back down to do what he’s been paid to do. But Bobby made one mistake when he woke up that morning: he didn’t put on the mock turtleneck he usually sported on hits. Mulligan sees the top of the tattoo Bobby has at the base of his neck, recognizes it from the picture the Fibbies had sent that morning. The report told him that his man was a killer. Unfortunately for Mulligan, it didn’t tell him what kind of a killer. He pulls his gun again, tells the man to stand slowly, and turn around. Bobby closes his eyes, angry. He hadn’t wanted to kill this man, this merciful man who would have allowed a father to take vengeance on his son’s killer.

Before Mulligan’s eyes can register what’s happening and send the message to his trigger finger, Bobby has whirled and thrown his knife through the cop’s throat. “Fuck!” he shouts. Then he spins back, kicking the Campmaster’s lifeless body as hard as he can, furious. He kneels and takes the Campmaster’s murderous hands from him, tucking one each inside the sterilized and sealed pockets of his coat. Then he walks quickly to his car. Bobby hates dirty jobs, and this was the dirtiest of the dirty. He wants nothing more than to get his wife and go home, before Orange County can show him any more of its horrible tricks.

Labels: Stories

It's been another hectic week so far (and holy God it's only Wednesday). Today I knocked out a book review, a humor column for McSweeney's (fingers crossed, blogosphere), a story for this site, and a chunk of the novel, still managing to find time to purchase and play the first level of Resident Evil 4.

I'm not usually a fan of first person shooter/horror/role playing games, but it's a new game with good controls and graphcs, and it only cost thirty bucks, so I'm on board. Tomorrow I have my comics column to do, an article about single mothers, the District book calendar, and a super-awesome-mega-sized fiftieth story for the blog! I have big plans for it, and I'm very excited. Should be a familiar character (or two or three) in it.

Oh, and I'll have a restaurant review and a few other lengthy pieces in the District in the coming weeks, so I'll link to them as they come up. For now, I'm off to recuperate from today, and gear up for tomorrow.

I'll either be dreaming about messing up my impending nuptuals (a favorite recently), working until my wrists freeze up, or this man, courtesy of RE4:



World, would you hate me if I said I'm hoping it's the latter?

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

Shriek has black hair, and black eyeliner, and black nail polish, and a black, black heart. He’s seen the worst of the world, like the time when his dad made him stop playing games on his computer, or the time when his mom wouldn’t stop his dad from making him stop playing games on his computer. And his grandfather died, man, when he was only, like, 17. Shriek knows the world is cruel. Shriek knows nobody really loves him. Shriek can totally live with that.

Shriek’s friends know the truth about the world, too, though they don’t know it as hardcore as Shriek knows it. Darren still tells his mother he loves her before he gets off the phone with her, as though two bugs crawling on this discarded orange rind we call “earth” could ever have a meaningful connection. And Chris even went to his little sister’s recital last week. I mean, what’s the point of watching some little 7th graders play bad music and then watching all these fawning adults pretend they’re good? Where’s the truth in that?

Oh, hold on, Shriek’s cell phone is ringing. He has a Razr, not because he thinks material possessions mean anything, but because, you know, they’re pretty cool. Razors and all. “What?” he asks, voice fraught with the weight of the universe’s pointlessness, whose current axis is his mother.

“No,” he says. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Because,” he says. “I don’t. I’m with my friends, Mom. No! Call me back later. Goodbye.” Shriek hangs up his Razr and shoves it, with some difficulty, into the back pocket of the skin-tight girls’ jeans he’s wearing. He steps forward in line: it’s his turn to order. “I’ll have the Orange Berry Tickler with a Vitamin boost,” he says. Behind him, Chris and Darren roll their eyes at each other.

Labels: Stories

to check out this website. Not that you should ever spend a moment away from my website, but if you did...this is a pretty funny one. It's a new web show written by Arrested Development's Michael Cera and his total BFF, Clark Duke. Shar and I are one episode away from finishing our most recent run through the AD canon, and this site totally alleviated some of my anxiety about what to watch next. Anyway, it's light, fast, fun video, but it's funny and there are some great AD cameos. Thought I'd post something a little lighter tonight after the research-intensive Salman Rushdie post from yesterday...

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

I believe I may have lost a year there, somewhere. Coming in to work this morning (I design the fake kitchens they cook food in during infomercials) everyone was staring at me, whispering to each other. No one would say a word to me. I was the only one who would talk to me. My boss explained that no one had seen me in so long, they’d already long since replaced me. He asked where I’d been. I told him I’d been under the impression I’d been at work every day. I told him that, for example, I had gone to work yesterday, which was a Tuesday. He told me he hadn’t seen me in months. I said that was odd. Then I left.

The first thing I did was call my mom, who was so happy to hear from me that she started crying at the first sound of my voice. I hung up and called my girlfriend, who told me to fuck off. I hung up on her too, and went back to my apartment. Everything looked perfectly normal. My bed was made, it wasn’t sagging under a year’s weight, nothing was covered in dust, my cat hadn’t starved to death. My computer was fine, and I didn’t have a thousand new emails.

My monthly magazines were ruffled through and read, and I remembered with great detail several articles from them. But nobody could remember talking to me or seeing me; contact after contact in my phone (all bills paid up, by the way) sounded shocked to hear from me. At this point the confusion was so thick in my head I felt like my brain was actually immersed in water, that my thoughts themselves were drowning. I ran out of my apartment building, turned left and took off down the street. Nothing was right. Nothing made sense. I wanted to find a cemetery and see if I had a grave there, I wanted to find a television screen and jump through it, I wanted to find a shady tree and see if I was sleeping under it. All I found was a coffee shop. Dazed, I stumbled in and started downing espresso. For some reason, half a dozen huge shots of caffeine later, I couldn’t seem to wake up. I put my head down on the table and closed my eyes. “When you wake up,” I told myself, “Everything will be better. Everything will make sense.”

Labels: Stories

Woooooow! What the fuck? Just read this story on CNN, which, as a writer (and a sane human being) makes me crazy.

The highlights: Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses was published almost twenty years ago. Rushdie, an internationally acclaimed author, was decried as an enemy of Islam, because of controversial passages relating to the Muslim religion in the book. One of the problem's with the media's coverage of this current conflict is that at no point do the reporters go over what's controversial about the book. Now, as I'm an unpaid blogger and not a professional journalist, I don't have time to read the thing, but a cursory check over the book's wiki page tells me that the main section that offended Muslims was a passage in which, in the "disturbed mind of Farishta," Rushdie depicts a "half-magic dream narrative" that is a "re-narration" of the prophet Mohammed's life.

Now, my fiancee is the religion major, not I, but apparently this re-imagining contains some theological ideas about the origins of the Q'uran that have enraged Muslims. Again: no time, no money, no heavy research from me. Sad to say the info above is lacking from any new source I've read.

So: the book is published in 1988. Soon after it's banned in a few countries. Lame, but whatever. Early 1989, people begin rioting. Lame, but still, whatever. Then, on February 14, 1989, while Western society was celebrating Valentine's day, Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran politically and religiously, issues a fatwah on Rushdie's ass, calling for the execution not just of Rushdie, but of everyone involved with the publication of the book.

