Open Letter to the Participants of "Operation: Gridlock"

Dear Inconsiderate, Uncaring, Self-Absorbed Children,

This video probably makes you feel proud. Actually, anything where you can be seen acting like spoiled fools probably accomplishes that and, thanks to the Internet, you can gain that satisfaction pretty much as often as you would like. And while I recognize the inherent risk of providing yet another, albeit smaller format for your stupidity, the gain from exposing you far outweighs it.

As I wrote two posts prior, yours is a movement filled with ill-informed, selfish, ignorant people who value the economy above the well-being of your fellow human beings. Many of you aren't shy about admitting it, either. Take this prize-winning scholar, for example who,  a woman asked him how he felt about doing exactly what is pictured to the left, referred to her as a "fat lesbian" and the "C word":

I know this person's identity and the city he lives in (I have the non-blacked out version) but unlike him and his ilk, I would not post his identity because I believe in actual Freedom, not "Freedumb." Besides, he's certainly not alone, as there are tons of complete pricks just like him espousing similar if not identical douchenozzlery. Apparently, using ANTIFA as some sort of example to justify your own behavior is favored by your movement as well. Basically, you're using a group of extreme left-wingers you despise and find morally bankrupt as your model of behavior. That just shows those of us who are reasonable how intellectually stunted and hypocritical most of you are.

Of course, it's doesn't help that you have opportunistic bastards like this encouraging your stupidity:

I expect this kind of irresponsible rhetoric from bought-and-paid for lowlives like him, but you're supposed to be real people dealing with real-life situations such as the biggest pandemic since 1918. Oh, right. It's all being exaggerrated and blown way out of proportion so the Governor can use fear to launch a coupe de tat against the occupant of the White House who issued similar stay-at-home edicts. The conspiracy theories that have resulted from this are legendary. Here are a few of the truly idiotic ones that you probably believe:

• All hospitals and their workers are part of a vast concpiracy to inflate the numbers of the dead for...reasons.
• This is really the result of 5G technology.
• Bill Gates wants to create a "digitial vaccine" so he can track our every moment. etc.
• The liberal governors (anybody who isn't a Trump ass-kisser) are working in tandem to overthrow the federal government by using the virus as a springbaord for taking away "our freedoms."
• Covid-19 was created in a lab as a weapon or a form of population control.
• The virus was created by Democrats, presumabley with the cooperation of several other countries,to "stop President Trump" because he's so damn awesome.
• (This one is the best!) It's part of a long-range plan to turn people into cyborgs!

Under normal circumstances, all of those would be prime fodder for lots and lots of amusing quips and you would be easily dismissed as mental furballs. But online culture has emboldended all of you and turned you into more of a unified uber-twit, ready to do battle for the right to not be mildly inconvenienced from mowing lawns and planting gardens in 30-degree temperatures. Boy, you're really showing that commie Whitmer by creating a traffic jam in the capitol!

I'm sure you take great pride in causing ambulances carrying people who might be dying to slow to a crawl because your cars are in the way. I'm sure you take great pleasure in defying social distancing guidelines like rebellious teenagers, at least until you start feeling sick in a couple weeks. I'm not wishing that on you, that's just how the virus works. And you are basically inviting it in by doing everything you can to show that supposed "dicatator" in Lansing. 

If you see her as a tyrant, you must have been seriously pissed off when Trump declared he has "total authority." No? Gee, I wonder why not? You dislike fascism in all its forms, right? Not just when it has lady parts and you didn't vote for it?

Well, leaving aside that unsolvable mystery, I would honestly like to thank you for something. You have done an excellent job of revealing who and, more importantly, what you are. Now we know your names, what many of you do for a living, and what towns and cities you live in. Now we know who won't be getting our business, who we don't want to work for or working for us, and for damn sure who we don't want to live next door to. For that invaluable gift, I am truly grateful.

To the obvious white supremacists among you, the so-called "Proud Boys" who have nothing to be proud of except their false perception that a skin color makes one superior, we see you, too. And despite all the anti-female horseshit that spews forth from the orifices located beneath your noses, despite all the abusive rhetoric you employ against Governor Whitmer, guess what?

So, suck it up, Baby Hitler!

Not Really Lovin' the Demographics Here.

Sorry, Russia. I'm sure the actual people are fine, but one never knows who is actually visiting the websites these days. Still, in the hope that these are just normal, upstanding Russian citizens, welcome to my blog!

The Dreaded Author Interview Questionnaire.

