Bullshit

Delivery & Acceptance

Author: July 18, 2013 1 Comment

NOTE: Found this on my hard drive last night. Not sure when I wrote it. Figured: Why not?

THE PHONE was ringing, and I was doing my best to ignore it. I was buried under cats, four of them sleeping in various positions on top of me, purring softly. Their weight was almost enough to trap me under the covers, and it was only through heroic efforts that I managed to free an arm and retrieve the receiver.

“Hello?”

“It’s Your Editor.”

My editor. A bolt of fear shot through me, and I sat upright, dislodging two cats who landed gracefully on the floor, yowling and giving me unhappy looks. I would pay for this rudeness later, I knew, but one threat at a time.

“Is this about [REDACTED]?”

“Yes.”

My latest book, delivered on time a few days before. Usually it took My Editor at least a week to get back to me with her comments and critique on the book, and dread bloomed inside me. “Uh, did you read it?”

“No. You better come down. We have to talk.”

The phone went dead.

(more…)

Bullshit, CHUM, Writing

To Create, You Must Destroy

Author: July 11, 2013 0 Comments

“To create / You must destroy / Smash a glass and cry, “Too Much Joy!” – the most obscure lyrics from an obscure band in the history of ever.

green-eggs-and-crackOne of the few rules of writing that I not only can coherently form in my mind but actually follow goes something like this: A good story is where you spend the first half building a world and the second half destroying it. The exact percentages aren’t always the same. Just the act of completely tearing down everything you’ve created.

The worst thing in the world for a story is status quo. Once you establish a universe, a world, a Rube Goldberg Machine of your own imagination, the urge to protect it is pretty strong. You want to preserve it in amber because it’s good, other people think it’s good, and you did a fine job of building it, so why not.

But you have to destroy it all. Burn everything. The story only gets truly interesting when you start manufacturing Molotovs in the basement and hurling them at your beautiful story. That’s why, in the Avery Cates books I purposefully told the story of a world in decline and then finally in death throes. I enjoyed creating that world in the first book, and then really enjoyed destroying it in books 2-5. If you don’t destroy, you’re just treading water. And it gets boring.

You have to take away the powers you gave your hero. You have to destroy the bedrock of the society you’ve envisioned. You have to rain plague and defeat and horror down on everyone, kill your main characters, drop the bomb, and leave nothing behind.

One reason the TV show Mad Men is still considered one of the best shows on TV after 6 seasons is because Matt Weiner and company knows this. In each season of that show, he has violently changed the circumstances. In Season 1, Don Draper’s mysterious past is set up as this defining mystery – and then revealed, and no one cared. Over the course of the seasons Don’s marriage has broken up, his company was bought, he formed his own, he got married again, he lost his creative edge, he mismanaged things, he caused his brother to commit suicide, he got fired. Mad Men has been burning to the ground since about episode seven of Season One, which is about right. That was about the time the universe Weiner was working on was pretty much fleshed out for us.

A lesser show would still be trying to work that early-60s style angle. A lesser show would always end on a note of triumph as Don pulls another bit of brilliance out of the air. Instead, Don’s losing everything in slow motion, over and over again. And that’s why it’s interesting.

So, next time you’re stuck in a story and not sure why it’s dead on the page, ask yourself if it couldn’t benefit from a sudden wildfire that would leave behind nothing but bones and ash. Chances are, it would.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Writing

Old Man Bars Are My Eventual Destination

Author: July 10, 2013 8 Comments

This essay originally appeared in The Inner Swine Volume 14, Issue 4.

Just five more minutes of sleep, and then I get my shit together.

Just five more minutes of sleep, and then I get my shit together.

Here’s a horrifying scenario: I meet some friends at a local restaurant for drinks. Not a place of my choosing, because despite my best efforts I have not yet been able to bend people to my will simply by focusing my thoughts on them, though research continues. The waitress comes for drink orders and the following exchange occurs:

WAITRESS: What’ll it be, folks?

ME: What whiskeys do you have back there?

WAITRESS: Uh. . .some. . .uh. . .we have. . .er, bottles.

ME: Johnny Walker Black, neat.

I’ve come to recognize the sort of fear and blank-minded panic on the faces of waiters, waitresses, and bartenders when I enquire about their booze selections that indicates they either have no idea what’s back there or that there’s not much back there to begin with. Whenever I spot this sort of panic, I immediately give up my quest for single-malt goodness because it will only end in tears, and fall back on either Johnny Walker or Jack Daniels, because there isn’t a bar in the fucking world that doesn’t have those.

Now, there’s nothing really wrong with Johnny Walker. As blended whiskeys go, it’s a fine dram and I can always get by on it. But it has come to represent defeat to me, because I know there are bars, at least in New York City, where you can stroll in and order just about any decent whiskey you can think of and it will be brought to you, posthaste. Having been in such heavenly places, it is always a difficult transition to regular bars, where most people drink wine or beer or mixed drinks, and if they do go for an unadulterated spirit it’s blended Scotch or American Bourbon.

