For those of us who grew up with a difficult past, it’s easy to get lost in the anger and that anger can often beget violence. Such is the case for half-Irish, half-Indian teenager known only as Zits (because of his poor complexion). His Indian father left him when he was just a baby and his mother died of cancer when Zits was only six years old. Ever since then, Zits has been bounced around from foster home to foster home with nothing but rage boiling inside of him. The burning hot anger gets too be too much and with the guidance of another troubled youth only named Justice, Zits comes within moments of shooting up a bank full of strangers. Before he can actually pull the trigger, the Indian youngster gets sent back to various moments in time in which the people he inhabits had to make violent choices as well, from nineteenth century Indian warriors to corrupt FBI agents. In each of these moments, Sherman Alexie is doing what a book critic once said he did all along, which was break our hearts and make us laugh at the same time. The laughter comes from the pop culture references and snappy dialogue, all of which coming from the narrative mind of Zits. The heartbreak takes the form of various deaths and tragedies that the people Zits wakes up as had to endure. Killing another human being isn’t nearly as easy as our angry consciences make it out to be. Yes, we can be angry enough to punch someone out or shoot someone into oblivion, but after the fact, it becomes hard to live with. Committing violent acts isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It’s not relieving. It’s not therapeutic. It’s hurtful. Pain begets pain. Anger begets more anger. Blood doesn’t wash away no matter how much dish soap you use to scrub your hands with. Only a cold-blooded mercenary could ever live with himself after committing murder. Zits is not a cold-blooded mercenary. He’s just a kid who was dealt a crappy hand. And now he’s imagining dealing a crappy hand to complete strangers in return. The blood, the tears, the heartache, is it all worth it? If it’s still worth it to you after you read Flight by Sherman Alexie, you missed the point entirely. Life isn’t an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It’s not even a Jason Statham movie. It’s a cycle of violence that tears away at us until there’s nothing left. Think about that for a minute, if you have the stomach for it.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Shawn Michaels claims to be this great Christian who loves everybody and then he goes out and shoots innocent animals with a high-powered rifle.”
-Jim Cornette-
As we’ve seen with Dr. Frankenstein and Hannibal Lector, it doesn’t take much of an imagination for a character to be creepy. The question then becomes how creepy can the character be and will he be remembered for his disgusting sins? Here are some examples of what I’m talking about. Starting with…
Creepy is sticking your hand down a child’s pants. Ultra-creepy is whispering a passage of “50 Shades of Grey” while you’re doing it.
Creepy is staring at a skirt-wearing girl for thirty minutes. Ultra-creepy is getting a hard-on in leather underwear while doing it.
Creepy is texting your girlfriend about how you want to fuck her in the ass. Ultra-creepy is being hidden in her closet while doing it.
Creepy is slashing somebody’s arm with a razor. Ultra-creepy is drinking the blood with a shot of Jack Daniels.
Creepy is jacking off to a picture of livestock. Ultra-creepy is jacking off while actually being in the presence of livestock…and the farmer’s daughter.
Creepy is using a hand puppet to perform oral sex on your girlfriend. Ultra-creepy is giving her multiple orgasms in the process.
Creepy is posting a picture of your penis on Deviant Art. Ultra-creepy is photoshopping Homer Simpson giving you oral sex on that same picture.
Creepy is drawing a picture of Bugs Bunny wearing a strap-on. Ultra-creepy is having Bugs Bunny in that same drawing mention his audience members by name.
Creepy is licking a Spongebob Squarepants poster. Ultra-creepy is getting a premature orgasm while doing it.
Are you scared? Are you really fucking scared now? You shouldn’t be, because you’re on Scare Tactics with Tracy Morgan!
***DOMESTIC DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
ME: Aww! The seven dwarves are so cute! I want to snuggle with them!
SUSAN: You want to snuggle with a bunch of old midget men?!
