A True Story of Real Life

The other day I had to, in the words of Kool Moe Dee, "go see the doctor," but, let me emphasize, not for the reasons put forth in that work. Anyway, having recently finished off a couple of smaller books, all the books I took up subsequently are gigantic monsters, impossible to sit with in a waiting room without making an unseemly spectacle of one's self. So I plucked a manageable book from my big pile of books to pluck, and it happened to be RUN MAN RUN by Chester Himes, which I found at Skylight Books on my most recent visit to Los Angeles, California. So I started reading it while I waited to see the doctor and then, to use a well-worn phrase, I "couldn't put it down." So, last night, just near the end, there came a "replica of an owl's head" where I least expected it... on the butt of a gun! That's the end of my story.

A General Comment

Well, now, I'm sure y'all sit around your campfires or your cozy hearths and talk all night about the owl in HENRY VI, Part 3. But did you know that there is also an owl in HENRY VI, Part 1? No? Then sit back and get ready to be amazed. This here French general calls our man Talbot "Thou ominous and fearful owl of death." Ouch! As I look at these two plays, all smushed up so close together in dramatic chronology, I think to myself, Jack, I think, is there an argument to be made that Shakespeare's plays were not intended as "books," exactly, and that they do not, in that case, have a legitimate place on your big long list of books you have read since 2011 with owls in them? And then I remember that I don't even care that a chimpanzee is not technically a monkey.

Awful Stuff

Content warning! This "post" will have some gory junk in it, mostly compliments of Mr. William Shakespeare, with some help from Tom Wolfe. Okay! First of all, I am finally reading that paperback of HENRY VI, Part 1 I got at Square Books. All right! Pin a medal on me. Oh! Before you pin a medal on me, I was casually glancing through the "blog" for previous Henry VI tidbits, and I found one that says his favorite activity was sleeping. I get it! I really do. But I want to talk about this guy Talbot. A pal of his gets mortally wounded and Talbot asks him, "One of thy eyes and thy cheek's side struck off?" Which is a funny thing to ask a person in that position. Like, what's the guy supposed to say, am I right? Come on! Get it together, Talbot! You know, it's the same thing that happens to Chuck Yeager at the end of THE RIGHT STUFF, both the movie and the book. I mean to say that his face catches on fire after he ejects from his plummeting aircraft. Don't worry, folks, unlike Talbot's friend Salisbury, he's fine! But a detail they leave out of the movie is that after he hits the ground, the kid who finds him vomits all over the place because old Chuck's not looking so good. I wonder why they left that out of the movie! Getting back to Talbot, he's real upset, you see, about how dirty they've done his pal. He's mad in particular at Joan of Arc and her buddy the Dauphin, and he vows to get 'em! Get 'em good! "Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels and make a quagmire of your mingled brains." Holy cow! Mingled brains! He's going to mingle their brains all up! What! It's going to be brain soup when he gets through with them! Just horrible, as promised. Well, the guy is upset, like I was telling you. Later, though, a French lady calls Talbot a "weak and writhled shrimp." Ha ha! Writhled! Ouch! Ooh la la! Zut alors! Anyway, okay, Shakespeare, you've got me hooked! What's up next with this crazy crew of lovable lunkheads?

Pioneers of Not Caring

By now you know the time-worn old story - nay, legend! - of how Ace Atkins drove up one fine day to Memphis, Tennessee, and I rode along with my handy digital recorder and interviewed him about the time he went to Hollywood to work on a Pauly Shore movie. Well, sir, I promised not to bother you about it very much, and I do think I have lived up to my word. But! Just the other day, right here on the old "blog," I was lamenting our relative lack of monkeys as of late. And that is why I feel obliged to tell you that baby chimpanzees figure prominently in the latest installment of ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD on the "web" site FLAMING HYDRA. Sure, I've told you about MY baby chimpanzee encounter before ("click" here - you won't! Ugh! Why are you so awful? Have you ever asked yourself?) but did you know about ACE'S encounter with a baby chimpanzee? I'll wager you did not. Who are you? And why do I hate you so much? In conclusion, I know that chimpanzees are not monkeys, and I don't care. I'm famous now for not caring about anything - it's my brand! - but not caring that chimpanzees are not monkeys is something I was doing years ago. I cut my not-caring teeth on the difference between monkeys and chimpanzees! I also don't care that I said "in conclusion" but now I'm going to talk about something else. I also don't care that I'm writing, not "talking." Anyway, speaking of Hollywood, USA, a (formerly) secret project I've been working on got written up in VARIETY. I just wanted to make a correction. Kent and I are referred to in the article as "game masters," when everyone on the show, including ourselves, calls us "gamekeepers," a humbler and more fitting title. Do I seem to care about this one thing? I don't care if I do!

Sure Do Know My Stuff

I really know my stuff. What's my "stuff," you may ask? First of all, go to hell. All right! Well, remember how I said this Megan Abbott novel has a night bird in it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's an owl? And then I went on to suggest that an owl might be forthcoming? Remember all that? Do you? Okay! So, here's a quotation for you: "'I bet it was an owl,' Becky said." BOOM! So, to answer your impertinent question, my "stuff," as you call it, is knowing when an owl will be in a book. It's all I've got, okay? To quote beloved ADVENTURE TIME character Root Beer Guy, "It's all I've got!" And then, as you might recall, his wife, Cherry Cream Soda, dressed as a French maid for marital reasons, ran weeping from the room. We weren't messing around on that show!

What Was Jacked Up

Not much funny stuff happening in our interesting modern times they're handing out these days, but here's the funniest phrase I read in today's New York Times: "this symphony was jacked up by the addition of a second tuba." I'll be perfectly frank with you people. I've taken that phrase out of context for extra delightful humor purposes. "Jacked up" actually modifies "magnificent brass section" from earlier in the incompletely quoted sentence, and does not refer to the symphonic composition itself. But I can't help it, I thought it was funny when my poor old eyes fell upon "this symphony was jacked up by the addition of a second tuba." They sure do get excited by some funny things over there at the old New York Times. And then they make it cool for the tuba-loving kids of today. Anyway, this is how I have a good time now, leave me alone, I hate you! Waaaaah!

