When our children were young, I had a friend who told me that it was time for her five-year old son to go to school — she had taught him everything she could.

I looked at it this way: the teachers could teach my daughter all of that 3-R stuff — I was never good at it anyway. I could teach her about fine literature, art, the history of oriental carpets — and how to make tiny guest soaps from little plastic muffin pans and a microwave.

Okay, so all we did was buy the book with the soap recipes. We never actually got around to making the soap. It’s probably still on a bookshelf somewhere next to the books on One Hundred Ways to Braid Your Hair and How to Have an Archaeological Dig in Your Own Basement.

When she was about eleven, we reached a point where she had her own ideas, so her father and I invented mini-scholarships that we tucked into her Christmas stocking. I think that most of the money went for sheet music, extra flute lessons, and Judy Blume books. She still had plenty of time leftover for camping and fishing trips, cooking lessons, and documentaries on PBS.

There did come a day, when she was a senior in high school, that she said she’d learned all she could from me. It was time for her to move on. From what I could tell, she’d moved on to big hair, frosted eye shadow, and boys.

No! She couldn’t quit on me now, I still had so much to share with her! I was already looking into opera tickets, museum passes, and jazz concerts.

I was on the county art commission at the time. Each day, my mailbox was filled with colorful brochure from art galleries. I wanted to share them with her, but she couldn’t work me in between her hair curling and phone calls from boys. Stacks of colorful pamphlets stacked up on the windowsill of her room. Unread. I knew they were unread because they were covered with dust. Any parent who knows her stuff can tell you that printed materials in a teenager’s room that are actually being read are covered in food crumbs.

I had to do something fast. The stacks of art brochures were beginning to block out the light in her bedroom. Since the bedroom was already facing north, it got too little light to begin with. If one of us didn’t back down, she could be facing a health problem.

I made a mental note to start slipping vitamin D into her colas.

Each morning she sat cross-legged on the bathroom cabinet for at least thirty-minutes while she tortured and sprayed those straight locks into curls tight enough to last through outdoor gym class in the rain. There was only one curling iron, one electrical outlet, and one mirror. Desperation spawned inspiration. Maybe I could make that big hair work for me.

That night, I sat down and cut out each little picture from the brochures and taped them to the mirror right in front of where she sat to curl her hair. Some were beautiful. Some were funny. Some were just plain weird. Each day, after she went to bed, I put up new pictures. Each morning, she’d go into the bathroom and while the curling iron heated up, she’d take down the pictures — one by one. Over and over she asked me to put them someplace else. She never did catch on that they were just where I wanted them. In her way. Soon, the stack of art brochures on her windowsill was gone, although I noticed that it was still dusty.

She’s older now. Styles have changed. The hair is much shorter and less time consuming. The garish eye shadow has been replaced with more subtle colors, and the boys have been narrowed down to two: a husband and a young son.

She really has moved on, but I’ve kept those pictures in a file. Someday I might use them again — when my grandson decides that he’s learned all he needs to know from me. I’m thinking I’ll glue them all over the backboard on his basketball hoop. Now if I can just figure out how to get up there — and back down!

Copyright © 2002-2008 Janelle Meraz Hooper
Used by Permission
All Rights Reserved

Author bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

How to Fight Big Hair (Adventures in Raising a Teenager) is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Kids these days really have it made. I know this gets said a lot, but it’s the truth. They have it made, and then some.

I walked in on my two grocery killers yesterday afternoon, and they were talking about how they might spend the evening. Their conversation went something like this:

“I don’t know if I want to go see that movie. Maybe I’ll just stay here and surf the internet.” said Will, my son. My daughter Alison responded,

“My boyfriend Dave is coming over to get me. We’re going to a video arcade, then head out to the mall.”

Sure is a far cry from the entertainment activities I had available to me when I was growing up in suburban Juliette. Coming of age there, you really had to get creative when thinking up ways of entertaining yourself. In fact, one of my most vivid memories of this came when my brother Ernest and I began an ant war.

You heard me right – an ant war. They’re really not that hard to do, once you get the hang of them. Let me explain a little further.

I guess I was eleven or twelve, and my brother Ernest maybe ten when we found ourselves late one summer afternoon wandering around in our cow pasture. After kicking around for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, my brother stumbled into this big old mound of red ants. They weren’t fire ants or anything, just plain ole red ants. After watching them scamper around for a few minutes, we moved on. We hadn’t gotten fifteen feet further when we discovered yet another hill, this one full of black ants. Ernest, who knew lots about nature, told me that the sparks would fly if those black ants bumped into those red ones. I asked, “What do you mean, the sparks would fly?”

He replied, “Edward, two opposite tribes of ants like that will fight to the death if they meet up with each other. And you figure with two big hills like those, it’d be an out and out ant war if they discover each other.”

My mind started racing, and I wanted to see if he was right. I asked him,

“Ernest, anyway we can help that war get started?”

He smiled, nodded, and walked over to a honeysuckle vine loaded with blossoms. Pulling a piece off, he handed it over to me and said,

“Just swish it around in that red ant hill.”

I figured there was nothing to lose, so I walked over and brushed those blossoms all around that hill. It didn’t take any time before red ants covered those flowers. When they were full, Ernest said,

“Now, air lift our troups over to the black ant hill.”

I did exactly that. I walked over and put that honeysuckle stem right down into that black ant hill.

Ernest turned out to be one hundred percent right. The red ants came off the stem and immediately started fighting the black ones. It was all very exciting, but the black ants had greater numbers, so the red ants started wearing down. When Ernest noticed that, he ordered me to airlift even more red ants. So I did, going back and forth several times with reinforcements.

It did the trick. The red ones slowly overtook the black ones, and finally they evacuated their own hill. The red ants had won!

Ernest and I left feeling pretty satisfied, and over the next several weeks we had even more ant wars. Before long, red ants were all over the place, and the black ones had all moved to a singular new hill. And then one day, the strangest thing happened. We noticed the black ants had taken over a couple of the red ant hills on their own. Ernest said that happened because the red ants were strung out all over the place, had too much ground to cover, and the black ones hit them when they were weakest. It made perfect sense, and I had to agree with him. And then it hit me that those ants were behaving a lot like people do – we seem to have our worst problems when we’re too spread out, and then we have to pay the price, just like those red ants did.

I wonder if my kids learned anything like that at the video arcade last night….

Copyright  2002-2008 Ed Williams
Used by permission.
All Rights Reserved.

Author Bio:

Free Wheelin’ is a weekly humor column from The Monroe County Reporter, and now syndicated to other Georgia newspapers. Ed Williams is the author of Sex, Dead Dogs, and Me: The Paperback. His second book of humorous essays is Rough As A Cob: More Juliette Journals. You can learn more about him by visiting his Web site.

Free Wheelin’ is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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I don’t watch the news; it’s boring and takes up too much of my precious time. I don’t read the paper; it takes way too much time and has too much useless crap in it. So how do I stay in touch with the world? I listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered on NPR. It’s always top-notch reporting and relevant news. Every morning on my way to work, and every afternoon on my way home (to the bar) … I listen to my NPR.

I used to, anyway … before they went on strike. Except they have a special name for their strike: It’s called a “Spring Fund Raiser.”

Whatever.

When you refuse to work until you get more money, that’s a strike, baby.

