When Conor was over last week, we somehow got round to talking about shitty stories in college creative writing classes. I didn't take a lot of creative writing classes, but as the Lit editor at the Union, and while running and judging four short story contests at the paper, I did tend to see the same kind of story four or five times over and over again. So, with no further ado, here is what you won't see from me on this website (unless of course I run out of ideas, which is not only possible now that I think about it, but acutally quite likely):

A story with a SURPRISE TWIST ENDING! These were probably my biggest pet peeve at the Union, as a previous editor had made them his halmark. In this story, let's say the first three hundred words are a graphic description of what appears to be a man choking someone to death. Then, in the last paradigm-shattering sentence, it's revealed that the boy is actually masturbating! What great fun!

A subset of the last kind: STORIES THAT ARE ACTUALLY DREAMS. Yes, it's annoying enough when people tell you about dreams they had, but I'm specifically talking about when someone write a short story, that could perhaps even be interesting or innovative in some way, and then ends it with the main character waking up and realizing it's all been a dream. Seriously, they don't even allow this ending on television anymore, so it has no place in prose fiction.

THINLY VEILED AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STORIES ABOUT YOU AND YOUR RAD FRIENDS GETTING STONED OR DRUNK. It's really not funny or interesting to anyone else. Honestly I'm surprised it's even interesting to you after you sober up. I'm all for thinly veiled autobiographical stories, but seriously college students, get some new material.

RANDOM HARDCORE SEX STORIES...USUALLY WITH A DOMINATRIX BENT. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for tons of random sex with a dominatrix bent, but not in your poorly written shock story. I assume my readers are as unsqueamish as I am, which means it would be a huge mistake to try and have the only value of a story be shock value. You might be surprised how many stories got submitted to the Union contest that were solely a description of someone having crazy sex, or being murdered graphically. Really lovely stuff.

Now, if only I could think of as many ideas for stories as I can think of types of stories I hate.

Labels: Generalness, Mission Statement

The forest in central Italy is dense, and the canopy overhead so thick it’s dark even during the daytime. The air is pure here, hundreds of years before man will figure out how to send clouds of poison from the ground to the sky. This pure air moves gently up the side of this hill, strong enough to cool a brow, but not enough to disturb the trees. On the ground, in the middle of a small clearing, a man sits, cross-legged, on a natural mat of dead pine needles and fallen cones. There are birds on his shoulders, birds on his elbows, birds hovering and floating lazily overhead. A fox emerges from a burrow and lies next to him, and the family of squirrels huddled in the hollow between his knees don’t stir. A few owls appear, a rare sight under sunlight. More and more animals, big and small, emerge from the trees and take their place around the man. They have always come to him, because he listens, and he always listens because they’ve always spoken. They’ve been speaking to him since long before his Lord began to speak to him, long before his Lord began to talk to the animals through him. Here, at last, was providence.

Labels: Stories

My favorite coach of all time, possibly the greatest coach of all time, and undeniably the smartest coach of all time, died today at the age of 75. Bill Walsh had leukemia, which wasn't right. But he lived a long, good life, and was the kind of guy that I'm relatively sure never had a bad word spoken about him.

If I were still with the Union, J.J. would have called me ten minutes after the news broke and asked me to write a 500 word article about it, which I would have been happy to do; sadly that time has passed, and this blog is my only outlet for appreciation and sadness. Bill Walsh was a thinking man's coach, the coach who made me realize that you can study football like you study literature, or chess, or any other intellectual pursuit. For extra credit in a KPE class, I wrote a five page essay on how brilliant the drive that led to The Catch in 1981 was. Walsh, nicknamed the Genius, was brilliant, and really may have been a genius. He's famous for creating the West Coast offense, but as John Madden pointed out, his contribution is greater than that: Madden says Walsh was the NFL's first coach to use the run to support the pass, instead of the other way around, often eliminating a rushing offense entirely for whole drives. That kind of pass-first mentality, even without the rigid West Coast scheme, has largely taken over the league today. Practically every assistant or coordinator who ever worked with Walsh has gone on to coach his own team, further cementing his ongoing legacy.

Not only did he revolutionize the game of football, and make it worthwhile to be a 49ers fan, but he did it all with the kind of class and grace that Bill Belichick could never imagine. He created champions, and he cared about them as though they were family.

Jerry Rice, the greatest football player to ever set foot on a field, earlier today: "I went to San Francisco, and I found a second father: Bill Walsh." For Walsh, Hall of Famer and owner of three Super Bowl rings, there could have been no higher compliment.

Good night, coach.

Labels: Football, Generalness

Her boyfriend is snoring so loudly she cannot sleep, again, but she still doesn’t mind. She’s a sophomore creative writing major, and when her boyfriend sleeps over and keeps her awake, she just uses it as an excuse to work on her “figurative language.” She thinks the clicking of his teeth is like gears turning together, like enameled dominos falling over one by one by one, like a bone rattling against prison bars, is a tap dance, a metronome, a kind of song.

His wheezy inhalations are like a cry for help, like a giant vacuum pointed at the sky, like an old man falling, are a black hole, a garbage disposal, a sinkhole.

She thinks his explosive exhalations are like a machine gun firing 1,000 rounds a second, like an anonymous fistfight on a dark street, like a monster crawling out from under her bed, like a monster creeping up her stairs, like a marching band with only bass drums, like a car that runs on backfires, like a thick window breaking and breaking and breaking, are periods, are punches, are bombs.

And just when she starts to nod off, her heart beating to the rhythm of her boyfriend’s breath, the upstairs neighbors start dropping concrete blocks on her ceiling, and shaking their leg irons.

Labels: Stories

The dust is so thick they can barely see each other. The storm is still picking up, too, whipping more and more of that fine southern soil around them. “Merle, just give me my boy back!” Johnny shouts over the howl of the wind.

“John, don’t be an idiot! Your goddamn boy killed those girls, and I’m turnin’ him in.”

“Now you know he doesn’t mean to do no harm!”

“Goddamnit, John! He killed two little girls, and he has to be brung in, I don’t care if he is a goddamned mongoloid!”

“Don’t you call him that, you dirty son of a bitch. He’s a special boy. Chosen by God!”

“Yeah well, chosen or not, I’m takin’ him in, Johnny, unless you can pull a gun out of this storm!”

Johnny flailed his arms, as if he thought he might be able to. “I know what this is about Merle! You want that fuckin’ reward!”

“I want justice, John. But my boys haven’t had shit to eat for weeks, and justice oughta help put some food on their table.”

“Merle you’re the boy’s godfather! You’re my best friend, you slice of shit! This ain’t right!”

“Yeah, well Johnny: etiquette’s got nothin’ on necessity. Now git out my way before I have to make Annie lose her boy and her husband in the same storm.”

Labels: Stories

Jeff Albertson has seen every episode of this show; how dare you? What do you take him for, an idiot? Yeah, he knows that quote. He knows every quote! He knows them all! Jesus. Jeff Albertson has spent his life amassing the largest collections of pop culture references, quotes, and comic books that you could possibly imagine. Frankly, he’s beginning to think even conversing with you is a waste of time.

Yes, he’s seen the Simpsons movie. He went to the premiere, actually. And the midnight screening. The premiere? No, he’s not press, or a celebrity. He won his way in the hard way, by winning a Simpsons quote-off on a morning radio show. No, he tried to find Matt Groening, but he couldn’t. He had a whole speech written out in his head if he could have found him. Yes, he liked the movie. It’s the fucking Simpsons. He laughed his way through the entire thing, with his giggly, nasally laugh that bubbled from his sinuses. He made faint squeaking noises while he ate his popcorn. And he even laughed when there were no jokes on screen. That’s how big a fan he is.

YES, he’s going to Comic-Con! Are you fucking kidding me? He pre-registered for his four day passes (with Wednesday night preview ticket) at last year’s Con. No he doesn’t need to carpool with you, he booked the Mariott in downtown S.D. on February 12th, the first day they took Con-discounted reservations. Oh, you didn’t buy yours yet? You thought you could wait in line Saturday morning? Jeff Albertson is disappointed in you. He scoffs at you. You are gum on the bottom of his shoe, with opinions like that. You are the popcorn in his ass-cleavage. You are the lint in his abnormally large belly button.

Labels: Stories

I love Ben Franklin as much as the next man, but clearly he made some mistakes. Had he lived in a paved over desert in the summer, and been as hairy as me, he would have known that ceiling fans are the obvious proof that there is a God who cares about us.



Thank God for ceiling fans!

