The Copysmiter

vonnegutism

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:02:28 -0500

Frank Ballast once wrote a novel entitled Searching for Laboratories in the Cosmos, in which an alien race visits Earth to take notes. Notes for an exhibit at a museum on their home planet. The exhibit was entitled “Genetic Engineering On Low to Medium Technology Planets.”

The aliens could walk the halls and see many pictures of a species native to Earth. There were hundreds of photos and essays describing the various mutations. At the beginning was a noble statue of the animal in its natural state. There were two basic varieties. Both virile and magnificent in their own ways.

The aliens would continue and see abominations with excessively short legs, some with flat faces or squat features, others with abnormal heart conditions, all created for the humans’ pleasure and companionship.

Of course, the aliens would scoff at the end of the tour. Above the exit were emblazoned the words which they were told were proverbial on Earth:

“Man’s Best Friend”.

Vonnegutism

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:32:00 -0500

Frank Ballast once wrote a story called Vortexes of the Utterly Useless in which an alien race had inhabited a planet for billions of years.

All the races on this planet, composed of different species, had managed to make peace with each other but still could not stop the environmental destruction of their planet.

In an attempt to find answers, they decided to use space-time to gather information from the nearest planet they could find that was inhabited by reasonably intelligent lifeforms. It turned out to be a place called Earth.

To collect data they needed machines with a nice slow spin to act as “portals” at the other end. They decided to use laundry dryers. They were simple and numerous.

All they ever received on their end were damp socks.

They determined technology was ultimately useless and decided to dismantle their civilization. Eventually they returned to an animal state to let Natural Law maintain order since they couldn’t get the hang of it.

In response to your query.

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:53:23 -0400

November 21, 1963

Dear Mr. Harlequin,

You asked me to tell you what I was doing the day they dropped the bomb. I honestly regret to inform you that my memory of the day is a bit hazy. Not for youth or lack of trying, or even apathy. I’ve tried desperately to remember. Unfortunately I was drunk for most of it.

You see in those days I was something of a social butterfly. Which is to say, I had a lot of friends so that I didn’t feel like an alcoholic.

As I recall I was living in Virginia. A place called Hampton Roads. It’s the kind of place you’ve never heard of unless you’ve heard of it. I remember a lot of sand crabs there. Not so many roads as you’d think though. Strange.

So there I was on that day. Hungover. It happens. My friends were loud and boisterous considering that the night before had been nothing less than an ideal Bacchic orgy. No sex. Just alcohol and dancing. A traditional goat song, if you will.

I decided to not partake, which is strange. Usually I leap at the chance for any kind of alcohol at any time of the day. But something about this particular brand of vodka was unappealing. That never happens. I had had “Aristocrat” vodka from the market for two dollars. It had a syrupy texture. After that, you would think…

I’m off point. So, they dropped the bomb. Of course, back then, no one really understood what that meant. I remember my friend Michael said, “Haven’t they been dropping them?” Strange.

I looked blankly about the room hoping someone would explain everything before I confessed my stupidity by asking what the radio was on about.

How stupid am I? Sober and expecting drunks to explain the implications of nuclear warfare to me. Strange.

I remember my friends were drinking bloody maries all day. They were playing records. Insolent records that drove me crazy. Loud abrasive stuff. I remember thinking that was strange. They seemed to be much quieter people. I had expected Mozart or the like. But it was all Big Band and such. People surprise each other a lot. I suppose the bomb was a surprise to the people of Hiroshima. But no one will know now, will they?

I think it’s kind of funny that all the research and so forth done about the dropping of the bomb has been done by us, who dropped it, and the other side has so little input. Of course, they’re dead… Strange.

Anyway, back to the day. I remember being curious about my fellows that woke up that morning. Kind of observational. They annoyed me but I thought they were fun to watch. I’d say ask Barney Rollins about that day. But he killed himself not too long ago. He was sober too that day. I heard he served in Korea some years later. Came back and started a family, then put a black hole in the middle of it by putting a hole in his skull. I guess killing people didn’t agree with him. Then again he saw no problem killing himself. Strange.

