Archives (page 440 of 466)

June 28, 2011 / 36 Comments

The Five, By Robert McCammon

THE FIVE is Robert McCammon’s messiest, strangest work of fiction.

That may not sound like a good thing.

You’d be wrong.

See, this is a novel about the last days of a hardscrabble indie rock band — the titular “The Five” — and the horror they endure at the hands of a schizo sniper, a horror that ultimately brings them together before properly setting them apart. Contained within the story is this ghostly vein of the supernatural, a delicate component of good versus evil that never shows its full face, that always remains hidden in the margins of shadow that McCammon paints.

So, when I say “messy” and “strange,” I mean it in the truest rock-and-roll sense. Think if you will of the The White Stripes. Or The Doors. Or Jimi Hendrix. Or late Beatles. Or Sleater-Kinney. Or any garage band playing music that isn’t about perfection but about what lies beyond and within each note — the messy thump of a bass drum, the fuzz of a grinding guitar, the trippy vertigo strains of an organ. We’re not talking the measured bleeps and blips of pop music: we’re talking about the unkempt margins of rock-and-motherfucking-roll, son.

I don’t know how McCammon does it, but both the story and the execution of that story mimic that kind of garage band rock. It’s loose and messy, it deviates from expected courses, it escalates just when you think it’s going to ease off and eases off just when you think it’s going to escalate, it’s trippy and slippery. Above all else, it offers a kind of genius from a storyteller who has in my mind achieved a mode of transcendence — here, then, is McCammon as storytelling Bodhisattva, staying around this crass publishing arena to show the rest of his what it’s like to write from the heart and make it count.

Another way of thinking about it is by talking about James Joyce. Weird, I know, but bear with me: if you read Joyce’s work, his fiction doesn’t become more buttoned-up — it gets bigger, broader, more personal, and certainly weirder. Even comparing PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN with ULYSSES is a fascinating exercise: the first fairly lean, the second similar but with a far greater storyworld. ULYSSES shows Joyce beyond the top of his game — he’s climbed the ladder, gotten to the top, and kicked it down behind him — and reveals an ultimate expression of the novel. He’s not afraid to deviate, either. He wanders down alleys you didn’t even know where there, with Leopold Bloom as our vehicle through the mundane chaos, the heroic normalcy of an everyman’s day.

(Let’s not talk about FINNEGAN’S WAKE right now.)

THE FIVE is McCammon’s ULYSSES.

That’s a wacky statement. I know. But I think it’s true. This tale of “The Five” — Nomad, Ariel, Mike, Terry, and Berke — takes those same trips down dark alleys, concerning itself less with a mechanical thriller-slash-horror plot and more with the nature of these characters and the power and madness of rock-n’-roll in this day and age. This is actually marketed as a horror novel, and… it is, I guess, but only barely. That’s not to say it’s not scary. It’s rough stuff at times. But again the supernatural component, while present, is barely there — a stroke of subtlety rather than overt paranormality.

I’ll be honest. I wasn’t sure about the book for the first… 20, 30 pages. But then you slip into the vibe of it and it reveals itself. Soon your heart’s thumping like a kick-drum.

If I had one complaint it’s that early on McCammon seemed more interested in describing the technical beats of the music as it played — problematic for a guy like me who has the musical inclination of a cantaloupe. (Confession: I once played the drums. Second confession: I probably wasn’t very good.) But eventually he moves away from that and describes the music in cleaner, more poetic beats — paving the way to let you know how the music’s supposed to feel rather than the rote mechanics of how it’s played. It conjures to mind that this is a novel with the potential for transmedia extensions, if only in the form of us getting to hear the music of “The Five.”

Anyway. Point being, I recommend it. Two drumsticks thrust up and twirling. It’s a powerful, profound, trippy novel that’s troubling and unsettling throughout. This isn’t like anything else McCammon has ever done — again, it’s far fuzzier at the margins. But Stephen King was right to call it “full of rock and roll energy.” It isn’t McCammon’s easiest read. But, ULYSSES isn’t an easy read, either. Even still, both novels are some of the best of the form.

