Not Gonna Be a Good Night at Their House

Overheard a man on the street on his cellphone last night,...

"CHARLENE! WE'LL TALK ABOUT THIS WHEN I GET HOME... CHARLENE... CHARLENE... CHARLENE... [pause]... Charlene, it's important for you to realize this is ALL YOUR FAULT!"

poor Charlene... I wish I could offer you a follow-up to this. If anybody knows Charlene, ask her how she's doing.

I want a chair like that!

Graffiti

Written on the wall of a commuter train:

"I'm listening... W."

Merry New Year!

Ah, a week off! It feel so wonderful. I'm getting some productive things done, finishing up the reading of all the tiny-story submissions and putting them into order, getting them off to Lisa. I finally got to replacing the fluorescent tubes in my storage room, so now I can see the bottles of wine on the racks, and it's easier to pick and choose when the friends come over. I got the last of the leaves raked (I know it's late December, stop reminding me.). Heck, I even cleared out a clogged drain all by myself! [I rule!]

After 3-1/2 days off with 6 more ahead of me, I can honestly say, I'm so ready for retirement. I'll be so busy, it can't really be truly called retirement.

Oh, and just to add randomness to this pointless post, let me save each and every one of you 19 dollars. You can skip 'The Ringer' and 'Wolf Creek.' My friend's teenage son really wanted to see the Johnny Knoxville one, so we got dragged. Ugh. During most of 'Wolf Creek,' I was cheering for the madman, 'Please kill them already!'

Well, enough reading my needless ramblings. Go make something.

Have Yourself a Tiny Little....

Merry New Year, folks. Just to let you know. Lisa and I have officially closed the Tiny submission. Over the holidays, I hope to have a lot of extra time to sort through them all and get to some semblance of a final collection for Lisa to illustrate and for submission as a potential publishing project to an agent or direct to a small publisher. For everyone who submitted tinies, I hope to see a lot of you represented in our final collection, and DON'T stop creating. I only hope we inspired you to create, and I hope the inspiration continues.

And don't let the Tiny format die here. Keep writing them. Submit them to magazines. Post them to your own site. Remember us when you talk about them. I'm proud of the form, and I really hope it catches on. I think it's my first grasp at really starting something toward a trend. Everyone has a tiny in them!

Bob

SON OF A WITCH!

If you haven't read the work of Gregory Maguire, I urge you to read through every novel he's written. I'm now reading his latest, SON OF A WITCH, and it's as good as everything else he's done [Wicked, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Mirror Mirror].

To whet your appetite, here's one simple little quote from SON OF A WITCH, that had me laughing and snorting on the train last night. Buy it! Read it! He's amazing.

"'I hate to be obvious,' added the Scarecrow, 'but you'd have saved yourself a heap of trouble if you weren't too cheap to invest in a leash, Dorothy.'"

It Might Be Time...

Three things this morning came together that I'm afraid might be telling me something.

I'm finishing up ANANSI BOYS, and the green fedora hat really struck me. I was standing on the train, and I saw my reflection in the window, and I realized, wow, you're 39 years old now. Do you think it's time you stopped trying to pull off 4 earrings? Then I looked over, and there was a man wearing a jaunty bowler. The world is saying it...

Maybe it's time to trade in my earrings and become a hat guy. You know, one of those old man hats that you have to buy from a men's hat shop. One you have to be fitted for. No more Kangol for me.

You know what? Nah... forget it! I'm fighting it. I will die an old man, and everyone will whisper, 'He always dressed so age-inappropriate.' Bury me in Hollister.

Reading Tiny Stories

Well, folks, I just wanted to put in a note here about our Tiny Stories project. That damn baby took my attention away. These kids today! It's all about them!

Anyway, after Lisa yelled at me, I've started sorting through and reading all the tiny stories you all have submitted. I'm loving them, really. Great work, folks! Since it's taking me a while to read and review, if you feel compelled to create any more, there is no reason why you shouldn't continue to send them in. This isn't an official contest with a prize or anything, so I don't mind that there was a deadline that came and went. We just want to show off some good fun stories of 100 unique words. So send while I read, I'll read while you send, it'll be fun... so you remember, here's the original posting describing what you should be writing. Remember it's for the hope of getting something put together that we can do as a fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund...

More creativity! More writing! More bashing your head against the keyboard!

http://fagblog.blogspot.com/2005/06/tiny-stories-call-for-submissions.html

Please. No More Photographs.

Overheard on the Train

"I Googled myself. Nothing came up. I must be really boring."

Not a Good Morning at the Broadway Cafe

The cook hands a woman next to me a foil-wrapped sandwich. She says to him, "I don't want that." He says, "What?" She says, "That's a fried egg. I asked you for scrambled." Confused, he puts it down and turns back to the grill. At the register, a woman asks for Special K. The cashier grabs a cereal box from above her head. The woman says, "No. Special K, please. That's Kellogg's Corn Flakes." I notice a woman pacing near the deli counter. She's calling back, "We called in the order. It was supposed to be ready for pick-up. 12 assorted bagels and spreads on the side." Man, I'm glad all I ordered was an english muffin with peanut butter and jelly. Got to my desk. No jelly. ***sigh***

Horror Films

I love horror films. I'm sure most of the people finding me recently do as well, based on the links that are being followed into this blog. Why are so many horror films so very very bad? Like any genre, there are certain rules and constraints that everyone follows. I'd love to see someone be successful with something that doesn't conform, but that makes it an even harder proposition to write and produce.

You all know some of the rules. Bad behavior is punished. The hero is blameless. Children should be in mortal danger, but they can not be eviscerated. If there is a woman who has been wronged, she has to get her revenge. There are others. You have to have a handful of false scares. The hand that grabs the shoulder from behind turns out to be the boyfriend not the monster. Around half way through the movie, the audience has to understand why the scary events are happening, like they moved the headstones but not the bodies or we are polluting our environment.

But for me, most importantly, if you have otherworldly or preternatural apparitions, ghosts, monsters, etc., their powers have to make sense. I need to understand exactly what their powers are. If each person who gets killed, dies in a totally different way from all these different powers the nasty-thingey is capable of, I'm going to get very annoyed. If your nasty-thingey is a ghost who can not travel through a quick Scotch-taping of the crack under a door, then how come this same nasty-thingey can lift a human body and send it flying through a window? If there's Scotch Tape keeping a door closed, how about you send a knife flying through the air to cut it? You can't change the rules for every scary scene you want to put in your movie.

Man, I've Got Such a Headache...

That's My Boy!

Parker went for his very first stroll today! His mom reports that she took him out in his brand new stroller to go enjoy the 75 degree weather and let the neighbors ogle. I wonder if he'll ever try a goatee. I bet he'd look good with one. You know he's gonna be a hottie. 1/2 Polish, 1/4 Italian, 1/4 English. My guess is he's gonna end up with sandy blond hair and blue eyes. But you never know!

Words I never thought I'd have to learn:
meconium
colostrum
mucous plug

The Parker Delay

Well, the deadline came and went, and now, Lisa and I are the ones with the big job... of reading all those tiny stories! I'm so amazed at the results. Stories came in from all over the world.

I'm sorry I didn't post more leading into and through the deadline. It's all Parker's fault. Blame Parker! That damn kid... already causing problems! What's the matter with America's youth! They have no respect for authority!

In the coming weeks, Lisa and I will be reviewing the stories, and Lisa will be diligently coming up with an illustration to pair with each one. Since this is to be a viable project that we pitch for possible publication as a fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, you won't see the final project here on this site (for free reading), but we'll give you updates on how it's going.

Now on with your regularly scheduled blogging. I promise if you continue to read my blog, I'll offend and bore, surprise and confuse you. And once we've gotten through the slog of putting TINY STORIES together, I have other ideas for group global projects. :) You are so not off the hook yet.

Whoever coined the adage, "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger" never considered dismemberment, disease, obsession, hormonal imbalance, addiction, scarring, or the unquenchable need to create.

October 11: National Coming Out Day

And he did!
Welcome to the world, little Parker.
Born at 10:52 am and weighing at, ok ok maybe not little Parker, a whopping 9 pounds, 2.1 ounces.
Well, he was due on Sept 29, but it seems that little P (ok, maybe not all that tiny after all) is already on gay time. Never arrive too early to a party! Build up anticipation first. Already a little drama queen.

And don't you know he shows up on October 11. National Coming Out Day.

Who knew!

It takes longer to have a baby than it does to write a short-short story! Still waiting!

The Real TINY

Well, folks, something I haven't reported on this site before. How funny that the deadline for Tiny Stories and my own tiny seem to be coinciding.

I'm sitting here with my good friend Julie who is having contractions every 10 minutes. We're having a baby together, and it looks like our own little Tiny may arrive some time tonight or tomorrow.

I hope the rest of you are churning out your own little tinies before the deadline on Monday.

Lisa, I owe you the stories so you can read them and start thinking about illustrations! I'm a little distracted at the moment, but I promise to deliver as soon as I can!

Love to all,
Bob

Who knew!

I guess it's the week for noticing people in line at breakfast. Today it was in line for one of those little street carts. You know the ones, with the little foreign man inside, usually with odd facial hair issues, selling coffee, bear claws, and pre-buttered bagels. The woman in line in front of me, who was about 102 (but didn't look a day over 65) and just a little bit too small for her straw-colored mop of a wig, looked up at him and rasped, "Can I have a Sanka?" Who knew they even made that anymore!?!

Nutmeat

Nutmeat. That one's still going through my head. *giggle* *giggle* nutmeat... hee hee...