The radio was all about the bomb. It was one of those mornings where all of us were playing records, or they were at any rate, but yet someone had put on the radio as well. A girl was sitting by the radio sipping a Tom Collins at one in the afternoon. She had a blank look on her face. She stared at the ground like she was reading a novel in the carpet. She looked sort of frightened and desperate. The radio said the world would never be the same. She took a big drink.

It was one but we had just woken so, it might as well have been seven o’clock. Strange. Time and reality have a way of failing to congeal sometimes.

My friends… Oh, sorry. I should have told you, I’m writing this letter on a Sunday morning. My friends are here having brunch with my family. I had a burst of energy and thought I’d write while I had the impetus. Is that the right word? Sorry I really detest writing. Not my thing. Anyway, my friends are telling me that they don’t mind my absence from the table but that the typewriter clacking is annoying.

I have moved to the other room and I’m smoking a cigarette now, trying to recall the day. Do you know I don’t even remember the actual date they dropped the bomb? I can remember stupid things like noise and a Tom Collins but if you asked me the date I’d be lost. Strange.

I can’t think of much else about that day except feeling very lost. I mean, not about the bomb, but I guess that too. I just didn’t really know anything about the night before. Anything before, really. I still don’t understand much. I just knew I had been somewhere I shouldn’t have been. No one should’ve been. We had the hangover to prove it. All of us.

They say it goes away if you keep drinking. But I don’t know that that’s a good idea. What if we were “hungover” about the bomb and decided to just drop some more. I don’t think that would be good. No. I definitely think that would be bad.

Still and all… humans can split atoms. Strange.

Sincerely,

Frank Ballast

Ting. Quietly. “Ten degrees down bubble.” Ting. And the quiet report. “Ten degrees down bubble,...

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:26:25 -0400

Ting.

Quietly. “Ten degrees down bubble.”

Ting.

And the quiet report. “Ten degrees down bubble, aye-aye.”

Ting.

Metal groans and greasy men wince. Shhhh.

Ting.

They will the boat into an unnatural sulk. Shhhh.

Ting.

Two healthy splashes plunge through the silence and pierce the hull.

“Even the planes,” whispers the Lieutenant.

The barrels sink through the murky Atlantic. Murky not with plankton. Not with life. Murky with death. Gasoline and oil. The lifeblood of another vessel that has been dealt with, for which now these greasy men are being dealt.

The metal bends with agony. The metal cries. The explosions break the men’s vows of silence as they rush to make things right again. Their girl is going to die.

“Turbines ahead full!” comes the order. Silence is useless when you are a bullseye.

“Ahead full, aye-aye,” the response.

“Fish in the tubes.”

“Aye.”

“Captain…ballast pump is broken. We’re filling up.”

“Chief? What’s the story?”

“Thirty-five degrees down bubble…” He looks back to his guage, “and dropping.”

Fuck.

Life in a can was always described as 90 days of sheer boredom followed by one moment of satisfaction and then an hour of terror. Something akin to trekking across the desert to fuck a hooker.

“Rescind. Put the fish to stern.”

“Even us out, cap?”

“Aye.”

—-

“We’re planing out. But I can’t get our nose up.”

“No need to breathe underwater.” Such laconic statements are issued to seamen. They wear them as they slowly learn to wear the ship.

You can order ants through the mail for your farm. They come in a small tube. A straw. A cage. A prison. And as their release becomes their enslavement, the prison becomes a haven.

Abierto 24 horas.

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:22:30 -0400

Tin cans holding roses supported by beans. Dried beans. Of the red variety. On a windowsill. In a brown brick building of ten stories. This is where my day starts. Every morning I say hello to bean-fed roses and goodbye to my cat. Hit the pavement… not so much running… I’ve always been more of an ambler. I pack heat. I pack two pieces of heat actually.One shoots six, one is six shots. Smith & Wesson. Jack Daniel’s. One’s use generally heralds the other’s.

I fit my head in the fedora and lock the balsa wood door. As shade passes me as I throw the deadbolt.

“Comin’ through,” says the gorilla in a trench coat.

“Excuse me, pal,” I say. I can hear his contemptuous snort of a reply. “Fucker,” I mumble to myself.

The lift’s broken as usual. I’ll take the stairs. I open the door. Down the stairwell I see a dead cockroach. Just another tenant behind on the rent.