Every so often, a publisher in whose anthology my work is set to appear gets the idea that introducing the world to the likes of me is a positive thing. It certainly makes sense. Readers like to know who the authors are and how their minds work when it comes to their craft. It also increases the author's web presence and (potentially) places the publisher in the position of having brought the author to the world's attention either before or during a rise to some prominence. At least, that's the optimistic view.

Some authors feel pressured to not come off sounding like morons when they answer theirs. I don't worry about that; my concern is sounding pretentious and full of myself. I'm not a filmmaker, so that particular trait wouldn't be very becoming. In order to counter that, I tend to use humor in my responses except where seriousness gets my point across. The interviewers seem to enjoy it.

It's been a while since I've filled one out, but the time has come again thanks to B Cubed Press, which was already kind enough to create a page for me based on one published work with them. The questions are refreshingly unique and mildly intimidating so let's see what I can accomplish this time!

(Obviously I'll post a link when it's available)

Excerpt from the Trump Story.

The following is an excerpt from my short story in progress, "The Greatest Story Ever Told, let me Tell You" which is an increasingly not-as-satirical as I'd originally thought tale of Donald Trump for an anthology that will probably decide it's too on the nose. Feel free to give me any feedback that doesn't involve insulting me for daring to parody your great leader:

"You wanna know how I became the Almighty? Simple: I’m a winner. Show me somebody

without an ego and I’ll show you a big, fat loser. Like that Chinese guy, what’s his name? Buddha. What a loser. He’s not a god, he’s not a superhero. He’s nothing, this guy. Pathetic. And fat. What? Skinny? We talking about the same guy? Well, whatever. He’s nothing, this chump. Less than nothing.

    But God, now there’s a real man. I first sat down with Him after my VP arranged a meeting and we had a wonderful meeting. He liked me and we had a very productive meeting. I’ve made more deals than just about anybody in the world and I can tell you the deals we worked out were the best every made by anybody ever, But He was old and it was time for a new approach. I mean, he had his time. It was a wonderful time, a really, really good time. He’s a smart guy. The best. Just not as smart as me. We can laugh but it’s true.

    So my predecessor, He was down in the dumps because of the losers and haters in the world. My VP thought we could cheer Him by showing Him how we were doing His work on Earth. You know, changing the abortion laws, military marches, regulations that favor bankers so they can safeguard our money. My list of accomplishments is too long to go over in one place. It’s the longest list! I’m not saying it’s longer than the Almighty’s, but I couldn’t help noticing how small his hands were."

The Secret to Writing Donald Trump as a Short Story Subject.

It's really simple to write about Donald Trump in a fictional context because, ultimately, he is a living work of fiction. Nothing about him is genuine except his unerring propensity for absolute, unadulterated self-promoting horseshit. So really, he is the very essence of a caricature of a real person. The problem lies in knowing how to handle this knowledge. He's such an easy target that one could be accused of taking unfair advantage or going for the cheap shot with practically every sentence. He isn't a protagonist I would normally attempt in my writing except I happened to read about an anthology looking for parotic tales starring his royal orange majesty.

How did I figure out what to do? I decided to let the man speak for himself. Only a first person narrative could come close to capturing his word salad, nonsense diatribes. I also decided it was better to avoid turning Trump into a parody since he already is one. To try and take a ridiculous character like him and make him more ridiculous would be...well, you know.

So, it works better to let Trump be Trump and make the situation ludicrous or impossible. Directly quoting him is a good method as well, but it's also fun to write new dialogue that sounds enough like him to fool people into wondering whether or not he actually said it. I first cut my teeth on that one by using the Fake Trump Tweet app. Only the ones that insulted me as a writer were obvious to people.

The story is clipping right along and will probably be finished soon. Then the beta reader(s) get to read it and tell me how much it sucks so I can do a rewrite or two or twelve. Then I'll send it to the anthology and hope for the best. If it's rejected, I'm going to do something I don't normally do and self-publish it since it's far too specific to send elsewhere. That's why I rarely send to anthologies that want such particular submissions, but this was too much fun to pass up.

Quote of the Week brought to you by anti-Millenial Bashing

"Baby boomers reaped the rewards of an economic system that was geared towards middle class families and as they grew up into power and money, they changed the system to favor the wealthy and themselves."

                    -From a Comment on a Bernie Sanders Post

Quote of the Week.

(Cocaine) Makes you think you're smarter than everyone else. Makes you talk too much. Makes you think you're incredibly attractive even when you're fat and old. Makes you think you're on top of the world even when everything is falling apart.

Does that make you think of anyone?

-Tad Williams

  

Possibly Reconsidering but Not Really But Maybe.

A little over a week ago, I announced on this very blog that I was ceasing writing for publication. I hope I made it clear that I was going to attempt to finish works-in-progress but the act of seeking publishers interested in my work had come to an unfortunate end. I haven’t exactly changed my mind about that decision, but a recent experience has forced me to reconsider.