Labels: Generalness

I believe in the duality of man. I’ve been told that there is a duality to women, too, but in the last year and a half, stalking the Chicago rooftops, I’ve never encountered it. What I encounter, what I believe I am encountering, are shadows. I believe that every man casts a shadow, a projection of everything awful and horrible inside of him. I believe that at times, a man stands as at high noon, with nothing beneath him. But I know that more often, a man is swallowed up by a soulless midnight, strangled to death by the evil he holds inside of him. That’s what I’m stalking: wraiths. Shadows.

They don’t only come out at night, but they do mostly. There’s more places to hide at night, and less decent eyes watching. The animals think the night belongs to them. They’re wrong: the night belongs to me. If I leave a dealer alive, I leave him with a message: I tell him my name is The Night. I tell him to let his friends know. I know what the name sounds like, but that’s the point: I want them laughing, thinking I’m an idiot who’s read too many Batman comics. I want them paralyzed by their own bravado. I want them smiling when I smash out all the lights and pick them apart, one by one. As soon as they laugh, the second they fail to take me seriously, I have won.

I have no motivation, the way you’d understand it. I come out at sunset to turn over rocks, to shine light on darkness, because I hate the darkness. That’s it, and that’s all it is: simple. There is no origin story. Both my parents are alive and well. They live in Wichitaw. Don’t waste your time trying to puzzle out a “secret identity,” either. There is no face behind this mask. I am The Night.

Labels: Stories

First, sorry things have been so matrimonycentric here, but we've been hectic and we're both pretty excited to share progress. I promise I'll have a review of an old but good movie and more fun lists in the future. Today was the biggest day yet: we went to the county registrar in Norwalk to get our MARRIAGE LICENSE!!!!!!! Then we had dinner with my grandparents who gave my the last address I need to finish sending my first round of invitations, and stopped to pick up Shar's dress on the way back!

It was great to see my gps, who I haven't seen in weeks. I had a nice little while of gazing out the back patio and thinking about all the weeks and weeks of summer I've spent lying around their house, reading and writing.

Pictures!

Here's the license package:


Here are our first mail-delivered RSVPs that came in today (!!!):


And here is our now very expensive coat closet, with wedding and bridesmaids' dresses all in a row:


Okay, off to see the Simpsons at midnight, as a refresher for a review I'm writing for Bates, and to see the rest of my friends I haven't seen recently. Then home to write said review and wrap up the District's books calendar for the week.

Labels: Generalness, wedding

“Michelle, I know you’re probably wondering why I asked you to dinner tonight, and what this big announcement I have is. Okay. I’m kind of nervous, but the reason I asked you here is––”

“How you folks doing tonight? Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Um. Yes. I’ll have an iced tea please.”

“Coming right up, thanks folks.”

“Thank you. Okay, okay. Michelle, you’ve always been very––”

“Here are those teas, folks. Can I start you off with any appetizers, or do you want to dive right in?”

“I…guess we’re ready to order. Michelle? And, let’s see, yes, I’ll have the bacon burger, medium rare, with cheddar. Fries. Okay, thank you. Now, Michelle, in all my life I’ve only met one or two––”

“I’m sorry sir, was that American or cheddar you asked for?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

Labels: Stories

So announces the District's website, and it's true: I do have a new article in this week's issue. In fact, it's an article I'm really proud of, and that I spent a lot of time on. I really like the illustration accompanying it, and acutally really liked the subjects of the article a ton, too. Anyway, I hope you read it and I hope you like it; it's been a bit since I felt so creatively rewarded for a non-fiction piece. Nice to be back in the pages of the District: should be there for at least another week in a row; we shall see. I'm also working on some other cool projects/articles I should be telling you about soon.

In personal news, today was the least lonely I've been in a while, and the kind of day I really needed: one spent with people. My brother came over at 2 and ran me around on various errands (post office to mail even more invitations, etc), then we hung out until Ryan got here, to beat me at a childhood video game. Then they left and Erin Hickey and I went grocery shopping, and I cooked pasta for she and Conor, with plenty of leftovers for Shar to eat when she got home. I got a bit of work done in the morning, and I'm getting a bit more done now, but all in all, it was nice to take a personal day.

I'm on deadline for one article tonight and two more tomorrow, but somewhere in between there we're going to get our marriage license (!!!!) and have dinner with my grandparents. Stay tuned!

Labels: Generalness, wedding

It’s possible that one day the whole world will wake up not feeling human. We’ll all feel like human-shaped animals, and our dishwashers and laundry machines will feel heavy and alien. It is possible that many of us feel this way now. It is possible that global warming is just a giant, so big we cannot comprehend him, turning up an invisible thermostat. It is possible that everyone is to blame. It is also possible that no one is. It’s possible that every religion is wrong.

And it’s possible that we were not created by a God, or evolved from animals. It’s possible that we evolved from mud, dried and caked and animated. Occasionally, it’s possible that we evolved from gold. It is very possible that you cannot murder someone without committing a kind of suicide. It’s possible that your television loves you more than anyone else is capable of. It’s possible that every religion is right.

Yes, and it’s possible that we have been misdiagnosing depression for decades and decades now. It’s possible that it is actually a latent, low-level form of astral projection. It’s possible that when we’re depressed, we’re just focusing on the wrong thing, and that while your arms are sagging and your legs are dragging and you’re feeling unplugged from your body, your soul is actually soaring over a hilly green field in Scotland somewhere, and you’re just too sad to notice. It’s possible, but it’s probably not likely.

Labels: Stories

Wedding plans are progressing nicely, if horrifyingly fast (five weeks and two days till the big day!). All the invitations have been stamped, addressed, return address-labeled, stuffed, sealed, and mailed, with the exception of a few stragglers. We got the invitation we sent to ourself today, so hopefully we'll start getting RSVPs within a few days (as a glimpse into how stressful and hectic it's been, Shar has had two separate panic attacks about the possibility of nobody showing up, despite the fact that everyone is going to show up).

Today the bridesmaid dresses came in (I'll post pictures tomorrow if the soon-to-be-missus gives the okay), and we got our registry finished! If you're interested, for, you know, one reason or another, it's right over here. It's an Amazon registry, and I have to say I'm actually really happy with it, even though I was initially against a registry. I figure, presents aren't why we're getting married, and we don't need anything but each other; my mom and grandma smacked me aside my head and pointed out that the registry isn't anything other than a convenience for guests who might need a guide for what to get us, and what our needs are. I think we did a great job of keeping it personal, which has been our goal in every stage of planning; there's Dino stuff, ice cream stuff, and general happy Mike and Shar stuff.

I'm typing in bed, something I haven't done in quite some time, because I wanted to be a few yards closer to Shar, which pretty well sums up the kind of day it's been (despite the creepy/disturbing story I posted earlier).

Labels: Generalness, wedding

Forgive me if my writing is illegible: these twisted digits supposedly called fingers have trouble gripping a pen, and I can’t type since there is no electricity. There hasn’t been any power, or water, or food to speak of since the blast. Listen, please listen: I was in the fallout zone, about twenty miles south of Los Angeles, when the bomb went off. The radiation came here on the wind. Did you know that? It was on the radio, how long we had until the wind brought irradiated air to us. There was no time to evacuate, barely time to get behind a lot of concrete, which ended up not being much good anyway.

Now we’re a circus, the closest city to L.A. that wasn’t wiped out entirely. Our buildings, cars, everything else looks exactly the same, but for the last five years, every person in town has twisted. We look like chewed up cigar stubs, scattered all over the streets. Some of us can walk, most of us crawl. So many people have forgotten so much. The rest of the country pretends we’re not here; there’s nothing they can do to help us, and we horrify them. So many of us have forgotten what life was like before the bomb. Almost nobody remembers their names anymore. I have forgotten mine. But I’m putting down, in writing, who I used to be: I was an activist. I marched in three anti-nuke protests in my lifetime. I don’t remember anything else. I don’t know anything anymore. But as awful as we were, as soaked in sin, I know this: We didn’t deserve this.

Labels: Stories

His mother had been a professor. His father had been a judge. They’d both died when he was six and there had been no family to take him in, so he was blissfully unaware of these facts as he picks through the landfill. Jonah is one of those freelance trash-pickers the city hires every year to comb through the heaps of trash and pick out any missed recyclables. Yes, there’s a separate recycling program, but glass and plastic goods are selling at a price that warrants a pass through the regular garbage, to sift for anything that got tossed into the black trash can, instead of the purple recycling one.

Jonah has seen your underbelly. He has walked on the shadows cast by your convenient life. There are cockroaches in your beer cans, and he knows this. He knows that they were there while you were drinking. Your newspapers have been used to hastily wipe up blood. Your condoms have holes in the end of them. If Jonah’s parents were alive, vibrant intellectuals that they were, they would be interested in the symbolic implications of these discoveries, of the trends that Jonah walked over every day for two months out of the year. Jonah is no longer curious, though, and he’s no longer disgusted either. Jonah is covered in your filth, and he feels nothing.