“Tough break, kid,” I say to the corpse.

On the street my heels grind the grit of the sidewalk. I need some more ammo so I turn into the liquor shop. No sooner do the door’s bells chime than Charlie greets me.

“Here for some breakfast, Frankie?”

“You got it. Load me up.” I put my flask on the counter and he fills it from a handle on the shelf behind him.

“Fuck these cold days in April,” I bitch. “What’s the winter words for Indian Summer?”

“Damned if I know.” He spins the cap into place and hands me my piece. I slap down a quarter dollar, tip my hat and take my leave. Not without a bracing swig to thaw the cold in my bones.

Tell me what you said. I don’t mind. I do. But I don’t. Not really. You’re...

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:12:23 -0400

Tell me what you said. I don’t mind. I do. But I don’t. Not really.

You’re effervescent. You ‘happen’. You don’t exist. Not really.

This is the way it is meant to be. Something intangible.

But so it goes.

On the flipside… In an equally intagible place we will meet.

When I fish and you have no cares we might discover each other. Then you can go and I’ll be happy for the moment. The moment. The moment when I love you for nothing more than you are.

The satisfaction flows.

But that’s it. Nothing more. I can’t want more than that because I know that is all you have to give. Not that you knew that. You know nothing but what I’ve told you.

Immortalse.

Enjoy. I’ll see you one day when I gather nets.

What's in a title?

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:06:33 -0400

At home what is my name? Here I am called what? In other places, something else.

It doesn’t matter really. If you can figure it out you can get a prize. Paltry. But what do you care? We haven’t even been formally introduced. I don’t know your name and you don’t know mine. So fuck yourself. There. Now we can be friends.

Except that I have to go. My master summons.

“Yes, beer. I’m coming…”

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:37:57 -0400

“A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

- Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955)

Apologies.

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:06:25 -0400

[To: any readers…]

I haven’t been working on any fiction lately though I do have a couple ideas on paper.

In my microcosm here are some news items:

I have recently topped 500 books in my library. Not so much sure, but it’s something.
Last three additions: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Sewing Illustrated by Carole Ann Camp, Why I Write by George Orwell (one of my favorites), and Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O’Hara. The last is a poetry anthology. I don’t know why I keep coming back to it. I suck at poetry. I fall somewhere between a parody of emo and an actual real-life sniffling asshole.

All that aside, I have lost much inspiration lately. I think it had to do with not having a job. When you’re looking into an empty fridge, the typewriter appears superfluous. Freelance aside, I recently accepted a small teaching position at a local vocational school of sorts, teaching story writing. Inasmuch, it’s time for me to start exercising again. Stay tuned. Stay drunk. Stay black. Cheers.

“Things You Say at Coffee After Whiskeys Brought By Waitresses” OR “My Bedroom the Ferret”

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:15:00 -0500

Chapter 1. “I live in a mall.”

My girlfriend and I woke up in my Room, which was, for the time being, in a mall. That was nice. I had to go to work soon, to see a product demonstration. It was right down the breezeway that acted as my street.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. She was playing a video game but I had her attention.

My penis was sore from our romp the night before, but was apparently ready for more. I propped myself on my elbow and watched her play in the dull blue light of the TV in the otherwise dark room. I checked my watch. Still early. Still dark.

The coziness of the moment was at once enhanced by her, because she smiled and seemed to aim a twinkle at me from the corner of her eye. And then the blue light became icy:

“Noooo…” she cooed. “You have work.” I knew she didn’t dislike my advances. She simply could do without them.

A massive entertainment center completely obscured the far wall. To my left, the wall was distorting itself into its own surroundings, becoming the large display window of a GAP® storefront. I wasn’t perturbed or embarrassed. I had a feeling the room knew to make the glass a two-way mirror.

She continued clicking away at her controller and smiling at me without making eye contact. But I could feel her presence looking at me.

Chapter 2.

It’s not scary when thoughts appear in my head, in her hand, “I love you. We will see each other. Now: go away.”

Where the fuck did she learn telepathy?

Chapter 3.

The Room reassured me as I wove through the main mall thoroughfare that I was OK. I don’t remember packing the painful erection into my pants. I couldn’t see things in my head that happened a moment ago. And I knew I wanted something from my girlfriend, but I couldn’t remember what.