It takes me on average 45 minutes to get to work in the morning. I turned on the radio this morning, and was greeted by the lovely sounds of Bob Edwards’ voice reading some headlines. Yeah, for about a minute! After that I spent 44 minutes listening to him and others beg me for money.

Now, I’m no business major, and those guys on NPR always seem a whole lot smarter than I, but this just can’t be a good source of income. Last time I checked I was broke. I hear them all the time, at the end of the show, where Bob will announce, “Morning Edition was brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and General Electric.” I’m pretty sure Mr. Edwards is never going to say, “Morning Edition was brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Dave.” Maybe they should stick with GE; they seem to have a whole lot more money than I do.

So what is a morning commuter to do? I think about it, then it hits me. I’ll listen to that new 80′s station that Atlanta just got, WMAX. I’ve listened to it before and it was awesome. They play music just like in the 80′s — the good, the bad, and the ugly (e.g., Depeche Mode, Tiffany, and Steve Perry). I start to get really excited as I tune into it, and….

Oh sweet Lord, no. It can’t be. It is! The only thing worse than morning shock jock talk radio: syndicated morning shock jock talk radio!

It’s always the same, too. One raging moron who happens to be louder than anyone else, surrounded by 12 guffawing yes-men. Constantly making inane jokes about Robert Blake and whatever reality-based TV show came on the night before. There’s got to be some kind of FCC regulation against morasses of asininity such as this.

It’s bad enough that I’m going to start my day completely uninformed of the world’s events, now I have to start my day missing a few more IQ points. To give an example of their gross lack of intelligent and relevant discussions, they brought up an intern who, as is any reasoning member of society, is afraid of clowns. These bozos (no pun intended) couldn’t even comprehend why people are afraid of clowns!

Clowns are scary because they’re freaking clowns, man, CLOWNS. Any man who wears makeup and tries to get close to children is a freaking monster. He should be locked up in a padded room only to have company with the phallic balloon animals he creates.

I absolutely love zombie films. They’re great. Movies about undead corpses that eat living human flesh. Oddly, that’s not scary. Why? Because I can walk. Oh no, a zombie that wants my brains is coming, what do I do? I walk away, that’s what. A zombie can only crawl at a pace of a half mile an hour. Therefore, a zombie is only a threat when I’m sleeping and I’m too busy trying not to think about clowns and Muppets to sleep anyway.

Yeah, I said it, Muppets. They’re the most horrible things to ever walk the earth, ever. And they’re REAL. People always tell me, “But Dave, how can you be scared of Elmo? He’s so cute.” First off, because I don’t trust anything or anyone with a lisp that bad, and secondly, because he’s friends with the cookie monster. Good Lord, what happens when the cookie monster gets burnt out on cookies and decides to become the flesh monster?

And how in the world do you stop a Muppet? At least with zombies you can split their heads open (Dum-dum bullets and shovels both work nicely, too.) and they’re dead. A Muppet?!?! Shoot, man, a Muppet is made of plush! Shoot it all you want, it loses a squiggly eye and some stuffing and it’s still coming to eat you.

There should be a federal mandate that requires all Muppets to be made out of the most flammable material possible, so when they turn on you, you can kill them with a cigarette butt. Yeah, non-smokers are screwed, but that’s none of my concern. However, I bet Jim Henson made them out of asbestos, not only to resist fire, but also to give children cancer.

The scariest thing is that somebody in charge of creating educational kids’ television programming decided instead to create unstoppable killing machines. You know why Jim Henson’s dead? Because the Count sucked the blood out of his veins and then ate him! On a side note, the Count enjoys counting the number of victims he’s consumed.

Holy crap! I just came up with a solution! Bury all the Muppets in a cave in Afghanistan, cancel Sesame Street, and use the proceeds to put NPR back on the air. The only thing scary about Morning Edition is host Bob Edwards’ face.

Damnit, now I’m gonna be scared of NPR.

Author bio:

Dave Maez is a freelance hacker, aspiring social commentator, and self-denying imbecile. His weekly column, Idiocy, appears in more than 4 email inboxes nationwide. You can reach the author by email.

NPR Goes on Strike, Dave Runs from the Muppets is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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School vacation was already one week old, and nothing exciting had happened. My new Buck Rogers rocket watch said it was at least nine o’clock, and my cousin Billy was still slopping down breakfast. I made tons of noise while waiting outside on the back steps hoping that would speed him up. Already too late to go fishing, but we probably would try anyway. We hadn’t caught anything but bullheads so far, and they were the only fish I couldn’t eat, even if I had both caught and cleaned the ugly mud puppies. Billy would and did, though. He would eat anything yet he was as skinny as I and almost as tall. Except for Eunice and Mirabelle, I was the tallest kid in sixth grade in Le Center, Minnesota.

“Billy! That’s enough cornflakes. You’ve had two bowls already, and your Dad will want something to puke out, if he ever gets up. Put your bowl in the sink, and go try to wake your Dad,” said my Aunt Mary, very crabbily. I stopped whistling, and whittling with my new boy scout knife, and hunkered down quiet.

“Crap!” Billy’s Dad had been on a toot, again. Usually, he just fell of the wagon on Saturday nights, but this was Saturday and a half workday for Uncle Boog at the Le Center Creamery where he was the newly promoted, Chief Cheese-maker.

Our Grandpa Kelly was an Irish bartender and that made him an expert on boozing. Grandpa always said that no one was a drunkard unless they got drunk two days in a row. I hoped Uncle Boog wouldn’t qualify, drunk again on Saturday.

It seemed like hours and still no Billy, but time passed slow waiting but time was flying where our short and precious summer vacation was concerned. The screen door finally banged open, and Billy came out quietly, followed by his surprisingly healthy father, Boog Kelly, who should have been at the creamery.

“Well, now who’s this bum sitting hungrily on my steps, waiting for a handout. Damned if it don’t look like me brother’s child, Gary.” He tousled my hair affectionately and said, “But Gary wouldn’t prefer to sit on the back stoop, like as if we wouldn’t want him at our table.”

Billy winked, and started unlocking his bicycle tethered to the porch railing, as if somebody would steal his rickety hand-me-down bicycle.

“Hello, Uncle Boog,” I said, hoping for a quick and uncomplicated get-a-way.

“Tell your Mom, don’t buy any cheese dated, June 6, 1951, as it won’t be Le Center’s finest. I took the day off to mourn and bury Dad and my helper ain’t quite got the hang of cheesemaking yet.” It was then, I noticed the large stoneware crock he was holding. Grandpa had died last fall, racing the Great Northern Streamliner to the Lexington road
crossing. Because the impact caused Grandpa’s home-made Irish whiskey to explode, cremation was the family’s only logical choice for his remains — which was unfortunate because most Le Center Lutherans believe that you arise from the grave on Judgment Day, just as you are.

I was curious why Uncle Boog waited until today to bury his dad’s ashes and why he chose a Friday night for mourning, instead of Saturday, when he could sleep late. I was curious enough to ask, “Where you going to put Grandpa?” not at all sure that I wanted to know, or that Uncle Boog would tell me the real truth. He was always teasing, like Grandpa did in his saloon, where everyone came to hear his wild stories, even those listeners who only drank Kelly’s home made genuine Sarsparilla and Nerve Tonic, thinking that it was alcohol free.