Again, nothing wrong with good old American Bourbon. I like quite a bit of it. But I feel handcuffed in such situations, because, goddammit, I want what I want.

(more…)

Bullshit, The Inner Swine

The Inner Swine Volume 11, Issue 3, The Entire Issue

Author: June 24, 2013 0 Comments

A few years ago I wanted to challenge myself a little with my zine project, so I decided that the next issue’s theme would be minutiae and then I decided that the issue would eschew formal articles and just be a stream-of-consciousness examination of the minutiae of my life. I think it kind of worked. So, here’s the entire issue of Volume 11, Issue 3 of The Inner Swine, which published in September, 2005. It’s about 25,000 words written by a guy I no longer am.

Minutiae. I am standing on the corner of 30th street and 7th avenue, desperate for coffee. I’m here just about every weekday, on my way to work, and I buy my coffee from a very pleasant Arabic man in a cart. I like his coffee, and he’s incredibly friendly. For the past ten years I have bought all my coffee from these sorts of carts in New York City, and the coffee is always good, the carts always owned by Arabic men, and these Arabic men are always very friendly. I’ve been in other cities that have no equivalent to the coffee cart on the street, places where you have to purchase your coffee from someplace horrible, like Starbucks, or Au Bon Pain or something. That’s not civilization. That’s corporate domination. What this country needs is more Arabic men selling cheap but delicious coffee out of metal carts.

(more…)

Bullshit, Fiction, The Inner Swine, Writing

The Tiniest Slice of Hell: My Trip to Ikea

Author: June 14, 2013 5 Comments

This essay is appearing in the Summer 2013 issue of The Inner Swine.

dignityOkay, so, holy shit, but I actually wanted to purchase something from Ikea. Nothing against Ikea, really, except that everything I’ve ever bought from them has been this weird mix of stylish and the cheapest crap ever made – I mean, furniture you have to assemble yourself should be your first clue that this shit it awful – but like every other person born after 1970 and at some living on their own making a salary that is to laugh, I’d bought my fair share of Ikea crap back in my youth. Now that I am old and wealthy in the sense of not eating Ramen Noodles every night in a desperate attempt to survive one more day, I haven’t bought anything Ikea in a long, long time. Because I have pride.

But, then, there are these weird spaces in life, right? Little alcoves formed by poorly planned construction or renovation and we have to figure out what to do with them. In my house there is a garbage room-cum-storage area under the stairs. Have you ever tried to organize under the stairs? That shit is not easy. So I was tempted back into the Ikea mindframe by the Ekby Riset adjustable shelf bracket. You can put those bad boys on a sloped wall and adjust them until they’ll hold a shelf. It’s not exactly transparent aluminum or the Higgs Boson, but finding shelf brackets for sloped walls ain’t easy. So, we drove out to Ikea.

And holy fuck, what a mistake.

(more…)

Bullshit, The Inner Swine

How to End Up at an Eddie Money Concert In 3,000 Easy Steps

Author: May 13, 2013 3 Comments

Eddie-money-post-concertSO, start at the beginning: The universe is created.

Millions of years later, the city of Rome is founded. Thousands of years after that, the guitar is invented. Then  electricity. Then Rock n’ Roll. Then Eddie Money himself is born, joins the NYPD, quits to pursue a recording career. Somewhere in there my wife is born. Somewhere in there I am born. I am vaguely aware of Eddie Money and the five or six songs that always got played on the radio when I was a kid. I grow up. I meet my wife. We get married. And one day she emails me and says, BTW I just bought us two tickets to see Eddie Money in New York in May.

And I say, holy shit, you’re kidding.

And my wife is not amused.

So there I am on a Saturday night with a glass of whiskey seated uncomfortably at a table with The Duchess and three other people. It’s a packed house, which is amazing. Up until a few weeks before I had assumed Eddie Money was either dead or working at a Wal Mart somewhere. I mean seriously: Eddie Money.

The show is, however, kind of fun. Eddie is 64 and looks it, and he dances and moves on the stage in a way that frequently alarms. You sit and watch him and every now and again you wonder if he’s going to just fall to the floor and start twitching, because his stage moves are the kind you imagine older folks perform when stroking out. But god bless him, because he puts on a decent show and there are actually more hits than I remember.

I’m not a big Eddie Money fan. I don’t actually own any of his songs, despite hearing so many of them at least a thousand times each over the course of my lifetime.

But it’s kind of impressive in general that he’s still making a living from his songs. And from a really embarrassing commercial currently on TV, too. But still: If I’m able to make money from my art several decades from now, that would be amazing. So good for Eddie Money. Not so good for me. Because now when someone asks, with raised eyebrow, Who in the world goes to an Eddie Money show? You can point at me and say “He does.”

Bullshit

Those of Us About to Die Salute You

Author: May 9, 2013 1 Comment

 

This essay originally appeared in The Inner Swine Volume 17, Issue 3/4.