The rantings of a lunatic? The Japanese translator is stabbed to death less than two years later. The Italian and Norwegian translators barely survive assassination attempts. Bookstores in Berkeley and England are firebombed. 37 Turkish intellectuals are killed when a hotel they're in is burned to the ground by 2,000 protesters of the book's Turkish translator. Dozens more are killed in anti-Rushdie rioting across the globe. Various bounties on his head swell to millions of dollars. Stores in America even cave and stop carrying it. Cat Stevens supposedly says he'd inform on Rushdie were the man to show up on his doorstep.

Over time, things quiet down. A few days ago, Britain announces that Rushdie will be given the title of knighthood. The world goes apeshit. Iran condemns the decision, and (in the linked article above) some members of Pakistan's government see this as a justification for suicide bombing. By "this" I of course mean the awarding of a three letter title, sir, to a middle aged man in recognition of the thousands of words he's written during his illustrious career.



It. Is. A. Book. It's a fucking book! I truly believe that the line between words and action is the line of sanity. That when people take things that are written, ideas, stories, and react so strongly to them that they are moved to physical violence, that's when it's hard to truly call them human beings. I am not the kind of person who condemns "all Muslims" when the crazies rear their head, but holy shit, have they reared their ugly heads on this one.

Labels: Generalness, Save the Books

Bobby Larenzo, hit man extraordinaire, hated traveling more than he hated anything else in the world. “I don’t hate going from one place to another, Trish,” he’d once explained to his wife. “I just can’t ever relax in the plane. At some point you’re supposed to forget that you’re in a metal tube thousands of feet off the ground, being carried by engines that could malfunction at a second’s notice. I can’t ever forget that.” He wouldn’t be on the red eye from Miami International to LAX if the job he had to do wasn’t so important to his employer; his wife wouldn’t be in the seat next to him if he weren’t nervous. In LA, he was supposed to off a serial killer who’d knifed up a niece of one of the big fatsos down in Miami, one of the big fatsos who had Larenzo on an obscenely large retainer. Bobby had never offed a pure killer before: only hired guns. Trish was along because, since he’d met her, she’d been his good luck charm.

She was napping in the seat next to him when he nudged her awake a little after 1 AM. “Trish,” he whispered, calmly. “You see those two guys at the back of the plane? On the left?” She started to turn and he squeezed her palm, his signal that she shouldn’t move. “Don’t look. Use the sunglasses.” She pulled out her mirrored sunglasses and inconspicuously pretended to inspect them.

“I see them.”

“I think they mean to hijack the plane.”

“Why do you think that? They look normal enough.”

“I heard them whispering.”

Trish shook her head. She never ceased to be amazed by Bobby’s abilities. “What are you going to do?”

“Stop them.”

She smiled and pulled out her magazine.

“What, you’re not even going to watch?”

She smiled wider and rolled her eyes.

A little hurt, Bobby, waited two minutes until he heard the whispering from the back of the plane intensify. They were about to move. He weighed his options and decided he’d be less noticeable if he killed them before they got anyone’s attention, even though the two young corpses would create a disturbance in itself and perhaps delay the flight some. He stood and whirled into the aisle, walking confidently toward the bathroom. The two men looked at him nervously, and he winked at them. He reached behind his ear and scratched, pulling out two of the three steel-tipped toothpicks he kept tucked away for unexpected emergencies such as this. With a quick flip, he shot a toothpick through each of their brain stems. He hit them just right so that the men were both immediately paralyzed, then lost the ability to breathe, choking to death with barely even startled expressions on their faces.

A quick glance showed that the toothpicks had come clean through, and Bobby grabbed them from the back of the men’s seats without missing a stride. He closed the bathroom door behind him and washed them off, tucking them behind his ear again. He was hoping neither of them had lost control of their bowels. In her seat, Trish was napping again.

Labels: Stories

“Owwwww! Daddy! Daddy!”

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“Daddy, a bee stung me!”

“Mmm, I’m sorry honey.”

“Daddy!”

“What, Suz? Daddy’s trying to work right now.”

“Daddy, it hurts.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry honey. Give me a second, okay? I just need to put this stuff…okay. Come here, darling, tell me all about it.”

“I was playing tricycle chase and a bee landed on my elbow so I stopped moving like you told me but he still stung me even though I wasn’t moving.”

“That wasn’t very nice of him was it? Okay, let’s get it under some water…there you go. Feel better?”

“A little. It still hurts.”

“I know honey. It’ll hurt for a while, but I promise it will get better.”

“Will you get the bee for me?”

“Um…of course I will, Suz. Nobody stings my little girl and gets away with it, right?”

“Right!”

“I just have to get my bee fighting boots. And my bee hunting pants. And my bee shirt. Oh, and don’t let me leave without my little bee sword, okay Sam?”

“Are you really going to sword him?”

“Well I need something to block his stinger. This isn’t the first time I’ve fought a bee, you know.”

“Really?”

“I’m an old hand at it. No trick at all, really. You have to give them a fighting chance, because you can’t just stab a bee in the back and have any honor, you know. You just go up and flick him on the wing, and say, ‘Have at ye, filthy bee!’ And then he lunges at you with his stinger, and, if you’re a really good bee fighter like your Dad, you cut his stinger right in half and then stab the little fart right through his little bee heart.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“You’re stupid.”

“I know honey. That’s why Mommy married me. She felt bad for me.”

“Will you go fight the bee for me?”

“Of course. You keep your elbow under the faucet until it doesn’t hurt, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks Daddy.”

Labels: Stories

So a few days back I told you about the problems at McSweeney's, and promised to keep you updated on some of the cool stuff you can buy to support them. Over at their website, there are some amazing deals on books (Better of McSweeney's for under ten bucks, reduced-price subscriptions, and Noise Outlaws... with stories by Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman and Lemony Snicket for a ridiculous five dollars).

BUT! There are some really cool things on the ebay auction, including an original painting by Dave Eggers. What they just added literally minutes ago is this, A TOUR OF THE DAILY SHOW GIVEN BY JOHN HODGMAN. I've never wanted to be rich this bad in my entire life. I'm sure it's gonna go for zajillions of dollars, and rightfully so, but holy shit. A tour of the funniest office in America given by one of the funniest men in America? Congrats, McSwys, I'm guessing your financial woes are over.

Labels: Generalness, Save the Books

Ugh. Don’t give me that look, ma’am. I know I’m dressed like a humble gas station attendant, but I’m actually much smarter than you. Much better in every way than you, really. I know you think your Lexus and your sharply creased beige clothes make you better than me in some way, but physically, mentally, spiritually, I am your superior. I am more than your superior: I am a giant compared to you. I took my first college course at the age of 11, graduated every school I ever went to at the top of my class, aced every test I ever took, invented things you probably use every day. If it were my desire, I’d be world famous, madam. But it’s not.