The directory said my location was ahead.

Chapter 4. “Did you know I’m a shoe salesman?”

Why do they make shoe stores look like cabins from the Pacific Northwest? I don’t need a theme park to buy shoes. Does this make me feel like the shoe is better suited to rough use? Thick soles and coarse yellow leather seem enough demonstration to me. I wonder if there are studies about unfinished wood floors vs. shoe sales, I thought. I imagine this place appeals to loggers.

I have to get back home, to my room. I miss her and the moment might vaporize. I can’t remember why but I’m pretty certain something is unstable. Maybe I left the coffeepot on.

A man with a censored face approached me and told me it’s time.

“It’s time,” he said. Had I heard this before?

“Time for what?” I asked.

“You’re from the agency, right? Our agency? We have a product demonstration that you’re here for,” he said.

“Oh,” I said.

I put down the boot I was holding and looked behind me, using a big log rail to contort myself.

A bald man held a boot up in the air identical to the one I was holding. His tanned skull gleamed in the yellow rail lights. His denim shirt told me he works in a shoe store that appeals to loggers.

I turned back anxiously to the man with no features.
“I already know how to walk?”

Chapter 5. “So, I finally christened the house Frankenstein. I forgot to turn off the ac-CELL-erator, and the house is now a cobbled mess. Part of it is constructed from my memories and past houses, and the rest is remnants attached from other teleports.

The overall affect is something like walking out of the bathroom with toilet paper trailing behind you. But it’s like… magnetic toilet paper… that grabs more and more garbage for you to carry. It’s the Law of Contagion, so to speak.”

“This is why I’ve called it the Schlep Corollary,” I said.

“What’s an ac-CELL-erator?” asked my friend.

“I like my room a lot,” I began. “I built a device to relocate the room to the most convenient place to wake up. To eliminate planning, it determines where that place is. I just wake up. So, I get the maximum amount of time in my room.”

“Does it work?” he asked.

“It performs its intended function,” I replied. I tend to drape ‘no’ in half-truths.

“Meaning?” he probed.

“I wake up where I’m supposed to, but I can never remember which side of the bed I like to get out of.”

It was afternoon and I was playing with Legos in a cross between my old backyard from a house I had a long time ago and a tiki bar.

“That’s weird,” I said to my coworker.

“What?” He was playing a video game on a handheld device to my left. We were sitting at my patio table, a fine specimen of wrought iron and white enamel. Our fleshy forms didn’t seem so delicate. More like thinking lumps.

Some silence passed as I stared, trying to orient myself.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked. I might have been rude but I couldn’t hear myself. Sound has trouble keeping abreast of light and time.

“This is my house,” he said. His quick upward glance meant I must not have been rude. I looked around and thought I should go inside when he continued, “Let’s play together.”

“Huh?”

“I got another Game Boy.” His grammar bothers me.

“No thanks. I think, um, I think…I have something to do…” I said.

“What?” he asked. I think I offended him.

“Listen, why don’t you play with your son,” I said. “I’m no good at video games.” He didn’t look up but his silence still implied he felt snubbed. “Or play with Legos. I played with these as a kid. They are great. You can keep adding things on. Kids love that. The whole thing has no end.” My hand motioned sweeps for emphasis.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“What game are you playing?” I asked.

“The Pinker,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s The Pinker man. I dunno. He helps people. That’s it.”

“What kind of people?” I stood slightly and looked at the screen. The character looked exactly like a Lego ‘man’ clothed in a pastel pink and green superhero outfit. He was scrambling to get up a ledge.

“People who need help,” he said. I felt a strong sense that The Pinker might be my way out. He could help me.

“Look,” I grabbed a Lego man. “See? This is The Pinker,” I grabbed a Lego door, “and this door is his magic weapon.” My rather rotund coworker turned his head and looked at my hands. “He travels through the portal and whatever he needs exists on the other side. It’s hammerspace.”

“Hammer-what?”

I added random blocks and panels creating a base of sorts that existed on the other side of this door. Imagination let them disappear when he crossed back. And, of course, his door could fly, so he had a base and escape route whenever he needed it.

“Right now,” I said, “he is going to help some union workers on their strike.”