Hoping the American Empire Lasts a Few More Decades: I Need the Book Sales

I’m just a regular Joe with a regular job
I’m your average white suburbanite slob
I like football and porno and books about war
I’ve got an average house with a nice hardwood floor

– Denis Leary, “Asshole”

[Begin transcript of unaired interview conducted in Manhattan]

SWAY CALLOWAY: So I’m sittin’ down with … wait, who the … Christie? Hey, Christie? Who is this guy? I thought we were doing the –

JEFF SOMERS: Take off your hat.

SC: What? Wait – thanks Christie, but – wait, what?

JS: I’ve never seen you without the little hat. Take it off. I want to see what you’re hiding under there.

SC: I never take off my hat, dude. Now hold tight while the PA gets the sheets for today. I have no idea who you are, or why I’m sitting here with you. I thought we were –

JS: Don’t worry, Jay-Z will be fine.

SC: Uh, what?

(more…)

Bullshit, The Inner Swine

The Brain Cloud Cometh

Author: April 24, 2013 5 Comments

This initially appeared in my zine The Inner Swine 16(1/2).

The Brain Cloud Cometh

I’m at “That Age”

by Jeff Somers

"That" Age

“That” Age

PIGS, I don’t go to doctors much. Part of this is my Viking heritage (buried deeply in my genetic code, yes, but I am convinced it’s there), which makes me naturally hardy. Part of this is the usual charming male hubris that informs me that I can walk anything off. Lose a limb? Walk it off, hands on your hips, taking deep breaths. Coughed up a lung? Take the bench for an inning, you’ll be fine. Part of it, of course, is my general incompetence and bad memory: I am usually shocked to discover when my last doctor’s appointment was.

Also: How awkward. I mean, I’m terrible at social interaction as it is. Make me naked under a thin hospital gown while another man cops a feel, and my small talk just dries the hell up, trust me.

My infrequent visits to the various doctors we need to stay alive from year to year used to be more or less perfunctory: My old General Practitioner, whom I’d gone to from the age of five until I was about 25, used to tell me to keep the weight off and to never smoke cigarettes, and that was usually the entire content of our conferences. Even past that I usually coasted through examinations: I was either there for a specific reason, burrowing towards a prescription and getting on with my life, or I was there for some sort of routine physical, generally passing with flying colors. Recently, though, while my visits are still not exactly complex or problematic, there’s a new wrinkle cropping up: My advancing age.

(more…)

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, The Inner Swine

Spring Breakers: MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!

Author: March 28, 2013 0 Comments

Bikinis 4 LifeLet’s start off with a definitive statement: Harmony Korine’s movies are awful, and we are all lessened by viewing them.

However, sometimes people mature. To be fair, Korine has matured, and Spring Breakers does have a method to its awfulness, I think. The fact that it remains awful is part of the point: This film is meant, like most of Korine’s film, to irritate. So, I didn’t enjoy it. I actually had a curious lack of reaction to it, really: When it was over I honestly wasn’t sure if I had enjoyed myself or not. Or stabbed myself in the eyes or not.

I’ll say two things about this movie that are semi-coherent.

1. Korine Makes Partying Look Painful. This is, I think, a triumph actually. Korine manages to make a film about four nubile college-age girls who spend much of the film wearing bikinis, snorting drugs, and engaging in SexyTime dancing that is about as titillating as a Root Canal. After watching this film the last thing I want to do is go down to Florida and party with the coeds. And he does this with some skill – there’s no abrupt moral event horizon. No one gets sick (in fact, these chicks bust out the coke and booze constantly and never once seem to have a single moment of physical suffering for it) and no one has a bad date-rapey moment. Korine manages to make partying look just as exhausting as it actually is – the sort of good time you have to ingest chemicals to even tolerate, much less enjoy.

2. Korine Uses Irritation Effectively. One technique Korine uses over and over again in the film is an annoying repetition. Lines of dialogue and images are repeated, sequences shown again, and the repetition is continued until you want to claw out your eyes. Curiously, though, this means that when he finally cuts to a new scene, your sense of relief is visceral. I think this has to be on purpose, judging from how often he uses the trick. And it works. It put me on the edge of my last nerve and when he finally switched to a new scene – even if that scene was three girls in pink ski masks holding guns singing a Britney Spears song – I was psyched to see this new scene just because it was new. It’s an interesting effect, if not an enjoyable one.

So, clearly Harmony Korine is not a hack: He’s a thoughtful filmmaker who makes films the way he wants to, with goals and artistry. I simply find the finish products pretty irritating, and that’s fine. In the end, if you’re looking for a movie about boobs, sex, and drugs, you should look elsewhere, despite the fact that there are indeed boobs, sex, and drugs in this movie. If you’re looking for a movie with characters instead of soulless, expressionless puppets in bikinis, look elsewhere.

If you’re looking for a movie wherein James Franco appears to be slathered in some sort of Sex Grease, then this is the ticket you have been looking for.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements