Bud Smith's Blog: Bud Smith , page 22

Call For Submissions – Uno Kudo, Vol. 4

budsmith:

Gus Sanchez explains how I explain how subs for Uno Kudo volume 4 are open. Send!

Originally posted on Out Where the Buses Don't Run:

Many of you are likely aware that I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with the art & literary collective known as Uno Kudo. My short stories “That New Car Smell” and “Room 505″ have appeared in both Uno Kudo, Vol. 1 and Uno Kudo Vol. 2, respectively. 

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How to be Better at Twitter in 20 EZ Steps

1. Have an AVI, not an egg.

2. Tweet about pizza.

3. And coffee.

4. And doing jagger shots.

5. Say things like, “IF YOU CANT HANDEL ME AT MY WURST YOU DONT DESERE ME AT MY BEST!”

6. Add blurry photos of your dog

7. No dog? Steal blurry photos of other people’s dog.

8. Retweet Rob Zombie

9. Retweet people who post stuff like: “IF YOU CANT HANDEL ME AT MY WURST YOU DONT DESERE ME AT MY BEST!”

10. Add selfies of yourself in jail. Make sure to get the bars in the shot.

11. Tweet about weed.

12. Tweet about TV.

13. Don’t @ anyone. Especially me.

14. Include random typos in your tweets to keep people guessing.

15. Be sure to tweet in a lame, nostalgic, nationalistic way.

16. Add photos of slimy food.

17. Tweet about afternoon naps.

18. Tweet about how much you hate Mondays.

19. Traffic, that’s a big one too.

20. Complain about Facebook. Remember those east coast vs. west coast 90s rap wars? Complaining about FB on twitter will get you followed by Rob Zombie even.

Goodluck to you! Have a twitter story you’d like to share? Or a question about anything at all. Put it in the goddamn comment section down below.

Slush Everywhere

It’s been a beautiful last few days here in NYC. Sure, there’s slush everywhere, but I’ve been having ab last with Spout, stomping around, bouncing from bar to bar, eating oysters where we can find them, sipping bloody Marys, finding eggs and steaks in the wilds.

Today is President’s Day. Happy President’s day. I’m at my desk with a cup of ginger green tea, listening to the new Moonface record: it’s really something else.

Got a notice, that the website WORDRIOT, is running the first 30 pages of my novel Tollbooth as an excerpt. If you’re curious what that’s all about, click here.

I’m pretty excited because my book of poetry, Everything Neon, is about to burst out of the gate gate from Marginalia in LA. The editors over there have been great.

Also, submissions are still open for Chuck Howe’s Unknown Press anthology, TOO MUCH, check it out here

And, UNO KUDO volume 4 is OPEN for subs, check it out here

Thanks for all your utter coolness. It’s appreciated!

SPECIAL REPORT: How to Survive a Snowstorm

There are many ways a snowstorm can potentially kill a person (usually from boredom). I’ve composed a check list for the novice winter survivalist. Be sure to make sure you have all these ducks in a row.

1. Bread and milk, so you can stare at them. I don’t eat that stuff either, but you’ll want ample bread and milk in case you’re snowed in so you can stare at it for some reason.

2. Red dye to make your snow man/woman (snow person?) look like it was butchered.

3. My Cousin Vinny on DVD or VHS in case it’s daytime (daytime TV is the worst) or in case it’s nighttime (Marissa Tomei is dead sexy)

4. Approx. 10 cases of various types of craft beer, per day, per person. Hint: you can fill your bathtub up with beer and keep the bathroom air conditioned (or open the window, dumbass) if your fridge is overloaded with all that milk you bought.

5. Puzzles. Get a 100,000 piece puzzle. Spread the pieces all over the house. Hide some between couch cushions, make it extra difficult for yourself. Get a blind fold too. This jigsaw puzzle is all you’ll have if the power goes out.

6. Snow shovel. That’s self explanatory. You’ll need that to lop off your snow man’s head. Pool up the red dye next to the severed snow head. It’ll look cool.

7. Your weight in coffee grinds.

8. One of those hot dog beany things that were popular in the early 80s, to keep the breeze from blowing under your door.

9. Calvin and Hobbes anthologies. Stock up now, I’m telling you. It’s gonna snow.

10. Swim suits, beach umbrellas, surf gear: it’s all on sale. Why wait till prices go up? Plus, it looks funny when you’re covering your dead snowmen in red dye, while wearing your swim suit.