Oh, what’s that? You wanted the 89? Well you should have said you wanted the goddamn 89 then, instead of grunting distractedly when I asked if you wanted the 87. I know you’re on the phone with your unimpressive lump of a husband, but really, the genius of my generation is standing before you, do you think you could pay a little attention? Christ. Is it too much to ask, ma’am, that you treat me like a human being? Mental note: For some reason, women driving Lexuses (or is it Lexi?) are always the snottiest. The ones in Benzes and Bentleys are more polite, perhaps because they think they have less to prove. At least there is some grace in them. This woman, though…

Yes, that’s right, there’s your change. Oh, I’m sorry, do you need to take two minutes to scratch at the dirty copper in your hand and attempt to do basic arithmetic? I shorted you five cents, ma’am, any idiot could see that. Oh? No? Very surprising, you’re just going to poke it around with your finely manicured nails and then slip it into your car’s coin compartment. You don’t need to give me that stiff smile, I wasn’t expecting you to tip me. It was a statistical improbability that you’d tip me, and if this experiment has taught me anything, it’s that human beings rarely do things that it’s statistically improbable for them to do.

That’s right ma’am, an experiment. You’re pulling into the street now, but you’re still part of my experiment. Working here, pretending to be who I’m pretending to be (Mental note: perhaps becoming who I’m pretending to be?) is all part of one big experiment. The whole world is one big experiment, I’ve determined. I’m merely conducting one on a smaller scale, a beaker within the beaker so to speak. So go ahead, drive home to your statistically average husband and your statistically average children. I’ll just stay here and pump gas for the two kinds of people who you see in the world: those above you, and those below. And while I’m pumping, know somewhere in your sleepy little brain that I’m doing something you never will: I’m doing something new. I’m bucking the trend. I’m defying expectation.

Labels: Stories

Yep, it's that time of year, the time of year for the only internationally celebrated literary holiday: Bloomsday. The greatest novel ever written is set on June 16, 1904, so every year, Ulysses fans, Joyce fans, and people who like to get drunk get together and read the book, throw it at each other, and generally have a good time. It's an obviously huge deal in Dublin, where it's a week-long event with street festivals, etc... I wanted to go three years ago for the centennial, but obviously I was twenty and broke (though I did make it to Ireland/Joyceland at another time to pay homage).



Bloomsday is also the day I realize that I'm not the only person in the world (except Shar, of course) who's read the fucking thing. Everyone from Stephen Colbert (who perfectly sums up the supposed "difficulty" of reading Ulysses with the concise and true quote "If you read it out loud, it's a piece of cake") to Elliot Gould has participated in public readings.

Ulysses' importance to America, and to anyone who's ever done anything edgy in their art, cannot be understated. Few people know this, but the trial over its censorship essentially ended the fascist techniques being employed (by the fucking post office no less) in America. Before the Supreme Court case over the book, the P.O. was actually seizing and destroying copies of the book shipped from France, deeming them obscene. This was a common practice at the time, made illegal and unthinkable thanks to the novel we celebrate today.

So even if you've never read it, or don't want to, thank God that the book existed, and that the court case went the way it did: every great piece of American comedy I've ever loved wouldn't have been quite possible without it. It is absolutely no coincidence that at the end of The Daily Show's America: The Book, I saw a very familiar postscript: "Trieste-Zurich-Paris, 1914-1921," Joyce's note at the end of Ulysses detailing the location and duration of its composition. The Daily Show writers are smart enough to recognize Joyce, as Vonnegut did, as the father of modern American satire. They're fighting the same fight, for the right to be serious and write shit jokes all on the same page.

Here's hoping Joyce and Jon Stewart will keep winning the fight, and here's to Ulysses: I'm off to read the Penelope passage now.

Labels: Generalness

...in the form of three or four billion fleas. They're all up in our carpet, and when I went to the bathroom this morning, I had a dozen of the little fuckers hopping around on my feet. Off to the hardware store to buy some flea bombs....

Curse you!

Labels: Generalness, Stumps the Cat

“What about a poisonous gas, that turns people’s skin inside out?”

“Could be good, go on.”

“Oh I could do a laser that would only cut skin with a certain pigment.”

“Uh, let’s fast track that one.”

“Or a bomb that would destroy all forms of organic food.”

“That would certainly help in a siege.”

“Ooo! Like, a remote controlled bullet, you could shoot it and then steer it around corners and everything.”

“Okay. Continue.”

“I think I could develop a kind of chemical fire that would destroy all vulcanized rubber. You could firebomb a city with it and halt all transportation.”

“Wouldn’t really work against tanks, though.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t.”

“Why don’t you go on about poisonous gases?”

“My favorite. Okay, if the skin inside out worries you, bad publicity and all, I think I could whip up one that would instantaneously paralyze a person’s extremities. It’d keep your enemies from pulling their triggers.”

“Or from running away.”

“Or from running away. Oop, looks like your fifteen minutes are up, sir.”

“Dr. Ross, thank you for your time. The United States Military salutes your assistance in helping to spread freedom throughout the world.”

“Uh, right. Do you have my check, general?”

Labels: Stories

So today I was very happy to pick up a copy of The District and find that not only did my massive Parks article run for the summer guide, it is also coincidentally the lead story. I enjoyed that fact for a full five minutes, and then proceeded to get back to work, since I had four other things to write today. So....tired....of....wordssssss......

Here's the link to the article, complete with pictures and some funny ha-ha jokes.

Labels: Generalness

It’s late at night, and he’s in bed with his girlfriend, who’s staying the night at his place, for a change. Davis still doesn’t know how he feels about living downtown, on Broadway in the heart of Long Beach. It’s so much…noisier than it was in the suburbs, where he lived with his father. Another pair of headlights screens across his white bedroom wall, the light dancing its way between his blinds, which can’t ever seem to close tight enough to keep the light out. He sighs, and glances at the clock. It’s 1:55 AM. He’s been trying to fall asleep for an hour. He rolls over and smells his girlfriend. She smells good, he thinks, but not quite as good as his last girlfriend. Then he hears a loud banging, that sounds like it’s coming from the front door of his one bedroom apartment. He sits up, quickly.

He slips out of bed with a smooth graceful motion, and pads cautiously to the door, heat rate elevating as the banging continues. Louder now. He’s so scared he doesn’t even think to slip open his closet and take out the bat his father had given him when he turned 13. Standing in front of the door, right hand resting gently against it, he feels the power of the last three knocks as their shockwaves run through his fingers and arm. He wishes for the first time since moving in two months ago that his door had a peephole.

Davis takes in a breath and waits for the next knock. Three minutes later it hasn’t come. Heart still racing, he whips the door open. Of course, there’s nothing and no one there. No one down the hall either. Davis goes back to bed and falls asleep almost immediately as the adrenaline wears off, his nose resting lightly against his girlfriend’s neck.

* * *

The next night, Davis is woken by the knocking. The clock, once again, reads 1:55 AM. His bed is empty. His apartment is empty, though it’s filled now with the loud, insistent banging. Davis grabs the bat, which he now has propped against the wall next to his bed, and thuds as loudly as he can to the front of the apartment. He raises the bad in his clenched right fist, and puts his left hand on the doorknob, flicking the lock open. There is a pause, and then the knocking begins again; after the first bang, he twists the knob and yanks the door open. Nothing.

* * *

For the next two nights, Davis stays with his girlfriend, but the third day he realizes he can’t be forced out of his own home. It’s been long enough since the last knocks that he’s almost, almost convinced himself that he’d made it up. That night, he uses duct tape and a borrowed video camera and rigs up a bootleg surveillance system. At 1:55, the knocking starts, louder than ever. Davis, his lids heavy with exhaustion, snaps awake and turns on his television, giving himself a full view of his hallway. His mouth drops open. The banging is getting louder, starting to shake the door, the frame of his whole apartment. But there is nothing on the camera but a hallway, and empty air.

