Hi folks,
Gonna share a couple of stories I had last year in my friend Liam Sweeny's anthology titled LAST WORD. Liam asked for a suggestion of a charitable cause to donate the proceeds to and I recommended Nation Inside (www.nationinside.org) a great organization that unites national efforts to pass prison reform measures. Besides yours truly, there are stories from Jack Getze, Paul D. Brazill, David Jaggers, Steve Weddle, Court Merrigan, Todd Robinson, Angel Luis Colon, Tess Makovesky, Christopher Pimental and Gareth Spark, all fantastic noir and crime writers.
Consider picking up either a paperback or ebook copy and get both a fantastic read and an opportunity to help effect change in our prison systems.
My contribution...
Well, here it is—my
annual Mother’s Day post. In reality, this won’t be an “annual” post unless I
do one next year since this is the very first one. I plan to do one next year,
though. If I remember...
And… I’m aware that it’s
late, but I thought that appropriate, since I always forget it until about a
week later, despite a loving wife (Mary) who considers it her mission in life
to let me know about things like this. The only problem is, she always lets me
know the day before. Like I’m expected to remember it that long!
To make up for not
sending a card on time, I decided to send Mom more than just one of those
syrupy Hallmark cards. This year, I sent her a cassette tape of the movie,
“It’s a Wonderful Life” starring that irrepressible boyish Jimmy Stewart from
my private collection. (This is the movie where he isn’t dressed up like a
giant rabbit, in which he’s also irrepressible and boyish.)
Then, the second I got
home from mailing it to her, I realized I’d made a grievous mistake. I hadn’t
sent her the movie I thought I had. It dawned on me that I’d sent her an
entirely different movie. To be exact, my copy of the classic film noir, College
Girls Having Monkey Sex, Part XIV. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the one
where the coed from Vassar has her boobs pointed in opposite directions and her
co-star ends up with whiplash trying to treat them equally and stay on his
mark. (“Mark” for you non-theater majors is the piece of tape the director
places on the floor to show the actor where to stand.)
Oops.
The reason I realized my
faux pas, was that when I got home I thought I might want to watch a few
minutes of it and couldn’t locate it and then remembered I’d labeled it… you
guessed it… It’s a Wonderful Life… in the unlikely event Mary went
through my collection looking for a something to watch.
I ran all the way back to
the post office in hopes I could talk the mail guy into letting me have my
package back, but it seems they have rules against that kind of thing. You can
guess how that turned out, if you’ve ever had to deal with the United Nazi
States of Mail Carriers. Guy treated me like I was the Unibomber. I called him
“Cliff” and “Newman” but he didn’t get it.
I was in a sweat when I
found it had already been shipped, but then I remembered Mom didn’t have a
cassette player. Or a VCR. Or, even a TV. She’d sold her TV when The Ed
Sullivan Show went off the air a few years ago.
The luck of the Irish!
Realizing I better do
something more than send her a tape she couldn’t watch, I asked Mary if we could
take her out to dinner.
“When?” she said. “On
Father’s Day? That’s the next holiday.”
I laughed. (That’s it. I
just laughed) Then, I said, “Of course not, silly. This weekend.”
“Only if you don’t use
that name in the restaurant that you always do,” she said.
I agreed and called Mom
to give her the good news. “We’d like to take you out to dinner for your big
day,” I said. “Where would you like to go?”
“Would this be an early Mother’s Day for 2011
or the late one for 2010?”
I laughed. (That’s it. I
just laughed. I’ve been trained by Mary.) Then I said, “Of course not, silly.
The second one. 2010. The battery in my calendar died.”
Golden Corral was her
first choice, but I talked her out of that. “They’re closed,” I lied. “There
was a big pileup of people on walkers and the health department closed them
until they widen the ramp. Thirty-six people suffered aluminum whiplash. There
are herds of lawyers everywhere and you couldn't get in even if it was open.”
She sounded skeptical,
but then said her second choice was Red Lobster. This, to a guy who’s lived in
New Orleans half his life and has actually eaten real seafood was like the chef
at Ruth’s Chris Steak House grabbing a square hamburger down at Wendy’s on his
day off, but hey, it was my mom and it was her day. I looked forward to gazing
at their menu with pictures of the nine-pound lobsters on the menu and them
seeing the actual three-ounce one they served. To be fair, the actual meal is
the same size as the picture when you put them up next to each other.
She decided to drive down
from where she lived in South Bend to our home in Ft. Wayne, a true adventure
for the other drivers on the highway since she’s 88 and drives older than her
actual age. You’ve heard that saying? “(Blank) drives like old people fuck?
Slow and jerky.” That’s Mom. If you ever see those long lines on winding
country roads where there are 117 cars trailing behind the John Deere tractor,
it was Mom who taught that tractor driver how to navigate our rural byways. I
suggested she might want to start out the night before to get to our place on
time, but she didn’t think that was all that funny.