Orange Vinyl Spider-Man Sequel

I finished reading THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES but no I didn’t. Because you get to the end of the first book and then you have to – by law! – read the next volume, which is called INTO THE MILLENNIUM, or, I suppose, THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES: INTO THE MILLENNIUM. Either way, it sounds like a Spider-Man sequel. I need to get over to Square Books and order it up! Meanwhile, the Million Dollar Book Club is working on THE RIGHT STUFF. And here’s what I noticed! Wally Schirra, one of the Mercury astronauts, is a real prankster. Like, he has a little box and tells people he caught a mongoose in it. Then when they try to reach in and pet it, well, it jumps at them like one of those snakes out of a peanut can. You know those snakes. Wally Schirra’s mongoose is some kind of furry sock on a spring. And that made me remember my short story collection MOVIE STARS, when a character goes to an auction and tries to buy a novelty mongoose in a box, operating on the same principle. I got out the catalog from the auction of Bob Hope's personal effects, which I actually attended, and confirmed that Bob’s mongoose box, as pictured in the aforementioned catalog, appears to professionally assembled, whereas Tom Wolfe sure made it sound as if the mongoose box was something Wally Schirra thought up and slapped together himself. I think that’s an accurate memory of my reading experience. But the book is downstairs by the bed and I don’t care enough to go get it. Then I started imagining whimsical fancies, such as, maybe Wally Schirra gave Bob his very own homemade mongoose box! Wouldn’t that be something? It doesn’t seem overwhelmingly plausible, really. Although I’m sure Bob Hope hung out with the Mercury astronauts at some point. Nor does it seem plausible, though, that Wally Schirra was manufacturing his own trick mongoose boxes when there were plenty of trick mongoose boxes, apparently, in the nation’s many novelty emporiums from coast to coast. Maybe Tom Wolfe got this one thing wrong! Unless! What if Wally Schirra saw a novelty mongoose box in a store and thought, "I could make this myself for half the price!"? I guess we'll never know. Speaking of stuff we'll never know, I noticed again that the Bob Hope auction catalog wasn’t too heavy on provenance, which reminded me that I wanted to check it, and not for the first time, to see if I could find a clue (I couldn’t) about what cartoonist made these clever Bob Hope caricatures I bought at the auction. When Quinn came to town, I was like, “Look, this guy made pictures of Bob Hope as if rendered by Goya… and, uh… [trying to think of some names of other artists]” And Quinn was like, “Are these supposed to look like Bob Hope?” And I was like… “!” Because of course! Why would Bob Hope have these hanging in his office if… and my voice, as well as my thoughts, trailed off as Quinn stood there with a doubtful look on her face. So let’s get back to THE RIGHT STUFF! As I texted Megan with photographic proof, I still have an orange vinyl 45 RPM record with recordings from the actual Mercury space flights. It came with my G.I. Joe space capsule, the interior of which glowed in the dark. I got scared and thought it was a ghost! Give me a break, I was three years old. (Speaking of Megan Abbott and Square Books [see above], I’ll be “in conversation” with Megan about her new book EL DORADO DRIVE on August 13. I wouldn’t mention it so early, but I just started reading it and on page 4 [of the galley, anyway] there’s a “bird crying in the night.” As a review of the owl-spotting portion of the “blog” will remind you, we have given much thought to the matter, and just because a bird cries in the night, that does not make the bird an owl. Maybe it’s just an upset bird. I’m not worried! There are plenty more pages to come that might have a definite owl in them.) But I really came here to report about THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, didn’t I? I think it’s going to end up being JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS length. And contrary to my advice (usually about Thomas Mann), which is, essentially, read the first 200-400 pages and then you’ll be hooked, I was really bopping along with TMWQ for, oh, let’s say 200 pages… then I hit a real dry spell until page 630 (though, miner-like, I uncovered, here and there, random chunks of boldly glittering sarcasm that made it worth the trouble). So you have to get over a very big hump in the middle. Can you handle a 400-page hump? (Remember, this is just the first volume I’m talking about.) But when I got to page 630 I think I said out loud, “Things are starting to happen!” On page 630. Then the book was over not many pages later. Well, it was and it wasn’t.

McNeil's Heart

Another email from McNeil. This time he wanted me to know that Trump has "gone full Peter Beter!!!" (punctuation McNeil's), a phrase ("full Peter Beter") that will mean nothing to those of you who have not studied the "blog" for at least a decade, unless you have the stamina or intellectual energy to "click" on one or two "links," which statistics show is unlikely. Anyway, I found it hard to swallow McNeil's claim that the aforementioned elected official believes President Biden to have been replaced during some part of his administration by a robot or clone, so McNeil forwarded a news report showing that indeed Trump had retweeted (or whatever they call it in our strange new times; bleep blorp?) something to that effect. To quote McNeil more extensively: "my heart leaps up! He has gone full Peter Beter!!!" McNeil's heart, it should be noted, is leaping up ironically, if I may interpret, assuming I understand irony correctly, which I don't. So I replied to McNeil's email something clever like "We're living the dream." Maybe the word I'm looking for is sarcasm. I believe McNeil is alluding to Wordsworth, by the way, whose heart famously leapt all over the damn place when he beheld a rainbow in the sky. Good for Wordsworth! It must be nice.

Magic Beans

Email from McNeil. The above photo was attached, depicting McNeil and myself in an olden time of long ago. McNeil writes, "Remember that day I sold you those magic beans? You were so relieved you could finally get socks as white as mine."