That locally famous drink was Billy and my main source of income, until Dad started teaching me the value of a dollar by working for him at Gunder’s Cosmetics and mail order house. Grandpa bought the bottles for his elixir from Billy and me. We gathered empty bottles, getting two cents for beer bottles and a penny for ketchup or pop bottles. Grandpa bottled his elixir only in bottles Billy and I supplied. He brewed it in a large cauldron, just like witches use. Some folks said, it was mostly Catnip and Indian Hemp, but Grandpa never let anyone watch him mix his drink, so one could only guess.

Uncle Boog, took a long time to answer like he was just deciding.

“Grandpa, always wanted to travel, and never did. He loved to visit with people, really get inside them and see what they believe. I think I will go to the creamery, grind up his ashes with the peppercorns for our pepper cheese, and let him travel everywhere we send our cheese.” Then Uncle Boog paused, looking a bit pale and strained. He set the crock down on the top step, and ran back in the house.

“He was teasing, wasn’t he?” I asked Billy, remembering how Uncle Boog fooled you except when you thought he was, he wasn’t. “Remember when he said he tanned your butt for selling Grandpa that case of beer bottles, and we thought he was teasing?”

Billy rubbed his butt, while remembering that walloping, “He said he was sorry afterward. Just the thought of all that beer going to waste made him temporarily mad at me.” The case of stolen beer Billy and I had found hidden in a culvert under the tracks to the lake, had no value to us, except as empty bottles worth two cents, and we had uncapped and emptied the whole case, taking the empties to Grandpa’s Bide-a-Wee Tavern.

Boog caught Billy returning the borrowed bottle opener to the kitchen drawer, and insisted on knowing why it was borrowed. Billy was not a good liar like me, though I sure have coached him. Grandpa had thought Boog’s outrage was funny, and told everyone. Uncle Boog
didn’t laugh or think it funny at all.

“We can’t let him do it,” I said. “Maybe that would poison people, or make their teeth fall out like Grandpa’s.”

Billy nodded in agreement, shushing me, and grabbing hold of the crock.

We carried it back to the woodshed and garage, at the end of the lot, then returned and started a game of mumbledy-peg with my new knife, while we waited for Uncle Boog to reappear. I had Billy forced to pull the almost buried peg with his teeth when we heard the telephone ring, and soon Uncle Boog came out, almost running.

“Tell Ma, I’m at the creamery; my assistant walked off the job.” He loped down the alley toward the creamery on B street, totally forgetting the crocked remains of Grandpa.

Learning responsibility, I worked Saturday afternoons at Gunder’s. I swept the floors while everyone was off, and the plant empty. I hated working when others weren’t but my Dad wasn’t like his brother Boog at all. Dad wanted me to learn the work ethic and the value of money. I had only a couple of fun hours ahead before my janitorial chores, but I had a grand inspiration. Work wasn’t too bad if you had company.

“Hey Billy, I know where to put Grandpa, and he will absolutely love it. Gramps will travel all over the world and will have intimate contact with lots of beautiful girls. Absolutely love it.” (I had deliberately used one of Billy’s favorite words, since we had looked it up in the school library’s big Webster Dictionary)

“Oh, and where’s that, pinhead?” he said, casually but I knew I would have him helping me sweep floors in the dusty mixing room, just as surely as Tom Sawyer had Huck’s help painting fence.

“At my job! There’s a big tank they keep the talcum powder in. We can drop Grandpa’s ashes in and the vibrator will mix him in with all the other stuff they blend in the face and body powders. Gunder’s ships that stuff all over the world. Gramps would love being slathered on a lot of pretty girl’s butts. He never could get close enough to those huge, old ladies that hung out at his tavern.”

Without even asking about the work we would have to do first, Billy had agreed. We scrounged around in the woodshed for something to put grandpa’s ashes in. We needed a handled container so could carry him on our bikes. We found an empty pail that once held three gallons of pickled pimentos, flavoring for LeCenter’s finest pepper cheese but now gathering dust under Grandpa’s old workbench. Without spilling any of Grandpa in that dirty old shed, we got him in with the residue of a million dried pimentos. Someone sneezed and I thought it was Grandpa, until I saw Billy backhand the snotty remains on his jeans.

Gunder’s was closed Saturday’s but us important personnel knew a spare key hung on a nail under the loading dock. I opened the door and said, “Let’s do sweep-up first, so we can include Grandpa when we dump the sweepings in the mixer.”

Billy, just laughed and said, “I knew there was a reason you didn’t sprinkle Grandpa out the pail while we rode out to the lake!” I forgot to tell you, that was his brilliant plan. Sprinkling Grandpa all over town, like the water they used to settle the dust on Le Center’s streets during summer would be an insult to a man never ever found laying in a gutter, like his youngest son Boog often occupied.

“Okay, we’ll mix Grandpa in the powder, first. You can go fishing alone while I do the sweeping. I grabbed the pail from Billy and walked to the ladder to the steep steps that went to the platform surrounding the top of the powder vat. “You can come up, Billy, but don’t make any sparks. No smoking because this fine dust is explosive like gunpowder. That’s why my clean up job is so important.”

Billy mumbled something I didn’t catch. He didn’t smoke but he always had candy cigarettes he’d selfishly suck on without sharing. I think cigarette companies made them so kids would think it was cool pretending to smoke. Ma wouldn’t let me have them, so I didn’t get any when they closed Grandpa’s place. Boog and Billy got most of the goodies.

We went to the top, about sixteen feet above the floor where a noisy belt conveyer brought up big sacks of finely ground flour, stinky flower parts, and powdered rock. A slick vibrator and air pump was used to mix the ingredients and fluff it up. I turned it on so Grandpa would be spread thoroughly through the gigantic vat, and soon the level of fluffy powder rose near to the top, though it had been less than half full.

“Pry off the lid, Billy. Be careful of the powder, it’s really slippery stuff and look how far down it is.” Billy looked dizzily down, handed me the un-opened pail, and started back down the steps.

I stood, looking at the powder fluffing, prying off the lid, and must have pried too hard, slipping sideways on the powdered steel grating. Taking three small steps, to regain balance, one of my feet went over the edge where I teetered, one hand grasping for the opened the safety railing, grandpa’s pail handle firmly held in the other.

I did not float in the fluffed up powder, but grandpa and his pail did, a full arm’s length over my head at the powder’s surface. The vat full of suffocating powder was much deeper than I could survive, and it was many seconds of frustrated kicking before I realized, what held my right arm erect. Grabbing the pail handle with both hands, I reached the surface and by wrapping my arms around the buoyant pail, got my head high enough to breath.

“Billy, shut off the vibrator,” I yelled but my voice was stifled by a mouthful of powder. My vision was blocked by a pasty coating of powder. I yelled again, a little louder but Billy did not answer.

Just a little calmer, I realized the seriousness of my predicament, and thought of how I might survive. Firmly holding the can of Grandpa’s ashes, I tried kicking to the side of the bin, but swimming did not work in the fluffed up powder. Blinking did not clear my eyes, so my fate was in the hand of rescuers that would come only if they knew I was there.

“Billy, please get help. You won’t be in trouble. Please get help,” I said in my Sunday company voice. He did not answer. I hoped that he had gone for help, but knew that was a long shot. Billy would not want to be a part of my predicament because his Dad was extra mean when he was sick. He was usually just sick Sundays, but this week, Uncle Boog had a head start.