* * *

The next morning Davis’ girlfriend finds him curled up on the carpet in his living room. His face is stained with dry tears. His fingers are wrapped tightly around his knees. She coaxes him into relaxing, into talking, into telling her what’s happened. She sits with him all day, as he snores on the couch. She strokes his hair, and wonders what she should do. He wakes up a few hours later after sunset. She is watching a movie. “What time is it?!” he demands, hoarsely. She looks at her watch. It’s 8 o’clock.

Davis arms them both, with a knife, with the bat, and, at 1:50 AM, he opens his door. Five minutes later, the knocking starts, louder than ever, like a giant stomping on the roof. “That’s it!” he shouts. “That’s IT!” The books are falling off their shelves, the blinds are swinging back and forth. Davis puts his arm through the door, feels the air swirling around him, feels the banging, so strong it almost breaks his bones in two. He begins to scream, a scream of equal parts pain and terror. Standing in the perfectly still living room, unable to hear anything save his bloodcurdling wail, his girlfriend watches in stunned silence.

Labels: Stories

Over eighteen years ago, I told my parents that they needed to find something for me to play with, preferably a human. A while later, they brought home my little brother, Matt. Not realizing they'd been trying to conceive for a while, I thought that I had the ability to make them do whatever I wanted. When I asked to meet a Ghostbuster and it didn't happen, I quickly realized that wasn't the case. But Matt made for a pretty decent consolation prize.

Now, somehow, he's graduated from high school. He got a better GPA than me, he played sports, he played music, and he announced a shitload of games. And he's going to Berkeley. The kid who used to steal my stuffed animals and tattle on me when I showed him scary movies is now a high school graduate. Honestly, I was super jaded about my own high school graduation (my parents would have beat my ass if that had ever been my end goal), and I thought I would be about his. But as I watched him give his speech (he gave a fucking speech), and jump around all excited-like afterward, I actually got really happy. Getting out of high school is a pain in the ass, and he did it. He's on to bigger and better things now, and I couldn't be happier or prouder of him, pain in the ass that he is.

Basically: congrats, Matt, and I'm still stunned that you went from my whiny little kid brother who wet his pants while we were playing hide and seek, to my whiny little kid brother who graduated with honors and is going to an amazing school. Just remember: I'm your older brother, and I'm not allowed to be impressed by you. If I were, though, I'd be pretty impressed.

Labels: Generalness

I will open the cupboard. There is nothing in the cupboard but soup. It is my soup cupboard. It is not a rapist cupboard, it is not a mugger cupboard, it is not a monster cupboard. The only thing in the cupboard is soup. The only thing in the cupboard is soup. I put my fingers on the brushed steel knob, and leave them there. Feel it, I say to myself. If there were something horrible in the cupboard, you would feel it. It would move, it would knock against the wood, it would gnash its teeth and snarl at you. “Unless,” the awful voice in the back of my head tells me, “it’s waiting for you to open the cupboard.”

The voice is what I call my Nasty. My Nasty doesn’t want me to open doors, in case there’s someone on the other side of them, to look out of windows, in case horrible faces are looking in, and now, it won’t even let me open my cupboards. There is nothing in the cupboard, I tell my Nasty. Except for soup. There is soup in the cupboard and Steve isn’t home and I want some soup for dinner. I want to open the cupboard and take the soup out and put it in the pan and heat it and pour it in a bowl and eat it for dinner. “But,” my Nasty says, “to do that you will have to open two cupboards and a drawer. There will be two men who want to kill you in the cupboards. There will be one severed hand in the drawer.”

My Nasty is never right. There has never been a man around the corner, never a lifeless head under my bed. I am not a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder, I know this. I am just afraid, of all the nasty things my Nasty dreams up for me to see. But I still trust it, because one day it will be right. And I won’t have listened to it. I turn my hand slightly on the knob, trying to sense if there is anything moving behind it. There isn’t anything there. There isn’t anything there. There is only soup, and I only want soup. It’s just soup. “Laura,” my Nasty whispers. “Let go.” I let go. “Go to bed, Laura.” I go to bed. “Go to sleep, Laura.” I fall asleep.

Labels: Stories

At the grocery store, there’s a metrosexual buying a dozen eggs and a container of bleach. The conservatively dressed man behind me is wondering if these are the fixin’s for some kind of special gay potion. He takes his milk and his Forbes and he moves down to aisle 12. Of course, the metrosexual just needs to make some scrambled eggs and keep his underwear clean, but I don’t tell the conservatively dressed man that.

At the grocery store is a woman named Martha who is on the clock, checking out my groceries on aisle 11. She has three kids, two of them grown, one of them still in high school. She is working here to pay for that child’s college education, as she’d successfully done for her first kids. Her husband works to keep them in their house, and they use her discount with his money to buy food. Her job has been to raise the kids, and earn money to help them on to the next stage of life. In two years, she will retire, she will be done with working here, and she’s happy about that. She’s been here for twenty-four years, 45 hours a week, and she never enjoyed it all that much in the first place. But still she smiles as she hands me my stamps.

At the grocery store there is a 71-year old woman, buying half a dozen roses. She is taking them to her 70-year old husband, because today is their 49th anniversary. She will give them to him, and he will smile, and she will cry a little bit because she is so happy, because they made it, because she wants another 49 years with him more than she wants anything in the world. He will make the same joke he makes three times a year, once on their anniversary and once on each of their birthdays, about how he’s dating an older woman. She loves this joke.

At the grocery store, a young man is stocking more flowers for people who are in love to buy. He knows that they’re bought for other reasons, too, for concerts and graduations and homecoming parties, but as he shakes out each stem and clips the bottom, he imagines that every single flower is for a secret lover, a woman he’s never met who will see it and smile and know how much he loves her. Every other Sunday he brings some of the wilting flowers home to his mother, who pretends to be surprised every time. He thinks she’s pretending, but really she can’t believe that her 17-year old son still cares enough about her to bring her flowers. Her neighbor’s son won’t even talk to her anymore, and her son still brings her flowers, still hugs her and kisses her and thanks her for staying even after his father left.

At the grocery store there is everything you could want, there are thousands of different kinds of food. But the smart shopper isn't looking at the food.

Labels: Stories

The last week has greeted me with shitty news about two of my favorite booksellers. Acres of Books, easily the best thing about Long Beach, is in serious jeopardy because the city of Long Beach wants to redevelop their block into an Irvined up piece of caca. The city of Long Beach absolutely sucks some times. Acres is the favorite bookstore of Ray Bradbury (and me, too), which you think would be enough to keep them in business forevermore. I've written an article about them, and I've probably dropped thousands of dollars I couldn't afford to spend there on books too cheap and amazing to pass up.

If you have any interest in saving these books


and literally over a million more like them, please visit this online petition to save Acres of Books, or, more importantly go down there and get some books if you've got ten buck to spare. I'll update on this story as more info becomes available.


The other potential tragedy is that McSweeney's, my favorite independent publisher, is in dire straits as their distribution company went bankrupt in December due to some shitty business practices, and is stiffing McSwy's by $130,000. This distributor was the distributor for a number of great indie pubs, and a few have already closed down.