Artist's Statement

Hey! Tomorrow is the big gallery show opening in Alhambra, California, so check it out! I think I forgot to mention it's ADVENTURE TIME and FIONNA AND CAKE themed, featuring works by more than 50 artists associated with those shows. My piece is called “100 Adventure Time Characters from Memory, Made with Covid.” I call it that because of all the Covid I had when I drew it with magic markers in a sketch pad that Dr. Theresa bought to cheer me up. Now, I was afraid maybe I had shortchanged the lucky buyer, if any, because, despite the ambitious title I had prematurely scrawled on the paper, I didn’t count the characters as I was drawing them, and then, after I had drawn them, I found them impossible to count. Until! Some weeks later, I struck upon the notion of identifying them all by name. Somehow, and I know how, but I’m too tired to tell you, a list of names was a much easier thing for me to count. So I’m happy to reveal that I overachieved, at least quantitatively: there are 106 Adventure Time characters in my drawing. A couple of them were driving me nuts because I couldn’t figure out, once I had recovered from my feverish agitation and actually examined what I had drawn for the first time, who the hell they were supposed to be. I worried maybe I had made some of them up in a delirium. But I thought about it all night and decided that one was a Gumball Guardian (I had forgotten they have noses) and one was the King of Ooo (I had forgotten a couple of his identifying marks, plus I had him in Princess Bubblegum’s crown, which, in my defense, he did wear for a while). Adam said I should sponsor a contest and see if anyone could guess them all. But who was a guy who was good at guessing? Oedipus? Well, he was until he wasn’t. Anyway, not even Oedipus at the height of his guessing powers could have figured some of my drawings out (Pen, for example, thought Chips and Ice Cream were Hot Dog Knights), so I’m going to tell you who I drew, in (once you see the "art") not a really helpful order: Cinnamon Bun, Hunson Abadeer, The Bear Who Liked Finn, Starchy, Tree Trunks’s Alien Husband, Little Dude, One of the Villagers from “The Visitor,” Shoko, Mr. Cupcake, Billy, Abracadaniel, Party Pat, The Comet, The Squirrel from “Up a Tree,” The Cosmic Owl, Bartram, Gridface Princess, Martin, Ice King, Y5, Banana Guard, Patience St. Pym, Flame King, The White Lion Who Became the Vampire King, Abraham Lincoln, Jermaine, Chips, Ice Cream, Lemongrab, Lady Rainicorn, Gumball Guardian, Shelby and his little brother Kent, Big Destiny, Marshmallow Kid, Blank-Eyed Girl, Peppermint Butler, Breezy, Scorcher, Simon, Original Gunter, Ice Thing, Ricardio, Mannish Man, Wildberry Princess, The Squirrel Who Hates Jake, Glob, Grod, Grob (we can assume that Gob is behind them, but I can’t in good conscience count that) Fionna, Mr. Pig, Shermy, Huntress Wizard, Snail, Sleeping Old Man (Prismo’s Physical Form), Tiffany, Princess Cookie, Finn, Joshua, Choose Goose, Toast Princess, Cherry Cream Soda, Flambeau, The Empress, Slime Princess, The Crabbit, Farmworld Finn, Betty, Toronto, Wooby Woo, Dream Warrior, Lumpy Space Princess, Lumpy Space Prince, Tree Trunks, Uncle Gumbald, An Ant, Crunchy, Glass Boy, Magic Man, Leaf Man, Banana Man, King of Ooo, TV, Wyatt, Bubble, BMO, Skeleton (from the Ble offices? Or maybe that’s a guy from the Deadworlds), Jake, Gunter (classic penguin version), Embryo Princess, Rattleballs, Mr. Fox, The Music Hole, Lemonhope, Prismo, Hot Dog Princess, Dream Bird Woman, Owl from “Up a Tree,” Loafy, James Baxter the Horse, Gingerbread Muto, Minerva, Bufo, Morty Rogers, Marceline, Princess Bubblegum. In retrospect, perhaps my biggest mistake was thinking until very recently (today!) that The Empress had one eye in the middle of her forehead like a Cyclops (though I knew better at one point). I could lie and tell you I was trying to draw Blaine from “Wizard City,” but I would only be hurting myself.

Memory Tricks

So, a little while ago, I was at Square Books and they had different books by Susan Minot stacked everywhere. I asked Richard, who owns the joint, what gives! Richard says to me, he says, Susan Minot is coming to town. Now, I did a little research, which I'm generally against, and this must have happened way back in October, though my guess would have been sooner, like March. Bear in mind for the remainder of the "post" how bad my memory is. Anyway, I picked up a book of Minot's called MONKEYS, a title I have always liked. There used to be a lot more monkey content on the "blog." What happened? When did monkeys lose their magic? Answer: they didn't. Maybe it was you! What was I saying? Oh! So I had been meaning to read a Susan Minot book for about 40 years. The way I remembered it... and I texted Tom Franklin to make sure... to make sure he was there, first of all. I was wondering if his presence in my memory was hallucinatory, as I recalled him playing an advisory role much like Elvis does in the film TRUE ROMANCE. Anyway! It was some time in the 1980s, and Tom Franklin and I were looking at Susan Minot's author photo in a magazine. Newspaper? Magazine. And we - aspiring writers at the time, to put it mildly - got in our heads that her book looked interesting and she looked nice and we could very probably be best friends with her if we drove several hours to wherever the article said she was reading. Jackson? New Orleans? I'm going to guess Jackson, Mississippi, because New Orleans would have been too easy, as I picture us standing in downtown Mobile at the time. Jackson would have been more of a quest. Jackson, Mississippi! The mere name sparks the imagination. No it doesn't. The end of the story is that we didn't go. And forty years later, here I am, finally reading a Susan Minot book. And I'm only on page 60, and there have already been, I would say, 10-14 owls in it. That sounds like a lot, doesn't it? It sure sounds like Susan Minot must have beaten the previous owl record, a tie between Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather. But not so fast! Hold it right there, chum! So, there is an "owl room" in this book. And some kids go in there and play an owl game of their own creation, which counts as one owl. A couple of pages later, there is a cake of brown soap shaped as an owl. That's two. Here's where it gets complicated! Are you getting excited? So, in this "owl room" are various kinds of owls. Some are described as being singular: "a hollow brass owl," for example. Other owls are multiple: "two china owls with flowers" or... and here's where you have to pay attention... "owl engravings." But how many owl engravings? And how many owls are represented in each owl engraving? Nobody knows! Possibly, not even Susan Minot herself knows! In any case, the owl room contains, at a bare mininum, eight owls. Oh boy, this is just the kind of "post" I love! However! By my usual method of counting "how many owls there are in a book," I would say there are 1. The owl figures in the owl room. 2. The owl game. 3. The soap shaped like an owl. That brings Susan Minot in at three owls! Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather remain undefeated! Wow, I'm just thinking of all the controversy this "post" is going to generate among people who enjoy counting owls as much as I do!

He's Back!

Going to cut-and-paste an email I sent to McNeil and say it's a "blog" "post." Sometimes that's the way I do it. Other times I take an email FROM McNeil and cut-and-paste it and call it a "blog" "post." That's just the kind of variety you've come to expect from the "blog." Now for that email: "Was reading in the New York Times about how Trump wants to go to Fort Knox and make sure the gold is still there, ha ha! And the article traces the conspiracy back to this guy you used to email me about, Peter Beter, the man with the hilarious name. I think he’s the one who claimed Jimmy Carter had been replaced by a robot. Good to see his work hasn’t been forgotten." End of email. In conclusion, if you "click" on the Peter Beter "link" above, you will see that McNeil was talking about him ten years ago! McNeil was ahead of the times, just like when he discovered that gin and raisins cure arthritis. Please consult your physician before going on a diet of gin and raisins.

Narrator Loves to Narrate

I don't care but anyway I have a lot of time on my hands lately. So, you know, I was talking about three authors who are concerned with owls hanging out in daytime, and all the problems that could cause for their metaphorical owls. It's almost like a clickbait headline: "Three Times Owls Got Totally Confused in Daylight!" So yesterday I was reading THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, and the narrator - boy, does this guy love to narrate! - refers to the "complex irrationalism that haunts our era like a night bird lost in the dawn." Now! Is that night bird an owl? Hell if I know. What, can I read Robert Musil's mind? I can't even read his book! Ha ha, just kidding, Robert Musil, you're all right. But let's think of JULIUS CAESAR by none other than Mr. William Shakespeare and how his own "bird of night" is standing there in broad daylight, "hooting and shrieking"... like what? Like a damn owl, I say! Shakespeare's owl, unlike these other owls, if it is an owl, knows what it's doing. It's there to deliver a message. It's an omen! Anyway, I've confused myself.