My coworker seemed transfixed so I took the opportunity to leave. I had never been here before but the sliding glass door was directly behind me, as my gut had told me. I opened it quickly and smelled thick, olive green curtains.

Chapter 6. “He has a pet junkie.”

Before I went inside, the Coworker had attempted to rouse his pet junkie. I don’t know who this man was, but he had passed out in Coworker’s Jacuzzi.

I was sure he would drown in that tub. His head was all the way back, mouth agape. He looked like an idiot. I sympathized. Sometimes, we are all passing out in Jacuzzis.

Coworker woke him with some annoyance. He splashed water on the junkie’s fat, red face. The man coughed and sputtered, but seemed all right. Sometimes people are too comfortable, I supposed. Other people don’t like when you are too comfortable, I supposed.

Chapter 7. After a few drinks, you’re like, “Oh man….I think the Earth is spinning.”

Someone says, “It is,” and I stare blankly.

Before I went into the house, I looked up to figure out the time. I couldn’t see anything though; the sky was nothing but a mess of purple, blue and silver swirls. If those are clouds, I thought, I can’t remember ever seeing clouds.

The sun’s heat must’ve been piercing them anyway because it was warm. I supposed it was 6 o’clock. Or thereabouts. The shadow that crossed my coworker’s face suggested I might be right.

Chapter 8. “My house was now about as familiar to me as Mexico City after several tequilas.” I took a drink and looked over my cup, continuing, “But Mexico City if all the clocks are broken and the shades are down.”

“Fuck!” I yelled.

“Jesus!” I yelled again.

“Who put this shit here?” I had tripped over a table that was placed directly in front of the glass and obscured –from outside view- by the olive green curtain.

I received several surprised but wholly unmoved looks from people in the kitchen putting away groceries. They turned back to their distractions.

My Coworker stared at me from the dining room. It didn’t occur to me he had been outside three seconds before.

“Hey,” I yelled to him. “Look outside.” I pointed to the other end of the house, at the window to the front lawn.

“Whoa,” he said. “What the hell?” It was fiercely bright outside.

“I thought it was 6 o’clock,” I said. He looked at the time and told me it was 1:15 in the afternoon.

I walked towards him, but the tables and chairs and grocery bags were in my way.

Why can’t I just get to my fucking room? I screamed to myself.

Chapter 9. “Fissionable material looks like teatime in The Scarlett Letter. The movie, not the book. Demi Moore though…yeah buddy.”

“Hi everyone,” I had meant to say. But something about your naked girlfriend lying down in another man’s lap clears your head of anything to say.

All right, in her defense, she had on underwear, but no bra. Still awkward.

I refrained from killing her and/or the guy because she seemed to be talking to the entire group in the living room, and the man on whom she was lying looked about as uncomfortable as I was upset. Besides, I knew him. He was harmless and wouldn’t do anything awkward. Maybe I worked with him. Was he my friend?

I stepped into the room a little more and brushed her shoulder, “Come with me, please.” I sounded clipped, but it was the best I could manage.

“Why? I’m talking,” she said. The faces in the room were clearly not comfortable with the nymphet I had left in their care.

“Come,” I said peacefully. Finally I was going to have her. “They don’t know you’re,” I motioned with my hands, “not like them.” The cat had been baited; she followed me in the same reluctant manner. I wasn’t sensing the glimmer from before. Did I forget to pick something up on the way home from work?

…

We entered the Room.

Fuck. I was lost again.

“Where is this?”

“What?” she asked, throwing on some clothes. “We can’t have sex right now,” she clipped.

Her shirt melted across her breasts and she dropped her arms to her side. “I mean,” I asked, “why is the room…this way?”

“What way?” she crawled on the bed.

“Crowded.” There were boxes on the other side of the bed, the curtained window let in dusty light, I was certain I could fuck her, and everything looked a few decades old, especially the heavy, dark wooden furniture.

“Everything is what you have made it,” she said as she thumbed a magazine. “We have to leave at 6…” she said from the bed. Without a smile or another word, she looked right into my eyes. I hadn’t noticed, having looked at the room, how clothed she seemed when she wasn’t naked.

Denim skirt.
Denim jacket.
Blouse printed with cherries.
“You look like a child to me,” I said.