McSweeney's really doesn't want to close, and I'd really like that, too. They're having an enormous sale at their website; all back books are discounted, including rare ones they've just pulled from Sean Wilsey's garage. If you're a bit richer, they some amazing stuff for higher prices, like a bundle of Eggers books (with the rare first edition of Sacrament), each of which comes with a unique signed drawing of Eggers by Eggers. I'll be profiling a new cheap McSwy's book every few days or so, since I've read about half of everything they've published.

So be a champ if you can, and contribute good thoughts or free press if you can't (I'm in the latter category). There will be a story up within a few hours, but I had to pass this info along since books are what I cover and follow, and these are some earthbreakingly huge stories in the good book world.

Labels: Generalness, Save the Books

Hello, Motel 6. Hello lover. Hello best friend, hello wife and kids, hello dog. Hello front door with plastic numbers on it that greet me with the same question every time I see it: What are you doing with your life? I don’t know, Motel 6. You know as well as I do, you see as much of me as I do. The only time you can’t see me is when I’m on stage, and I can’t see myself then, either. I can only see the empty spaces between people in the audience. There’s usually plenty to look at.

Washington, Oregon, California, Motel 6, we’ve been all over, you and I. You’ve heard all the songs I can’t sing in front of other people, you’ve heard all the times the phone didn’t ring because there was no one to call me. You’ve heard my agent laugh his ass silly when I tried to call this a tour. “A tour? Are you shitting me? If this is a tour, Tanner, your whole life is a tour. A tour ends. You just keep bumming up and down, expecting to get famous.” You heard me throw him out, you saw me hold a razor contemplatively that night, you puzzled over why I bothered to set it down.

If you could just tell them who I really am, Motel 6. If you could write songs and go onstage and perform them, if you could film me and show my true self to an audience, if you could take a picture of me and put it in a museum. Through your peephole I would look like myself, reflected in your smoky mirror I wouldn’t look like I wasn’t there. The day I don’t wake up, you will be my last will and testament, my estate. You will be my coffin. And I know that you will go forth and tell them, who I was, who I would have been. You will tell them that I was beautiful when they weren’t looking.

Labels: Stories

He is stuck in traffic, which is something he often is. It’s nearly bumper to bumper, but his heart veritably leaps when things loosen up a bit; he’s been driving the 405 long enough to know that this little pocket of 30 MPH driving won’t last long, but he could care less. He’s moving, at least, in his little blue sedan. Then, predictably, the freeway clenches up again, everyone starts to squeeze together, brake lights pop on and off in front of him like pixies flitting across the street. Unpredictably, the white SUV in front of him crashes into the black sedan in front of it. He’s seen enough accidents that this doesn’t shock him, but it does break him out of the monotony of the drive, which he makes five days a week, 51 weeks a year. The accident, though loud and only a few yards in front of him, is not real to him. He watches it like it’s a television show.

Then the man in the black sedan gets out. He doesn’t turn his car off, or put his blinkers on, or pull over. He just explodes out of his car like he’d been shot from a cannon. He’s wearing a tight black t-shirt, and has tribal tattoos on both arms, long sideburns, and short, spiky black hair. He is at the white SUV’s door in three humongous steps, and he’s walking like he won’t stop there, he’s walking like he’s going somewhere two miles away, and this car is just in his way. The driver of the SUV is rolling up his window, frantically, wishing he could do something to make the button work faster, but he can’t.

Black t-shirt punches the window once, shaking and cracking it, and then a second time, shattering it into little pieces of glass that look like rock candy. With one impressive motion, black shirt reaches into the car and drags the driver out, holding him by his shoulders. The man driving the white SUV is much smaller than black shirt; he looks like he’s about 50, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and thick glasses. Black shirt throws him on the ground, then kicks him savagely in the stomach. All the life goes out of Hawaiian shirt’s eyes. “Please,” the man in the blue sedan can see him mouth.

Black shirt picks him up by his Hawaiian shirt and punches him, a hard right cross that knocks his glasses off. He punches him again, painting his check with a streak of blood, and again, painting his Hawaiian shirt and mouth with more.

“Stop,” Hawaiian shirt mouths. Black shirt throws him against the SUV and walks back to his black car, as though it were nothing, as though he’d just dropped off the mail. He gets in and drives off. It takes him a minute, but Hawaiian shirt gets back into is SUV and pulls off to the side of the road. Nobody looks at him. The man in the blue sedan puts his car in drive, and continues down the road. There are tears in his eyes, but he’s not sure why. He is horrified, but, to his surprise, he realizes he isn’t surprised.

Labels: Stories

Watched Die Hard today...it's probably the 15th time or so I've seen it. After Jurassic Park, I'm pretty sure it's the movie I've seen the most. Today was special because I watched it with Shar and Robyn, after discovering last night that Robyn had NEVER SEEN DIE HARD. Madness! That wrong has been righted, and I have to say, watching it with someone who was still shocked and startled and scared by scenes I can quote from memory made them fresh and shiny and new to me again, which was pretty cool.

Where were you when you found out this fact about Robyn, you ask. How utterly convenient of you. We were standing outside the Greek Theater, one of my favorite places to see a show and easily my least favorite place to park in the world. We had just seen Garrison Keillor and the Prairie Home Companion, recorded with special guests Martin Sheen, Meta Weiss (an awesome and very cute cellist), Randy Newman, and...Paula Poundstone? Yeah, Poundstone was weird, and seemed on the verge of self-destructing every second she was holding a microphone, which kind of jibed with the whole "laid back smart people" vibe the rest of the evening had. I had never heard an episode of PHC before, kind of intentionally and kind of not, but I'm officially a convert. Very funny, very smart, the kind of show I wish I'd thought up.

Also, I'm almost done with a brand spanking new short story collection by the uber-awesome Miranda July. She's a performing artist/film writer/director, and this is her first major book release. It's reaaaaaallllllly good, and I won't say too much more than that since I will almost assuredly be writing about it for one publication or another, but I will link my review after it's published.

Speaking of links to published stuff, here is my first District article, all 150 words of it. It's a review of the goddamn Fleshlight, for what that's worth, but I thought it was pretty funny (though my editor trimmed the last sentence down into a typo) and hopefully the first of many articles to come there. I have a few more coming in the next week's issue, so things are looking good. I, for my part, will continue to pray just as fast as I can.

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

There is nothing outside my window but grass. You probably do not understand what that’s like. I’m guessing that outside your window there’s a street, paved with asphalt, cars driving by it. Down that street I’m sure you can find a grocery store, maybe a movie theater. If you take it to a freeway, you could probably drive to see a professional sports team, a museum, a national landmark of some kind. Not me. Outside my window there is nothing to see, unless you want to check the taller grass for which way the wind is blowing. In Barrow, Kansas, there is nothing else to see. We have no roads, we have one general store. It’s an hour’s drive, mostly on dirt, to get to a place you can do real shopping.

That’s why I was so shocked when last Tuesday evening I heard a knock on my front door, and saw a beautiful woman through my window. Now, we have beautiful women in Barrow; my wife, God rest, was the most beautiful woman we’d ever seen. But, due respect to Mary, who will forever be the love of my life, this woman wasn’t Barrow beautiful. She was Los Angeles beautiful, New York beautiful. Beautiful beautiful.