I thought the can holding me up was sinking, fine powder sifting in past the lid maybe. My dilemma was getting worse and then the plant’s fire alarm began warbling. If the flames reached the powder vat, I would escape, but in a ball of flame, streaking across the town like a sky rocket.

I could hear the siren of LeCenter voluntary Fire Department’s big American-La France fire engine, and it was coming closer. I sniffed for tell tale smoke but could only smell the lilac smell of the powder clogging my nostrils. The siren grew louder and louder.

I heard Gunder’s front door burst open and Le Center’s Fire fighters burst into the mixing room, and clambered up to my mixing platform area. They had came for me and I was never so glad to see anyone. Even Uncle Boog in his yellow slicker and big fire hat looked good to me.

“Where’s Grandpa?” Uncle Boog asked.

“Mixed in the bath powder,” I said, worrying whether he would punish me for losing Grandpa’s ashes, or just Billy, for calling the fire department. Instead, Uncle Boog totally surprised me.

“You and Billy come by the fire station. Soon as I get out of my gear, we’ll go to Whelan’s Drug Store and get us all a double size chocolate sundae. We’ve got to do something important so we will always remember the day we buried grandpa.”

And, of course, we still do.

Copyright © 2002-2008 Gerald Bosacker
All Rights Reserved.

Author Bio:

(Author bio not available.)

Burying Grandpa is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Grandpappy always put on those long handles when the leaves fell from the trees and the weather turned cold. He sure looked funny but I guess he kept warm. With gray-white hair which covered most of his head, the gray-black stubble which grew on his face, and the wiry-red fleece of the long johns which seemed like red hair growing all over the rest of his body, he looked like some sort of a cross between a bear and an old man.

I was just a young boy then, but I never will forget that night in October when we were awakened by what grandpappy thought was the cry of a wildcat. We had more than two hundred head of chicken then and he was afraid a cat was after the chickens.

Grandpappy stalked over to the fireplace and lifted his double-barreled shotgun from the wooden pegs. Following close behind him, I noticed that the flap to his red flannels was unbuttoned and hanging down, but I didn’t dare call this to his attention.

Now on our farm there were three bloodhounds. They always slept under the house. So, when we crept out the door onto the porch and down the porch steps into the backyard, the dogs woke up. The chickens, which were perched in the trees near the house began rustling a bit. Aside from that, everything seemed all right.

The air was cold and crisp and the moon was shining down through the trees. I stood near the far end of the porch, jogging lightly from foot to foot, rubbing my arms, trying to control the involuntary chattering of my teeth.

Grandpappy — poised, ready, his trap door hanging down exposing two shiny, white cheeks — was looking up into the trees, trying to locate a silhouette which didn’t belong. As he was studying the shapes in the trees — his left hand above his brow guarding his eyes from the brightness of the moon’s light and his right hand on the trigger guard, the index finger curved about the trigger — one of the bloodhounds stretched, moved stealthily over to behind Grandpappy, and put a cold, wet nose right where the flap was down.

Grandpappy leaped into the air and both barrels went off.

At least a dozen of the chickens were blown to kingdom come.

We spent the next morning pickin’ up those parts of the chickens that had fallen back to earth.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Richard H. Williams
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Richard H. Williams’ work has appeared in the Journal of Modern Literature and in several other academic journals. He is the author of Probability, Statistics, and Random Processes for Engineers and a co-author of Modern Elementary Statistics. His short stories have been published in Demensions, Naked Poetry, Another Night and Day Alliance, Drinking Stories, and Writers’ Choice Literary Journal. You can reach the author by email.

Grandpappy’s Red Flannels is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Elvis is still alive. I know it. I have proof. And I don’t mean the kind of proof where some guy who’s had too much beer stops at a local filling station and sees Elvis filling up his Eldorado with regular gas. What a joke. Everyone knows that Elvis uses super.

And I don’t mean like that guy outside of the basketball arena waving a sign that says, “Elvis parks here.” Everyone knows that Elvis is way too cool for basketball.

No, I’m talking about tangible down-to-earth evidence that the King of Rock n’ Roll is alive and well — and living in my computer.

Yep. That’s what I said. Right here in my computer that I call Ole Trigger because he doesn’t have enough guts to boot up all of my fancy equipment on the same day, much less at the same time.

Whenever I want to do anything more complicated than word-processing, I have to load the color printer, print, delete the non-color printer and drivers, and let Ole Trigger rest for a day or so. Then I can load the color scanner, do my scanning, delete the scanner from my hard drive, re-load the non-color printer and its drivers, and let Trigger rest again for a couple of days until it feels up to fetching my emails. Sometimes, if my preacher cousin sends me a long message, Ole Trigger just gets all tuckered out and has to be rebooted. I keep a special pair of cowboy boots next to my PC just for this purpose.

As far as I can tell, Elvis moved into my computer a few days before
the Fourth of July. That’s when I sent a color poster of Elvis to my editor, who’s an Elvis fan, wishing her Happy Fourth! It was a photo that showed Elvis in all his glory: gold metallic suit, slick pompadour hair, and white buck shoes.

Of course he had that special look of his on his face, like he’d just
jammed a guitar pick up his nose and was wondering if he wanted to get it out or just leave it there because it felt good. It was pure, vintage Elvis, and I blew it up full size before I sent it to her via email. I should have known something had gone wrong when she said she never got it. Come to find out: that’s because he never left!

He took up 486 bits or bytes or whatever that stuff is called, but he
was kind of cool, so I didn’t delete him right away like I should have. A
few days later, I began to find strange messages on my computer when I brought up my screen in the morning. Messages like, “Warning! Your memory system is running dangerously low. Norton antivirus system may not be working correctly.” Oh, happy 99! Oh, Melissa!

I went into Trigger’s guts and started deleting everything that wouldn’t make me stop breathing if I didn’t have it. I even deleted-augh!-Elvis,
but the messages kept coming: “Warning, warning! Danger! Danger!”

The next time I used my graphics software, I noticed that Elvis was
still on the menu. I deleted him. He came back. I deleted him again. He came back again. By now, his lips were starting to move, and his suit was beginning to shimmer. I don’t know why he doesn’t leave, except that maybe he’s finally found someplace to hide out where people have to leave him alone — sort of like having Heartbreak Hotel all to himself, maybe.

For myself, I’ve given up and just deleted Norton. I know when I’m
beat. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up and hear a lonesome voice in my computer singing, “Ho-oold me close, ho-oold me tight . . . make me thri-illll with dee-lighttt . . . .”

Sure beats anything I ever heard from Norton.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Janelle Meraz Hooper
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

Elvis Has Left the Building — and Is Living In My Computer is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Over the years, I’ve learned to fear party games. If I’m at someone’s house with a hundred other people I don’t know (and maybe one who I actually do know), and I see someone pulling out some kind of board game, I feel such a strong physical force coming from the game that I suddenly have to go to the bathroom – really bad – and I stay there for the rest of the evening.

Party games, your host/hostess will tell you, are designed to loosen everyone up and force them to get to know each other. That task should be left to alcohol. What party games are actually designed to do is embarrass everyone but the host/hostess and make everyone go home and regret ever attending that stupid party.