A Very Long Dash

So Terence asks Rachel "didn't you wander about the hotel like an owl in the sun?"... only Virginia Woolf places a long dash - six times the length of an ordinary dash! - between the word "sun" and the question mark. I couldn't figure out how to replicate it and I'm so very tired. I mention all this because THE VOYAGE OUT has had four owls in it so far, a number of owls in a single work of fiction matched on the "blog" only by Willa Cather, I believe, though I have done zero research in the interest of confirming this... and, should you care to "click" on this "link," you will find that one of Cather's owls has a problem with the sunlight as well... a problem, it occurs to me, shared by the owl of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and probably some other owls, but I don't care, and neither do you. Why are we here?

Loose Gelatin

There was another owl in THE VOYAGE OUT but I chose not to alert you. However! A third owl gave me cause for comment. Upon learning the name of her beloved, the character Rachel says, "Terence - that's like the cry of an owl." Hmm! Is it? I don't mean to question Virginia Woolf's owl knowledge. But do owls say "Terence"? I am not convinced. One recalls the novel THE GO-BETWEEN, and a similar reflection therein upon the name Hugh, which makes a lot more sense. But I'm known to be a simpleton! Before THE VOYAGE OUT's third owl, there is a significant moment of jellyfish, causing me to recall an important jellyfish anecdote in BUDDENBROOKS, whereupon I pondered, should I do a "blog"trospective about Books with Jellyfish in Them? Ha ha, no, that would be insane. But MOBY-DICK must have some jellyfish in it, right? I've read it twice, but I wasn't looking for jellyfish either time. Then I remembered: Oh! I have a "blog"trospective about gelatin! And I use the term "gelatin" very loosely. But is it loose enough to include jellyfish? Yes. I say it is. If I recall correctly, SpongeBob sometimes gets jelly from jellyfish in much the same way that we, in our non-cartoon world, get milk from cows.

Until All the People Should Awake

"... but here in the darkness an owl flitted from tree to tree, and when the breeze lifted the branches the moon flashed as if it were a torch. Until all the people should awake again the houseless animals were abroad, the tigers and the stags, and the elephants coming down in the darkness to drink at pools." Nice! That's Virginia Woolf in THE VOYAGE OUT, a good book to read while you're lying in bed. I've just quoted, for example, something nearing the end of a long passage, several pages in length, that describes people going to sleep. Some of it reminds me of a passage by James Joyce, though, as I recall, Virginia Woolf had some awfully mean things to say about him. He must have touched a nerve! Anyway! I switched THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES (not before it presented me with a second owl sighting! "He opened his eyes again and stared briefly like an owl across the room, without really looking at anything") for THE VOYAGE OUT. I'm reading the former in the bright sunshiny daylight now, when and if there is any. THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES contains a lot of thick, chewy philosophy, hard to manage as one toddles off to dreamland.

Imagine There's No Book

Did you know Yoko Ono was a "night owl"? I did! All thanks to the latest entry in the Million Dollar Book Club, YOKO by David Sheff. And I found out early, on page xxxi. "Wait!" you're going to say. "Those are letters, not numbers!" Very astute. But what if I told you they were both? Roman numerals are the publisher's way of telling you that you haven't really started the book, but you have to read this part anyway, or they'll come to your house and grab the copy out of your hands. You know why I mention the night owl... it's because, as something you could almost think of as an Ono-esque art experience (no you couldn't!), I have dedicated my entire life to noticing how many owls are in books. Lots of owls! In lots of books.

Books Don't Help

I got out my TRAVELS OF WILLIAM BARTRAM, which maybe I’ve never opened before, to do some research on swamps for an unpublished novel, which will remain unpublished if I know my unpublished novels, and if I don’t, nobody does. I was reminded by a sticker on the back that I bought TRAVELS OF WILLIAM BARTRAM at A Cappella Books in Atlanta during the time I was working on my second book, which, in its initial stages, was supposed to be a novel called THE ALABAMIAD. See, old William Bartram had tromped around Mobile in the 18th century, so I thought it might be helpful, but it wasn’t. Anyway, I opened it up yesterday and I was thumbing through it and I thought, boy, old William Bartram surely knows about every kind of squirrel and every kind of frog. I wonder if he knows about owls! The answer turned out to be yes. He knows about the great white owl, and the great horned owl, and the great horned white owl, which was the order in which he mentioned them, and I could imagine Cliff Clavin saying it on CHEERS: “You see, Sammy, you’ve got your great white owl, and your great horned owl, and then you’ve got your great horned white owl.” And then Carla would push him off his stool. Best of all, Bartram mentions “the whooting owl,” which is, I believe, our first sighting of that variation upon the hoot-owl. Whooting! The whooting owl! I love you, whooting owl! Hey! Do you know what happened after I had written all of the above? I picked up an Elmore Leonard novel I’ve been reading and one character immediately asked a cowboy, "What do you call it when you're on the dodge? Riding the owl hoot trail?" Now, you’ll certainly recall my puzzlement over the owl-hoot versus the hoot-owl, and, of course, “the hoot-owl trail,” which I seem to have first encountered in TRUE GRIT. By the way, the cowboy in question is impressed by his friend's knowledge of the term "owl hoot trail," which he apparently considers the correct rendering. I close fondly as always by saying go to hell.

Famous Cats of Mississippi

I am sure you will recall 2013 as the year that Pendleton Ward made our cat Big Boy (formerly known as Sad Face) famous in Japan. ("Click" here to assess the accuracy of my dubious statement. Big Boy is still doing fine, by the way. Thanks for asking!) Well, great news! We have a new feral kitten. Ace Atkins found her under City Grocery Bar. And thanks to my award-ineligible interview series ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, part 5 of which is AVAILABLE NOW, you can see a photo of that kitten, who has been named Teeny Houdini for reasons that I plan to put into one of a series of unpublished novels. If you "click" here you can get a free peek at Teeny Houdini, but the interview is behind a paywall, so you will have to pay good money (well spent!) to find out more about how Ace rescued her from under City Grocery. (I don't know if that's true. I think you've already learned everything. But! If you don't subscribe, how will you know about all of Ace's adventures on the set of the Pauly Shore movie JURY DUTY?) Ace took the kitten in to get her shots and so on, and when Dr. Theresa picked her up, the team behind the counter told her, as soon as they stopped quaking in mortal fear, "This cat will never be a sweet cat you can play with. She's a wild animal! This is a wild animal you're dealing with. You're in for a terrible surprise. I don't think you understand. This is a wild animal. Wild animal!" And then the guy carried her out to the car in the carrier, holding it way in front of himself like it had that thing in it that ate the cow (?) at the beginning of JURASSIC PARK. Well, Teeny Houdini is already as sweet as pie, so go to hell.