“Hello,” she said. “My car’s busted. Can I use your phone?”

“Well, I’m right sorry,” I said, “But I don’t actually have one. Randy a few miles walk can probably fix your car up, but I believe he’ll be in bed by now. If you need a place to stay, you’re welcome to bunk down here.”

She cocked one of her perfect eyebrows at me, making a beautiful curve of fine hair over her beautiful green eye.

“Not to insult your honor, ma’am. I’ve got a spare bedroom, where my daughter grew up. She’s living in California now, so I don’t reckon she’ll be waking you up.”

She graciously accepted, of course. She didn’t have any luggage or food with her, and I knew something funny was going on. What was I going to do, though? Tell a gorgeous gal like that to get lost? Not a chance. I made her some beef stew and we talked some. She brought me some wine from my kitchen, and next thing I know, I’m waking up the next day, in an empty house. She’d found all the money I had stored around, and made off with it. Why a woman like that would waste her time in Barrow, Kansas just to take $100 off an old man, that’s beyond me. I’m not mad about it, though. I have my house, my lawn, my little town, I have everything I need. And a hundred bucks is small price to pay for the best story in Barrow. Robbed by a supermodel? Randy’s got nothing on that.

Labels: Stories

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Susannah?”

“Where did Stumps go?”

“What do you mean, honey?”

“Well, after that man ran him over, you and Mommy took him away. Where did he go?”

“I don’t know for sure, honey, but I know it’s somewhere better than here.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do, sweetie. It’s something Daddys know. They teach us at Daddy School. He’s in a better place, because where he is, it’s something new every day. The sky doesn’t just stay one color there, it goes through the whole rainbow, one color at a time. And sometimes the grass grows down, and it tickles the earth, Susannah, like this!”

“Do you think you can keep telling me stories about him?”

“Of course, honey. There are always more stories to tell.”

“I miss him.”

“I know honey. Me too. But I heard that just yesterday he beat up a huge dinosaur all by himself. He poked him right in the eye with his half-a-tail and then he scratched him all over.”

“Daddy, Stumps could never beat up a dinosaur, he’s too small.”

“Well I know for a fact he beat up an elephant. I saw it with my own eyes. That elephant said that he thought you smelled bad, and your tough kitty cat went right to work on him.”

“Does Stumps still get in fights where he is now?”

“Only when he wants to, darling. He gets whatever he wants now.”

“He must be pretty happy.”

“He is, Susannah. The happiest cat there ever was.”

“…I still miss him.”

“I know. That’s okay. But now, it’s night-night time, okay?”

“Okay. Good night Daddy.”

“Good night Susannah.”

“Good night Stumps.”

Labels: Stories, Stumps the Cat

So awhile back I wrote a short story about a cat, named Stumps the Cat. In the story, a father is telling his daughter about how Stumps lost his tail and came to live with the family; all of that was made up. The cat, however, was not. Stumps lived with us for a little over a month, but our part of his story has ended.

The night before I was going to leave to take my brother to Bizerkeley, this little cat was meowing outside our door, mournfully. I'm something of a cat whisperer, so we slowly convinced him to come in and spend the night. He did, and then got very comfortable, very fast. We got used to each other, and Shar and I (and Pat) grew to love him. After a month of trying to find him a good home, we decided earlier today that we should most definitely keep him.

At around 12:30 am tonight, we heard Stumps crying for help outside our door. We threw some clothes on (again, it was after midnight) and stomped outside, ready to break heads if someone was fucking with our cat. There were two girls kneeled down, and a guy standing over them. Shar asked if they'd heard a cat nearby. "Actually," they said. "It's our cat. We lost him a month and a half ago, and we just found him."

They were in tears they were so happy to have found him, and to hear that he'd had a loving home, in the lap of luxury for the last month. They gave us their names (which I don't remember) and their address (which I wrote down) and told us to come visit him any time. Which we most definitely will. Because his story isn't over, and I really want to hear the rest of it.

I'll probably write another episode of the fictional S the C's life tomorrow. If you want to read the first one, it's at:

Stumps the Cat Part. 1

Goodnight Stumps; we'll miss you ramming us with your head while we try to sleep.

Labels: Generalness, Stumps the Cat

Thomas put another bullet through his mouth, mostly out of boredom, but partly to see the way it made everyone on the sidewalk scurry away from him, like fat little bugs. He’d long since given up on trying to kill himself. He had tried nearly everything at this point: guns, nooses, gas, even standing in the basement of a high-rise as it was being demolished. It took him a few weeks to climb out, but he made it, the way he always did. Thomas hated being alive more than anything else in the world.

There’s no secret origin to Thomas’ immortality, no magical staff or spell or radioactive sandwich. He just can’t die. He discovered this the day he was run over by a truck, trying to save his young daughter’s life. Trying, and failing. Over the next fifty years, Thomas watched all of his loved ones get caught under the wheels of time. His mother and father, his sister, and finally, his wife, at the ripe old age of 86. When she disappeared, so did the last thin thread tying him to any kind of rational thought, to any semblance of sanity. He spent forty years trying to kill himself, and failing at that, too.

Not surprisingly, the efforts left him bankrupt, ruined in every way the world can measure ruin. Penniless, starving of a hunger that can never kill him, Thomas just sits on the corner, watching life pass him by. Of a sound body and no mind whatsoever, he can do nothing now but mourn for himself, for the tattered and pathetic ruins of a life that won’t ever end.

Labels: Stories

Golly. It was a long one, alright. Today was Shar's day off, which usually means a luxurious day full of lying around, watching DVDs and reading comics/real books together. Today we woke up a half hour late, then rushed through getting ready so that we could make it up to Downey in time for my tux fitting. Of course, once we got there, we had to wait twenty minutes because their staff (which consisted of one late middle-age/early old-age man) had its hands full with a bratty little ring bearer.

Once we had his attention, the guy was very helpful, and got me set up with a Hilfiger luxury tux that looks like this:



Except that it has a really amazing vest and tie to go with it that look like this:



We also picked out some really nice tuxes for the rest of the wedding party and negotiated a solid deal with discount on those, then drove home and grabbed some In and Out, some comics (wednesday, baby), and some ribbons from Joann that Shar wanted to use as color samples for:

Our trip to the florist, accompanied by me ma, who made it an enjoyable trip with her offer to, you know, pay the florist. We got a quote and talked about a lot of different options (and by we I mean Megan the florist, Shar, and my Mom; I mostly just nodded my head because I generally think all flowers look pretty nice). Then we ate and went home. Shar headed off to LA while I started working on some District work (more on that tomorrow) and watched the ma'fackin Ducks become Champions of Lord Stanley's Cup! What an amazing game.

Then I went to visit Dan and Pat's new house which is, frankly, unreal. Such an amazing place, I'm really and truly jealous, and couldn't be happier for those two guys, who deserve nothing but the best all the time. A guy couldn't ask for better friends, and a guy's friends couldn't ask for a better house.

Anyway, all of that is leading up to me using my busy day as an excuse for posting a story that's barely a hundred words long. I liked it decently, but I promise a weightier effort on the morrow.

Thanks for reading! Leave comments if you'd like! I'd like!