If you ever consider playing a game at a party, first consider the fact that you will most definitely lose. Think about how you’re a sore loser when sober, and then multiply that by the number of drinks you’ve had. Also think about your natural ability to make a fool of yourself, and multiply that by the number of drinks you’ve had. Then consider the number of drinks you’ve had and decide that it’s past time to visit the bathroom. Then stay there.

Party games always favor the host/hostess. After all, he or she owns the game and would never have brought it out at a major social function if it weren’t something that he or she had already mastered. After all, how many times have you gone to the home of the village idiot and watched him suggest that everyone play Trivial Pursuit? It doesn’t happen.

In addition, your host/hostess has already played this game enough times to know all of the answers. And if you even try to win, you’ll be thrown out of the house and never invited back.

The following is a partial list of a number of games that you should never even consider playing at a party:

Twister
This was a great game when you were in junior high and just wanted to get closer to that one kid who sat next to you in history class. Now, however, you’re a grown-up. Your competitors will consist of your boss, that slimy guy from down the street, and miscellaneous fat old people (which, if your honest with yourself, probably includes you).

Besides, you’re getting older. It doesn’t take much to break a hip anymore.

Charades
This game’s purpose is to make you look as stupid as possible while everyone else laughs at you and comes up with humiliating nicknames, which they will call you at the office for the rest of your life. No one will ever really, seriously attempt to guess the correct answer. They’ll guess completely irrelevant stuff to make you more frustrated – and to keep you doing your goofy little dance for as long as time allows.

Pictionary
Even if you’re the greatest artist alive, the presence of a timer will cause your hurried sketches to instantly look like something straight off the wall in a preschool classroom. After you finish drawing, your opponents and your teammates alike will point at the things you scribbled as they snicker and ask, “What was that?” in a very nasty tone of voice. Also remember that the more drinks you consumed before picking up the pencil, the more people will tease you about your attempted sketches.

Pin the Tail on the Donkey
If one of your friends actually wants to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey, it ‘s a sure sign that you need to find new friends. Leave and never come back.

Trivial Pursuit
The questions in this game were created to stump 99% of the population. This includes you. Thus, this game will continue until everyone gets tired and all answers are “close enough” or until next Thursday – whichever comes first.

Anything Involving Money
The more you drink, the more confident you are that you can win lots of money by playing a simple game. And the more you drink, the less likely you are to actually know what you’re doing. Beware of the person who’s been serving you drinks but not drinking. That will be the same person who will ask you to make a “friendly wager” on the next game.

The preceding list is, of course, incomplete. In addition, it also includes, well, pretty much any other party game. The only exceptions to the rule are games such as Outburst, in which so many people are yelling at the same time that no one will notice that you’re not saying anything. And when someone shouts out a correct answer, you can say, “I said that! Didn’t you hear me?”

Just to recap, if someone retrieves a party game out of some closet somewhere, you know what to do, right? That’s right – head for the bathroom. Making up a family emergency is also acceptable. Or tell everyone that you suddenly remembered that poison ivy is extremely contagious and rush out the door.

If you leave before the games begin, I guarantee that you’ll have much fonder memories of the party than anyone who’s forced to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

And your dignity will thank you for it.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 J. Kristin Dreyer
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

J. Kristin Dreyer is an advertising drone turned freelance writer and an admitted writing addict (but if there were some kind of 12-step program for writing addicts, there’s no way she’d join). Her articles may be found at a number of former Web sites, including Australian Your Wedding Plan and Society Check.

###

Party Games Gone Bad is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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by Pamela Rice Hahn

The way I figure it, there are men out there overlooking the opportunity to find the perfect mistress. A PWC.

Granted, there are many with this chronic, nonfatal illness who are already married. However, there are also many who aren’t. So, without going into any discussion of this author’s current status, let’s consider the possibilities.

The first advantage is obvious. Imagine a woman who never complains that her lover doesn’t take her anywhere. Why? Because, usually, she doesn’t want to leave the house anyhow. Trips to the outside require a great deal of coordination. Resting up before the trek. The crash and necessary additional rest afterwards. It’s easier to just stay home.

One writer I know (quite well, in fact) suggests, perhaps, a rich Republican looking for a ghost writer. “I figure I could be his legitimate (intimate) business expense,” she says.

Just think of it! All the benefits without the worry about her ever writing any of those pesky memoirs later. Ghost writers sign nondisclosure agreements, after all.

Beyond that, there are few requirements or restrictions.

In this theoretical relationship, the guy sets her up in, say, a condo on a lake. For the sake of discussion, we’ll assume she also has MCS (multiple chemical sensitivities), so the apartment will require all-electric heat and air conditioning. An air-filtration system would be nice; one for the water supply is a must – to get rid of that nasty chlorine. The second phone line for the Internet access is a given. An unlimited amazon.com account is optional, but could lead to many advantages. A well-read mistress is a contented one, I’ve heard. But other than the masseuse (for therapeutic purposes, of course), cleaning lady, and occasional catered meals, that’s about it.

Sure! A PWC could take the easy way out and go in search of a nice wealthy widower, but then he might want a social life. A PWC prefers snuggling on the sofa, watching a video, or reading aloud or being read to instead of a night on the town any day. It’s part of the acceptance of the condition.

The partner has no concerns about the PWC hitting the single’s circuit, which is a plus. As long as he’s devoted, neither has to worry about any latex allergies. That allows for a freedom of expression often restricted in this day and age. Oh, the attractiveness of a life of wild monkey sex and writing. Not at the same time, of course … although the newer voice recognition software packages do show promise….

Occasional face-to-face conversations are nice, too. But based on my informal survey, as long as he meets the job satisfaction standards, there may be a PWC (a widow) willing to continue just chatting with her online friends and with her (theoretical married and living away from home) daughter.

One of the first requirements of accepting any life-changing condition is redefining one’s definition of success. So, who knows? Maybe marriage isn’t always the practical objective for one with limited energies. Maybe value judgments and a lifetime of moral standards should be set aside. A necessary measure for an exceptional circumstance. Perhaps being a mistress wouldn’t have to be a compromise. It could simply be a part of adapting to yet another lifestyle change.

It’s something to think about.

But also something that, I’m sure, is easier to ponder in theory than in practice. Life, after all, does come with strings attached.

###

Copyright © 2001-2007 Pamela Rice Hahn
All Rights Reserved

Author bio:

Pamela Rice Hahn is the author of Teach Yourself Grammar and Style in 24 Hours, The Everything Improve Your Writing Book, The Everything Low-Salt Cookbook, and others. In addition to her editing and design work on The Blue Rose Bouquet; Pam has also created a number of other Web sites, including CookingWithPam, GenealogyTips, Fawnn.com, Chronic-Illness.org, TShirtCollections.com, and The Observational Therapist. You can learn more about her by visiting her personal Web site. This essay is from Pam’s unpublished book, Rhymes and Reasons: Coping with Chronic Illness, CFS, FM, MCS, and Other Stuff.