Endnote Maniac

I didn't expect an owl in Kafka's diaries. I just didn't think of him as a nature guy, if you know what I mean, because I don't know what I mean, but luckily no one cares, and neither do I. Anyhow! There she was, suddenly, a teacher Kafka meets, "owlish young fresh face, full of lively tense features." Then, to my shock, the book was over a couple of pages later, but I should have known, because translator Ross Benjamin never met a sentence he didn't want to augment with an endnote. Did every endnote, however, serve an illuminating purpose? I read a lot of them, and I have to say no. But I like his energy!

Nine Years in the Making

Hey look everybody, I haven't bothered you too much about ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, the exciting multi-part interview I did with Ace Atkins about his work on the Pauly Shore magnum opus JURY DUTY, have I? Tell me the truth! But! Back in 2016, I did tease you with a few details of the time Ace was Abe Vigoda's hand double during that production. Well, I'm happy (?) to announce that Episode 4 of ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD is now available ("click" here), and I was finally able to dig up even more details of the "Abe Vigoda incident," a phrase I just now decided to put quotation marks around. If you think about it, a mere shift from B to C, already so close together in the alphabet, turns Abe into Ace. Think about it! You can find every episode of ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD as it becomes available on my convenient "linktree" thingamabob.

Fun with Kafka

Yesterday, as I texted Megan Abbott, I kept singing a phrase from Kafka's diaries in a Bob Dylan voice. It really works! Try it at home. "I keep remembering her ugly huge solemn Renaissance ostrich feather hats from the past"... I know it seems complicated! But just dive right in. Here are some helpful hints as you endeavor to sing the preceding phrase from Kafka's diaries over and over in a Bob Dylan voice: 1. Try to cram "I keep remembering her" into the upbeat. After that, it's a strictly normal rock-and-roll chugging rhythm all the way, as long as you 2. sing "Renaissance" in a triplet configuration. 3. Don't try to sing the phrase to the tune of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," though that would be the expected impulse, nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn't quite fit, though. Just make up your own Bob Dylan melody. It's easy! Bob Dylan does it all the time! Okay, now you are ready to have the time of your life singing "I keep remembering her ugly huge solemn Renaissance ostrich feather hats from the past" from Kafka's diary entry of February 13, 1914, in your best Bob Dylan voice. The most important thing is to have fun!

Just Think

This is not what I came here to tell you, but THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES has owls in it: "But just think of those summer nights! The owls whimpering, the night moaning, and when it all got too spooky we both got into my bed so we could go on talking." But no, I came here to say that I watched a Tim Holt western called THUNDERING HOOFS, and... well, first let me say something about these Tim Holt westerns. They're just great. The average runtime is about 65 minutes, I guess, and they all have the same plot. There's some kind of corrupt businessman or official who is messing around with the welfare of goodhearted townspeople, and here comes a stranger, Tim Holt, riding in to save the day. At some point, though, the bad guys twist it around so it looks like Tim Holt is in charge of their rotten scheme! So he gets locked up or ostracized or what-have-you, and things look pretty bleak for a minute, but it's okay, because he figures out how to expose the jerks and be celebrated as the hero he truly is. It's an incredibly comforting formula, and reminds me of some of Julia Pott's observations about the basic template of romantic comedy, but I put all of her thoughts on the subject into one of my unpublished novels, so I won't repeat them, not because I think anything will ever happen with any of my unpublished novels, but just because it seems exhausting to type it all up again. Or even to think about it! The main point is that I mused wisely to myself, regarding THUNDERING HOOFS, "'Hoofs' looks very wrong to me. I always thought it was 'hooves!'" So then I opened up Kafka's diaries, and in the next passage I read, the translator Ross Benjamin used "hoofs"!!!! So, boy, that was something. So I was like, I guess Tim Holt and Ross Benjamin know what the hell they're talking about, I'll leave this matter in their capable hoofs. BUT THEN! I told McNeil all about it, because he had just emailed me to relate his own uncanny coincidence. Oh, you'd like to hear about it too? Okay! You twisted my arm. Ouch! So, McNeil happened to idly pick up his novelization of the Dean Martin vehicle WHO'S GOT THE ACTION? and read a couple of pages. Wait! I must add that McNeil scrupulously clarified that the book may have been a novelization OR maybe the movie was based on a novel with, in its original printing, another title, and then they changed the title of the novel to tie it in with the movie. Nobody knows for sure! Because, like me, McNeil no longer cares to look things up. It's presumptuous of me to say that. Maybe he still likes to look things up. Anyway, he picked up the book on April 11 of this year... then, by chance, a few days later, he picked up an old notebook (a very old notebook) and learned that he had recorded a showing of WHO'S GOT THE ACTION? on... are you ready?... April 11, 1983!!!! You can pick your jaw up off the floor now. Anyway, though, the point is that McNeil issued a statement that he had never once in his young life seen "hoofs" used and he found the very thought of it unacceptable. And I was like, to McNeil, "Now that I've discussed this with you, I won't have to 'blog' about it!" Which, as you can see, was a dirty lie.