Labels: Generalness, wedding

His lungs are burning, but he doesn’t care. He can’t care, he can’t slow down. It’s already been an hour since the shadows grew longer and fatter, and eventually masked the whole world in darkness, and he had already been running for two hours when the sun first touched the horizon. His legs feel like rubber, his shoulders sag like he was carrying twenty pound weights. But the night is calling him, it’s pulling him forward, forward. His puts his favorite song on, barely even sucking air his throat feels so thick. He can’t stop, or they’ll catch him. They’re right behind him. They’ll never catch him. He’s free now, he’s gone. He’s running.

Labels: Stories

By Roland Dawson, Daily News Times

An aerial genetic attack from an as-yet unknown enemy has crippled the United States in a matter of hours. The attack, which officials say may be the product of Muslim terrorists, has used a rapid-expanding gas to destroy base-line genetic codes in human beings. The gas does not appear to have affected animals or other species. The full extent of the gas’ effects is not yet known, though one horrifying consequence has already become all-too-known by dozens of women and their partners across the country. “Within minutes of exposure to the gas, a base DNA code loses its fidelity in fetus’,” said Doctor Wu-Chang of the UCLA Medical Center. “The code that’s damaged is responsible for special normity. In other words, it’s the code that makes sure humans breed humans, and crocodiles breed crocodiles. Without it, there is no rhyme or reason to what women give birth to.”

Hospital wards across the country have been filled to the brim with terrified mothers, some of them carrying infant monkeys in their wombs, some of them carrying reptiles destined to be stillborn because of their cold-blooded bodies, ill-suited to mammalian birth. The attack has essentially ended the abortion debate in the country, as no Christian group remains who is willing to contest the humanity of forcing women to give birth to infant rhinoceri.

General Craig Thompson gave a press conference just a few moments ago, detailing what the U.S. Government is doing to ensure the future safety of its citizens. “This attack is unspeakable. What we’re witnessing, and God knows, what we may be witnessing over the next several years, is an absolute abomination and an affront to all humanity. To take away a person’s ability to breed is to strip them of their most basic human right. While we’re as stunned and shaken as anyone else––you will remember, I hope, that the President’s daughter was pregnant when we were attacked––I can assure you that we will do whatever necessary to hunt down those responsible for this, and bring them to justice.”

Meanwhile––fuck it, I can’t keep writing this stupid inverted pyramid shit. My editors don’t read this anyway, so they’re not going to bat an eye if I stop pretending to be aloof from this. It’s a tragedy, and I’m not going to write about it like I’m a robot, got that Mr. Rosemann? God damnit. My wife was pregnant. She’s not anymore. She had it aborted. I say "it" because she can’t even bring herself to tell me what it was, what had started growing inside of her. I don’t want to be here, writing this. I don’t want to pretend to be objective. How can anyone claim objectivity? About anything? We’re human beings, damnit. For whatever that’s worth anymore.

Labels: Stories

What a solid twenty four hours of entertainment it's been...

So I took a brief hiatus from my Vonnegut study, exactly at the halfway mark, to read some things I had to review, including the new Michael Chabon novel, The Yiddish Policeman's Union. It's good; not Kavalier and Clay good, but what do you want from a guy? YPU is about a down and out detective...a story we've all read a thousand times. Except that this down and out detective lives in Sitka, Alaska, where the Jews of the world were resettled in the late '40s, according to this alternate history. The book's language, while heavy with Yiddish, still sparkles with Chabon's usual flair for inventive figurative language, and the characters are as heartbreaking and believable as every Chabon character. I really enjoyed it, and I recommend it to you, my friend.

I finished YPU this morning, and then saw Knocked Up at ten o'clock at night. Ten o'clock on a Monday night...that is the time to see a great comedy with some friends, let me tell you. Knocked Up was amazing: funny, realistic, and able to show male friends making stupid jokes without reducing their lives to a stupid joke (a fine line rarely walked by comedies). It may be the most perfectly cast movie of all time, from the big roles (Seth, Katharine and Paul were all wonderful) to the small (Harold Ramis is probably a God). Anyway, as big as all the big movies are this summer, this flick took in 30 mil last weekend, making over its budget two days after it came out. Good for it. And good for the country, for noticing it; it's a relatively quiet, small fish in an ocean of overblown carnivores this summer.

I also discovered, via Knocked Up, a new singer songwriter I'm falling in love with as we speak (or whatever it is you and I are doing right now through your computer screen). Loudon Wainwright III is by no means new or cutting edge, and I've unkowingly been a fan of his for years since I loved him as Hal Karp on Undeclared some time ago. There were three songs on the soundtrack of the movie that I loved, and I was startled to see in the credits that they were all by a man named Wainwright. A quick IMDB source confirmed that he played the errant gynecologist in Knocked Up, and Steven Karp's dad on Apatow's old TV show. What a cool world. I downloaded his album, Strange Weirdos: Music From and Inspired by Knocked Up, and am about halfway through it right now, digging every song so far, including the instrumental ones. Hopefully his older stuff is as great as I've already assumed it is.

That's all: more wedding planning today, which I'll update about soon, I promise. Oh, and Shar and I got Chick-Fil-A today, and held the door open for a kind old man, who gave us a stereotypically adorable old man smile and handed us free coupons for chicken sandwiches, since we were "such polite and nice young people." Sometimes the universe almost makes sense to me. G'night, world! Sleep well.

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

The substitute Campmaster led his cadets out of their fluttering tents, and gathered them around the roaring fire. This was what they’d all been waiting for: ghost stories. The campers missed their regular Campmaster, but the middle-aged man who’d taken them on this expedition had quickly won them over, letting them swim in the mountain lake after dark, promising them the scariest campfire story they’d ever heard. Now, the wind howling around them, a full moon peering down from above, they warmed themselves by the hungry flames, and held themselves as he began his story.

“In Pleasanton, as all of you know, there is little to no crime. Or so your parents want you to think. Decades ago, there was a serial killer on the loose in Pleasanton. He was a boy, not much older than you boys. He was just starting high school. He killed nine people in one summer, paralyzing our little city.”

The boys looked at each other and snickered. They’d heard worse than this on their first camping trip, when they were six and seven year olds. And to think, they sniggered, that they’d let this man convince them that he had something special up his sleeve.

“The young boy was caught, his hands covered in his last victim’s blood, and jailed for twenty years. The town hushed up his story, and made an unspoken rule that no new residents to Pleasanton would be told about him.” The Campmaster went silent as, on cue, thick clouds passed over the moon, cutting of all light save the fire. He stroked his thick beard before continuing. “Last week, he escaped,” he said.

The boys were still putting on brave faces, but they were starting to get nervous. “Let me guess,” asked the bravest of them. “He had a rusty hook instead of a hand.”

The Campmaster smiled and released his beard. “No,” he said, raising his hands in front of him. “Two hands.”

Now the most timid of the campers spoke up. “Why––why did he kill those people?” he asked.

“Because he liked it,” the Campmaster said, smile widening a fraction.

The boys shifted and wormed in their seats now. They wanted to go home. They didn’t like this new man, with his staring intensity and his serious story. Campfire stories weren’t supposed to be serious.

The Campmaster was loving the skittish looks. “So much had changed since he’d been put away. But one thing was still exactly the same: The Camp Scouts. He remembered the fun times he’d had as a camper, and he wanted so badly to go on one last trip before he left Pleasanton forever. The Campers still have public listings, and it was so easy to find a troop that was leaving soon, with a Campmaster that was as fat and stupid and trusting as anyone else in Pleasanton.”