“You’re not too old to
get a spanking, Mr. Smartmouth,” she said. Well, yes, I am, Mom. I have gray
hair and arthritis and can remember when phones had dials. Besides, how are you
going to catch me? I can crawl faster than you can walk. I didn’t say anything
like that to her, of course. After all, she’s my mom and deserves respect.
Besides, as long as I knew I could outrun her that was enough. I didn’t have to
rub it in.
Before she hung up, she
said, “You’re not going to use that name you always do in restaurants, are you?
Because if you do, I’m not coming.”
“No, Mom, I’m not. I’m
grown up, now.” Jesus! What do she and Mary do? Get together and compare notes?
She gets here, only two
and a half hours past her ETA, and we all climb in the car and head for the
gastronomical delights only available at national chains.
We get to the Red Lobster
and I’m anticipating something on my plate that looks like a medium jumbo
shrimp that they’re going to try to pawn off as a Maine lobster and we all go
in. This takes awhile as we’re proceeding at Mom’s pace which is about as fast
as the last day of school.
“We should hurry, Mom,” I
said. “They close in only six hours.”
Mary gives me a dirty
look. So does Mom, who says, “You’re not too big to get a spanking.” I consider
showing her my driver’s license to show her my age as she’s obviously
forgotten, but I don’t. It’s Mother’s Day. Well, not really—that was last week,
but we’re operating on the theme of Mother’s Day and I want to remain true to
the spirit.
I hustle ahead of them
and give our name to the hostess.
When I come back, Mom
says, “How long?” and Mary says, “You didn’t give them that name, did you?”
“Twenty minutes,” I say
to Mom, and to Mary I just give a pained look, as if to say, “How could you
even think I’d do that?”
We pass the time
listening to Mom complain about the present government and ask to see a menu so
she can make her choice, which is always the same. The lobster/shrimp combo. I
think she just wants to check to make sure they haven’t taken either off the
menu. Although, if they ran out of one, they could just serve the one that was
left and tell the diner it was the missing one. Who would know?
Then, she lays a bomb on
me. “I love that movie, you sent me,” she said. “I’m going over to your sister
Ann’s house to watch it when I get back home.”
And then, our table is
announced over the loudspeaker.
“Donner, party of three.”
I get two dirty looks from
the women I’m with.
“That’s us,” I say.
I love Mother’s Day!
***
BAD NEWS
I’m afraid I have some bad news. Let me take that back. I
have some terrible news. Bad news is when your wife says she’s
leaving you for the water softener man. This is far worse than that. This is on
the level of news that she’s leaving you for the guy who lives down by the river
in his refrigerator carton… and not taking
the kids with her…
Okay. Ready? Sitting down? Here goes…
It’s official. Once again, I didn’t win the Pulitzer Prize
for Literature. How many times must I taste the bitter truth that time is
running out? Once a year, I guess, until I
run out…
And, what beat me out this year? The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. You’re kidding, right?
Here’s the description:
An exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an
adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the
most intimate spaces of the human heart.
It’s a book set in North
Korea? Who the hell nominated this? Dennis Rodman? Who even reads books set
in North Korea? Even North Koreans don’t read books set in North Korea. Well,
that’s not exactly their fault—they aren’t allowed to by that sweet little
cherub, Dear Leader. Speaking of cherubs, I woke up this morning with a sweet
little cherub in my skivvies… Or was that a chub?
Whatever. They both look the
same.
I suspect it won because of the author’s name. He’s named
after two American presidents. Jingoism at its worst.
I should have known I wouldn’t win once again after last
year when they couldn’t find a single book to give the award to. There were
only five million books published last year (even taking out the four million
self-published autobiographies that really suck swamp water, that still leaves
a million books, give or take a few hundred thousand.).
How can you not give one single book the award? Even the
year the Miss America contestants were all dogs, they still gave the award to
someone. Bert Parks took it himself one year. That was the year there weren’t
any brunettes from Mississippi and Georgia. But, hey—they still awarded it to
somebody.
I’ve had it. I’m taking serious action. I’ve just composed a
strongly-worded letter to all the judges of next year’s Pulitzer committee,
notifying them that I’m officially withdrawing any and all of my books from
consideration. I’m sending it via Overnight Delivery, Certified Mail. That
means it won’t arrive in their mail boxes until August, 2015 but I have no
control over that. They’ll at least be aware of my sentiments.
And, as it happens, I’m outlining a new novel that fits all
of their crappy requirements. It’s set in (some obscure country which I haven’t
decided yet, but one with lots of consonants and only one vowel) and it’s about
the Mayor of Cracktown. It’s about this guy who lives in a village with the
Entering and Leaving signs on the same pole, and in this little shack with a
bunch of farm animals of various religious persuasions living inside with him. He
has no money (always a requirement of these kinds of books and which
immediately makes him a genius). He has a major fight with the garda who have discovered he’s far
exceeded the legal quota of farm animals allowed in a domicile, one of which he
claims shouldn’t count as it’s a very pretty Merino ewe to whom he’s pledged
his troth. He’s not sure what a “troth” is but it’s in a lot of Dickens’ books
he read as a kid so he knows it’s important to pledge his.