Some of Pam’s chronic illness and conditions t-shirt and gift designs include:

CFS WARNING Gift Gear Index

CFS Sucks! Gift Ideas Index (that features this graphic)	Index for this”I’m not lazy. It’s a relapse!” design.	CFIDS Sucks! Gift Ideas Index (that features this graphic)
“My To Do List” Index	T-shirts & Gift Gear Index featuring this slogan	View Placebo Effect 2 T-Shirts and Gift Ideas (that feature this graphic
View entire T-shirts & Gift Gear Index (that feature this graphic)	“I’m Sick & Tired of being Sick & Tired” Index	T-shirts & Gift Gear Index featuring this graphic

Index for Disabling Chronic Illness Warning T-Shirts and Gifts

PWC*: An Untapped Possibility is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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and other information about Michael O’Donoghue.

Note: Keep in mind that this article was written in the 1970′s. It’s still timely. As a matter of fact, I believe you’ll get some insight into what influenced Dave Barry’s writing and probably the South Park creators, too. Read more about Michael O’Donoghue at the end of this article.

“If I could not earn a penny from my writing, I would earn my livelihood at something else and continue to write at night.”
- Irving Wallace

“Financial success is not the only reward of good writing. It brings to the writer rich inner satisfaction as well.”
- Eliot Foster, Director of Admissions, Famous Writers School

Introduction

A long time ago, when I was just starting out, I had the good fortune to meet the great Willa Cather. With all the audacity of youth, I asked her what advice she would give the would-be-writer and she replied:

“My advice to the would-be-writer is that he start slowly, writing short undemanding things, things such as telegrams, flip-books, crank letters, signature scarves, spot quizzes, capsule summaries, fortune cookies and errata. Then, when he feels he’s ready, move up to the more challenging items such as mandates, objective correlatives, passion plays, pointless diatribes, minor classics, manifestos, mezzotints, oxymora, exposes, broadsides, and papal bulls.

And above all, never forget that the pen is mightier than the plow-share. By this I mean that writing, all in all, is a hell of a lot more fun than farming. For one thing, writers seldom, if ever, have to get up at five o’clock in the morning and shovel manure. As far as I’m concerned, that gives them the edge right there.”

She went on to tell me many things, both wonderful and wise, probing the secrets of her craft, showing how to weave a net of words and capture the fleeting stuff of life. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten every bit of it.

I do recall, however, her answer when I asked “If you could only give me one rule to follow, what would it be?” She paused, looked down for a moment and finally said, “Never wear brown shoes with a blue suit.”

There’s very little I could add to that except to say “Go to it and good luck!”

Lesson 1 – The Grabber

The “grabber” is the initial sentence of a novel or short story designed to jolt the reader out of his complacency and arouse his curiosity, forcing him to press onward. For example:

“It’s no good, Alex,” she rejoined, “Even if I did love you, my father would never let me marry an alligator.”

The reader is immediately bombarded with questions, questions such as “Why won’t her father let her marry an alligator?” “How come she doesn’t love him?” and “Can she learn to love him in time?” The reader’s interest has been “grabbed”!

Just so there’ll be no misunderstanding about grabbers, I’ve listed a few more below:

“I’m afraid you’re too late,” sneered Zoltan. “The fireplace has already flown south for the winter!”

Sylvia lay sick among the silverware…

Chinese vegetables mean more to me than you do, my dear,” Charles remarked to his wife, adding injury to insult by lodging a grapefruit knife in her neck.

“I have in my hands,” Professor Willobee exclaimed, clutching a sheaf of papers in his trembling fingers and pacing in circles about the carpet while I stood at the window, barely able to make out the Capitol dome through the thick, churning for that rolled in off the Potomac, wondering to myself what matter could possibly be so urgent as to bring the distinguished historian bursting into my State Department office at the unseemly hour, “definitive proof that Abraham Lincoln was a homo!”

These are just a handful of the possible grabbers. Needless to say, there are thousands of others, but if you fail to think of them, feel free to use any or all of these.

Lesson 2 – The Ending

All too often, the budding author finds that his tale has run its course and yet he sees no way to satisfactorily end it, or, in literary parlance, “wrap it up.” Observe how easily I resolve this problem:

Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck.
-the end-

If the story happens to be set in England, use the same ending, slightly modified:

Suddenly, everyone was run over by a lorry.
-the end-

If set in France:

Soudaincment, tout le monde etait ecrass par un camion.
-finis-

You’ll be surprised at how many different settings and situations this ending applies to. For instance, if you were writing a story about ants, it would end “Suddenly, everyone was run over by a centipede.” In fact, this is the only ending you ever need use.*

*Warning – if you are writing a story about trucks, do not have the trucks run over by a truck. Have the trucks run over by a mammoth truck.

Lesson 3 – Choosing A Title

A friend of mine recently had a bunch of articles rejected by the Reader’s Digest and, unable to understand why, he turned to me for advice. I spotted the problem at a glance. His titles were all wrong. By calling his pieces such things as “Unwed Mothers – A Head Start on Life,” “Cancer – The Incurable Disease,” “A Leading Psychologist Explains Why There Should Be More Violence on Television,” “Dognappers I Have Known and Loved,” “My Baby Was Born Dead and I Couldn’t Care Less,” and “Pleasantville – Last of the Wide-Open Towns,” he had seriously misjudged his market. To steer him straight, I drew up this list of all-purpose surefire titles:

________ at the Crossroads
The Case for ________
The Role of ________
Coping with Changing ________
A Realistic Look at ________
The ________ Experience
Bridging the ________ Gap
A ________ for All Seasons

Simply fill in the blanks with the topic of your choice and, if that doesn’t work you can always resort to the one title that never fails:

South America, the Sleeping Giant on our Doorstep

Lesson 4 – Exposition

Perhaps the most difficult technique for the fledgling writer to master is proper treatment of exposition. Yet watch the sly, subtle way I “set the scene” of my smash play, The Last to Know, with a minimum of words and effort.

(The curtain opens on a tastefully appointed dining room, the table ringed by men in tuxedos and women in costly gowns. There is a knock at the door.)

LORD OVERBROOKE: Oh, come in, Lydia. Allow me to introduce my dinner guests to you. This is Cheryl Heatherton, the madcap soybean heiress whose zany antics actually mask a heart broken by her inability to meaningfully communicate with her father, E. J. Heatherton, seated to her left, who is too caught up in the heady world of high finance to sit down and have a quiet chat with his own daughter, unwanted to begin with, disposing of his paternal obligations by giving her everything, everything but love, that is.

Next to them sits Geoffrey Drake, a seemingly successful merchant banker trapped in an unfortunate marriage with a woman half his age, who wistfully looks back upon his days as the raffish Group Captain of an R.A.F. bomber squadron that flew eighty-one missions over Berlin, his tortured psyche refusing to admit, despite frequent nightmares in which, dripping with sweat, he wakes screaming, “Pull it up! Pull it up, I say! I can’t hold her any longer! We’re losing altitude! We’re going down! Jerry at three o’clock Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggh!”, that his cowardice and his cowardice alone was responsible for the loss of his crew and “Digger,” the little Manchester terrier who was their mascot.

The empty chair to his right was vacated just five minutes ago by Geoffrey’s stunning wife, twenty-three- year-old, golden-tressed Edwina Drake, who, claiming a severe migraine, begged to be excused that she might return home and rest, whereas, in reality, she is, at this moment, speeding to the arms of another man, convinced that if she can steal a little happiness now, it doesn’t matter who she hurts later on.