I recently watched a shoot interview with WWE Hall of Fame commentator Jim Ross in which he said that in order to be successful in the wrestling industry, one of the things you have to do is be willing to improve every day. The same thing applies with every field out there, including writing. Whether you’re just starting out in your mid-teens like I did or you’re well in your elder years, you always have room for improvement. In order to improve, you have to listen to three different sources: your elders, your peers, and the authors you’re currently reading and enjoying. I will say that you don’t necessarily have to agree with everything they say. In fact, every author should have a filter for the things they listen to. For example, if an author is being bombarded with insults and hatred, it’s probably a good idea not to draw inspiration from those people. If on the other hand an author is being sensitively critiqued by someone who genuinely wants him to succeed, then listening to those people is probably a better idea. The key word there is sensitively. You don’t want to be critiqued by someone who takes delight in hurting your feelings. But you also don’t want to misconstrue every piece of critique as hateful and tormenting. A good critique giver will tell you three different things about your work: what you did right, what you did wrong, and how you can correct the things you did wrong. Critique isn’t just a laundry list of complaints. Telling an author what they did right can be as informative as what they did wrong. It lets them know what to continue doing as well as what to stop doing. And when the editor gives the author advice on how to fix the problems in his work, it lets him know that he’s not alone in the struggle to have a presentable manuscript and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, pardon the cliché. When you surround yourself with people who can balance kindness and honesty, your game will improve dramatically. When you surround yourself with hate mongers, your career will be over before it begins. The journey to authorship should be one of happiness and excitement, not despair and sadness. If it wasn’t for people like Stephen Mertz, Carolyn Walker, Kathie Giorgio, and my army of friends on Good Reads, I would have never known what kind critique was. It’s because of those people that my game has improved dramatically from hyperbolic mediocrity to fast-paced simplicity. I want to give thanks to all the people I’ve mentioned both specifically and generally. I hope they’re reading.
***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Zesty and tangy are not real words that normal human beings use in everyday conversation. They’re advertising words. Has anyone ever turned to you and said, ‘This is real zesty! And tangy too!’?”
-George Carlin-
Whenever you read a book or watch TV and see two characters who would be perfect romantically, the natural response is to swoon at them and pair them together. While they would make an awesome power couple, there’s an unwritten rule in place called “The No Nookie Clause”. This rule implies that there’s some invisible force keeping these two people from ever coming together. This invisible force could be anything from family ties to workplace rules to even crippling shyness. The No Nookie Clause was implemented recently in episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles. In the season opener, Marty Deeks confesses to Kensi Blye that the only thing that got him through his traumatic torture experience with the drill in his mouth was picturing Kensi’s lovely features and positive aura. A few episodes later, they finally make their longtime-coming relationship official. And during that same episode, Kensi Blye is magically transported overseas for a mission that requires indefinite support while Marty Deeks stays in Los Angeles with day-to-day NCIS operations. Neither Hetty Lange nor Owen Granger, the two authority figures, will fess up to bringing the hammer down using the No Nookie Clause, but it’s heavily implied that they did. If you didn’t already have a reason to question nookie banning from the workplace, you have it now. It’s a heartbreaking situation that didn’t need to happen. If two people love each other, let them be together. It’s as simple as that. With workplace nookie, authority figures like to argue that emotional attachment will screw up their job performance. While it may seem awkward after the eventual breakup, it’s still not right to send your workers home to crysterbate at 11:00 at night over all of this. Everybody needs love and it should matter not where it comes from, unless of course said lover was a minor or married, then it would be problematic. But the last time I checked, Deeks and Kensi were not teenagers and neither of them had rings on their fingers. After reading this blog entry, you’re probably wondering why I would write so passionately about a subject such as fictional romance and why I would repeatedly use the word nookie. The latter of the two questions is easy: I’m a Limp Bizkit fan. That’s all that needs to be said. The former is not quite as easy to explain. At my age, I’m supposed to have enough emotional maturity to not fuss over fictional romance. I want you all to know that I’m not fussing. This NCIS: Los Angeles case study is something all writers can use. If you have two characters who need pairing, make it so. You can tiptoe around it if you want in order to build suspense, but if it seems natural, do it. It worked between Jasmine (rich princess) and Aladdin (homeless vagrant), so that’s saying something.
***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
CLARK GABLE: Are you pissed off that your boyfriend lied to you?
LISA: No, I’m happy about it!
