UPDATE: Yeah, wordpress wants to show the same picture 5 times. If you click on them you’ll see the actual image that is supposed to be there. I checked the html and everything, there is absolutely no reason why this should be happening. *shrug*
One of the best things about having an artist for a friend is that artists have stories just like regular people, but when they tell them they feel compelled to use visual aids. Draw pictures, for example, or go to the cupboard and fish out the size of a normal martini glass, versus the size of the one that precipitated rolling-around-on-the-floor-naked shenanigans. Hold that thought. Stories: pictures. You can almost see the one being told up there, can’t you?
One of the best things about Kafe Kerouac is whiskey tastings. $10 for 5 shots means a couple of them are bound to be throw-aways that you down as quickly as possible to get on to the shit that you don’t necessarily already know what it tastes like. This is even easier to do if you’ve already been drinking when you get there–which your artist friend might explain to you with visual aids such as those presented above.
…and then explain in even further detail, with even more visual aids. If she gets really into it she might even yank the paper out from under your green marker when you’re trying to help by coloring in the hand grenade, and yell at you to pay attention, because you need to understand the significance of the pubic hair mohawk up there in the corner.
Given the amount of drink involved, this is a somewhat curtailed account of events. There will, of course, be lengthy, tangential explanations of why, from an evolutionary standpoint, eating meat makes more sense than eating dairy. If you’re a writer–like, if that’s your whole paradigm, you’ll probably fill in your own tasting card with excerpts from that conversation as it and your friend’s BAC progress.
Not until later will you notice the change in size and slant of handwriting on each individual item.
You might get kicked in the neck later, too. I’m not an artist so I don’t have a visual aid for my neck.
What can I say, I enjoy whiskey. If you read this blog from the beginning, this will be like the 4th thing you learn about me, after 1) I don’t know who I am, 2) I’m daft, and 3) I think crabs are cool. Not only that, it’s basically the only one of those 4 things that is still true. I’m not recognizable from 18 months ago–been a lot of paradigm shifts. I mean, shit, I fell off the wagon in August, didn’t I? And right now, to be honest, all I’m doing is coming up for air. Not done yet. Happy new self.
Lots to talk about. First of all, “Uncle Rick” which got a read on the Nil Desperandum podcast a while back, is now available in print via the anthology Shadow of the Unknown. “Floodscape” has hit the shelves in its second incarnation, within Sam’s Dot Publications’ It Came from Her Purse. Crossed Genres carried another one of my stories in their Sidekicks/Minions issue, “The Only Friend You Ever Need” which I believe is still archived even though it’s no longer the current issue. Post Mortem has got Dead Souls in bookstores a little bit ahead of schedule with my dead clown story, “Only Clowns Come Back.” I personally believe that clowns have every bit the entertainment potential dead that they do alive. I’m like that. I have it on good authority that the final issue of The Battered Suitcase, with my story “Tocatta and #&$%!!”, is coming out in October. Other than that, I’ve got a few pieces on the way to being reprinted in places they haven’t been before: on paper in the US. More info on that as it goes down.
Offshoot’s entry for the 48 hour film project is up on YouTube. I’ll give that one its own post. We didn’t win anything; based on the list of films that did, I would have to guess that our mistake was giving our movie a conflict and character development (so it’s my fault, ha).
So there’s my big ol’ list of new cred. That said, the list may be relatively quiet for a while. Got a lot of shit to figure out artistically. I’m spending all my time on something that seems goofy and useless; but then, so did “The Foolish Samurai,” which ended up being goofy but not useless. A big hit, actually, as my stuff goes. Lots to figure out personally, too. The monster in the mirror looks at me more hungrily than ever these days.
The important thing is that y’all in Kerouac who were wondering what the hell we were doing have a better idea now. Just wish you could have been there later to hear Amber expound on the beauty of the scummy water that was pouring up out of the busted main in the alley near the cafe. Or my soliloquy about scientists making monster-women out of wolves to practice fighting (stupid fucks). No, actually I don’t.
