The Lernaean Hydra of Greek mythology has no set number of heads. Whatever the word in ancient Greek meaning “a buttload” applies to the noggin total of the belligerent Sea Monster, whose dispatch was the Second Labor of Hercules. But the previously Romanized version of the Hydra that recently arrived in Saragun Springs has just four heads–Vicki Beckious, Nikki Nolteious, The Situationious and Zippy-the-Pinheadious–but considering that they tend to talk at the same time, four is enough.
Whenever I go into the stacks I find myself seeing an item that I have not read before. This is true of much of the site’s early work, prior to around 2018, when I became a true daily reader.
This wrap has been a frustration. I have had too many ideas than a lack; when that happens everything collides and I wind up with an accident site instead of an intelligent article.
There’s an intersection in the community of Sunnyslope, Washington that is called Five Corners. It currently involves two large streets intersecting at a four way stop. But many years ago there was a third street (which was like a line joining a cross, stopping between two of the streets and did not go farther) that met at the intersection, nothing greater than a private drive granted streetdom and its own stop sign. This created the Five Corners. It is still called Five Corners to this day even though the smaller street was closed in 1980-something and there now is a giant concrete block at what used to be its meeting point at the intersection.
I’m unaware of any serious accidents at the intersection but it sure caused enough fender benders to vex the insurance companies. Imagine five drivers sitting at five stop signs, each one trying to figure out the meaning of life. I got in that mess once, and decided to drop gear, burn rubber and take all the fingers aimed in my direction with the best grace expendable. Life is too short when you are twenty-four.
Anyway a similar event happened in my mind this week. A pile up of five ideas that I had no real feelings for happened in my mental Five Corners. One involved religion (observations such as Sarah, Abraham’s Wife, was 90 but a hot 90); another featured personal music history observation involving how all popular bands sound like the one original group that existed for about three years; Catfoonery; an incomplete additional philosophy on Wildlife and something else that I do not quite remember and do not care enough to look for. It was a tiresome mess.
It may surprise some of you to learn this: Drugs and alcohol do not fix everything. You see, after you take enough of both you tend to find yourself isolated from the human race by mutual consent, which, believe it or not, is not a bad thing at all. Sadly, however, even after the most enthusiastic session of self abuse is over, the little Five Corners pile ups we create will still be there, and in the opium infused-bourbon afterdream, the situation gets no prettier.
Fortunately, however, for those of us who need to salvage enough of an idea to write a post, a lifetime of cobbling together something from nothing as a means of surviving until the next self created disaster arises, gives the strange hope of the forlorn and overdrawn. And as I looked into the dismal drear of it all, a few words popped into my head, left there by the hookah sucking angel employed by the small god of the pointless crisis. The angel said “Random Vexation, Volume 2” and went back to wherever such a personage dwells.
Well, by jingle, buy low, sell jangle fly high–there you have it. Consider all of the above Volume Two of my recently begun Random Vexations file.
And let us now proceed onto something more uplifting in purpose.
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The Week That Was
Dale Williams Barrigar comes by on every second Sunday of the month with yet another essay. These works are always happy surprises except for the fact that their is nothing unexpected about their high quality. Skid Row Winea study of Jack Kerouacis Dale’s latest on the site, and once again he displayed his rare talent for making scholarship come off both personal and sincere. The focus here was the brilliant yet troubled (a fit all description for I’d say two thirds of all great artists). And although it is impossible, Dale has a capacity to transform his education into words that give the reader the impression that he was in the same room with the people he often writes about. Truly a stunning talent, and it is a pity that he is not yet better known.
Monday was a joyful occasion because it marked the debut site story by Cris Aboobaker, The Second Husband. Cris is a good writer who had some rejections, but it was never a matter of quality. And he has always been professional and continuously seeks to improve his work. Since this one came out, Cris has had a second acceptance, which will appear in a month or so. His work is well planned but not to the degree that is stiff or over-explained. It always feels great to see this sort of person do well.
Leanne Simmons (another fine person and a professional in style and attitude) returned and gave us Baby’s Breath on Tuesday. The closing lines of this are incredible and leave a wonderful impression. This vignette is a masterful work of timing and style. So often you can see where the writer is struggling to get everyone in, but not here, it passes as effortlessly as a summer breeze.
Joe Mallon dished out the noir and then some on Wednesday with No Moon in January. This is an especially easy type of story to fuck up (forgive the profanity here, but when in noir…), the line between crisp and cool and laughable is not clearly defined. And there are even times when a bit of over the top works perfectly. And although this is a long piece, for us, Joe was able to pull it off with style and restraint. The amazing part was the tension never waned, not once. It always felt on the edge of danger.