Joe Hill’s latest release titled “Strange Weather,” a collection of four short novels, is the cause of that experience. Let me start by saying I am a huge fan of Hill’s work. For those of you who don’t know, Joe Hill is the pseudonym of Stephen King’s son, Joseph Hillstrom King. This might sound blasphemous to King readers, but I think his son’s work is vastly superior these days. Maybe it’s because we’re both Gen-X’ers and I can relate better to his approach and perspective, or maybe it’s because King’s recent work, with notable exceptions, hasn’t gripped me the way it once did. So, a new Hill book is an event for me in much the same way as a Palahniuk or Mitchell novel. And I’m really enjoying this one. However, I couldn’t shake a certain feeling of déjà vu when I read “Snapshot,” the first story in the collection. While I found the writing engaging and the narrator compelling, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the plot was familiar territory. I don’t mean that in the “Stranger Things” blatant, sub-standard rip-off masquerading as homage way; But I had definitely experienced the plot before somewhere. 

Before I go any further, here is a basic description of “Snapshot’s” plot courtesy of a review in USA Today: 

Snapshot opens the salvo with a creepy exploration of memory that doubles as an Alzheimer’s metaphor. The 1980s-set narrative centers on an inventive teenage boy visited by an old housekeeper who finds that pieces of her past have gone missing, leaving a sense of increasing loss. The culprit: a mysterious man armed with a Polaroid-style camera that sucks a piece of one’s history every time it points and shoots. If the key concept doesn’t unnerve you, the abundance of dead sparrows will.

Sounds sufficiently creepy, right? And while it was a solid entry into the book with an admittedly meandering conclusion, I kept wondering where the hell I’d seen the basic
premise before. It took me a few days to place it. Another author published a short story
called, “The Memory Thief” four years ago with a similar idea behind it. Below are the
first few paragraphs of that story:

The Memory Thief had a stand inside my local grocery store where he pretended to sell photo packages to gullible idiots. He was a smooth one, in his mid to late twenties, handsome but not intimidatingly so, presenting the appearance of the good-looking, non-threatening African American friend on a sit-com or drama about up and coming young people.

He read people like they were walking flat screens with all of their pertinent data on display in size 48 font. He was especially good at charming women, being handsome and smooth and all, but there was more to it than that: The Memory Thief understood a woman’s brain and how it related to memories.

He didn’t call himself the Memory Thief, by the way. That’s what I named him. I gave it to him when he took something from me and refused to give it back. I don’t remember the name he went under.

In case you’re wondering, the author of the second story was me. Originally titled, “My
Greatest Forget,” it was published by Voluted Tales Magazine in December of 2013. My
story was different, of course. Instead of a genius child narrator, mine was a woman
with a forgotten past. But the concept of a mysterious man with what appeared to be a
magical camera that stole memories was strikingly similar. No offense to Hill, but I think
my antagonist was creepier because he seemed to have foreknowledge of the main
character’s missing memories. My story is also much shorter than Hill’s.

Before you start accusing me of accusing Joe Hill of stealing from me. That would be
absurd. Is it possible? Sure. My story has been viewable online for a few years and
anyone willing to spend the money on a subscription can read it. The idea that Joe Hill
had the time to look up a relatively obscure online zine is rather difficult to swallow.
Besides, writers get ideas from other writers all the time. I once wrote a short story
about an abused child fantasizing that he has super powers after reading a similar story
by Horror Zine editor Jeani Rector.

So, no. I’m not making a case for plagiarism against one of my favorite authors. I firmly
believe ideas exist in a realm that can only be touched by those of us who are open to
them. Content dictates plagiarism. Hill’s content and mine differ markedly.

So what’s my point?

Simple: The basic idea behind both stories is similar. The executions are different. I am
me and Joe Hill is…well, Joe Freakin’ Hill. The man has earned the right to have his
work published through hard work, quality writing, proven sales and name recognition.
Would “Snapshot” have been published if I’d written it? It’s far from perfect but it’s a
compelling read, for sure. I struggled to find a receptive editor for “The Memory Thief,”
one close-minded individual actually criticizing the fact that the customer service rep
protagonist received several job offers when she decided to quit her job. Do you think
Joe Hill’s budding young engineer with the bizarre inventions faced similar scrutiny? It’s
doubtful. Again…Joe. Freakin’. Hill.