The elderly servant preparing the Caviar en Socle is Andrew who’s been with my family for over forty years although he hasn’t received a salary for the last two, even going on so far as to loan me his life’s savings to cover my spiraling gambling debts but it’s only a matter of time before I am exposed as a penniless fraud and high society turns its back on me.

The dark woman opposite me is Yvonne de Zenobia, the fading Mexican film star, who speaks of her last movie as though it was shot only yesterday, unwilling to face the fact that she hasn’t been before the cameras in nearly fifteen years; unwilling to confess that her life has been little more than a tarnished dream.

As for her companion, Desmond Trelawney, he is an unmitigated scoundrel about whom the less said, the better.

And, of course, you know your father, the ruthless war profiteer, and your hopelessly alcoholic mother, who never quite escaped her checkered past, realizing, all too late, that despite her jewels and limousines, she was still just a taxi-dancer who belonged to any man for a drink and a few cigarettes.

Please take a seat. We were just talking about you.

This example demonstrates everything you’ll ever need to know about exposition. Study it carefully.

Lesson 5 – Finding the Raw Material

As any professional writer will tell you, the richest source of material is one’s relatives, one’s neighbors and, more often than not, total strangers. A day doesn’t go by without at least one person, upon learning that I’m a professional writer, offering me some terrific idea for a story. And I’m sure it will come as no shock when I say that most of the ideas are pretty damn good!

Only last week, a pipe-fitter of my acquaintance came up with a surprise ending guaranteed to unnerve the most jaded reader. What you do is tell this really weird story that keeps on getting weirder and weirder until, just when the reader is muttering, “How in the heck is he going to get himself out of this one? He’s really painted himself into a corner!” you spring the “mind- blower”: “But then he woke up. It had all been a dream!” (which I, professional writer that I am, honed down to: “But then the alarm clock rang. It had all been a dream!”). And this came from a common, run-of-the-mill pipe-fitter! For free!

Cabdrivers, another great wealth of material, will often remark, “Boy, lemme tell ya! Some of the characters I get in this cab would fill a book! Real kooks, ya know what I mean?” And then, without my having to coax even the slightest, they tell me about them, and they would fill a book. Perhaps two or three books. In addition, if you’re at all interested in social science, cabdrivers are able to provide countless examples of the failures of the welfare state.

To illustrate just how valid these unsolicited suggestions can be, I shall print a few lines from a newly completed play inspired by my aunt, who had the idea as far back as when she was attending grade school. It’s called If an Old House Could Talk, What Tales It Would Tell:

The Floor: Do you remember the time the middle-aged lady who always wore the stilletto heels tripped over an extension cord while running to answer the phone and spilled the Ovaltine all over me and they spent the next 20 minutes mopping it up?

The Wall: No.

Of course, I can’t print too much here because I don’t want to spoil the ending (although I will give you a “hint”: it involves a truck…). I just wanted to show you how much the world would have missed had I rejected my aunt’s suggestion out of hand simply because she is not a professional writer like myself.

Lesson 6 – Quoting Other Authors

If placed in a situation where you must quote another author, always write “[sic]” after any word that may be misspelled or looks the least bit questionable in any way. If there are no misspellings or curious words, toss in a few “[sic]“s just to break up the flow. By doing this, you will appear to be knowledgeable and “on your toes,” while the one quoted will seem suspect and vaguely discredited. Two examples will suffice:

“O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,
Unto us lowiest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship [sic], lend a myth to God”
- Hart Crane

“Beauty is but a flowre [sic],
Which wrinckles [sic] will devoure [sic]
Brightnesse [sic] falls from the ayre [sic]
Queenes [sic] have died yong [sic] and faire [sic]
Dust hath closde [sic] Helens [sic] eye [sic]
I am sick [sic], I must dye [sic]: Lord, have mercy on us.”
- Thomas Nashe

Note how only one small “[sic]” makes Crane’s entire stanza trivial and worthless, which, in his case, takes less doing that Nashe, on the other hand, has been rendered virtually unreadable. Anyone having to choose between you and Nashe would pick you every time! And, when it’s all said and done, isn’t that the name of the game?

Lesson 7 – Making The Reader Feel Inadequate

Without question, the surest way to make a reader feel inadequate is through casual erudition, and there is no better way to achieve casual erudition than by putting the punchline of an anecdote in a little foreign language. Here’s a sample:

One crisp October morning, while taking my usual stroll down the Kurfurstenstrasse, I spied my old friend Casimir Malevitch, the renowned Suprematist painter, sitting on a bench. Noting that he had a banana in his ear, I said to him, “Excuse me, Casimir, but I believe you have a banana in your ear.”
“What?” he asked.
Moving closer and speaking quite distinctly, I repeated my previous observation, saying, “I said ‘You have a banana in your ear!’ ”
“What’s that you say?” came the reply.
By now I was a trifle piqued at this awkward situation and, seeking to make myself plain, once and for all, I fairly screamed, “I SAID THAT YOU HAVE A BANANA IN YOUR EAR, YOU DOLT!!!”
Imagine my chagrin when Casimir looked at me blankly and quipped,
“Meh soon kahi sakta – meree kaan meh kayla heh!”
Oh, what a laugh we had over that one.

With one stroke, the reader has been made to feel not only that his education was second-rate, but that you are getting far more out of life than he. This is precisely why this device is best used in memoirs, whose sole purpose is to make the reader feel that you have lived life to the fullest, while his existence, in comparison, has been meaningless and shabby….

Lesson 8 – Covering The News

Have you ever wondered how reporters are able to turn out a dozen or so news articles day after day, year after year, and still keep their copy so fresh, so vital, so alive? It’s because they know The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism, key constructions with which one can express every known human emotion! As one might suppose, The Phrases, discovered only after centuries of trial and error, are a closely guarded secret, available to no one but accredited members of the press. However, at the risk of being cashiered from the Newspaper Guild, I am now going to reveal them to you:

The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism

1. “violence flared”
2. “limped into port”
3. “according to informed sources”
4. “wholesale destruction”
5. “no immediate comment”
6. “student unrest”
7. “riot-torn”
8. “flatly denied”
9. “gutted by fire”
10. “roving bands of Negro youths”

Let’s try putting The Phrases to work in a sample news story:

NEWARK, NJ, Aug. 22 (UPI) – Violence flared yesterday when roving bands of Negro youths broke windows and looted shops in riot-torn Newark. Mayor Kenneth Gibson had no immediate comment but, according to informed sources, he flatly denied saying that student unrest was behind the wholesale destruction that resulted in scores of buildings being gutted by fire, and added, “If this city were a Liberian freighter,* we just may have limped into port.”

*Whenever needed, “Norwegian Tanker” can always be substituted for “Liberian freighter.” Consider them interchangeable.

Proof positive that The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism can express every known human emotion and then some!

Lesson 9 – Tricks Of The Trade

Just as homemakers have their hints (e.g. a ball of cotton, dipped in vanilla extract and placed in the refrigerator, will absorb food odors), writers have their own bag of tricks, a bag of tricks, I might hasten to point out, you won’t learn at any Bread Loaf Conference. Most writers, ivory tower idealists that they are, prefer to play up the mystique of their “art” (visitations from the Muse, l’ecriture automatique, talking in tongues, et cetera, et cetera), and sweep the hard-nosed practicalities under the rug. Keeping in mind, however, that a good workman doesn’t curse his tools, I am now going to make public these long suppressed tricks of the trade.