Labels: Stories

10. Not having to feel the harsh rays of a desert summer sun on my skin. Like, ever.

9. All of the walking and biking I've done everywhere, or could conceivably, if I weren't so lazy from having owned a car for 8 years.

8. Finding out how generous a number of my ride-offering friends and family are.

7. Seriously, in regards to number 10, I'm even paler than I usually am, which is saying something.

6. Not having to pay for gas.

5. It's a great excuse for not going to lame things I don't want to go to.

4. I haven't been able to see my grandparents for two weeks, and my grandma dropped a pro-level guilt trip on me yesterday.

3. I've been getting a ton of writing done.

Subsection 3b. I've been getting a ton of reading done.

2. I'm totally not feeling stuck, paralyzed, and at the bottom of a deep hole. Uh...totally not.

1. Getting to have relaxing bonding time with my brother when he, like a champ, drove me up to L.A. for the Simpsons screening on Saturday, and didn't even ask to me to chip in for gas (which I wouldv'e when I was 18), or make me ask him to take him.

Okay, so more than half of those are total bullshit, but...I try to find positives in every situation I can; it just happens that most of the positives in this situation are negatives, that's all.

On the bright side, we got all the return address labels printed and trimmed and stuck on the envelopes yesterday, then put stamps on all the RSVP cards, then stuffed them all into their respective envelopes, sealed them (a lengthier and grosser-tasting job than I imagined), and now the invites are ready to send today! Be prepared to be amazed by all of Stephen's hard work; we totally are. Also, thanks to my mom and Robyn for all of the stuffing/licking help. Also! Our registry will be up and ready soon, and Shar and Robyn hammered out a bunch of bridal shower details. Go wedding! Go productivity!

Labels: Generalness, wedding

“But look on the bright side: if you have to die, at least it’s going to be slowly,” he said. I tried to stare a hole in his forehead. “Seriously, Felix, I mean it. I’ve been working with the dying for my whole life, and as bad as this is, it’s the best thing that could ever happen to you, too. There are so many opportunities you’re going to get over the next six months that so many people don’t. Do the victims of a plane crash get a chance to set things right with their loved ones? If someone burns to death in their sleep, do they pass from this life knowing that their inheritance is in order?

“Think of it like slipping into a sauna, Felix, very slowly, one piece at a time, so you can get acclimated. You wouldn’t want to jump in head first. It’s like…you’re a writer, perhaps you’ll understand this metaphor, Felix. It’s like an orgasm. It’s like the climax of your entire life. But instead of just shooting off, you’re going to pace yourself, you’re going to prepare and cultivate and work, and then, you’re going to slip into this other state, this better state, Felix, I promise. You know the French phrase, ‘la petite mort,’ the little death, yes? They say every time you orgasm, it’s like a little death. This, Felix, this is the big one. This is the big death, Felix, the big popshot at the end of life. And you’re not going to get hit from behind, my friend: you get to watch it coming.”

Labels: Stories

I went to a screening yesterday afternoon with Bates, and I have to say....I was pleasantly surprised. As a bit of background: I still credit the first dozen years or so of the show with being not only the best justification of all time for owning a television, but also largely responsible for shaping my sense of humor (and a good chunk of my personality). After the first dozen years...not so much.

Every week that a new episode of the Simpsons comes on, that I know isn't funny and that I can't bring myself to watch, it kills me a little bit. My best friend and I arranged our lives around that show through most of our childhood, making sure to watch the 6:30 and 7:30 episodes every weeknight, plus the 11 o'clock showing when I got old enough. So I was hoping that the movie would be amazing, so great that it would justify my love of the yellow-skinned family, and make up for the pain of the show's current state.

Things were promising: the movie is written by the group responsible for making the show funny nearly two decades ago, mostly leaving aside the show's current writers (writers who grew up with the Simpsons, and I think thus have a weird second-gen take that they've tried to bring to the most classic of contemporary shows). But there was a problem....the trailers sucked. I watched each one hoping to see some of the ironic subtly that used to be the Simpsons' hallmark. Instead there were clips of Homer being rammed over and over (and over and over) again into a large boulder, and then a bar called A Hard Place. Ha?

Then came the trailer that gave me hope: Spider-Pig. That trailer, and that pig, got me to laugh at my favorite show of all time, for the first time in years. Then Matt Groening was on the Daily Show, and he was hilarious. Hope began to creep into my blood.

And then, the screening: THANK GOD, the movie is funny. It is not side-splittingly hilarious, and I didn't laugh nearly as hard at it as I have at the South Park movie every time I've seen it, but Bates and I both laughed. We laughed kind of a lot, actually, and there were some really great throwbacks to when the show used to be great in the film. All in all, without giving away any of the story or the jokes, I can say that the movie did what the Simpsons does best (or used to): they told a good plot-based story with lots of good jokes spun around it, and they told it with characters that I genuinely care about. I think it's safe to say that Marge and Homer have the only fictional marriage I feel invested in, and Bart is the only fictional kid I've ever felt like I was related to.

Some elements of the plot are old fare for die-hard fans, of course, which after 18 years on the air is somewhat inevitable. But it is all given a grander, more epic scale than it's ever had, and I didn't mind the familiarity of it. In fact, I liked it. The plot involves Springfield as a whole, and the movie reminded me what a splendid world they've created, with an incredibly rich background of characters and locales.

So, to sum up: a good movie. Not the best of the summer, not the best thing they've ever done, but a movie I'm willing to see again, and a movie I'm willing to say was not a waste of time, or embarassing, or unfunny. Given the last six years of the show, that's all I really needed. I will give away one plot element, too: the pig is a very important part of the film, to its eternal benefit.

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

Martin was, to his parents’ dismay, a professional standup comedian after all. Last Friday had been his first paying gig, at the Yuck Hut in Pasadena, and now Martin was gleefully fingering his three hundred dollar bills (literally handed to him under a table by the club’s manager), and (again literally) actually laughing to himself all the way to the bank, which was just across the street from his rathole apartment. This was the first time he’d have enough money open an account, and Martin was laughing at the idea of rubbing his three hundred bucks in the face of the same teller who’d sneered at him the last month when he tried to open a savings account with one battered twenty.

The gig had gone great. Martin, despite the cash he had in his hand and the amount of gloating he’d done to his naysayers (really just his parents, actually) was not very funny at all. He was intelligent, but while intelligence and humor have often been first cousins, they’ve never been mistaken for identical twins. Martin was already, after one gig, making a name as the William Hung of standup, a man so unfunny that he had to be laughed at. Take, for instance, Martin’s opening joke: “Thanks for coming. You know who would not have come? My mother. She is emotionally distant.” This was not worded awkwardly on purpose: Martin had as good a feel for timing and flow as a stack of bricks. The audience ate it up.

The answer to the audience’s biggest question, which was whether or not Martin was aware of how unfunny he actually was, is yes. But Martin did not care. His whole life he’d been unfunny, and it had only ever gotten him dumped, or made fun of. Now people were laughing. The money was good, but Martin went crazy, went absolutely fucking mad when he thought of all those people laughing, shrinking the emotional distance between them and him to the width of piece of wax paper.

Labels: Stories

Lawrence had seen his first porno when he was only nine years old, when his mother and father forgot to take it out of the DVD player. He saw the first thirty minutes of it before his father came into the family room from the garage and saw him sitting there, utterly transfixed. He thought the glaze over his son’s dull eyes was a sign that he’d damaged him in some way; actually, Lawrence had fallen in love.

* * *

The next nine years of his life were spent covertly gathering every movie his soulmate, Torna Parts, had ever been in. This level of devotion is not unusual in America; it’s so common, in fact, that it has its own clinical name, pornophilia. But Lawrence went further, working out two hours a day and masturbating constantly, sculpting his physique and trying to increase his virginal stamina. He watched Torna films constantly; when she was with a woman, Lawrence wished he was a woman. When she was with six men, he wished he was any one of them. And he read several books about the industry. On his eighteenth birthday, he got a massive tribal tattoo on his bicep, waited a week for it to heal, and sent an application to Torrential Pictures, along with two photos of himself.

* * *

After 16 excruciating and disgusting shoots, his dream finally came through: Lawrence got the call that he was to be doing a duo shoot with Torna Parts, a gonzo film with just the two of them. He experienced no nervousness, and prepared for the movie with the calm of a man who feels saddled with destiny. When the cameraman said action, he reached out and touched his fantasy for the first time. She reached back and touched him. Her skin was waxy, and he could see from her teeth that her drug problems had been worsening. She probably did not have long to live. Every piece of her felt fake, and hard. There was no yield anywhere on her body for him. But Lawrence wasn’t upset, or even surprised that touching her was like touching a plastic doll; that’s why he’d fallen in love with her.