I hope that helps you with this winter weather we’re all suffering from, and makes your ‘snowed in experience’ a little more bare-able. I’m probably lounging in a bathtub full of beer right now.

Everything Neon almost out (and other odds and ends)

Things are good here. Been working back and forth with Marginalia on my full length collection of poetry called, Everything Neon. Release date is inching up. If I had to guess, I’d say March 1st. That’s my guess. It’s 180 pages of poems about my time here in New York City, getting lost in all sorts of good ways …

Here’s the cover

that there is a silk embroidered peacock. Looks nice. The inside of the book, I think, looks pretty nice too. But I’m a fucking wacko, don’t take my word for it.

Actually, today, Thunderclap! published one of the poems from Everything Neon, the lead poem in the book “You Can Remain Anonymous” it’s a poem about where i live/have lived in NYC for the past 8 years. Upper Manhattan, Washington Heights, NYC. Love this neighborhood, love my neighbors. Can’t wait till it gets warm so I can get drunk on rum and play dominos with them on the stoop again. Here’s a link to the poem.

In other poem news: the Olentangy Review, published a poem of mine called ‘a pepsi can floats down’ and then were kind enough to ask me to write an essay about the poem itself and how it was written.

Here’s the link for that essay

Here’s the poem:

 

‘a crushed pepsi can floats down’ 

Your side of the world is flooded

mine is on fire

Helicopters circle

dropping emptied juice boxes,

candybar wrappers

crusts from sub-par sandwiches.

These days,

even God has a day job.

When I talk to people trying to live to 185

I get to thinking about dying

and coming back as a fish

The ocean is supposed to rise 25 feet

sometime, whenever

It was a frozen custard stand engulfed in flame

Took the boardwalk

Lucky Leo’s

Carousel Arcade

Use the fine reeds as a make shift snorkel.

Tell the fire marshall I said hello

I’m building a raft from a neon sign

and will be there soon.

made of bells.

Last but not least, I am still doing my weekly radio interview show,called The Unknown Show live on Tuesdays. You can listen two ways, live (by clicking the links) or after the fact (the links become streaming audio.)

I do most of the promo for it on the facebook page, so if you’d like to listen in and keep up to date, it’d be nice if you ‘liked’ this.

Here’s this weeks interview, it’s Gessy Alvarez, Kevin Ridgeway and Mike Grover.

Thanks for all  your support. I should have copies of Everything Neon soon, if you are interested in getting a signed one, let me know. I’ll add your name to the list. I think the publisher said the book will be shipping from Los Angeles in a bout a week.

Muchas gracias. Much Love

Bud

Uno Kudo Volume 4 Call For Submissions

Hello writers and artists!

Submissions are OPEN for Uno Kudo volume 4!

send your work, now: Feb. 7th-May1st 2014.

SUBMIT: unokudo@gmail.com

Writers: Uno Kudo is looking for your most vivid work: short stories, poems, creative non-fiction, to be matched up side by side with artwork that will knock your socks off.

Artists: Please send art as a 300 dpi Jpeg 12″ high. Also send links to your websites. In this edition we will be using more stand alone art but we will still be matching up art to some of the stories and poems so it would be really awesome to see the expanse of your work.

Please send writing as a .doc file. No word limit. No theme. No holds barred.

In the subject line, please write either:

ATTN: Fiction/Title and author

Or

ATTN: poetry/Title and author

That’s a big help for the editors/readers who will select your work.

Poetry: send up to six poems (separate Word docs are fine)

short stories: send one

flash fiction: max 500 words each, send up to three (separate Word docs are fine)

Submissions are now open for our yearly print anthology that combines art and writing in wild ways. All profits from the sales of Uno Kudo III will again be donated to PEN international, a charity that fights for the rights of oppressed artists worldwide. Uno Kudo will be published in book form, available through Amazon, and available as a digital download.

We’d like to see something that has not been published elsewhere. We’d like to see something that is not sim. sub. We’d like to buy you a beer. All those things.

Thank you!

–Bud Smith

photo credit: Joel Robison

A Simple Workout

A lot of writers I know have ruined backs.

They sit in a chair all day, and don’t get much exercise. And that’s even the many non-professional writers I know, who have  cubicle/desk jobs, and sit all day in a chair at work, and then come home at night to squeeze in some writing for pleasure. I’m a little different. I work heavy construction during the day, and come home tired from that and try to squeeze in some writing. I get a little physical activity but not enough.