“I look like exactly what you want,” she said. How could she know that?

“I,” I pressed my fingers hard into my eyes, “can’t see. You’re breaking up.”

“Breaking up?”

“Yes,” I said, “I can’t understand what you’re saying. You’re breaking up.”

“What does that mean?” She boomed precisely three laughs: “Really?”

“No, not really. Of course, not really.” I let go of my eyes and saw that her clothes were blurry. My eyes were fine, but she was misty. “I mean, I feel foggy. And I can’t do anything about it. I’m seeing at the speed of light. The Room, you know? At that speed, everything slows and kinda pauses.

“You stop…before you get to me,” I said

She understood me but stared hard. Or maybe I could see too fast.

Chapter 10. “Remember John Cusack in ‘Fat Man and Little Boy’? My girlfriend went supercritical too.”

“I have a cut. Several cuts. Do you see?” Gingerly she fingered her wounds.

“What?” I asked. She had cuts on her. Her clothes had become mussed. I stopped short of the bed.

“See?” she said, “I have a rake of four fingers across my inner thigh. And rug burn, here, see? On my knee. It was from the cat.”

“The cat fur burned your knee?” I asked.

She nodded without looking at me. “And something else, somewhere…” She searched her person for more scrapes and cuts. I moved near her and tried to smell her before it was too late. Her face was transforming. She was still herself, but she was not attractive.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Your Room,” she said, “is attached to things. Your Room doesn’t like me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head, “That means nothing.” I grabbed her hand. It was soft and did not return the gesture. It went clammy and tried to escape, softly.

“I’m sorry?” I fumbled. It wasn’t a question, I don’t think.

“You can’t control it, you shouldn’t be sorry,” she said. I was not comforted.

“You can’t love me,” she said. I knew this already. I asked her why with my face. “I have not become ugly,” she said, though she had. But I couldn’t see. Maybe she was correct. “The Room is moving,” she said, starting to fade.

“It’s stealing you!” I barked.

From Start to 'Most Recent'

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:44:00 -0500

Something akin to, “I like a man with big muscles,” is, “accents just make me all…mmmm, I just love it…”

Only that collection of atoms that is me will understand the corelation.

On The Wackness.

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:34:21 -0500

somethingtodoaftertheporn:

This movie reminded me of a fairly important life lesson, that no matter how hard you try to better yourself as a person, it will never bring back the ones that got away. The best you can hope for is that your new self will prevent the next one from getting away as well.

no title

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:34:00 -0500

I hadn’t known Grandpa very well, while he was here. And I regret that. I knew him, but only in the cloudy manner that atrophied memories allow. Mom and Dad had brought me to visit him in Philly countless times, but I was just a boy.

I always thought my mother had taught me to read. She tells me he did most of the teaching. She would say: “look it up,” when I asked questions. He gave me books. So she tells me. I wonder how much more of my life, as I remember it, is incorrect.

Mom called me at work and told me that Grandpa had been killed in a car accident. It wasn’t until later that I found out it hadn’t been so simple as that. Without getting into too many details, I can tell you the casket was closed. I will never know if he had aged gracefully in the 6 years or so since I had last seen him. I had been living my life, always considering giving relatives a call, never doing so.

I attended the funeral and ran the usual motions with aunts and cousins I hadn’t seen, and so forth. I made my way to the coffin and put my hand on it. I wasn’t sure what else to do. I waited for some tears, but the shame of waiting forced my retreat.

Before I left for home, I went to the accident site. I considered that, among my generation of Smiths, I was rather impressive. I should do something for Grandpa. Something nice. Something to make the family proud. Something to compensate for the lack of visible emotion.

The corner where it had happened lay ahead. I stepped into a coffee shop and grabbed myself a drink. I was going to take my time with this. Sit and think at the accident site.

—

Approaching, I saw a memorial was already in place. All I could think was, “This is my life; I hate being a tourist.”

Sometimes I forget wisdom has never heard of age.

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:07:33 -0500

Sometimes I forget wisdom has never heard of age.