Labels: Stories

We're about 90% done with the invitation process, which is good because we want to mail them all out by the start of next week. Amazing friend/champion bridesmaid/unbelievably dependable Katie Wynne came over for a several hour mega-hand addressing sesh last night, which produced this massive stack:



The invitations themselves (which I'm not posting a picture of yet because I want everyone to see them in their pretty packaging) are amazing, and were designed (with an awesome drawring by) Shar's brother. Now we just have a few more stray addresses to track down, and RSVP stuffing to do, then print out 350 address labels for the invites and the RSVPs, stick them on, send them all out, get the responses to figure out who's coming and who's not, then determine who else we can invite based on who all declined, package and hand address more invitations, and that will be that! For, you know, one one hundredth of the responsibilities to go before the wedding.

Anyway, we're not stressed: it's been amazing to have a few people like Katie around who have been willing to talk, come over, help out, and de-stress us at a moment's notice. Thumbs up, Katie!

However, thumbs down to stamps. This is why wedding planning is infuriating when you're doing it on a budget and paying for half of it yourself:



That may look like a stack of stamps, but it's actually $150. Which means that, between the stamps and the address labels, we still went over-budget on invitations, despite the fact that Shar's bro graciously offered to pay for the invites themselves, in addition to designing and drawring them.

(PS- Don't let any grumbling we do make you think we're not more excited about the wedding than we've ever been about anything else. All the work and scrimping and saving will be worth it, exactly six weeks from today! Holy Shit!)

Labels: Generalness, wedding

“Megavitamins! Geeeeeeet your megavitamins here!” shouted Barracas T. Turnstable, his stentorian voice sweeping aside the other noise of the carnival like a tidal wave. He’d set up two minutes ago. Now he had the ears and eyes of half the carnival on him.

“Megavitamins?” his shaky-voiced partner, Willard, asked from the audience. “What’s a megavitamins?”

“What’s a megavitamin?!?!” Barracas yelled at him, sharing knowing looks with everyone in the audience he could. “Did y’all just hear this simple man ask what a megavitamin was? This close to Pittsburgh, I figured there’d be some educated folk at this here multitudinous congregation.”

The citizens around him shot dirty looks at Willard, disappointed in him for painting such an unintelligent picture of Pennsylvania’s finest.

“That’s alright, y’all, that’s alright. He might not know the most, but if he’s cut from Pennsylvanian stock, I reckon he’ll take to learning faster than those yokes in Virginia did.” The crowd murmured its assent. “What do you say, young man? Why don’t you come up here and find out what a megavitamin is.”

Willard limped towards the small portable stage. “I would sir,” he said, “But I’ve got this bad knee, and I can’t climb so good.”

“Weeeeeeeell that’s alright, son. I’m sure your kind neighbors here will give you a boost.” They did.

“Now, what I’m about to let you try is gonna come free, but these nice folks will have to pay a dollar a head––still a bargain, folks, I assure you. Open your mouth, lad.”

Willard opened his mouth.

Barracas popped a sugar pill in. “Swallow.”

Willard swallowed, blinked a few times, and then smiled. He stretched his arms, then his legs.

“Well, son. How do your joints feel?”

Willard hopped up and down a few times then hopped on his bad leg in answer.

The crowd burst into applause, and rushed the stage. Those with money tried to thrust it towards Barracas’ smiling face. Those without just crushed forwards, trying to touch Willard’s knee, miraculously healed by the spirit of enterprise.

Labels: Stories

So I took a week off, from everything except this blog. I needed it, badly, between car stuff and the crush of wedding planning that is beginning to descend on us. Anyway, I'll be posting non-story blogs again, and the blog stories should be at a more predictable time from here on out.

On today's back-to-work schedule: comics review column, book calendar, five pages of novel writing, a blog story, addressing a hundred invitations or so (actually, I'm forbidding from doing the actual writing, so I'll just be gathering information), and working on a comics stores profile for the District. Oh, the romantic life of a freelance hack writer.

I got my first District paycheck in the mail today, which was nice. It's not going to pay for our honeymoon, but it's enough for dinner, and of all the publications I've worked for, I've always had a more enjoyable experience when I was on the "paid" side of the staff... I also got a flyer for "The Holy Oil," which is a brand of olive oil from Jerusalem. I'm considering sinking my District check into it...

Labels: Generalness

All he’d had to eat that day was bus fumes, and, surprisingly, he didn’t find them filling. His hair is white, his eyebrows too, so long they droop over his eyes. And his beard. You cannot stop staring at his beard, which is mostly white, too, but peppered with dark grey streaks as well. It reaches down to his belly button, or would if he was sitting up straight. Slumped as he is, it easily reaches the hard red plastic bus seat between his legs. His hair is long, too, long enough to cover his neck and sweep down the side of his face, catching here and there in the much thicker beard.

He looks like a caricature, snuffling and snorting to himself. You wonder how he can stand all that hair, in the middle of this heat wave. You wonder why he doesn’t just trim it? He sees you searching for answers, and his pale blue eyes retreat further behind the tangle of hair and the haze of bus exhaust, but before they go, you think you see a reason. He is waiting. Waiting for the right time, when things reach their worst, when something so bad happens that the next thing will have to be better, will have to be great in comparison. He is waiting to bottom out so that he can begin to rise. As they disappear, his sad eyes tell you that he has been waiting a long, long time.

Labels: Stories

Jonathan Crawford, Mr. Crawford to his high school senior English students, had a dilemma. The principal of his school had made procedure very clear, down to the letter, so that he knew he shouldn’t have a dilemma, but he did. After the shootings at Columbine, and the successive decade’s worth of copycats, a policy had been written notifying teachers that if they received any creative projects, visual or literary, that included the threat or portrayal of violence on the campus, they were to turn it over to administration. Mr. Crawford was holding in his hands a short story titled “When the Bell Stops Ringing,” written by a quiet, angry-looking student named Pablo Pym.

Mr. Crawford (which is what he called himself when debating an academic situation in his own mind) knew this should be black and white. The story was so violent, so blood-soaked, that it was obvious from the first page that this was the exact kind of story Principal Rodriguez wanted turned over to him. But…Mr. Crawford like Pym. He thought he’d been making a connection with him for the last half-semester, and he didn’t know if he could alienate him further in good conscience. What he did know was that he couldn’t live with his conscience if Pym were to act out half the things he wrote about. He knew that sometimes kids gave him stories that weren’t really stories, but cries for help. Mr. Crawford prayed that’s why Pym had turned this in. There was no doubt in his mind that, for all his confliction, he had to turn this story in. And there was no doubt that in doing so, he’d lose his otherwise sterling reputation with his students, and that Pym would never forgive him. The only doubt in his mind at the moment was whether or not he could face himself in the morning after he dropped the story off with the principal’s secretary. But as he remembered the poem he’d written in eleventh grade about killing his parents, he knew there really wasn’t any doubt about that, either.

Labels: Stories

It was a week after Kirk had called the number on the flyer that his adventure began, in the most inauspicious way possible. All that happened that morning, after Kirk kissed his mother and his frog goodbye, and after he put on his backpack and laced up his dirty shoes, and after he locked the front door behind him, was that he got on a bus. The bus was yellow, as it was every other morning, and appeared to be filled with all of the other students it was usually filled with every other morning. But this morning, it was not headed to the middle school where Kirk grudgingly went to his seventh grade classes.

As the door closed, the other passengers disappeared. Kirk spun back to look at the driver, but he was gone. The bus was now driving itself, faster and faster as the colors outside the windows blurred together and began to slip away. The two fairies who had come into his room the week before flew up from the front seat. Kirk panicked, and ran towards the back of the bus, trying to reach the emergency exit. This was not what he’d had in mind. “Young squire, we sense you’re afraid we rush to your doom,” said the pink one in that silvery voice.

“But rest assured, you’re safe here; sit down, there’s plenty of room!” followed the gold.

Kirk did as they said. He wasn’t comforted by these eery little fireflies, but he feared what they might do to him if he didn’t obey. Everything outside the windows was black now, although he could still see inside the bus clearly. He had a moment to wonder if he’d ever make it home, to see his mother, and his frog, and the beautiful Alexandria who he loved with all his seventh grade heart, and then the bus lurched to a stop. The door hissed open, menacingly.

“We’ve reached our destination, that’s all for now from us,” said Pinkie.