The caveat applies here that McCammon is easily my foremost “totem spirit” in terms of writers who influenced me. The guy’s one of my literary heroes and it’s nice to see him not just working, but at the top of his game. I’m looking cuh-razy forward to THE PROVIDENCE RIDER and whatever horror novel he’s got after that. (I still need to see if I can get my hands on his new WOLF’S HOUR stories, though. Dangit.)

All right, cats and kittens.

Your turn.

Recommend a book.

And go read THE FIVE while you’re at it.

June 27, 2011 / 51 Comments

25 Things You Should Know About Revising And Rewriting

Previous iterations of the “25 Things” series:

25 Things Every Writer Should Know

25 Things You Should Know About Storytelling

25 Things You Should Know About Character

25 Things You Should Know About Plot

25 Things You Should Know About Writing A Novel

1. Forging The Sword

The first draft is basically just you flailing around and throwing up. All subsequent drafts are you taking that throw-up and molding it into shape. Except, ew, that’s gross. Hm. Okay. Let’s pretend you’re the Greek God Hephaestus, then. You throw up a lump of hot iron, and that’s your first draft. The rewrites are when you forge that regurgitated iron into a sword that will slay your enemies. Did Hephaestus puke up metal? He probably did. Greek myths are weird.

2. Sometimes, To Fix Something, You Have To Break It More

Pipe breaks. Water damage. Carpet, pad, floor, ceiling on the other side, furniture. You can’t fix that with duct tape and good wishes. Can’t just repair the pipe. You have to get in there. Tear shit out. Demolish. Obliterate. Replace. Your story is like that. Sometimes you find something that’s broken through and through: a cancer. And a cancer needs to be cut out. New flesh grown over excised tissue.

3. It’s Cruel To Be Kind

You will do more damage to your work by being merciful. Go in cold. Emotionless. Scissors in one hand, silenced pistol in the other. The manuscript is not human. You are free to torture it wantonly until it yields what you require. You’d be amazed at how satisfying it is when you break a manuscript and force it to kneel.

4. The Aspiration Of Reinvention

I’m not saying this needs to be the case, and it sounds horrible now, but just wait: if your final draft looks nothing like your first draft, for some bizarre-o fucking reason you feel really accomplished. It’s the same way I look at myself now and I’m all like, “Hey, awesome, I’m not a baby anymore.” I mean, except for the diaper. What? It’s convenient. Don’t judge me, Internet. Even though that’s all you know. *sob*

5. Palate Cleanser

Take time away from the manuscript before you go at it all tooth-and-claw. You need time. You need to wash that man right out of your hair. Right now, you either love it too much or hate its every fiber. You’re viewing it as the writer. You need to view it as a reader, as a distant third-party editor flying in from out of town and who damn well don’t give a fuck. From subjective to objective. Take a month if you can afford it. Or write something else: even a short story will serve as a dollop of sorbet on your brain-tongue to cleanse the mind-palate. Anything to shift perspective from “writer” to “reader.”

6. The Bugfuck Contingency

You’ll know if it’s not time to edit. Here’s a sign: you go to tackle the edit and it feels like your head and heart are filled with bees. You don’t know where to start. You’re thinking of either just walking away forever or planting a narrative suitcase bomb in the middle of the story and blowing it all to H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks. That means you’re not ready. You’re too bugfuck to go forward. Ease off the throttle, hoss. Come back another time, another way. Cool down.

7. The Proper Mindset

Editing, revising, rewriting requires a certain mindset. That mindset is, “I am excited to destroy the enemy that resists good fiction, I am ready to fix all the shit that I broke, I am eager to shave off barnacles and burn off fat and add layers of laser-proof steel and get this motherfucker in fit fighting shape so that no other story may stand before it.” You gotta be hungry to fuck up your own work in the name of good storytelling.

8. Go In With A Plan Or Drown In Darkness

You write your first draft however you want. Outline, no outline, finger-painted on the back of a Waffle House placemat in your own feces, I don’t care. But you go to attack a rewrite without a plan in mind, you might as well be a chimpanzee humping a football helmet. How do you know what to fix if you haven’t identified what’s broken? This isn’t time for intuition. Have notes. Put a plan in place. Surgical strike.