Oh Yes

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:22:00 -0500

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late

-Charles Bukowski

Sigh.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:25:51 -0500

Sometimes the absolute hardest part of being a writer is opening up Word or putting paper in the Smith-Corona and just moving. I have a story right now, in the works. Almost done. But the prediction that it represents in my life has so eerily come to pass that I am not sure I can bear to finish it.

For me, it was supposed to be a good story about a bad thing. Now, it will be a good story about a true thing. That said, it might even be a shit story about a true thing. In any case, now that the sentiments foreseen have come to pass, I wonder if I’ll be able to write it as I meant to. We shall see.

DOES THE POPE SHIT IN THE WOODS?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:30:00 -0400

I don’t remember how old I was. Certainly I was of age to make a trip to the bathroom unassisted. Despite everything you’re about to read, my parents did teach me how to leave a little “Fwaydirt” in the porcelain goddess.

I’m going to say this was 7th or 8th grade? I was living in this house on 16 acres of land in the middle of Bumfuck, Kentucky. It was a bad time for Fway. I hated Kentucky so much I can’t put it into words. I don’t like rednecks! I want them all to BURRRRRN. Enough said.

I was playing in the woods near my house; but I mean, these woods went on forever, and I was in the first little hedge or what have you, right next to the house.

I suppose I was having a fucking GREAT time, because instead of walking 20 feet to the house, I decided to shit in the woods.

This was retarded for two reasons:

It was fucking winter. Cold as fuck. And…
I had to bunny hop to the fucking bathroom because of reason 1. It was winter… no leaves on the trees.

I made my dooty.

My froze-ass was cowboy walking into the house, I’m taking off my coat and scarves and all, trying to keep my butt away from my underwear. I managed all this and went back outside to play.

Victory.

Naturally I returned to the scene of the crime and tried to church it up. A few choice branches here, dead leaf or two there. Dust it with a bit of Mother Earth. I thought how life went on as it always does, this was cool. I remember feeling very natural in all of this. And once before, in the retelling of this tale, someone told me that it was like a cat reflex, covering up my shit. “Exactly,” I thought. “Litter box instinct.”

So there it is.

Fast forward to the next day. My stepfather, my little sister and I go for a walk in the yard. But we’ve got 16 acres. There’s plenty of ground to cover. I’m not worried. I figure we’ll circumambulate the area (look it up).

BUT… my fucktard of a sister is drawn like a magnet to my shit as soon as we set foot in the woods. I mean what is that? I know little kids like to eat poop and all, but how could she even find it?? “The trail had gone cold…”

So this little toddler girl waddles up to my sin, laying there all cold, and starts poking it with a stick and that. And the thing was massive, by the way. I was kind of a family legend for my baby-size “leavings.”

She was asking me all of these questions because my stepdad was somewhere else: “What is it?” “Is it poop?” “What did it?” “Was it our dog?”

I was trying like fuck to make her interested in anything else before my stepdad came over to see what we were doing. But the little sprat continues with the machine gun litany of incriminating questions about my deuce. The little fucker wanted to talk feces like not even a proctologist would talk about it.

I’m squirming now. I can see my stepdad tracking in. He sees we’ve stopped. He must have thought something was interesting over our way.
I’m trying to kick my shit away and failing.
I panic.
I tell my sister: “A deer did it.”

I’m sure you know deerses leave droppings. My shit looked NOTHING like that. If my log were a dropping, the pile itself would be from a wooly mammoth or something. Or like a deerasaurus.

My stepdad comes over and in a panic I blurt: “LOOK WHAT SHE FOUND I THINK IT WAS A DEER LOOKS LIKE A DEER RIGHT WOW THAT WAS SOME DEER EH?” I figured live the lie, you know? Yeah. Live the lie.

Stepdad stares at it for a second. Examining. He was a doctor, you know.
He leans toward me, “That’s not from a deer…”

“Really?!” I said.

“Go to the garage. Get a shovel. Clean up your shit.”

I still haven’t admitted it was me to this day. Not to a single soul in my family. Live the lie. That was deer shit. Brontosaur-size deer shit. For sure.

WRITERS! BEHOLD:

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:04:00 -0400

Interruptions ARE writer’s block. Eliminate them.

I suggest murder.

Not your bag?

Be a wimp, then.

heey....here's a hobby

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:24:00 -0400

Sometimes I write stories, rarely finished, rarely thought out. Here:

Who can it be now? Someone’s knocking.