In this book, I devote a lot of pages to his internalizing,
which seems to be high on the list of stuff these Pulitzer folks look for.
There’s one really dazzling scene where he ponders how clichés came about and
fantasizes about their origins. Like that delightful phrase “blind alley”
(which, I, for one can never hear too many times.). He ruminates and ponders and
rumes some more and comes to the conclusion that it originally denoted a place
where German shepherds congregated en masse, waiting to be hired by the
seeing-challenged (PC term for blind people) and veterans with PTSD. This
riveting scene takes up 26 pages, which is guaranteed to manipulate them even
more than a teenaged boy’s chub during bathroom time. And, in much the same
way.
One of the indoor farm animals will be a dog. His only
function is to be in the book so I can use his picture on the cover and on the
Intergnat. You and I know it’s just a frickin’ mutt, but people on the
Intergnat have assigned a mystical aura to dogs and cats. You know, those
critters that eat their own poop, cough up furballs and lick themselves all day
long. We know that mostly they’re glorified door mats, but people get all weepy
about them and giggly and attribute them with the same wisdom they do old
Indian guys crying over some trash on Highway 10. THEY SELL BOOKS. And influence
Pulitzer judges…
The protagonist will be a creepy loner who, in real life,
people would take a wide berth around when they see him with his sign begging
for work outside Target, but instantly make into a wise man simply because
there’s a whole book centered around him and we see he thinks about pithy stuff
like blind alleys. If he was so
frickin’ wise why ain’t he a plumber’s assistant or a governor or something?
My protagonist is also an orphan. And a master. And the son
of a dog. This makes it a sure winner.
Yes, I could easily win next year, which makes my protest
even more meaningful. I know what it takes after studying these things for hours
days weeks. It’s important to know who’s handing out the hardware. The
judges are elderly folks who braid the hair in their noses (the women) and meet
at Golden Corral to discuss the nominated books. The men on the committee treat
the books nominated the same way they do the fine wines they own. They don’t
open them. That would destroy their value and besides, who has to actually read
the nominated book? They can learn all they want to from the glorious
Intergnat. The men also have lush bushes in their noses, but they use them
differently than the women (most of the women…). They weave them cleverly
around their noggins kind of like the comb-overs aging sportscasters do. Along
with a few well-placed strands from the ear hairs.
This is the real secret as to why my book never gets
nominated. I labored for years thinking they actually read the books. Don’t
laugh—I bet you know at least one person in your own circle who thought the
same thing. So maybe you knew, but
are you willing to say that all of your friends wear those helmets and rode the
short bus to h.s. and took all A.P. classes? So—cut me a break here.
The trick to getting on these judges’ radar is to
effectively utilize the Intergnat. Most of us writers have been sold a bill of
goods about what the ‘Gnat does. Social media doesn’t sell books. It doesn’t
sell squat. It doesn’t sell books—it sells social media. No one cares about
your stupid book on social media. They pretend to… so you’ll buy their stupid
book. Writers who can’t sell books have one problem—they write crappy books.
Yakking about them all day long on social media sells three books total. That’s
it. And that’s to trolls who are burning to write one-star reviews on it. When
social media sells books, let me know. Otherwise, lay down by your dish with
your butt-licking dog.
But, Pulitzer Prize judges do look at the Intergnat. All day
long. It’s why they don’t have time to actually read the books themselves. Too
busy Facebooking each other or Twittering about “that wonderful book about
North Korea Dennis Rodman likes so well.” Think about this. 1. Dennis Rodman
picture with Dear Leader was on the “Gnat” one million, three hundred thousand
and sixty-nine times last year. 2. A book set in North Korea won the Pulitzer.
Make the connection, dummy! This ain’t nuclear physics!
So, if I weren’t about to withdraw from consideration,
here’s what I’d do. Get me a babe to do my networking for me. As my pretend
girlfriend, Lo Hai Qu so eloquently pointed out—“Blogbitches rule, blogdicks
drool.” Okay. I accept that. If I was going to remain involved in the
competition, I’d be on my knees beseeching my pal, Anonymous 9 (Blogbitch
Supreme) if she’d please help this lowly Blogdick (me) out.
But I won’t. You can relax, 9. I’m out of all this. I just
hope you nice folks “twit” and “face” my new book all over the Intergnat. I
have but one goal for next year. That all the UPS drivers who deliver my books
are forced to buy trusses.
(I hope you know this was all in fun, folks. Although, if I
have to say this, it takes all the force away…) I do love the Intergnat and I
truly do love the folks on here. True that. And they do sell books. Books on
how to use the Intergnat to sell books…)
As John Goodman once said, “See ya in the funny papers.”
Blue skies,
Les
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