9. Don’t Rewrite In A Vacuum

You write the first draft in isolation. Just you, your keyboard, a story, some industrial lubricant and a handgun. All other drafts are part of a team initiative. SWAT, kicking in windows, identifying perps. Beta readers, editors, agents, wives, friends, itinerant strangers, hostages, whatever. Get someone to read your nonsense. Get notes. Attend to those notes. Third parties will see things you do not.

10. Embrace The Intervention Of Notes

You get notes, it’s tough. It’s like coming home and being surrounded by friends and family, and they want you to sit down and listen as they talk about getting you unfettered from your addiction to obscure 80s hair-bands and foul Lithuanian pornography. But listen to those notes. They may be hard but they’re both instructive and constructive. They are a dear favor, so do not waste them.

11. But Also, Check Your Gut

When someone says “follow your gut,” it’s because your intestinal tract is home to an infinite multitude of hyper-intelligent bacterial flora. It knows what’s up if you can tune to its gurgling frequency. You get notes and they don’t feel exactly right, check the gut. Here’s the thing, though. Notes, even when you don’t agree, usually point out something about your manuscript. It may highlight a flaw or a gap. But it can also be instructive in the sense that, each note is a test, and if you come up more resolute about some part of your manuscript, that’s okay, too. Two opinions enter, one opinion leaves. Welcome to Chunderdome.

12. When In Doubt, Hire An Editor

Editors do not exist to hurt you. They exist to hurt your manuscript. In the best way possible. They are the arbiters of the toughest, smartest love. A good editor shall set you — and the work — free.

13, Multitasking Is For Assholes

It is the mark of the modern man if he can do multiple things at once. He can do a Powerpoint presentation and mix a martini and train a cat to quilt the Confederate Flag all at the same time. Your story will not benefit from this. Further, it’s not a “one shot and I’m done” approach. This isn’t the Death Star, and you’re not trying to penetrate an Imperial shaft with one blast from your Force-driven proton penis. You have to approach a rewrite in layers and passes. Fix one thing at a time. Make a dialogue pass. A description pass. A plot run. You don’t just fix it with one pull of the trigger, nor can you do ten things at once. Calm down. Here, eat these quaaludes. I’m just kidding, nobody has ‘ludes anymore.

14. Not Always About What’s On The Page

Story lives beyond margins. It’s in context and theme and mood — incalculable and uncertain data. But these vapors, these ghosts, must line up with the rest, and the rest must line up with them.

15. Content, Context, Then Copy

Behind, then, the layer cake of editing. Start with content: character, plot, description, dialogue. Move to context: those vapors and ghosts I just told you about. Final nail in the revision coffin is copy: spelling, grammar, all those fiddly bits, the skin tags and hangnails and ingrown hairs. Do these last so you don’t have to keep sweeping up after yourself.

16. Evolution Begins As Devolution

Two steps forward, one step backward where you fall down the steps and void your bowels in front of company. Here is a common, though not universal, issue: you write a draft, you identify changes, and you choose a direction to jump — and the next draft embodies that direction. And it’s the wrong direction. Second draft is worse than the first draft. That’s fine. It’s a good thing. Definition through negative space. Now you can understand your choices more clearly. Now you know what not to do and can defend that.

17. Two Words: Track Revisions

You know how when there’s a murder they need to recreate the timeline? 10:30AM, murderer stopped off for a pudding cup, 10:45AM, victim took a shit in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese, etc? Right. Track the timeline of your revisions. Keep a record of them all. First, if your Word processor allows you to track changes and revisions, do that. If your program doesn’t (Word and Final Draft both do), then get one that does. Second, any time you make a revision change, mark the revision, save a new file every time. I don’t care if you have 152 files by the end of it. You’ll be happy if you need to go back.

18. Fuck Yeah, Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets seem anathema to writing, because writing is “creative.” Well, rewriting is clinical and strategic. A spreadsheet can help you track story beats, theme, mood, characters, plot points, quirks and foibles, conflicts, and so on. Any narrative component can be tracked by spreadsheet. Here’s one way: track narrative data per page or word count. “Oh, this character drops off the map for these 10 pages of my script.” “This plot needs a middle bit here around the 45,000 word mark.” “Not nearly enough laser guns and elf-porn at the turn of the third act.”

19. A Reiteration Of Opinion Regarding “Creativity”

If you looked at that note about spreadsheets and thought something-something blah-blah-blah about how it will destroy your creativity and ruin the magic of the story, then form hand into fist and punch self in ear. If you need every day of writing to be a nougat-filled boat-ride through Pez-brick tunnels, you’re fucked. Rewriting is hard. Creative comes from “create,” and often, revision is about destruction. In other words: harden the fuck up, Strawberry Shortcake, ’cause the boat ride’s about to get bumpy.

20. Put The Fun In Fundamentals

You can’t revise if you don’t know how to write. Same if you don’t know the tenets of good story. How would you fix basic fucking problems if you can’t find them in the first place?

21. A Trail Of Dead Darlings

Don’t misread that old chestnut, “Kill your darlings.” Too many writers read this as, “Excise those parts of the work that I love.” That would be like, “Beat all the positive qualities of your child out of him with a wiffle ball bat.” You should leave in the parts you love… if they work. Killing your darlings is about that word: “darling.” Elements that are precious preening peacocks, that exist only to draw attention to themselves, those are the components that deserve an ice-axe to the back of the brain-stem.

22. Look For These Things And Beat Them To Death, Then Replace

In no particular order: Awkward and unclear language. Malapropisms. Punctuation abuse. A lack of variety in sentences. A lack of variety in the structure of the page. Plot holes. Inconsistency (John has a porkpie hat on page 70, but a ferret coiled around his head on page 75). Passive language. Wishy-washy writing. Purple prose. An excess of adverbs. Bad or broken formatting. Cliches. Wobbly tense and/or POV. Redundant language. Run-on sentences. Sentence fragments. Junk language. Cold sores. Mouse turds. Light switches that don’t turn anything on. Porno mustaches. Dancing elves. Or something. I need a nap.

23. Clarity Above Cleverness, Or, “How Poetry Lives In Simplicity”

Poetry gets a bad rap. Everyone always assumes it’s the source of purple, overwrought language, like it’s some kind of virus that infects good clean American language and turns it into something a poncey 11th grade poet might sing. Poetry lurks in simple language. Great story does, too. You don’t need big words or tangled phrasings or clever stunting to convey beautiful and profound ideas. In subsequent drafts, seek clarity. Be forthright in your language. Clarity and confidence are king in writing, and the revision process is when you highlight this. Write with strength. Write to be understood. That doesn’t mean “no metaphors.” It just means, “metaphors whose beauty exists in their simplicity.”

24. Don’t Make Me Say It Again: Read. Your Shit. Aloud.

I don’t care if the dog is looking at you like you’re crazy. If you’re on the subway, hey, people think you’re a mental patient. Oh well. Seriously though, I hate to repeat myself but I am nothing if not a parrot squawking my own beliefs back at you again and again: Take your work — script, fiction, non-fiction, whatever — and read it aloud. Read it aloud. READ IT ALOUD. When you read your work aloud, you’ll be amazed at the things you catch, the things that sound off, that don’t make sense, that are awkward or wishy-washy or inconsistent. Read it aloud read it aloud read it aloud read that motherfucker aloud.

25. Loose Butthole

Ultimate lesson: clinging to a first draft and resisting revision is a symptom of addiction — you may be huffing the smell coming off your own stink. The only way you can get clean is when you want to get clean, and the same goes with revisions: you’re only going to manage strong and proper revisions when you’re eager and willing to do so. Relax your mind. Loosen your sphincter. And get ready for war. Because revising and rewriting is the purest, most fanfuckingtastic way of taking a mediocre manifestation of an otherwise good idea and making the execution match what exists inside your head. Your willingness to revise well and revise deep is the thing that will deliver your draft from the creamy loins of the singing story angels.

* * *

If you dig on the apeshit crazy-face no-holds-barred profanity-soaked writing advice found here at terribleminds, then you may want to take a wee bitty gander-peek at: CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY, which is available now! Buy for Kindle (US), Kindle (UK), Nook, or PDF.

June 24, 2011 / 56 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: Sub-Genre Mash-Up

Once again, last week’s challenge is worth your look-see — “MUST LOVE ROBOTS.” Scan the comments. Find the delicious robot stories contained within.

And now for this week’s challenge.

Here, then, is a list of six sub-genres:

Steampunk.

Superhero.