Per Se

So anyway you know I quit social media because I never stop yammering about it. Quitting social media means that a lot of times I don't know what anyone is doing, not that it's any of my beeswax. Like, I text Megan something about Kafka's diaries, and she texts back that she's behind on her reading because she and Bill and Jimmy are at the movie theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, watching BLOOD SIMPLE. (To be clear, they're watching BLOOD SIMPLE in the current day, it wasn't on the bill when Oswald was arrested, as it came out many years later.) And I am like, mentally, "!!!" Because I didn't see that coming, "that" being Megan and Bill and Jimmy watching BLOOD SIMPLE in the theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. Oddly, I was thinking about Lee Harvey Oswald yesterday, before getting that text, because I searched the "blog" to see if I had ever before mentioned Harvey comics, which, to my astonishment, I had not. I kept turning up allusions to Oswald as I searched. I've mentioned several Harvey comics characters here, but not, apparently, the Harvey comics brand per se, before yesterday. Isn't that something? And that reminded me of the time I went to the Dreamworks offices - they own the Harvey characters, or did at the time - and pitched my idea for a show, a show that both embraced and mocked the concept of the "gritty reboot." It had all your favorite Harvey characters, and all your least favorites, every Harvey character I could think of, even such misbegotten creatures as Baby Huey and Sad Sack! Except each and every one of them had been aged up into their 20s (of course, Sad Sack was a soldier and looked fairly haggard; I may have aged him down!) and they were all brooding and sulking and hot and tormented. The hook, which I still think is pretty good, was that Casper starts out the show as a regular guy, but midway through the first season, he's murdered! And that's how he becomes the friendly ghost. Who was I telling about this recently? It must have been Quinn. And I was saying that Richie Rich is in a coma, that's the big reveal at the end of Season 1. Everyone thinks he's running the town as a notorious recluse, but his evil butler Cadbury (not evil in the Harvey comics!) is keeping him incapacitated and... oh, who cares? But Quinn was like, "His spirit could be roaming around like in the movie JUST LIKE HEAVEN!" (I paraphrase. Also, that's a big spoiler for JUST LIKE HEAVEN, sorry. I really am sorry, because it works better if you don't know.) And I was like (responding to Quinn's idea), "No way! That doesn't correspond with my artistic vision!" But now that I've thought of it some more, it's fine. It's a good idea, Quinn! But I guess we wouldn't find out until Season 2. None of it matters, because the meeting was all "Ha ha ha! Wonderful idea! We'll talk soon! You're going to be a big man in this town! You're going to be running this dump one day! We love you! Let's get married! Hooray! Hooray!" and then... nothing. (Hey, that was only eight years ago, maybe they're still thinking about it.) Well, we're getting off the subject, which is that I googled it and found out that Bill and Jimmy and Megan were in Dallas for a festival put on by the Southwest Review. So when I "clicked" on the "web" site of that fine publication, I found an awesome interview that Mary Miller did with hero Lynda Barry! (You can read it, and you should, by "clicking" here.) I didn't know Mary Miller loved Lynda Barry so much! Or it's equally possible that I knew and forgot. But you know what? None of this is why I thought I was obliged to "blog" today. See, I accidentally read a New York Times op-ed that had one of those awful, cloying titles that usually warns me to skip it. But I read it for some reason, and it reminded me that THE GREAT GATSBY has a character in it to whom our narrator Nick refers at one point as "Owl Eyes." So THE GREAT GATSBY has an owl in it. I was like, "So what? My 'blog' readers will never know if I just fail to mention it." But my conscience overwhelmed me! And I knew that even though I read THE GREAT GATSBY many, many, many, many, many years ago, long before I cared (and eventually stopped caring) that every book has an owl in it, I was bound by honor to tell you that THE GREAT GATSBY has an owl in it. My life is a prison I've built for myself!

Art

When Quinn visited, we spent some hours in a coffee shop doodling aimlessly as I breathed in the Covid germs that would soon lay low my household. Anyway, whilst in the midst of doodling in the tragic manner thusly described, I produced this great work of art (above) - art! it thrives in times of adversity (Dr. Theresa and Lee Durkee and I debated this point while eating sushi the other night; Dr. Theresa and Lee were on the side of art, while I held a contrary view regarding its usefulness)! -, which, as you can see (go back and find the subject of this sentence if you can), Quinn wisely framed upon her return to Los Angeles for the edification (the art was) of her cat Gino. It represents Casper and his cousin (?) Spooky, who, if memory serves, and it probably doesn't, was branded by Harvey comics (the latter was) as "the tuff li'l ghost," but I'm not going to look it up because I don't care about looking things up anymore, or about anything else either. Except! Speaking of my lucrative new career in the visual arts, remember how I told you about an art show I'm going to be in and then I listed all the other people who have previously appeared on the "blog" who will also be in the art show, but I wasn't sure I had caught them all? Well, the other day I looked again, and Ako Castuera is right at the top of the list! How could I have missed her? How could have I missed her when she was right there at the top of the list where she belongs?

Breakthrough for an Animal

You know three things about me. 1. I'm sore all over from yesterday's garbage misadventure. 2. I get all my ideas from the obituaries. 3. I like to alert you whenever the New York Times mentions the TV show GREEN ACRES, mostly because they tend to get everything about it wrong. Number 1 came to mind just because I am sore all over, but numbers 2 and 3 were combined today in a way I think you will find most stimulating, yes, most stimulating indeed. So an underground cartoonist named John Peck passed away, and he was quoted on GREEN ACRES in his very own New York Times obituary. From the brief snippet, it is very clear that he understood GREEN ACRES completely, unlike the New York Times, although by quoting him on the subject - and in the limited space of an obituary, of all places! - they nudge themselves into acceptable territory. Mr. Peck, in a 1987 interview (a time when watching TV was considered a hobby for dolts... why, I recall when I was first employed by TBS in 1993, I would go to parties, and people would ask what I did, and I would tell them, and they would say - gleaming like a glazed ham with angelic pride! - "We don't even OWN a TV!" like I was supposed to faint or, maybe, lift them onto my shoulders and carry them around from room to room, blowing a trumpet)... what was I saying? Oh! So, Mr. Peck contrasted that attitude with the "high esteem" in which the GREEN ACRES character Arnold the Pig was held, because watching TV (an activity for which Arnold was famous), while looked down upon in humans, was "a breakthrough for an animal." The New York Times obituary department categorizes his statement as "dry."

The Garbage Story

Well, it's Thursday, the day I take the garbage to the end of the driveway to be picked up, as I'm sure Elon Musk and his doe-eyed teen protégé Big Balls know from examining my personal records. It's no secret anymore! Anyhow, I could barely tilt the garbage can back on its wheels to roll it down. It was like Dr. Theresa had thrown away a burlap sack filled with bowling balls without my knowledge! And then, once I got the garbage can rolling, it was all I could do to hold it back. It was so damn heavy that it was pulling me down the steep driveway beyond - and I'm sure this is no exaggeration - the speed of sound! I was like the Chuck Yeager of garbage cans. So, anyway, I'm sure you'll recall when the tree fell on our house. It turns out that the tree also made a hole in the garbage can lid, so that, in addition to garbage, the can was filled with rainwater, the heaviest substance known to science. I wrote about it in my diary, of course. And I was like, "I can't wait to tell Ace about it on our daily walk around the neighborhood!" But then I was like, "That's not enough! The people need to know my story!" I just wish my grandparents could be alive to know that a kid named Big Balls is helping run the government. They'd be so excited! After washing my mouth out with soap. Speaking of which, McNeil wrote to say that he saw a commercial where a guy sprays deodorant down the back of his pants. Once again, I thought of my grandparents and how much they'd be vomiting all the time and punching holes in walls with their bloody fists if only they could see us now. And they weren't even violent or especially emotional people. They had regular emotions! Still, I doubt George Washington himself would find it any harder to grasp our fascinating modern times when it's so exciting to be alive and guessing what's next. Anyway, I really pulled a lot of muscles and hurt myself in various ways today with the garbage can. Pity me!

Hear Me Mispronounce Things

You know, one podcast wasn't good enough for the likes of me, so I was on yet another podcast. I'm the Alexander the Great of podcasts, I won't stop until there are none left to feel my wrath. Now, I won't listen to them myself. Look! It's not because of the kind and gifted Jen Johans, who hosted the latest one. It's just that the things pouring out of my mouth are so embarrassing. I don't remember what I said on the podcast, except for when I mispronounced the title of the movie VOLVER. You'll have fun hearing me do that! As much fun as I did mispronouncing it! (I don't know how to have fun.)