“No need to fear, young squire…but you must get off the bus,” echoed his partner.

Still scared, Kirk walked shakily towards the front of the bus, worried he was being forced out into the depths of space. But although there was nothing out the windows, Kirk was surprised to find that the world outside the door teemed with life and activity. It looked like a marketplace of some kind, but he didn’t recognize anything being sold, and there were no other humans there. Instead, the marketplace seemed to be populated by fuchsia creatures, no taller than him, with sleek and slender hairless heads. Against his mother’s teachings, Kirk stared, mouth open. The door of the bus hissed as it started to close. He closed his eyes and stepped out, feet touching ground in the strange and scary new world.

{NOTE: It's not necessary, but if you want Part 1 of this story, you can read all about it over here}

Labels: Stories

It was Sunday, July 15, 2007 when they discovered America. And yes, in a few hundred years, when they’d wiped us out, that’s what their textbooks would read. Good for them, I say. The first landing party was small, and red, redder than Utah cliffs. They came on land in Massachusetts, and everyone thought they were playing dress up. Then they started chopping people in half, lengthwise. It was payback. We had had it coming for a long time.

Then wave after wave of the red people came, so many we couldn’t believe it. They had been hiding in South America. They had been getting their numbers up. And yes, they brought guns that would vaporize anything they pointed them at. Even a five million dollar tank. Just point. Click. No more tank. No more driver. At first our military found these losses acceptable, imagining that these invaders would share their weapons with us. They could live with the death of American citizens, so long as our new friends gave us these guns that would make it easier to kill citizens of countries with different names.

But, of course, that was not their interest. They wanted the land, and they took it. They drove us west, pushed us into the uninhabitable belly of America, where we choked on dust and hate. They told us we’d be safe there, if we kept to ourselves. But then they wanted the belly back, and they shoved us all up the asshole of our own country, where we starved to death and most of us died. What could we do? We’d already done the same thing. Good for us. Good for them.

Labels: Stories

You’re cleaning up brush on the side of the 5 freeway when you see him. He’s young––his name, though you’ll never know it, is Mike Groendyke, and he’s heard more bad jokes in his 17 years than most hear in a lifetime––and he is pedal to the metal hauling ass. Granted, nobody on the 5 is going under 80, but this kid must be doing well over 100, despite the fact that he’s driving down a very steep hill, and despite the fact that it’s the middle of the day.

There was a small explosion as he rounded the mountain and began his final descent, into your view, out of the hills, and you wonder, as you realize there’s nobody behind him, what he’s driving away from. He’s going too fast to be racing: nobody would need to win that badly by that much. There must be something chasing him, you think, there must have been an accident, and he’s trying to get away, or maybe he’s in a stolen car and the cops are after him. Maybe one of the grapevine hills gave birth to some hideous monstrosity that’s eaten everything in its path except––this––boy. This boy who is running for his life from something you can’t see, and who refuses to be caught.

Labels: Stories

Thom made a deal with the devil. Literally. When he was still a punker in the London underground, running from the deaths of his mom and his dad and his brother and the parts of his life he’d liked, Thom was soaked in pain. Not like a whiny American suburbanite, but the kind of pain that he could feel dripping from his pores, a pain that ran off his body like water when you come from the ocean. But Thom liked it. He felt alive, more alive than he ever had, feeding off his rage and his hurt, writing songs about it and screaming them in filthy clubs with blood and cum-stained floors.

He’d carved the pentagon in his forehead, spoken with the big man himself, and asked him to make sure he was never what the norms called “happy.” The big man smiled, and agreed. Thom hadn’t even asked for anything in return.

Fortune’s wheel spun, and Thom made some money, from singing, from an account his father had held in his name, which paid him in excess of a million pounds. Thom’s scars faded, he settled down, he calmed down, he met a girl. He proposed to her two years later, his bitter past as far from his memory as the pain of his family’s death. But one night, he remembered his deal. And when he woke the next day, he didn’t feel like he’d woken from a dream; he felt like he’d stepped into a nightmare.

His fiancée, Cynthia, died the next day, a victim of the second drive by shooting in London’s history. That night, Thom cried and screamed and cut his face again, cursing himself, cursing the devil, cursing the world. But the big man wouldn’t appear this time, no matter what Thom tried. All he did was whisper to him, over and over, “You chose this.”

Labels: Stories

Marcus had been promoted that day, so he allowed himself to climb into bed in his most favorite out of the 92 acceptable ways he could climb into bed. How would he do it? He would stand on the right side of the bed, at exactly the midpoint, gently take up the top corner of the comforter and the sheet, between his thumb and index fingers only. Then he would fold them back until the white sheet made a perfect right angle against the dark blue comforter. Then, left foot first, he would slip into the bed face down, using his right hand to pull the sheet and comforter back over him.

What was his least favorite of the 92 ways? The one that required him to slide under the bed from the right side to the left, then walk to the foot of the bed and scoot under the covers, feet first, to the head of the bed, where he’d rotate clockwise until, sweaty, dirty, and ashamed, he was in the right position to fall asleep. Why was this his least favorite? Because of the time and energy it consumed. Why was the first way his most favorite? Because of the relative ease of its performance, and the inherent beauty of a right triangle.

Labels: Stories

I'm writing this post in my own dining room, in my own apartment, with my own fiancee, in my own peace of mind. I don't have my own car, but that's okay for now. It was quite an ordeal, but I got Matt and I, via public transportation, from San Francisco to Berkeley to the Oakland Airport, and then, via JetBlue, home. Thank. God.

It's taken a bit to settle down, but I have to say that overall things are a lot better than they could have been, and my desire to marry Shar is greater than ever before. Getting through the hassle of the last three days has been much easier with a Higa waiting at home. I took my car to an insurance-approved body shop, dropped it off, legged it around the city for the rest of the day (walked a ten mile round trip to 826 Valencia to visit my favorite McSweeney's), through all the gayest gayborhoods, and Golden Gate Park, my favorite park in the whole wide world.

Anyway, here are the pictures of my poor widdle car...It should be ready to pick up in like three weeks or so....fingers crossed!




I didn't get a good picture of my license plate, with the hole punched in it from Ms. Gold Van McCutsMikeOff's muffler.

I did, however, get a picture of this tag I saw all over San Francisco. I can only assume it's a Mormon Gang.

Labels: Bizerkeley, Car Accident, Generalness

Francis Masterson, the greatest American writer of his generation (and most others) was as famous for his wicked sense of humor as he was for his realistic and inspiring novels. The day he found out he had inoperable cancer and just over a year to live, for example, he told an interviewer that he was working on a novel, the first he’d written in half a decade. He told the interviewer that it would make the rest of his work “look like fresh dog shit.” He said that the pages he had so far were more in touch with a younger America than anything being written by men his age. Then he went home and started the novel, purposefully finishing about half of it before his death, leaving an outline for the rest.

In his will, he instructed the executors of his estate to interview young writers, to find the best one, the one with the “Mastersonian humanist touch” (as the New York Times Book Review put it) and have him finish the book from his notes. The young man or woman was to be uncredited, and poorly paid.

A month in, the search was fruitless, until a young MFA student from UC Irvine veritably kicked in the door. He didn’t have an appointment, and had just heard rumor of the interviews that day from a kind professor. “Your writing sample?” Masterson’s agent asked wearily.

The young man flung a single piece of paper down on the table. In big, block letters it read, “FUCK YOU.”

The agent arched his eyebrows. “Heminwayesque. But probably not good enough. I don’t understand the character’s motivation.”

“The motivation, is that you are shitting on a great man’s life right now, in front of me. Masterson was a prophet of the people, not just a name to slap on a cover so you can sell a few more copies. He’s Francis Masterson, for God’s sake, not Mario Puzo.”

“Young man, I am not trying to ‘sell a few more copies,’ as you suggest. I am trying, in the interest of love and loyalty, to fulfill a very tiring and distressing part of my good friend’s will. The very last part, as a matter of fact. It’s not me that was looking for someone to pick up where he left off, it’s Francis. And I do believe he’s found you.”

Labels: Stories

The weather is just the way you like it, warm enough that you don’t have to wear a jacket, but cool enough that your double-scoop of ice cream isn’t running down your wrist as you enter the park. You’ve never been to the Golden Gate Park, so perhaps it surprises you how busy it is, at 1pm in July. Bicyclists zip by every few seconds, followed slowly by joggers, and there are topless sunbathers in front of the botanical gardens, past the hot dog cart. You see couples, young and very obviously in love, and unleashed dogs tearing up and down the sometimes slight, sometimes steep hills. There are birds and Frisbees in the air, and everyone is smiling. These are clearly people who know how to enjoy the summer.