Noir.

Erotica.

Farce.

Men’s Adventure.

Your job is to choose two of these and mash them up into one crazy flash fiction tale. Superhero Erotica? Steampunk Noir? Men’s Farcical Adventure? Mix, match. Go nuts.

You’ve got 1000 words.

Due by July 1st (Friday) at noon (EST).

Here’s the second thing, though: I’ll pick my favorite story out of the bunch and offer that writer a critique of up to 5,000 words of fiction (short story, part of a novel, whatever).

So, jump in. Get writing. Write so it rocks.

See you on the other side when you invent your own sub-sub-genres.

EDIT:

Happy July 4th, peeps.

Okay, finally gone and read all the flash fiction entries.

Some really strong stuff here. Like, wow. Monkey heads and Mister Polisher and the grim relationship between hooker and john. In the end, it came down to Amber Gardner’s superhero-noir (“Savior“) and, well, Jim Macfee’s Superhero Noir (“Sanction“). In terms of picking folks who might want an edit, I’m looking for a few things, right? I’m looking for stuff that’s good. I’m looking for writers with potential, even if that potential hasn’t been realized. And I’m looking for a selfish fix to read more of their work.

Even now I pinball between the two stories.

So, I’m going to cheat and pick both, giving one the “2nd prize” treatment.

I’m picking Jim for the 5k edit.

I’m picking Amber for a smaller 2.5k edit.

Congrats, both of you crazy kids. Bounce me a mail at chuckwendig [at] terribleminds [dot] com.

June 23, 2011 / 86 Comments

What Ails You, Penmonkey?

First, as a head’s up: I triumphantly declared Thursdays to be reserved for guest posts and interviews, and you’ll realize that, erm, this isn’t that. I’ve got some good guest posts and have some incoming interviews (and have to send more out — be advised that this baby we have is some kind of goddamnable time vampire the way he eats hours of our lives), so those will come.

But — but! — for those weeks when I don’t have something in the pipeline, I figure I’ll bounce the ball into your court. Ask you a question. See what you got going on.

Today’s question is about: you and your writing.

In case you’ve been locked in a steamer trunk deep down in the darkest cavern, here at terribleminds I talk a lot about writing and writers, and I like to think I’m talking about stuff people find useful, but fact is, I never really know. This is one way for me to know. So, I ask you here: tell me about your current projects and, specifically, any problems you’re having as a writer. Anything at all. Babble away. Read other comments, too — maybe what one person considers a problem is something you’ve already figured out. Help each other. And this helps me, too — it lets me know how to gear future writing posts.

Sit on my lap. Tug on my wizened beard.

And tell Old Man Wendig your problems.

… okay, that sounds weird.

BUT I LIKE IT WEIRD.

Ahem. Anyway. You know the drill.

You. Comments. Go. Deposit your think juice in my blog box.

June 22, 2011 / 33 Comments

Search Term Bingo Stole My Dingo

Time again for SEARCH TERM BINGO, little babies. If you don’t know how this works, here it is: people discover this website via some of the strangest search terms one could imagine. I pluck these search terms out of obscurity and dissect them for gits and shiggles.

Let us begin.

ejaculation cordoruys

This is my favorite new Hipster Beard Ironic PBR Shop Teacher Eyeglasses band out of Portland.

dont do that, chuck

*pops thumb out of the lion’s butt*

*douses flaming hatchet in pail of angel spit*

*wheels the stripper cake back into the moving truck*

Fine. Fine. I won’t do that. Now you’ve ruined everything. I had something really great planned. Now nobody gets to see it. This is why we can’t have nice things.

ghost story amish melonhead

Oh! The tale of the spirit of the Amish Melonhead! Young Ezekiel Stolzfus, with his head the size of a rain-swelled cantaloupe, was out playing one day with an unadorned wooden block as his toy, a block he named “Old Esau Blockface,” and so rapt was he in his playing with his lump of wood that he failed to notice the horse and buggy rocketing toward him at a clip of five, maybe six miles-per-hour. The horse hooves clomped over Ezekial’s body and the buggy wheel ran over his face but still he did not die. Nay, what killed him was that his favorite toy, Old Esau Blockface, bounced away and fell into a rain gully and was swept away. Young Ezekiel then died of a broken heart, and now it’s said he haunts the old Creamery Road. You know his ghost is coming when you hear the sound of stomping horse feet.