But what this tells me is my ideas are worth something. I have been published, after all.
All writers experience dry spells from time to time. Instead of being discouraged by Hill’s
story’s similarities to my own, I am cautiously encouraged.
That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind, but it does mean I might. I suppose that’s as
good as it gets right now~

Quote of the Week

"CHELSEA CLINTON has degrees from Stanford, Oxford, Columbia and NYU AND she lived in the White House for 8 years AND is the daughter of the former U.S. President, and U.S. Senator and Secretary of State... Ivanka is a really good shopper ..."

-From a comment on a Yahoo! article

How To Spot Fascism Before It’s Too Late

Artist Maia Kobabe has created a thought-provoking piece here.

Issac Marion's Fake Trump Tweet & The Death of Political Satire

Years ago during the opening credits of one of the Halloween specials "The Simpsons" does every year, one of the many gravestones with funny messages on them featured political satire as the dearly departed. As usual, the alien time travelers who write for that show foresaw the future in hilarious and frightening ways.

At the time, political satire was still viable, despite needing occasional trips to the doctor. However, the dominance of social media, something that should have been a force for increased knowledge and understanding of parody and satire, has actually aided in the swiftly encroaching loss of this most vital component of a supposedly free society. Instead, we're now moving towards an era where all attempts at irony become fodder for an increasingly easily offended population. And political affiliation is becoming meaningless, as the so-called "snowflake" mentality is just as prevalent among those on the Right as it is on the Left.

Recently, horror author Issac Marion who wrote the surprisingly engaging zombie romance satire "Warm Bodies" dared to post a humorous dialogue between himself and *urp* President Trump. I have also used the fake Trump Tweet app a few times. To my delight, nobody could tell if they were real or not in most cases. I never created a series of them like Marion because I knew some imbecile would screenshot it and, at some point, somebody would think they were real. It never occurred to me that a new breed of imbecile would find offense in the satire itself, but that's exactly what happened to him.

In a stunning display of contextual ignorance, angry people who thought the exchange was real and jumped to Marion's defense went on the offensive, reading him the riot act for daring to indulge a fiction writing exercise designed to make a point about a subject he finds repugnant. I'd mention the irony of the invective coming from members of the Left Wing, but since irony is a rapidly diminishing resource, I don't want to waste any of it by mentioning something so obvious.

Marion  breaks down his perceived "offenses" in list form, each point more ludicrous and asinine than the last. The most telling is Point #2, wherein he addresses an accusation of spreading the now ubiquitous and soon-to-be-meaningless concept of fake news. In his analysis, Marion writes:

I am a fiction writer. I wrote a fictional dialogue and posted it on my personal Twitter account, without any surrounding context to suggest that this was a real occurrence rather than just another bit of nonsense theater squirting out of my brain. If anyone thought it really mattered, a quick click to my profile—or Trump’s—would have revealed the truth. But no one bothered to do that because IT DIDN'T MATTER.

That's right, it didn't. People are so primed for and even seduced by the very notion of outrage now that fact-checking is regarded as quaint and wasteful. Not to toot my own horn, but my first instinct was to question the veracity of the reposting. It seemed too good to be true. Trump had finally crossed the line from journalism antagonist to displaying a woeful ignorance of the fiction writing process. And he'd chosen a lesser known writer to attack! Within moments, I'd discovered the truth and guess what? I was okay with it!

Granted, I'm a fiction writer as well and, while my renown is significantly lower even than Marion's self-described low number of followers, I am at least acquainted with the creative process. I don't expect everyone else to be, elitist as that may sound to those who aren't, but satire and parody are protected by the First Amendment! That means it's something all thinking Americans and indeed humans should know about.  There is no excuse for being so wrapped up in one's personal cause that harmless and entertaining humor becomes viewed as worthy of ridicule and scorn.

We are now entering a very dangerous era and it all started when the drawings of schoolchildren containing vaguely violent imagery became calls to the police and mandatory psychiatric sessions. Think of all the people of previous generations--people like me--whose writing and drawing could have ruined their lives in such a free thought hostile environment. Now the same preposterous censorship of the darker aspects of our minds are being scrutinized in authors by over-sensitive adults with too much time on their hands. These same people actually feel the need to write "sarcasm" after their barely sarcastic comments and insist that others do the same to avoid potential offense.

Isaac Marion created a satirical piece, mostly for his own amusement. Leave him the hell alone and get over yourselves.

Quote of the Week.

"The specter of the fuming President-elect railing against fake news, this from a man who had promoted for years the lie that President Barack Obama was not American and whose speeches on the campaign trail were often Briar patches of mendacity - was an irony verging on Shakespearean tragedy. But if Mr. Trump and his inner circle think that this type of authoritarian behavior will cow the press, I think they will find it will only embolden us."

-Dan Rather