In other words, it’s the perfect place to be digging for treasure on a summer day. You have a map in your back pocket, that should, finally, lead you to the gold and diamond-lined looking glass of the explorer Steven Priske. The gold and diamonds intrigue you, yes, but the telescope is worth infinitely more in historical value to the Priske collector who contracted you. You kneel down behind the statue of President Garfield. To your left, a young college student and his girlfriend have lain down on their blanket, and are kissing each other passionately, oblivious to everything going on around them. You take a deep breath and one more look around; every inch of the park has been put to some kind of industry, all working to produce happy people everywhere you can see. It’s almost enough to make you not care if Priske’s final treasure is in this unlikeliest of locations. Almost, but not quite.

Labels: Stories

Well, technically I didn't yet, but I'm going to have to, for probably two to three weeks. So: I got in an accident last night. I was just off the Bay Bridge, which freaked me out already because I hate bridges. I was in the second-to-rightermost lane when a van cut in front of me, maybe a yard's space. She slammed on her brakes, I slammed on my brakes, and plowed into her. My left shoulder came partway out of its socket and (thankfully) went back in, my glasses flew off, change went everywhere from the drawer, etc. Then a guy rearended me. Blind and horribly freaked out, I got out to check the damage, which was serious.

My hood was folded up on the left side pretty bad, the headlight just absolutely demolished and gone, something leaking out of it. No damage on the van in front or the car behind which is good, and nobody was seriously injured. A CHP guy brought us all in to the station and took a report, then Val came and had me follow her back to her house, where I stayed last night and will be staying tonight (Thanks Moys! You're the best!).

Today I took my car into the shop and got the bad news: they won't be able to patch it together to let me drive down to Long Beach. The radiator is fucked up and the headlight can't be fixed, and he's concerned about the leakage. So we'll either rent a car on my insurance, fly down, or get picked up by someone, and then I'll come up to get my car when it's done. All of these things suck, but, at the end of the day, things are okay. I'm feeling not too sore (except my shoulder) and I have a few days in my second favorite city in the world. I'm going to nap, then walk over to McSweeney's, via the Golden Gate Park.

I have pictures of the car, but no cord to upload. I'll post 'em when I can, and I'll update more about my time here tonight. But: I'm healthy, in a happy mood, and the sun is shining. Thanks for the good thoughts.

Labels: Bizerkeley, Car Accident, Generalness

I have these days––today is one of these days––where I cannot, for the life of me, get vertical. I’ll stand up occasionally, but before I know it, I’m back on my back, staring at the ceiling, looking for a way up. My life has been filled with these days since my wife died. I have nothing to get up for. I tried getting up to start school again, to get a doctorate in Philosophy, with the intention of finding a philosophy that would make standing on my feet seem worthwhile––I had high hopes for Epicureanism, but alas, it was not to be. I dropped out after a month.

The problem––my mother tells me––is that I have no reason to get up. When Becky killed herself, she left me a great deal of money, and I can easily afford to spend the last two decades of my life––and that’s if I only live to the national average, the average for my family puts it somewhere around three decades––lying on my back, on my bed or couch, waiting for something to happen.

It would be one thing if I could fall asleep––I can’t––or if this were simple depression––it isn’t. Since I was a child it’s been a trap of mine, a pit I have to skirt the edges of cautiously. When I was a teenager I never fell in, so full of rage and curiosity––as all teenagers are––about who it was that kept the world from making sense. Then I found out in college––as all former teenagers did––that the world doesn’t make sense all on its own accord, with absolutely no assistance from my parents or the government.

So that is something I know. I know that the world doesn’t make sense and that I won’t make a dent in it either way, whether I’m vertical or horizontal. How can a man stand under that weight? Some days he can’t. Some years he can’t.

Labels: Stories

I got in a car accident a few hours ago, kind of an ugly one. I'm okay, my car is going to need some fixing, and I have no idea what my timeframe will be for coming home from Nor-Cal. But I'm staying with a good friend and things will be okay. I'll post details and pictures of the car tomorrow.

Labels: Car Accident, Generalness

The walls are made of faux-brick at Valentino’s, the booth leather the dark maroon color required of mid-price Italian restaurants. The lights hang high and dim, their pale yellow-orange glow hiding wrinkles and liverspots on the early bird crowd, and creating atmosphere for the 6pm and on dating crowd. Valentine’s looks like a thousand other Italian joints in America, and to walk in and take a quick peek, you’d think there was nothing special about it.

But there’s something very special about it to Annie Bowles, who’s been coming here every Tuesday with her grandparents since she was in diapers. She knows this because every time her grandparents bring her here, they tell the story about changing her diaper in the middle of dinner one night, when the left strap had come undone and she’d become…“Unladlylike,” her grandmother always said, attempting delicacy. Her grandfather would ask her why she never got the raspberry tea, she’d explain again that she didn’t like it. They’d have the same conversation they’d been having for a decade and a half, and they’d all go home happy for having had it. And every time they left, Annie’s grandfather would suggest that they try somewhere new next week. Annie would look at her feet and smile, listening for the unmistakable “thwap” as her grandmother hit him and told him to shut up. “Valentine’s is where we go, Nick,” she’d say. “It’s where we always go.”

Labels: Stories

No exaggeration: tonight's show at the Hollywood Bowl? Easily better than Woodstock. Park and ride up there went smoothly, and we rolled into the Hollywood Bowl ten deep a half hour before the show was to start, leaving plenty of time to get settle and grab snacks. This, to me, was a miracle in and of itself. Then Band of Horses came out and, with their aw-shucks shyness, reminded us of how amazing it was to be at the Bowl on a cool summer night. I'm a fan of theirs, and a bigger one now: the old stuff sounded good, the new stuff made me excited for their next album, coming out in October.

Andrew Bird was fucking crazy. Shar's had me listening to him for three or four years, so I knew he'd be crazy, but the guy was playing guitar, xylophone, violin, and whistling more or less simultaneously for an entire set, getting more (and more varied) sound out of a three person band than I would have thought possible. To Horse Band and Bird: From what I heard people saying, it sounds like you all made plenty of new fans tonight.

Then, the Decemberists, who before the show had strolled down the aisle right in front of us, posing for pictures and having a jolly time. The Decemberists, accompanied by the LA Phil, were beyond words. They did every song I wanted to see with an orchestra (exept Mariner's Revenge), including the Infanta, which I won't be able to listen to the regular version of any more, and the Bagman's Gambit. They closed with I Was Meant for the Stage, a perfect choice.

Honestly, I love shows like this: I tend to listen to bands obsessively, and this kind of modification and experimentation reward the fan who can hum or tap the part of every instrument on almost every song. On top of that, it was perfectly orchestrated, neither too much nor too little, and when they went for the jugular (like on Infanta), they got you dead to rights.

Fuck, I don't know what else to say. We were the luckiest people in the world on what the radio told me today was the luckiest day in history. Not too shabby.

Also- tomorrow I leave for Berkeley for three days, so let's hope I don't have too much trouble finding internet up there. Otherwise, Shar has volunteered to take stories by dictation.



EDIT: For those interested, here's the set list:
The Crane Wife 1 & 2
The Infanta
Odalisque
We Both Go Down Together
The Perfect Crime #2 (sans Orchestral)
The Bagman's Gambit
Los Angeles, I'm Yours
The Tain
O, Valencia! (sans Orchestra)
I Was Meant For The Stage
Encore
The Chimbley Sweep (sans Orchestra)

Also, in another review I read about a policy I'd forgotten: The HB has a show end time of 11pm, because of an agreement with the residential neighbors. By my clock, the Decembies ended at 10:59, which means that (due to a faulty guitar for Perfect Crime?) they may have just not had time to do Mariner's Revenge...

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

Abram Del Torre walked out of prison with the shirt on his back and the five bucks in his pocket he’d come in with, four years ago. He had two new tattoos, and a slight limp in his right leg for his troubles. At that moment, Abram was stretching his mind a little, allowing himself to breathe free air, and imagine a better life for himself.

He was years away from finding out that his baby girl’s mother had been cheating on him, and more years away from finding out that his baby girl had been running with the same gang he had in high school, and a few weeks from finding that the job rehabilitation place he was hooked up through would be skimming 10 percent of his minimum wage salary or reporting him a delinquent to his P.O., and mere days from finding out that the only work he could get would be sweeping up after strangers in a shitty restaurant.

Abram wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find out those things were coming, that they were just around the corner. But right now, they didn’t matter to him, because right now, he was looking straight ahead. He could see the sky without craning his neck to look between iron bars for the first time in four years. He could see the sun, and it was rising.