Grits

Hey! Remember how I fretted that McNeil was never going to present us with any more of his special Bogie bits? I should have known that he had his reasons! The 700-page biography of Humphrey Bogart, from which the bits were extracted, got really sad toward the end, he tells me. Then he gives us what I assume are his last few bits, and they are grim ones indeed. Grim bits, or "grits" as I call them for short. You have been warned! Writes McNeil: "I pick it up every once in a while, but it's sad when he's old before his time, and his wife is probably running around with Frank behind his back - and there's nothing he can do, really...except die." I told you it was grim! And as I have discovered for myself, after reading probably hundreds of celebrity biographies under the auspices of the Million Dollar Book Club, they all get sad toward the end. But I never learn my lesson. Hardly any celebrities get taken up bodily into Heaven like Enoch in the Bible. We should move on to happier things! Like, Adam sent Dr. Theresa and me a package of treats when we were sick. And, a week or two later, when Dr. Theresa was breaking down some cardboard boxes for recycling, she found a package of cookies in one them. A package of cookies we had overlooked somehow when we unpacked Adam's thoughtful gift. A package of cookies! Like a miracle! Is that a happy story? Because I can imagine a peevish reader, you know, Elon Musk or his teen BFF Big Balls, saying, "So what? Where's MY cookie?" Well, let's see. Speaking of the Million Dollar Book Club, we're on Kafka's diaries. So yesterday I was reading about a dream Kafka had about "a greyhound-like donkey, which was very restrained in its movements... its narrow human feet were unappealing to me because of their length and uniformity." This here donkey Kafka dreamed about had a "silvery shining breast." You know what I thought of! The supernatural creature the Padfoot, of course, a description of which provided the epigraph to my story collection MOVIE STARS. I'll save you the trouble of "clicking" on the "hyperlink": "In the neighborhood of Leeds there is the Padfoot, a weird apparition about the size of a small donkey, 'with shaggy hair and large eyes like saucers'... to see it is a prognostication of death." So we're back to death again, you're welcome. Grits!

Divisive Concepts!

Well, Dr. Theresa tells me that the Mississippi legislature, which theoretically represents us and all the other people of Mississippi, has passed a bill banning the teaching of "divisive concepts." ("Click" here for a news article you can read about it.) Now what, you may ask, is a divisive concept? I'll tell you what the Mississippi legislature appears to think, with just a few examples, hardly comprehensive: Do you find it sobering that a Black person couldn't attend the University of Mississippi until 1962? And people got shot and died over it? Divisive! Do you think it was a bit excessive when Oscar Wilde was thrown into prison and sentenced to hard labor for being gay? Divisive! Did you ever say something like "Women should be paid the same as men for doing the same job"? Divisive! Do you like the Billie Holiday song that goes "Them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose, so the Bible said and it still is news"? Divisive! Do you consider it none of your damn beeswax to sit in judgment over how someone else defines their own identity? Divisive! How about the inscription on the Statue of Liberty? Divisive! And, you know, keep going from there, it's all up to you! Because guess what? Part of the bill says that students can inform on their teachers like little squirmy cheese-eating rats for anything that makes them feel all confused inside like trembling fledglings, if such should be their unfortunate nature. I paraphrase slightly, while mixing animal metaphors, or similes. So, in short, I would say, based on contextual evidence, that the Mississippi legislature is afraid that Mississippi has become too "woke," a word they love to slop around for effect. They think, it seems, that "woke" is the first word that springs to people's minds about Mississippi, and by golly they're going to put a stop to it. Like, people around the world are saying, "I'd love to go to Mississippi, but it's just too 'woke' for me." Anyway, if the Mississippi legislature is reading this, I just want to let them know that no one has ever, ever, ever said that. Now let's move on to another divisive concept: art! I'm going to have a piece in an art show. Divisive? You bet your ass! Because I'm not an artist. OR AM I? Divisive! Sorry, I can't stop thinking about the Mississippi legislature. Maybe it's a mistake to combine these two subjects in a single "post," but I actually think it's okay because nobody reads this "blog." The gallery asked the artists to promote the show, which was all I intended to do in this "post," and then I got the text from Dr. Theresa and my brain exploded. To be precise, the gallery asked us to promote the show on "social media," when you know perfectly well I quit social media a while back and became the acknowledged hero of our crummy times. You may "click" here for details about the art show, which will also feature some nice people who have been mentioned on the "blog" in the past: Andy Ristaino, Lyle Partridge, Pendleton Ward, Pat McHale, and Rebecca Sugar. And many others. Fifty in all, I think, so maybe there are some others who have been mentioned on the "blog" as well, but my old eyes are tired of seeing and my heart is being squashed under the big uncaring butt of the Mississippi legislature. Ha ha, sorry, gallery, how's this for a promo? I love you!

McNeil's Li'l Bible Bits

I guess we're assuming that McNeil has abandoned that 700-hundred-page biography of Humphrey Bogart by which he erstwhile so enchantingly sprinkled our humble undertaking with gossamer fancies. As you know, he's reading the Bible now instead - specifically, the New Testament. His thoughts on the matter, while jaunty, are certainly not blasphemous! "The New Testament is a lot different after a library full of literature and UFO videos," he remarks, for example. "It's funny if you read it the right way," he goes on. Now, before you make an objection, cut McNeil some slack! You'll recall that the lofty scholar Diarmaid MacCulloch pointed out some good jokes and zingers from Jesus and friends in his massive history of Christianity. Certainly you'll recall that! And though I have nothing to back this up, because I don't care, I recall reading a Kurt Vonnegut essay, oh, about 40 years ago, in which Mr. Vonnegut praises what he considers a good joke made by Jesus. But let's get back to McNeil, according to whose observations, Jesus "barely puts up with these dumb-ass disciples he's saddled with." McNeil claims also that Jesus sighs a lot. This is my own extrapolation, but in McNeil's portrait of Jesus, the Savior comes off somewhat like Charlie Brown in the PEANUTS comics. And we all remember, don't we, that Charles Schulz was a famous Christian? I rest my case. In conclusion, I must admit that McNeil and I exchanged heated words - maybe even with some light cussing! - over my preference for the King James Version versus McNeil's special all-time fave the NIV. Who would have ever thought the Bible could cause people to fight with each other? Now I've heard everything! McNeil charmingly refers to the NIV as "The Hep Cat's Old Testament." Somehow I doubt this is the last we've heard from McNeil about the Good Book!