I just brought her home, and so on…

We saw Weekend at Bernie’s. Those two fellas in the movie are destined for a career in comedy. Meanwhile, my dick is hard, her bush is waiting, and someone’s knocking. If it’s not another babe I’m going to be sorely disappointed.

“Just a minute,” I chuckle to her.

I’ve always found a towel wrapped about my unclean body extremely perverse. Worse than fornication. Worse than drinking. Worse than coke. Really, I don’t find the last three bad at all. They cause in me no disruption. But terrycloth on my nuts? I have to light a candle next mass. Jesus is gonna be pissed.

“What the fuck do you…” I trail…

I always regret saying “fuck” in front of cops. It’s the same as swearing in front of grandma. It’s just not done.

“Sir,” the expletive didn’t phase him, apparently, “are you the owner of a red ‘86 Camaro?”

“Fucking A.” Shit.

“Right. Can you come with me please.” You’ll notice I ended with a period. It wasn’t a question. About now I was wishing I had taken the rubber off. No one could see it, but I kinda had the feeling you get in those dreams where you show up to school in your birthday suit. Meanwhile my bare feet are walking over gravel. You never think about how sensitive your instep is. I cannot imagine anything more awkward than this particular brand of cock-block. The guys aren’t going to believe this.

“Bullshit, Chad. You’re queer. Admit it. You couldn’t seal the deal.” Mike was more right than he knew.

“I’m serious, the cop showed up, there were marks on her that matched the dents in my car.”

“This is the biggest line of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

“Longest,” I corrected. Jack could be such a moron. “Longest line.”

He called me a queer and took a drink out of his cone-shaped cup. He always did that thing with his elbow like we were going to hit a speed bump while talking. The thing where you sip and raise your arm out to the side. He looked at me over his cup. It was pretty clear. This is how men dare each other. THe look said, “Say something.” I thought I had nothing and:

“You just made the list, buddy.” I stared at him. My hands were in my pockets. I felt very Val Kilmer Top Gun. I asked myself where that had come from. I had thought I was dead in the water. But I iced him. Rad. I’m a lawyer. Quick on my toes. Yeah. I’m quick.

I turned back to Mike. “Maybe. But really, the cops DID show up. No bullshit.”

That was the next day. But I didn’t know it yet. My watch does that sometimes. It fucks with me. The little ticking fucker. I think it knows I know that it knows. I still have it. It still fucks with me.

“Care to explain, pal?” Suddenly I realized my hard-on had been wasted. Fucking cops.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve got a wet pelt waiting for me. Can’t this wait?”

Admit it, that was pretty smooth considering I had killed someone 45 minutes ago. The dumb bitch in the passenger seat hadn’t even noticed.

FWUMP.

I looked to my right; she shifted in her seat. Her crimped hair was looking totally bitching. I think she thought that my johnson made the noise, because she grabbed my dick. I love the ride home. Women are easy. Men now… they can be tricky. Stroke their egos, good times. Pull their head down to your crotch, 50/50 you’ll get punched.

I ignored her and looked out the window. Another perfect Virginia night. Newport News, baby. What a sexy name. Sun, sand, and mild weather. As I rolled down the window, the rushing air muffled the sound of her attempts to put my penis in her mouth.

Surprising. It isn’t that big.

I wondered what she tasted like. You’re the pervert though. I’m not talking about her vagina.

Ah, the fucking wind. I love it. “Drive” is on the radio. My hair is blowing. She’s blowing. Couldn’t get any better. Then there’s the beauty of knowing sex is on the way. The stupid bitch doesn’t even know what is about to happen.

The cop made me get dressed. Clothes just might be the most disapointing thing ever when there is a drunk, naked woman in your bed. Unless you already fucked her. Then clothes are just something that need to be washed when you take them off next.

Anyway, she was asleep and I was about to take a ride to the Norfolk Police Department.

Things that make me kill.

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:18:59 -0400

“Should of…” It’s should have, moron.

That’s actually it. I can’t think of anything else. This also proves the point that Americans are stupid. I know for a fact my example in this case procreates. Well, convinces women to let him run the motions, at any rate.