-Cheaters-
Just because there’s a hot and sexy lady rolling around on the floor with her hands cuffed and her mouth taped, doesn’t necessarily mean the intent behind the bondage was boner-worthy. And before you ask, no, this entry isn’t a rehashing of Fifty Shades of Grey. Not all bondage is sexual, though it can easily be interpreted that way. For instance, in the BBC television series Chandler & Company, there’s a scene where Elly Chandler gets tied up with electrical cords and gagged with black tape. If this scene was on You Tube, I’m sure there would be hundreds of horny men claiming that they came all over their monitor or some classless shit like that. They already do that for the French short film Poison d’Avril since the female lead is gagged with a pink rubber ball. What does this have to do with literature? Simple: as writers, if we’re going to tie and gag a hot and sexy woman, we’d better be prepared for the consequences if the scene isn’t executed correctly. For example, you have to be conscious of what kind of gag is used in the scene. In crime dramas and military thrillers, the captor is more likely to use a cloth or tape gag while in horror and erotic novels, the captor will either use a bit or a ball gag. If you want to know why this is important, try switching the two genres and gag types around. Let’s say you’re watching the episode of NCIS where Ziva David is kidnapped by the port-to-port killer Jonas Cobb. When she was discovered by Gibbs and the team, she had duct tape on her mouth, albeit for a short while. If she had been discovered with a ball gag and leather underwear, the audience would have a hard time taking the drama seriously. In fact, they might laugh their asses off. Tape gags work well in horror and erotic novels, but tread lightly, my friends. If you’re writing an erotic novel and your lead captor is holding an AK-47 to the fully dressed tape gagged vixen, then your male readers’ penises will shrivel up to the size of a pea. In horror, pretty much any gag will work. In Candyman 3, the lead female character is captured and ball gagged. In Die Watching, one of the female characters is topless and has duct tape on her mouth and nose. By this rationale, you can get away with pretty much anything you want when it comes to bondage scenes in horror novels, as long as it’s disturbing and creepy. In the end, it’s your novel and you’re going to write it your way. But if you’re writing a crime novel where a teenaged girl is tape gagged and whipped by a guy in leather underwear and a zipper hood, be prepared for scrutiny. Lots and lots of scrutiny.
***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Seven witnesses saw you kill those people. You know what that means? It means if one of them gets hit by a bus, there are still six more witnesses who saw you do it.”
-Dutch Wagenbach from “The Shield”-
Can someone please explain to me why The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun has less than three stars on Good Reads right now? Is it because of the crass humor? If that’s all the reviewers have to go on, then they don’t have me convinced, because from page one, I’ve been laughing my ass off like a psychotic hyena. In fact, if you were sitting in the living room by yourself in the dark and I was reading this book in another room, you’d think you were trapped in the house with a serial killer akin to The Joker. The sex jokes, the toilet humor, the cat mystery satire, these things all made me laugh because for one, I’m a sick twisted fuck, and two, I’ve read a few Lilian Jackson Braun books in my life. I know what style she employs to the point where it becomes her mathematical formula. Robert Kaplow not only wrote down a list of crude jokes, but he did so in mockery of the Cat Who books. He too knows the style and he emulated and mocked it perfectly. The main character, an author named James Macintosh Qafka otherwise known as just Q, did everything you’d expect the character he was parodying to do. He lived with two precious felines, he went to random restaurants and ate weird ass food, he met with random friends in search of answers, and he was an avid writer. Take all of those traits and make them into the most disgusting, perverted, sickening tropes you could ever imagine. What you have is a mixture of snot, semen, blood, and God knows what else that not even a hazmat suit-wearing scientist would want to be around. Despite the overwhelming crudeness of the humor employed in Robert Kaplow’s parody, sooner or later, you’re going to laugh your ass off and sound like you belong in a mental ward. I’ll bet an entire month’s worth of SSI benefits that it’ll be sooner rather than later. You know what the best part about this book is? You don’t have to have read Lilian Jackson Braun’s works in order to understand it, because it plays out like a legitimate mystery with the suspenseful elements and sharp twists. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Actually, it’s okay to do that since the cover has the shadow of a cat with a blade in it’s paw. When I first saw the cover, I laughed my ass off. Imagine that: I actually laughed long before I opened the book. That should tell you something. And now I’m telling you all something: buy this book. Now.
***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***
“A little self-deprecation never hurt anybody.”
-Me-