Some folks say they see a glowing shape in the darkness. A shape holding an unadorned block of wood.

*crash of thunder*

how did ancient babies sleep

Ah. Yes. The ancient babies. The “olde babbies,” as it were. The ancient babies slept inside the coal-warmed corpses of white stags, sucking on river pebbles, their fists clenched around the puffy gloved fingers of the alien astronauts who founded the first civilization in Catal Hayuk. The ancient babies were protected by dire wolves. They dreamed of spearing pterodactyls. They slept well, the ancient babies. We’ve lost that, I think. We’ve really lost something special. I blame Phineas and Ferb. Whatever they are.

foreign fucking vowels!

Yeah! You damn foreign vowels! Stealing jobs from American vowels! With your goddamned Nazi umlauts! I saw a good old-fashioned American ‘u’ on the side of the highway the other day. Not just panhandling, ohhh no. Offering to suck dicks for money. I mean, he’s got the right shape for it, I’ll grant him this, but there’s no dignity in that. This is the end of the American Empire. Or should I say, ÃmërÎcæn Èmpírę?

i have lice

Well don’t bring that shit around here, pal. I got enough problems without inviting lice up in this place. I’m having a hard time getting rid of the bedbugs and the chlamydia. Now I gotta worry about lice?

many people die from frozen feces

Great, now you’ve given me something new to worry about. How many people? HOW MANY? I’m going to be walking around all day thinking my feces is going to freeze inside my body. Or that someone’s going to make a bullet out of frozen feces and shoot it into my tender doughy body! (If I don’t die from the trauma, I will die from some kind of out-of-control poop amoebas.) People everywhere! Dying from frozen feces!

It’s not worth going outside the house anymore.

things to know as a writter

The first thing would be how to spell “writer.”

a big dick should suck itself

I’ve said this many a time. A guy’s gonna have a big bullhorn, a super schwanz, a mega-magic-wand, a muscled baby’s arm, then that thing should be like a snake biting its own tail — it should jolly well suck itself. Get that on some t-shirts. On bumper stickers. On dasher, on dancer, on thrasher and prancer! … no, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Just go along with it. Don’t ask questions. Shut it.

cant get my dick inside a pussy so is castration a good idea?

Yes. If you can’t get your manhood inside a lady’s baby-maker, then your only recourse is to pop that bad-boy onto the tree stump and take a camping hatchet to it. Or you could go the chemical castration route. Don’t pay an expert, by the way. Chemical castration is like social media — any self-proclaimed “experts” are just Snake Oil salesmen. You want to chemically castrate youself? A can of Raid wasp-killer spray. Hose your big dog down with that for about, ohhh, seven cans or so. Done. Boom. No more swimmers. Your balls as dry and inert as the Salton Sea.

crowdsourced diapers

Crowdsourcing is plainly the future. It takes a village, and all that.

Here’s what I propose: a bunch of you people come over — say, a dozen of you — and each of you will form your hands into a giant bowl, and you shall then place this hand-woven bowl beneath my child’s pooper, and so when he makes yellow rain or squeezes out some newborn “caramel sauce,” you all catch it in your hands. Boom. Crowdsourced diapers. The future is here. High-five, Internet!

harmless animals that can crawl into your genitals

Any animal that crawls into my genitals is not harmless. Let’s get that straight right now. An animal that crawls around my genitals — like, say, a fuzzy koala, a sloth baby, or a slow loris — is a whole other story.

how long will my new beard hurt?

UNTIL YOU STOP RESISTING IT.

i am seeing dead birds

Then you should take them off your desk. They’ve been there for, what, a week now?

i have made an alien what could i make for a body (creativly)

Wh… uhhh. Eh? I don’t… ennh?

Seriously, no idea what you’re asking. Just make the whole thing out of mashed potatoes.

what is i love you in baby language?