Labels: Stories

Shar and I had upstairs neighbors, when we moved in, who had an American flag on their balcony. They would put it up in the morning, and take it down in the evening, and Shar and I thought that was amusing, and we joked about it with our friends. Our upstairs neighbors kept what we considered strange hours, getting up at 5 am, going to bed early. A few days after Shar and I had moved in, we were building furniture at 2 am, not thinking how loud the hammering must have been. Amy from upstairs (boyfriend's name was John) politely came downstairs to ask us to stop, just letting us know how loud it was. She didn't threaten to go to the manager, she was really embarassed and polite about the whole thing. A few weeks ago, they moved out, and a few days ago, our new neighbors moved in.

They keep our kind of schedule: they even stay up later than me, actually, and I stay up till around three. On the toilet this morning at noon, I could very easily hear one of our new upstairs neighbors (I believe there are three people up there) heaving their guts out mere feet above my head. Amy and John were quiet when they walked, and talked, and never disturbed us. I am convinced our new neighbors are holding track meets. Track meets for people wearing concrete boots.

When I used to see Amy or John, we'd smile and nod to each other, and go on our way. I asked one of our new neighbors, as she was carrying clothes upstairs on the day they moved in, if she was, in fact, moving in, as I thought she might have just been helping a friend. She gave me a withering CSULB girl look and kept climbing stairs, no word of reply or nod of acknowledgement.

Amy and John, you were so different from Shar and me, and we thought you were so odd. We miss you, very much.

Labels: Generalness

I've been back and forth to LAX a lot lately, and now that I'm at home settled, it seems like half of everyone I know is out of town. My mom is in Japan, Danfriend is in Europe, bridesmaids are skipping the country left and right, and Shar is up north for a wedding. For the second time, I have a two bedroom apartment to myself, and for the second time I'm coming to the happy realization that it's too much space for me.

It makes me happy because I always imagined that I could live in a shitty studio if that's what it took to work as a writer, instead of...anything else, i guess, and having this much space to myself lets me know I'd still be happier that way than going too far in the other direction. Anyway, I'd be bored and lonely (ronery) but I've had too much work to do to really have time to think about it. I'm a day behind on everything except this blog, with my comics column and two articles for the District currently occupying my time. Hopefully I'll knock out a few of those by nighttime, because I'm loving the idea of staying up all night writing a novel. Like I used to, when I just had a tiny little room, a stack of notebook paper, and a pile of clicky pens I stole from a college fair.

Shar left yesterday but, more importantly, she comes home tomorrow. Tomorrow is important because Shar, 8 of our closest friends and I will all be attending what will easily be the greatest concert of all time: Decemberists. LA Phil. Band of Horses. Andrew Bird. Hollywood Bowl. Park and Ride. Yyyyyyyeeesssss....

Labels: Generalness

Mattie took the snap and did a five-step drop, his three-sizes-too-large helmet shaking side to side on his head, cutting off his peripheral vision. No matter how tight his dad pulled the chin strap every Saturday morning, he couldn’t change the fact that it had been Mattie’s older brother’s helmet, that he wore when he was in seventh grade Pop Warner. Mattie was in fifth grade, and smaller for his age to boot. His pads were enormous, too, his cleats barely held together with two sets of laces each.

He scanned his options: both receivers were covered, and the ends had run stunts, blowing his O Line apart. They were both headed straight towards him. Each was easily twice his size. The opposing team’s crowd held their breath, worried this little boy was going to get knocked halfway to China. Mattie’s dad just smiled, and nudged the scout. “Watch,” he said.

The little man threw a perfect head fake and turned the corner to the right, blowing by the larger boys. In a blink he was past the line of scrimmage. In another, he’d stiff armed a linebacker and was breaking into the secondary. Without thinking consciously, he saw that there was no way around the two safeties, who were closing from either side. He had one option. He put his head down and ran as fast as he could, just slipping between them as they collided, both stunned to find there wasn’t a little quarterback in their arms.

His team celebrating, Mattie tossed the ball to the ref, adjusted his helmet, and ran to the sideline. The scout turned to Mattie’s father, and nodded. “He looks goofy as shit in those pads…”

“Look, I told you, we’re on hard times––”

“But, as I was saying. The boy can play.”

“You’ll take him?”

“Sign here, Mr. Davis, and I’ll take care of him. And then twenty years from now, he’ll pay you back for those hand-me-down pads by buying you a five million dollar house.”

Labels: Stories

James Cooper is a marketing analyst’s wet dream. The man could become addicted to anything, within two weeks of first trying it. James was smart enough (for the second half of his life, at least) to avoid hard addictions: booze, smoking, drugs. His entire life was a series of soaring highs, crashing lows, and shaky withdrawals. He’d done all the 12-steps and programs you’ve heard of, and talked to every experimental psychiatrist you haven’t, but none of it’s worked. He’s been hooked on everything from bubble gum (specifically Dubble Bubble, even though he’d never liked the way it tasted) to q-tips.

You may laugh, but James’ addiction to toothpaste nearly killed him last September. His mother found him laying on his back on the bathroom floor of his apartment, passed out, fluoride and blood speckling his cracked lips. “Oh James,” said the woman who had first seen the effects of James’ addiction to addiction when he went into breast milk withdrawals. “When are you going to learn?”

Labels: Stories

It's the fourth of July, and I'm stuck inside working on two more things that I need to get done, one for my own deadline, and one for an editor's. Somehow, I think it's fitting that I celebrate Independence Day by myself, writing (Shar is celebrating by working at Border's for time and a half). It's a holiday that has meant something different to me each year: I used to go watch fireworks over Vet's Stadium with my parents every year. We didn't want to pay for the tickets to sit in the bleachers and inhale smoke, so we'd go camp out at a little secret park with a few other families, and lay back and see the show.

This year, I'm in a weird place, national identity-wise, mostly due to our involvement with a war I wish we weren't involved with, and the devastating personal effects of that war that I've witnessed in the last year. I'm not really in a flag-waving kind of mood, I guess. I'm still glad I was born here, and there's still nowhere else I'd rather live, but...I don't know. Seeing our flag has been leaving a shitty aftertaste in my eyeballs, lately. I tried to write a 4th of July story, but it either came out too rah rah rah, or too ungrateful and whiny towards a country that has provided me with comfort and security for 23 years now. I'm not either of those things, but it's becoming increasingly hard to find a spot in the middle again, where I can just lay back, close enough to the fireworks to see them, but far enough away to breathe clean air.

Anyway, I hope everyone is barbecuing and having a great time. Be free!

Labels: Generalness

I’d been collecting Alan Rufkin since I was five, back when he was first working for Timely Comics in the fifties. Usually I only noticed the names of the characters in the comics, but there was one drawing Rufkin did, one of his most famous panel compositions, where the history of the Torch was told in a series of images arranged wavily, in the flames on his shoulders. I realized then for the first time that my heroes were being drawn by human beings, and that they had names: Alan Rufkin was the best of them. For the next ten years, I collected Rufkin by buying all the books he drew. When I was fifteen I bought my first piece of original Rufkin art. By the time I was forty, nobody in the world owned more Rufkin pieces than I did, including Rufkin himself.

Of course, he was as famous for his reclusiveness by that point as he was for his innovative scene construction and posing, and I hadn’t ever met the man. He had essentially disowned all the comics work he’d done, and was rumored to be using the few original art boards he still had in his possession as cutting boards. But, as Rufkin was low on money, he had to accept a (highly paid) invitation to attend the San Diego Con one year, when I was forty-five and Rufkin was over sixty. I studied the convention center beforehand, spotted the back exit I knew he’d be coming out of.

On the Saturday of his panel, I sat in rapt attention as he grudgingly and grumpily accepted compliments and fielded questions, but I snuck out halfway through. I’d only brought two items with me: the issue of Torch #4 that had made me fall in love with Rufkin’s pencils, and a black permanent marker, for him to sign it with. Two minutes after the panel ended Rufkin exploded through the back door. He was not followed, and I knew that I’d been the only one to figure out how he’d be sneaking out.

“Mr. Rufkin,” I said, nervous. “I’ve been collecting your work since I was a little boy. You’re my all-time favorite artist, and I was hoping you could sign this book for me.”

Rufkin walked past me without saying a word. Then he stopped. “Are you Thomas? Thomas Wilburn?” he asked, turning to face me.

“Y-yes. You’ve heard of me?”

“You’re the one who’s bought all that junk? All that shit of mine?”

“Yes, Mr. Rufkin.”

“Call me Alan. You own more of me than I own of myself, Thomas. You don’t need my goddamn autograph.”