The Claw by Mark Czanic made Thursday a better place. Sometimes when people look back, we do so with a lot of automatic mental editing. It’s the writer who can look back and recreate without flinching or selling out who has done (in this case) his job. I feel that this one requires you to think as you get along with it. And I also believe that is a good thing. A temendously alive piece that brings back the soul of the past.
Another Week that Was came to a head yesterday with Relentless Pickle by our dear site friend David Henson. In all ways, and a manner that cannot be artificial, David is the salt of the earth, a charming and reasonable and well mannered soul. And I find it especially encouraging that such a man can produce tremendous works of imagination as we have here. Hooray for David–and since he makes an effort to comment on the works of others, I hope that everyone who reads his work might leave him a comment.
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Word of the bi-week: Taradiddle (n) a petty lie
Bonus Word: Hobbledehoy (n) fancy word for a young dork
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Word I vow not to misspell any more:No one For years I thought it was one thing. “Noone” still catches me unawares. (I also have similar tussles with awhile and a while).
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The Big List
I have Hugh to thank for the title of this bi-week’s list: Who Would You Automatically Punch if Introduced to in a Pub/Tavern?
Ah, life there are so many punch-worthy faces yet so few fists. The list contains job titles and specific persons. The abundance has resulted in an A to Z, with A and W suggested by Hugh himself
A: Advertising Fuckwits (Hugh has this nailed tighter to the cross than was the Man from Galilee. I refused to watch the show MadMen because I consider advertising only a link better on the food chain than rapist)
B: Blithering Blabblers (These are the loudmouths who called themselves “influencers.” For some reason these fools often get themselves shot to death by cartel hitters in Mexico. I’m never for that sort of thing, but it doesn’t surprise me much, either)
C: Charlie Sheen (I cannot support the idea of getting rich by being an asshole, then exploiting HIV as though it were a resource or an excuse. Plainly, dude is a drunk loud mouth and if you get a chance be sure to wear gloves)
D: Demonae Suburbiae (These are the well fed little twinks and twinkettes who go around clad in black all the while pretending just how miserable they are. It’s cool when kids need to experiment as a part of growing up, but it is a long way from cool when they verbally abuse older people and clerks because they can get away with it. I’ll give them all fake ID’s so they can catch their well earned punches)
E: Ever-tuned Goons (These are the bastards who walk around blasting their music on their phones, often amplified by cheap bluetooth speakers on lanyards. The music is usually abusive and is especially keen on racial epithets and misogyny. Almost always scrawny skinheads who are Black wannabees and wear their pants down to their knees. Really can’t expect much from someone who fails to understand just how stupid he looks)
F: Fuckery-fuck-fucked-fuckers (More fake IDs for these underaged fecal skulls who go around making sure that everyone hears their profanity laced observations. Hell annoying from a twelve-year-old, utterly pathetic from a high schooler)
G: Gay Super Heroes: (For some reason there are people who think that behaving like a horny talking Richard Simmons is not only amusing but it is designed to make a social statement. These fools queen it up to the extreme around “straight looking people.” My friend Kevin is an openly gay man who is confident in himself to the degree that he does not feel any need to don a “uniform.” He is a very conservative looking person, by choice not out of fear nor any need to “blend.” Seattle, like most big cities, has a large annual Gay Pride event. A bunch of us went downtown to watch the parade and this one Hero emerged from the crowd and thought he’d shock his interpretation of Kevin by saying a bunch of stupid shit that will not be repeated here. Kevin smiled and grabbed the dude by both butt cheeks, brought him close and laid one on the guy, who turned beet red. Books and covers people, books and covers)
H: Holocaust Deniers
I: Iconics (Everything that is popular is iconic for these dopes. Jessica Simpson referred to “Daisy Duke shorts” as iconic.)