The baby says GOO-ga, then pees in your eye. That’s “I love you.” Note, however, if the eye-pee is accompanied by goo-GA, instead — that means, “I will destroy you, giant human.” With babies, it’s all about intonation. And the target of their spraying urine stream. You might need to find a baby whisperer to help you. You can hire one on CraigsList. Or so I’ve heard.

i really wanna be with you, love ponies

This is my favorite Judy Blume book.

ima forage for an orange while i look at the corpse of a whore

This is my favorite e.e. cummings poem.

it only hurts when i laugh fire gas

HAHAHAHA *blorch*

*fire jets from mouth*

OW GODDAMNIT OW

Yes, one imagines it would hurt when you laugh “fire gas.”

knife-wielding baboons

How’d you know what my next novel is going to be about? GET OUT OF MY MIND, INTERNET.

kodiak bear reading poems

This would be the best single-serving Tumblr site ever. Someone get on this. The Kodiak bear should begin by reading, “To An Athlete Dying Young,” by A.E. Housman. Then, he should follow-up with e.e. cumming’s “forage for an orange.” Poetry is so beautiful, especially when read by a man-eating bear.

monkey DNA flowers

Ahh, the sophomore album by the Ejaculation Corduroys. If I’m being honest: disappointing.

tits on a lawn mower

Once again the Internet turns me on to the hot new lingo paraded about by youths in America. “Tits on a lawn mower, dude! I just did a gnarly 360-degree wallaby pube-laser on my hover-board!”

Of course, it also reminds me that the world would be a better place if lawn-mowers did have big, luscious breasts dangling there. Men would never not mow the lawn. They’d be out there all day, just mowing and mowing. “Nancy, what’s Dave doing out there?” “He said he thinks he ‘missed a spot,’ but you ask me, he’s just out there fondling the tittles on that there Husqvarna.”

we’re gonna smoke that motherfuckin christmas tree

Every year in this country, more and more kids get hooked on smoking these motherfucking Christmas trees. Huffing pine-tar. Crumbling up delicate ornaments into their candy cane pipes and cooking it down with a candle that smells like egg-nog or mulled cider. “Chasing the Reindeer,” they call it. That first high, you catch the reindeer and just bang the jingle right out of that reindeer’s bells — but after that, the reindeer is ever elusive, running faster and further with every high. That’s not a metaphor, either. Every time you smoke a motherfucking Christmas tree, you get to pork one of Santa’s reindeers. True story.

what celebrities say about emu meat

Brad Pitt says, “It’s emu-licious!”

Meg Ryan says, “Emu meat destroyed my lips but I don’t care because I will shank a motherfucker for some emu meat!”

Jim Varney says nothing. BECAUSE JIM VARNEY IS DEAD.

Let’s all have a moment of silence.

Of course, I joke, but soon I’ll find out that a rash of American celebrities are doing Japenese “emu meat” commercials or something. Goddamn celebrities. Goddamn Japan. Ruining the fun.

what to do when your body produces too much turmeric or cumin

I harvest the turmeric from my nipples and scrape the cumin as it accumulates like pollen on my thighs. Then I make some kick-ass emu-meat tacos. Why? What the hell do you do with all those bodily spices?

what do a witch’s tittys look like?

Termite mounds.

why do murder mysteries cause women to masturbate?

You find out, you let me know. Every time I’m at the airport, though, whoo-dang. Ladies sitting at the gates reading some sweet-ass murder mysteries, sitting there and doing the old “murdering the little man in the canoe,” if you know what I mean. Something about the delicate combination of death and mystery just gets the women-folk all juicy-goosey.

In other news: what the fuck are you talking about?

my wife will not listen to my advice about the baby

That’s because your advice is terrible. C’mon, seriously? “Swaddle him with bungee cord. Let him nurse on the nose of this dead possum I found — he needs the bacteria to strengthen his physio… bio… babylogical system. If he gets cold at night we’ll just kill a pony and let him sleep inside the animal’s warm guts. What? Han Solo did it with a Taun-Taun. It’s how the ancient babies slept. That shit works, hombre!” And also, why are you calling your wife ‘hombre?’ You might want to think long and hard about that.

sometimes you just have to fuck the demons out

Please don’t touch me.

June 21, 2011 / 69 Comments

Chick-Fil-A Versus The Homosexuals

I don’t eat a lot of fast food.

Mostly because, well, it’s shit. Delicious shit, in many cases, but last time I checked, pets think antifreeze is delicious: doesn’t mean I’d recommend it as a fucking snack.