Thin, Lucent Clouds

Well, you know, we've given some attention recently to writers trying to get into the heads of dogs, literarily speaking. So it is only fair I should tell you that in THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, translated by Sophie Wilkins, Robert Musil kind of skates around writing from the POV of some horses. He admits: "It was hard to comprehend what was going on inside the animals," though he ventures to suspect they "knew nothing of love as a tangible desire, but only as a breath and a haze that sometimes veiled their vision of the world with thin, lucent clouds." You know, this reminds me of some years ago when I watched the 7-hour Soviet movie version of WAR AND PEACE and I sort of perked up when a tree started talking. I was like, "Can this really be in Tolstoy?" And to my recollection, I looked it up somewhere, and yes, that tree had some things to say, and I wrote about it extensively somewhere, but I've searched my "blog" and my files and all my many unpublished novels and my emails to McNeil, and I can't find anything I wrote about the talking tree. We might even say I'm not convinced the talking tree exists, but I don't care about things anymore, so I'm not going to make an effort to find out.

Robot Children of the Future

Hey, remember when I quit social media and a mighty cheer went up throughout the land because I had become the definition of a true hero such as the world had never known? Well, Meta, which used to be Facebook, which was a kind of social medium I quit before quitting any of the others, has been using some of my worst books (without my permission or knowledge!) to teach their magical robot brain, who I imagine has a cute name like Burt, how to "write," in the hope, I assume, that fifth graders of the distant future will no longer have to think up their own patriotic essays for civics class, or whatever the hell AI is for. My greatest wish is that my work will cause the robot's head to explode, like on that one STAR TREK when Captain Kirk asked the robot tricky questions until its head exploded. In happier news, I saw that Andy Beckerman used my new author photo (see above) on his "web" site to promote his podcast. Now, when Quinn took this photo during her visit, I said I was going to use it as my new author photo, but maybe she didn't believe me. But maybe she did. And maybe she was the one who suggested it should be my new author photo. I can't remember; I was busy getting sick at the time. Speaking of which, now Dr. Theresa has Covid! And a tree fell on the house, which is presumably unrelated. Unless there is a witch at work.

Would've Could've Should've

I was reading a book of short stories by my man Mario Levrero, and there's a whole story about a cigarette lighter! Spoilers. This guy's lighter is broken so he starts taking it apart, and as he takes it apart, the pieces unfold and the lighter gets bigger and bigger until he's inside it. I'm not describing it well. But I'm not Mario Levrero. Anyway, you know I would have put this into my cigarette lighter book if I had read it in time. I would have laid a lot of scholarly junk on you about the sublimation of, I don't know, the man within the machine or whatever, and your eyes would have been bugging out of your head, like, this guy's on another level! This guy knows everything about cigarette lighters! But none of that happened and I suck.

The Old Garbage Hole

Remember how I told you I was on a podcast and forgot to promote the pilot that Pen and I made? Well, that's okay! The podcast is out but we just heard the pilot has been pushed down the old garbage hole into reject town. The axe has fallen. We got the old heave-ho. They're not making a show out of it is what I'm trying to say. For more information about how pilots work, see Uma Thurman's monologue on the subject in PULP FICTION. Anyhow! The host of the podcast, Andy Beckerman, is a fine young man. Fine young man! So don't disapppoint him. Don't you dare disappoint him! I won't see you harm a hair on his precious head with your cruel indifference! Don't listen to the podcast for me. No, just push me down the old garbage hole with all my hopes and dreams. It's where I belong! Listen to the podcast for him! Do it for Andy Beckerman! You know, this was my first real podcast appearance to my way of thinking, and I made some rookie mistakes, some of which have already been covered in previous "posts" for your convenience. Well, I should be clear. I've been on two other podcasts, but they don't count. One was about ADVENTURE TIME, and it was recorded back in the days when I would work on a story and then move on to the next story, and the next story, and lots of other stories, and I wouldn't see the episode or know how it had evolved until roughly nine months later, when it appeared on my actual television set, which is a thing people used to have in their homes. So these guys from the ADVENTURE TIME podcast had seen a screener of an upcoming episode ("Football," season 7 episode 5) and had a lot of great questions about it, but I had no idea what they were talking about. My brain was somewhere else by then! So they were a bit put out with me. I don't recall what I ended up muttering about instead. But you could barely call it a podcast. My fault, not theirs! Another podcast was the one I did with Ace Atkins when my book SWEET BANANAS came out. Now, that one, it was exactly the same sort of conversation Ace and I have when we walk around the neighborhood, so I don't count it. It was too easy! Anyway, with Mr. Beckerman, I got the idea that my main job was to talk, so I rushed to fill any microsecond of perceived silence with whatever wild notion pushed its way to the front. I was under the sway of what Edgar Alan Poe referred to as "The Imp of the Perverse."

Beside You All the Time

I'm back! You didn't know I was gone. And in fact, I was never gone. I've been right here beside you all the time, my darling. With Covid! That's right, I finally became part of the hottest trend from five years ago, the signature disease of our special rotten times. A hint of it flutters still about my weakened flesh as I type these heartfelt words. I am sorry it delayed me from telling you about my dream project. For years, I wanted to interview Ace Atkins about his rosy days of golden youth working on the Pauly Shore film JURY DUTY. As you may confirm by "clicking" here, the first installment is already in the can!

Geography

A visit from Quinn! Over dinner, she confessed to Dr. Theresa and me that she is not much on geography. In fact, she related a tale from her childhood, pinpointing the moment when she might have learned a thing or two about the land we call home, but chose a darker path... the path of geographical ignorance. So it was with some excitement that she snapped the photo above, commenting "Mississippi is the exact same shape as Bart Simpson!" I found it a delightful observation. Have others made a similar observation? Probably. But I'm not going to google it because I just don't care. Then Quinn had a biscuit in a place that keeps a Bible for you to read in the bathroom.

Fun

Checked in with McNeil, who says he is reading the Bible, which he described as "fun." Interesting (?) coincidence: when I recorded a podcast recently (it hasn't been released yet), ostensibly to promote the pilot that Pen and I made, I forgot to talk about the pilot at all, but I did manage to yammer incessantly about how much I enjoy the Bible, so everyone has that to look forward to.

The Cry of the Pork Vendor

Okay, Gadda keeps hitting me with sandwiches. It hurts. "A sandwich with a slice of pork. Big enough to last two days." Couple of pages later there's "a kind of hamburger swollen with papers more than a generous salami sandwich"... okay, that one... there's a lot to "unpack" as a scholar might say, or scholars used to say, or did they ever say that? The latter is not a real sandwich. It's a wallet as metaphorical sandwich. It is, per the translator William Weaver, a "rotten wallet." And look, I don't want to eat a wallet. I don't even want to eat a hamburger swollen with papers, or anything rotten at all. Now, I wouldn't turn up my nose at a generous salami sandwich, although I am no longer allowed to have generous salami sandwiches under the constant hectoring threats of a well-meaning physician. But Gadda includes the cry of the pork vendor, "Get you [sic] roast pork here! Nice roast pork... golden brown." Golden brown! Dear Lord, how much of this can I take?