The boys shook in open terror now, trying desperately to remember their old Campmaster ever saying anything about a substitute, trying to recall seeing this man’s face in the supermarket, or picking up a classmate at school. The most timid among them spoke up now, gave voice to their fear and to their collective wish: “I want to go home,” he whimpered.

“Oh, young man,” the Campmaster said, the moon parting the clouds for the sick privilege of glinting off his predator’s smile. “You’re never going home.”

Labels: Stories

Officer Spitz clocked the Ford Taurus at 73 MPH, a full five MPH less than the Officer drove at minimum when he was on the freeway. But the quota meeting that morning had made it clear he needed to get real strict, real fast this month, so Spitz pulled out behind the puke-green car, waiting, momentarily, on flipping his siren’s toggle switch. He cruised behind the Taurus for thirty seconds; the guy obviously didn’t realize there was a cop behind him, as he didn’t even tap his brakes.

Then Spitz made the mistake he couldn’t seem to stop making, no matter how many times his CO bitched him out for it. He started looking at the car, piecing together who the man driving it was. He took a quick glance at a bumper sticker: the guy supported the same candidate in ’04 as Spitz had. Spitz could see from the thick dirt caked on the Taurus that its driver washed his car about as often as Spitz himself did, and a half-smile came to the officer’s lips as he wondered if that man’s wife teased him as much about it as Spitz’s did. Then came the kryptonite: the license plate frame.

The top read, in cheaply customized lettering, “We Love Our Daddy.” The bottom: “Krystina, Jane, and Sam.” Spitz knew he couldn’t pull over Krystina, Jane, and Sam’s Daddy, knew that even though he had his children’s love to buoy him, there was a decent chance the man couldn’t afford the ticket, a better chance he couldn’t afford the sure-to-follow insurance hike. At the very least, it would fuck up his day, and he’d come home to his kids grumpy, and distracted. Spitz wanted to hurt this family, who he could see so clearly in his head, a thousand times less than he wanted to meet his stupid goddamn quota. “Stupid,” he muttered to himself, and pulled around the Taurus on its right.

The man driving the car noticed Spitz immediately, and put foot-to-brake with a panicked look on his face. Spitz just flipped him a wave and a friendly smile, and drove on.

Labels: Stories

Don't worry, it's nothing serious, but fuck... Yesterday I played basketball with a bunch of friends, and it was the first strenuous physical activity I've had in...God, I think since I dislocated my shoulder around last Thanksgiving. I played a good game (actually we played three), but I'm really painfully paying for it today. The whole "not exercising for half a year then playing basketball for two hours" thing equals me being more sorer than I have been since playing football in high school. Especially since Shar and I had two of our favorite houseguests (Hi Val and Whitney) stay the night last night, and the four of us stayed up until five something in the morning playing Wario Ware. Brilliant. Because it's not like I'm already sleep-deprived and on deadline for two different stories I need to have written by tomorrow.

But fuck it. What's the point of being alive if you can't spend a Sunday every now and then procrastinating, nursing a no-sleep headache and muscles so sore they can barely function?

I've been really busy lately, so there hasn't been much time for personal posts (though I hope you're happy to note that after a month I'm still on track with the stories), but this week should see more posts on wedding planning, life, and all that other jazz. Stay tuned.

Labels: Generalness

Everyman was excited: after five years of hard work, he’d finally defeated College, and was about to step out of the cave he’d been imprisoned in into the light. College, a three-eyed mutation of a Cyclops, had hurled Books and Essays at Everyman to keep him cowering in the corner, unable to fight his way out of the cave. After a few years of being battered, Everyman finally learned to use the projectiles against the monster. Finally he threw a Thesis spear through the beast’s heart, slaying him instantly. Everyman stepped over him, letting the light touch his face for the first time in half a decade. He was excited to use all of the survival skills he’d learned in the cave to prosper and flourish in the outside world.

Almost immediately, he felt his skin begin to burn. He’d never encountered anything like this inside of his cave, and, nervous, his legs started to tremble. It was clear that the things he’d learned in the cave weren’t easily applicable to the world outside of it. Feeling the harsh light, Everyman considered where to go: he had no home now. He briefly considered going back home to his parents, Everydad and Everymom, but decided against it. They fought constantly and belittled him. He started to move towards the shade of a tree, when a monster approached, twice as hideous as College had been.

“What do you think you’re doing out here?” asked the thing.

“Uh…I don’t know yet. I was going to take some time to figure it out.”

“Unacceptable! Decide what you’re doing! Now! Real Life demands it of you!”

“But I just DON’T KNOW!”

And with that, Real Life chased Everyman back into his cave, where Everyman lay back panting. Just then, College’s cousin Grad School showed up, to see College dead and a puny human in the back of his cave. The monster screamed, and began hurling Books at Everyman. “Ah, Christ,” said our beleaguered hero. “This is gonna take at least two years. Oh well. Anything is better than that monstrous Real Life.”

Labels: Stories

[Based on a character created by Paul Bowles]

Lazrag was a short man, a midget in fact, made even shorter by the fact that he had no legs. He had no arms either, and no hair. Lazrag didn’t have much; what he had was a public bath in Morocco that he inherited from his father, whom he had never met, and two tiny pieces of blue flesh where his legs should have been. The two short flippers were spongy, and oozed mucousy slime almost constantly.

Many people had pitied Lazrag, in part because of his other shortcomings, but mainly because of the slime. It was the thing, though, that pleased Lazrag the most, because disgusting as others found it, Lazrag’s slime allowed him to move himself, through a series of thrusts that sent him sliding along the floor.

Lazrag liked his slime so much that he had been known to taste it when no one was looking. He never swallowed it, figuring it must have been toxic, on account of how bad it smelled. But Lazrag even liked the smell, and when he wasn’t tasting the slime, he could often be seen propped up on his arm nubs, his nose just millimeters from his slime trail or puddle, breathing deeply.

That is what Lazrag was doing in the corner of the cavernous room that contained his public bath when the boy came bursting in, heading straight for the water. Lazrag had never seen him before, and Lazrag had seen everyone he allowed in his bath.

“Who are you?” Lazrag asked, trying to sound imposing. The boy looked down at him, taking him in. “Who are you?” Lazrag asked again.

“I came to bathe and sleep,” the boy said after a pause.

“Who gave you permission?”

“The man at the entrance.” Lazrag knew this was a lie.

“Get out. I don’t know you.”

The boy looked down at him angrily, and started to walk by him towards the water. Lazrag threw himself in front of the boy, trying to keep from sliding too far and plunging into the water. “You think you can bathe when I tell you to get out?” he asked the boy, then laughed. Without hesitation, the boy drew his foot back and kicked Lazrag in the head, not hard, but hard enough send him rolling backwards. Lazrag tried to stop his momentum, but he rolled over the edge and towards the water with a yell.

Lazrag, sinking like a stone, heard one of the men yell something, and saw figures chasing the boy back out the entrance. Under the water, Lazrag waited for one of the men to pull him back up, and watched sadly as the oozing slime from his flippers dissipated into the clear water. He looked at his toxic slime and knew he’d ruined the water.

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