J: (A tie) Jerry Springer Show Guests and Jersey Shore People
K: Kilt Wearing Americans Who are Only Half Scottish (I know two of these guys–and trust me, neither have the legs for it)
L: Larry Flynt (Big difference between Playboy and a dirty porn rag, Larry was it)
M: MAGA LOVERS AND HATERS (I’d love to send these guys to the moon)
N: Neo, Old Fashioned, and In Between Nazis
O: Oprah (I used to like her, but a person can run her mouth too long. Forty years is too damn long)
P: Prince and Princess Anyone
Q: Queen and Qing Anyone
R: Rae H. (An enemy from seventh grade until I graduated high school. Let’s just say she is not “for” people like me and leave it at that. I still hate her. In the song “Santeria” the singer “has something for Poncho’s punk ass”–just saying that goes too for little shitty Miss Rae)
S: Sally Jesse Rapheal (For non-Americans she was the female Jerry Springer)
T: Twenty-Seven of the Forty-six Presidents of the United States (sometimes all except Lincoln, Teddy, JFK and Madison)
U: Uri Geller (tiresome con artist–go bend shit in hell, Uri)
V: Vladimir Putin (Gotta be one obvious one on every list, he’s the one for this)
W: Wanks Who Change Systems Without Being Asked (Hugh’s second contribution to the list goes a long way to explain punched computer screens. The platform (I so hate the modern meaning of that once harmless word) we run the insides of the site on is famous for making unwanted improvements. Then they do not tell you about them and you find yourself having to figure out how now to do something that used to be clear. Bastards)
X: Xavier Cugat (Almost forgotten old time band leader responsible for inflicting Charo on the American public via game shows and guest roles on stuff like the goddam Love Boat–he married her when he was sixty-six and she was allegedly “fifteen.” I was one more fucking “cuchi-cuchi” away from committing an act of extreme violence on many occasions)
Y: Yuppies (These people change their labels constantly, but their gentrified smell is everlasting. Each and every one of them, male, female, whatever, has a voice that reminds me of Robin Leach)
Z: Zoot Suit Close Talkers (a rare species that popped up in the 1980s. Superskinny guys in baggy shiny suits and they always drew up real close in bars asking you all kinds of questions ranging from horoscope signs to your favorite sexual positions. This rare band of fool never assaulted me (oh so fucking as if), but they were all over the more naive types. Highly inspired by Prince and Morris Day of the Time, but minus the looks and talent. I’ve heard that there still are a few hanging around, but in my estimation that is as unlikely as Jimmy Savile coming back from the dead and getting elected PM)
Leila
Robert Plant turns 78 next week…don’t worry, it’s not Stairway
Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None was my mother’s all time favorite book. If that isn’t true, well, she can come back from the other side and tell me about it (that statement causes me a bit more anxiety than you might think). She died fifteen years ago and lately I’ve been re-examining the crash and thud of our extremely difficult and often semi-violent relationship. Now, I never swung at Mom except once when I was nine, and she actually pulled a knife on me once when we were both considerably older. I believe “volatile” sums it up if I had only one word to choose from.
I went to high school with a girl named Michelle “Mick” Kleinschmidt. Mick looked as far removed from Kleinschmidtiness as you can imagine. Her father was an American of German ancestry and her mother (whom Mick strongly resembled) was a Filipina. Mick’s parents met and were married in Manila. He was in the Navy and brought Mrs. K to live in the United States. Bremerton, Washington is a Navy town, and after Mick’s father was honorably discharged he landed a job at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. This is very common in this part of the world and continues to happen to this very day. (For the first time ever, while I worked on base, I met a female Ensign who brought her Filipino husband home to America.)
My Trainspotting experience was one of the few times that I saw the film before I read the book. And it is also one of the incredibly few times that I consider both items of equal high quality.
The dreadful ghoul has been beaten to death after death with cudgels, sticks, baseball bats and dirty old men, but the hardest thing in writing to do, I think, is setting out to be funny and actually succeeding. I do not know if Todd Mercer had that in mind when he set out to write The Assistant Town Drunk: From Zero to Hero in Seconds, but funny is what he delivered. There’s subtle wit and slapstick all the way through this one and we highly recommend it for those who might be feeling low.
The dumbest question to ask a kid must be “What do you want to be when you grow up?” (Often preceded by “So”). For me the best answers for that are “How the fuck should I know, I’m seven”; “Lizzie Borden” and “Anything that takes me away from you.” But I never used any because even at that young age I knew it was an insincere “points winning” question usually asked by some dweeb whose aim was to screw my mother.
Happy 250th Independence Day to America! (and to everyone also born on this date, Eva Marie Saint at a whopping 102 and Elliott the Header Pigeon who is attending the Extreme Cigarette Butt Eating Contest in Philadelphia this holiday weekend ). It may not be in season for some to say nice things about and to America, but the U.S.A., like most places is far more good than bad and is a collection of people–not just one person. To all who sneer, I suggest you read what J.C. had to say on the subject of stone casting. And although it is further ironic that the UK should wish the former colonies happy birthday, just think how chaotic things would be if the Revolutionary War had gone the other way. PM Trump anyone?
Now, On with the Show
Asking writers why they write is pointless. It’s the same reason why kleptos steal and killers kill; it is a mental compulsion, sometimes good sometimes bad and always somewhere along the borders of insanity. Some people have the writing disease way worse than most. The bad off will cut words into their skin if they have no other way of getting the job done (and for the visual artist, Van Gogh’s ear-ectomy definitely got a lot more than a thousand words across). Most of us can control ourselves to the extent we can wait until a saner method is handy. But the answer is always the same. Writers write because they are writers. Birds bird. Lizards lizard. Maggots get compared to unsavory people. Writers can go through long periods of inactivity (for some that may be weeks, for me not even a day), but there will always come a time when it must happen, or (to quote Hemingway) we state: “I feel fucked inside.”
literally stories 