Labels: Stories

Transformers kicked ass. We went last night, instead of seeing rat-at-tooey, which we'll still see tonight or tomorrow, and I couldn't be happier that we did. I know Die Hard probably should have filled my need for mindless summer action movies, but...that may be a bottomless well. Transformers, in addition to being absolutely hilarious, was just great. From the old-school 80s robot declaring "This looks like a good place to Kick It!" to the Decepticon cop car that said "To Punish and Enslave" on the side of it, this movie knew not to take itself too seriously, and left me wishing Michael Bay would direct a Hulk movie. There are some franchises that have underlying literary and artistic merit: Batman, Spider-Man, etc. Robots in disguise do not meet that standard, and the filmmakers knew it. So it's wall to wall exciting action, and scenes with enormous robots hiding: they're very good at hiding. I don't know why, perhaps because they're Transformers, but believe me when I say this is the best recurring theme of the film. The only drawbacks: the literally five thousand product placements, and the fact that the action was usually shot way too close to tell what was going on. But seriously: if you are looking to have a fucking cool time at the movies, go see Transformers. Just don't bitch about plot holes, please? Seriously?


As nice as it is to have a rolicking good time at the movies, I tend to be a bit quieter when it comes to books, and I absolutely loved Alison Bechdel's new "Family Tragicomic" Fun Home. It's kind of a sneaky graphic novel, in that I didn't hear about it until very recently despite it making gajillions of top ten books of the year lists, and being one of Brian Vaughan's (one of my favorite writers) favorite book in a long time. Granted, the book is about a girl who has a closeted gay father, and includes lengthy musings on Joyce and Fitzgerald, my two favorite authors, but I really loved this book because it perfectly captures the way my family dealt with weird shit happening: by not feeling sorry for ourselves. By making up jingles (as my brother used to) about how our dad was gay, by finding glee in making other people uncomfortable with how comfortable we were with our situation. It's a funny, sad, funny, sad book, that will hit home in a good way for everyone I know with messed up families (and almost everyone I know has a messed up family, the real kind, not the Everybody Loves Raymond kind). If you're like me, it might give you hope at our chances of coming out the other side, too.

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

I can’t die like this, she thought. People only drown in metaphors and feminist literature. The water touched the bottom of her lungs, and to her surprise, she could feel it there, being absorbed with every spongy breath she fought to the surface to take. She was caught in a rip, and although her father had told her––thirty years ago on her first trip to the beach––that she should let it take her, she couldn’t stop pushing against it. Whenever she stopped moving she got dragged not just out to sea, but down to the sandy floor, too; for a while she was letting herself be pulled there and then pushing up to the surface. Now that wasn’t working, and she couldn’t find her way out.

She had a flash of swimming with her first boyfriend, a surfer who would laugh at the idea of drowning. As though she were there, the smell of chlorine and sunscreen, wet towels and wet hair filled her nostrils. Oh God, is my life actually flashing before my eyes? Could there be a more cliché way to die than this? She shocked herself with the clarity and cynicism of her thoughts, and knew that must mean she was going to die. If I weren’t actually going to, I’d be freaking out right now.

More memories started to pop into her mind, pushing each other out of the way, and finally she gave in. She stopped fighting against the current and started running towards all those beautiful home movies she’d been shooting her whole life. She stopped holding her breath, and started breathing.

Labels: Stories

It may have been that Kirk was a sucker, and it may have been that he pulled the little rectangular tab of paper off the flyer because of destiny. The flyer promised an exciting adventure to anyone who called the number listed on the tab, and Kirk, a seventh grader who had just tripped and fallen while walking the girl he was in mad seventh grader love with home from the bus stop, was in bad need of an adventure. He needed it for himself, to prove that he wasn’t the idiot he felt like, and he needed it so he could prove to Alexandria that he was worthy of going to the gym dance with the most beautiful girl in the universe.

Kirk had an hour at home to himself before either of his parents would get home, so he took the phone to the couch, holding it in his left hand, the phone number in his right. His heart thumped against the inside of his chest. Time stopped for a half second, and then he dialed the number. Kirk held his breath, then released it forcefully when he heard what was on the other side of the line: a busy signal. He hung the phone up in disgust.

* * *

That night, Kirk lay wide awake in his bed for an hour after he’d turned the light out. He replayed the scene with Alexandria a hundred times, punctuating each one with the sound of a busy tone. Finally, he began to slip away. As his thoughts got hazy, he heard a tinny kind of tinkling, like someone was delicately making their way through an enormous pile of spoons. Then, something tapped on his forehead. His eyes opened to a brilliant, near-blinding pink light. The light faded as it moved away, and Kirk saw that there was a second light, gold, flitting around the pink one.

“Wh-wha?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“Kirk Anderson?” a squeaky voice asked.

“Yeah.”

“You rang for an adventure, so an adventure you shall get,” the pink glow said.

“You’ll set off for it soon enough, but not––just––yet,” followed the yellow.

With that, they darted out his window. Kirk was already wondering if he was dreaming, but as the glowing dots moved away, he could see paper-thin wings on the edges, where they weren’t so bright. He sprang from his bed, but by the time he’d reached the window they’d disappeared. He lay back down, even more unable to sleep than he had been before. Except now, he wasn’t thinking about Alexandria.

Labels: Stories

3...2...1...



Damn. Just had one of those days that, as a writer and a human, I really really hate. It wasn't a bad day, those at least produce some kind of useful emotion, and it certainly wasn't a good day, it was just one of those useless days where I tried to get a few things done, failed, relaxed a little, and then realized an entire day of my life had passed me by, when I have heaps of wedding planning and writing work I should have been taking care of.

It's always very hard for me to deal with not being productive: that's one of the reasons I started this blog, was to make sure I was writing something creative every single day, even if the rest of it was spent writing things I didn't like or didn't care about. Still, one three hundred word story is not really enough to qualify as a day's work. It barely even qualifies as a half hour's work, but until an hour ago, it's all I'd gotten done. When I'm not working, I feel like I'm sinking, like I'm failing, and immediately begin thinking all manner of horrible things about myself.

The reason I didn't get anything done? For no particular reason, I fell into the self-destructive pit that opens up at my feet at various times in my life (I'm pretty sure it's my real inheritance from my father). I've avoided any kind of "hard" addiction, so I won't lose a week of my life to it, but I did spend the day sitting on my couch doing nothing, except eating things that fucked up my stomach and have now aggravated my throat . Fortunately I have a Shar living with me, and she has me on track a bit. I finished an article I had sitting in almost-done form for a while, and did my blog story, and now I'm going to spend the next few hours doing an article I'm past-deadline on, and working on my novel. I've found that, like a fight with a girlfriend, it's best to resolve this kind of thing as quickly as possible. If I go to bed without making things right with myself, I tend to lose more time to self-pitying grumpiness, which I hate, which makes me loath and pity myself even more, which...etc. And then KA-BOOM.

Anyway, as a reward for reading this self-pitying ramble, here is a link to an article I wrote for Eli's magazine (I'm the third in a spread of four ex-Unionites). It's strictly H.R. Puff-and-Fluff, but I was surprised by how happy I was with the way it came off.

Also, here is a link to one of the results that comes from randomly doing searches for one's fiancee's last name. This is the music video of a song that use to paralyze Shar, Robyn and I with terror in the UCLA dorms. Watching the video, I'm reconsidering my decision to marry anyone with Higa in their name...

Other writers: any idea where these kind of problems come from? I hate the term writer's block, but I'm open to any and all possible origin stories.

Labels: Generalness

You’re a curious one, aren’t you, spending your nights turning over the rocks of your past? Looking underneath to see what you left there. Looking for what you left behind of yourself. You would love that I’m using a metaphor, wouldn’t you? Because that’s how you’re thinking of this moment. This isn’t you driving around your old college at midnight because you’re divorced and lonely and bored. No. This is you revisiting the past, sampling old feelings like fine wine, reliving your youth. But you are wrong: truth trumps symbolism.

Why are you doing this to yourself? Is it to see what this place looks like in the dark? Is it so that you can pretend you are seeing things in a new way? I wonder if the dark concrete benches make you think about all the friends you almost made. I wonder if you’re thinking about the men you almost slept with. Are you wondering if, twenty years from now, your son will be driving this same road?

I bet you miss the way you used to feel here, when you came in as a freshman and you thought you could bend these century-old bricks to your will, when you would have an epiphany and imagine yourself uprooting trees with your brilliance. Do you miss the thoughts you had back then? Do you miss the big ideas that were bursting forth at every moment, now that there are nothing but dusty bones rattling around in your head? You cannot come back, you know, even if you are technically here. There is nothing for you here. You are not a freshman, you are not a senior, and this is not your home anymore.

Labels: Stories