Suppose you’ve written a dreadful chapter (we’ll dub it Chapter Six for our purposes here), utterly without merit, tedious and boring beyond belief, and you just can’t find the energy to re-write it. Since it’s obvious that the reader, once he realizes how dull and shoddy Chapter Six really is, will refuse to read any further, you must provide some strong ulterior motive for completing the chapter. I’ve always found lust effective:

Artfully concealed within the next chapter is the astounding secret of an ancient Bhutanese love cult that will increase your sexual satisfaction by at least 60% and possibly more–

(Print Chapter Six.)

Pretty wild, huh? Bet you can hardly wait to try it! And don’t show your appreciation by reading Chapter Seven!*

*This insures that the reader reads Chapter Six not once but several times. Possibly, he may even read Chapter Seven.

Fear also works:

Dear Reader,
This message is printed on Chinese poison paper which is made from deadly herbs that are instantly absorbed by the fingertips so it won’t do any good to wash your hands because you will die a horrible and lingering death in about an hour unless you take the special antidote which is revealed in Chapter Six and you’ll be saved.
Sincerely,
(Your name)

Or even:

Dear Reader,
You are obviously one of those rare people who are immune to Chinese paper so this message is printed on Bavarian poison paper which is about a thousand times more powerful and even if you’re wearing gloves you’re dead for sure unless you read Chapter Six very carefully and find the special antidote.
Sincerely,
(Your name)

Appealing to vanity, greed, sloth and whatever, you can keep this up, chapter by chapter, until they finish the book. In fact, the number of appeals is limited only by human frailty itself…

LESSON 10 – MORE WRITING HINTS

There are many more writing hints I could share with you, but suddenly I am run over by a truck.

-the end-

Copyright © Michael O’Donoghue
All Rights Reserved

Related:

The Improve Your Writing Humor Resource

Author bio:

From: www.evergreenreview.com/102/contrib/mod.html
Michael O’Donoghue was a frequent contributor to Evergreen Review. He was an author, playwright and filmmaker. He was a major writer at National Lampoon as well as one of the original writers at Saturday Night Live and creator of some of its funniest black comedy sketches. He also occasionally appeared on camera, on sketches like Mr. Mike’s Least Loved Bedtime Stories. His 1979 television special Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video was dropped because of censorship concerns and became a theatrical film instead. Michael O’Donoghue died in 1994.

###

Editor’s additional notes: I figure anyone who “hated Al Franken and once threw a script Franken had written out a 17-story window” has to be one of my heroes! [source of quote: Laughing in the Shadows by Patricia Wynn Brown]

For more of Michael O’Donoghue’s work, check out:

	Buy This Box or We’ll Shoot This Dog: The Best of the National Lampoon Radio Hour [AUDIO CD BOX SET] Disc 2, selection 6 is one of my all-time favorites: The Immigrants: “The Hillbillies,” along with about everything else in this 3-disc set!
	Gold Turkey: National Lampoon Radio Hour/Greatest Hits Well-Intentioned Blues is on this less expensive, single disc collection, as is The Immigrants.
	Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O’Donoghue by Dennis Perrin Paperback
	Written by Michael O’Donoghue VHS DVD

Inspired Michael O’Donoghue:

	Flash and Filigree: A Novel by Terry Southern This edition was published in 1996; however, Michael O’Donoghue was quoted as saying that reading this Terry Southern novel is what he felt gave him “permission to be a writer.”
	Now Dig This: The Unspeakable Writings of Terry Southern, 1950-1995 by Terry Southern Writings from the man who along with Stanley Kubrick wrote Dr. Strangelove.
	Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Special Edition) (1964) DVD VHS

How to Write Good is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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This is a story of two people, with two different views.

Now different views are something we all profess to not mind, but in reality we resent. Especially if the different view is held by our spouse. Everyone knows this is true, but we rarely will admit to such petty behavior because generally these incidents that tend to be the most irritating, are the ones that are the most ridiculous. Who wants to tell someone about the argument over the toilet paper roll, or the complaint about a spouse’s belief that mowing the grass produces methane emissions in the unacceptable range therefore the lawn cannot be mowed that weekend? You start telling someone about the argument you had with your spouse over these ridiculously silly notions your spouse had, and next thing you know, you end up looking the fool instead of the one deserving to be humiliated. Well, this is a story about two people, two views, and two lessons learned.

My brother Les and his wife Amy were driving to Amarillo down this long straight Texas road. This road is just the type of road people thinking of Texas would imagine. Long, dry, hot with miles and miles of nothing but desert high plains. The only thing imparting a color of life being the occasional mesquite trees and clusters of prickly pear cactus. The only human inhabitants, in transient passing cars seen for 5 miles coming, then passing in a flash before a license plate can be deciphered. Animal life is abundant of the unfriendly type, hidden from the hot glaring sun and rarely seen by the passing motorist except for the occasional rattlesnake or skunk in the road. There, of course, are cattle, too.

But cattle in Texas are not unusual or even noticed for the most part. With so many hundreds of miles of free range, why would the cattle want to be next to a highway? Life is not easy for any animal on the high plains, and especially for the cows. Many acres of range are needed for just one cow with the sparseness of vegetation and water. Basically the cattle are fending for themselves, therefore it is not an unusual occurrence to have a cow consume some loco weed or be attacked by coyotes, or bit by a snake.

So as they drove down this road, my brother saw a dead dog just off the side of the road and he happen to mention this occurrence to Amy. Now there was some tenseness between them from a previous disagreement and therefore what happened following was blown out of proportion. Amy said “What dog? … That was a cow!”

“No! It was a dog,” Les said, as he continued to drive down the road, certain that Amy was just being argumentative and therefore rapidly getting very upset with her.

Amy is likewise perturbed with Les for his refusal to admit it was possibly a cow, for she knew what she’d seen, and it was a big bloated dead cow! “How could anyone miss that?” she thinks to herself.

Well, tempers flared and finally it culminated in Amy insisting that they stop and turn around to prove to Les that she was right. “If you’re wrong,” he said, “you owe me your whole paycheck!!” Amy was determined; he was wrong and he was going to see he was wrong. She knew she was right!

The drive back to the place where the dog/cow had been seemed longer than it was, with anger in the air. Once they finally got to the spot, they got out of the van and sure enough there is this dead dog a few feet away from the white line of the highway. And there … a few feet over, was a huge bloated dead cow on the side of the road. Well, needless to say, they were both right, but both wrong too. Okay, what does someone say in this situation? Exhibiting typical male diplomacy, Les says to Amy, “How could you miss seeing that dog?” Amy looks at her husband, looks back at this huge bloated cow, and then looks back at her husband and asks, “WELL HOW DID YOU MISS THE COW????”

So folks, see there are always two views and depending on your view, you are right. But I’d like to also say you just might be wrong, too, if you saw the whole picture. What are the lessons? Well, first, if you insist on being right, make sure you are right. And second, if you are right, keep your mouth shut, for two rights only make a wrong.

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Copyright © 2001-2008 TJ Robertson
All Rights Reserved

Author bio:

TJ Robertson is an award-winning poet who now resides in the state of Washington.

Two Rights Make a Wrong? is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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