I’ll eat fast food (Wendy’s, McDonald’s, what-have-you) if I’m on the road for something because it’s often difficult to do otherwise. This is fairly rare.

I’ll eat “higher-end” fast food if it’s the only choice — Five Guys, Panera, Chipotle — but again, we’re talking a fairly rare event, here. (Actually, I take an annual pilgrimage to Five Guys. Because, c’mon.)

And, finally, I’ll eat Chick-Fil-A.

Why not? Tasty food. Always gets high marks in terms of quality ingredients and relative healthfulness. We’ve one close by, and the people there are incredibly friendly. Beaming smiles and bright eyes and the epitome of politeness. Plus they have a giant cow tottering to and fro, and sometimes that big fuzzy motherfucker will come right up to your table and clear it for you. They have family nights. Kids get their faces painted. A sense of community lingers.

Of course, while their food is delicious, it turns out, their politics are not.

They have a raging hate-boner for same-sex couples.

Well, goddamnit.

Way to go, Chick-Fil-A. Way to be a dick. (I’m sure given their almost sexual fascination with chickens there’s a “cock” joke in there somewhere. I’ll leave it for you, my intrepid readers, to discover.)

It’s one thing to know that, say, a CEO is a dick. That’s no good, but you could maybe justify not caring so much — after all, I haven’t vetted every employee of every corporation that produces every product I consume. I don’t know that Steve Jobs isn’t a fetus-munching Scientologist or the guy who made my frozen burrito isn’t some kind of violent Eskimo-hater. Further, I’ve heard some folks say, “Well, they are Christian,” as if every Christian human has a secret agenda against the LGBT community. But here, the real rub is that Chick-Fil-A is actively opposed to gay marriage and LGBT rights, which is another way of saying they oppose human love, rationality, and human rights.

Which means I have to oppose their delicious chicken sandwiches.

It’s stupid, but my initial thought was, “Well, I can sometimes still eat the sandwiches, right?” Having a new kid, I have no intention of plugging his growing body up with fast food but I thought, “Well, we can take him to Chick-Fil-A. He can see the big cow. He can get his face painted on Tuesdays. Delicious milkshakes!” Except, fuck, fuck, every dollar I spend there means it’s a dollar that can go toward them being dicks.

“Here,” I say. “Here’s five dollars for this delicious meal.”

“Thanks!” chirps the Chick-Fil-A smiley-bot girl. “We’re going to donate twenty-five cents of your order toward making sure gays remain at sub-human legal levels! Would you like waffle fries with that?”

Actually, their chirpy, uber-polite veneer now takes on a Village of the Damned-esque quality, doesn’t it? Like, out back behind the franchise you’ll find a bunch of smiley blonde white girls with promise rings whanging homosexuals in the head with shovels and throwing their bodies into barrel fires. “God loves you!” they cry. “It’s a nice day at Chick-Fil-A!” The big fuzzy cow will totter up and laugh — hurr hurr hurr hurr — before taking a big ol’ cowflop on the bill of rights.

Point being, of course I can’t eat the fucking sandwiches. Not if I want to ever pretend my convictions have substance greater than that of cotton candy in a warm mouth. Is that what I’m going to teach my son someday? “Son, you have to standup and do what’s right. Taking the righteous path isn’t about taking the easy path. Stand by your convictions. Unless, of course, the enemy of those convictions is selling you a delectable chicken sandwich. Because then? Yeah, fuck that noise. You compromise your ideals for a sandwich like that. I’d shoot an Eskimo right in his cold heart just to eat a trio of waffle fries, my boy.”

I mean, shit, if Hitler’s Third Reich had the Chicken Deluxe Sandwich, are we to believe everyone might’ve just looked the other way when it came to the concentration camps?

(“That Hitler sure knows his breaded chicken!”)

I dunno. Point being, if you believe in something, then you have to at least be willing to commit the bare minimum toward that conviction, and here the bare minimum is “not eating their food.” I ate there just a week or two ago, and to my regret, that will have to stop. At least until they learn to play nice with the human race. You chicken-fucking bastards. (That’s why they’re all smiling. They’re banging chickens by the box-load. Don’t buy their bullshit. They love cock.)