Everybody needs to exercise. Writers need especially to make sure they do something. We’ll wind up crippled humans, with barely functioning hands, weak legs and backs when we get in our senior years. All this sitting in place and typing, typing, typing is not all that bueno. Movement is needed, yo.

I’m trying to stay in passable shape for both my day job working construction, so I can keep climbing ladders (literally) in the industrial hellholes where I make my money. And to ensure I can still get around when I’m 60 yrs. old. I want to make sure my back isn’t ruined from all this chair slouching I do at my desk when I get home, and on the weekends. So, I make a point 4-5 days a week to show up for my workouts, in any room I choose in my apartment, because this workout I do, requires no gym membership or equipment other than body weight (and if you’re feeling up for it, a 35#-55# kettle bell)

Here’s a simple workout I do.


It’s set up in intervals of 30 seconds “on”/30 seconds “rest”

1. warm-up/stretching:

5 body weight squats

5 bodyweight lunges per side

5 pushups X 3

repeat X 2-3

2. kettle bell swings

I try to do 20 swings in the 30 seconds.

I Keep track on a piece of paper what “round” I’m on.

Each minute is a round

The goal is 10 rounds, or 200 swings, or more.

Try to improve over time. Add weight, as you can.

The kettle bells I purchased from Punch Gym have screw taps

in the bottom to add weights to the bottom.

I welded my own 5# & 10# additional weight plates.

duration of kettle bell swings: 10-20 minutes all together

3. Using Weights.

(This is after the swings, a general combo of exercises)

Like I said, own a few kettle bells and recommend them.

But free weights work fine. Dumb bells, do too, regular weight plates, even a sand bag.

*I once cut a hole in a basketball and filled it up with sand to make it weight 25#. I worked out with that for a month, the results were great for a deflated basketball and some sand. Hahaha. Why are you taking advice from me?



Alternate routines.

One day do A, the next day I’ll do B.

Take a day off when you’re not in the mood.

Usually, I take a day or two a week.

A:

sqauts X 5

1 arm overhead press X5 per side

1 arm row X5 per side

 windmill X5 per side

B

clean X 5 per side

pushups X10

Sit Ups, holding weight X10

That’s what I do. It’s not the most ambitious workout, but, that’s okay. My motives are just to stay in good enough shape that I can keep doing stuff. If you’re feeling like you  aren’t getting enough exercise and want to get back into it, or into it at all, what the hell. Try this.

Works for me. The 30/30 setup keeps me occupied and fixated on a fast paced workout that leaves little time between exercises for screwing around.

* any exercises you are not familiar with search for them on youtube. There are very many videos and that is how I learned. I recommended searching out artofstrength videos demonstrating the exercises you may be unfamiliar with like kettle bell swing, windmill, one arm overhead press, kettle bell clean, one armed kettle bell row, etc.

Have at it!

Writer’s Digest publishes an article about some work I’m doing

The website Writer’s Digest has an article running about me making DIY anthologies for Unknown Press. It’s a write up explaining about a few projects I have going on and all that. Here’s a link.

I’m always super psyched to talk about the junk that I have going on. It’s nice when other people ask.

other things today

got proof copies of a short story collection I am revamping for Unknown Press
ate some great meatballs.
had too much coffee
had the day off work
that’s it

Tollbooth Serialized: Chapters 29-31

*** continuing the serialization of Tollbooth***

click here to start at the beginning

140A

The one armed kid was at the register, sipping an orange juice in a paper jug. “Is Gena here?” I asked.

He shook his head and then retrieved my order, placed it in a bag. Special Orders are prepaid. “Oh, I thought . . . never mind.” He shrugged.

I hung around in the notebook aisle for a moment, stalling, then disgusted with myself, I left the store.

But, out there, under the shimmering light, there she was, waiting by my car. She watched me as I walked towards my Subaru.

“I was on break,” Gena offered.

“I got my order.” I said, holding up the bag. She was smaller than I remembered; short, but just as hot. The glow of the light made it worse to be there with her. Why would she be out here waiting for me if she didn’t want to get closer to me?

Closer to me?

Was she some sicko?

“This may seem kind of weird,” she said looking away, “me being here waiting for you, but I dunno.”

“I was hoping something like this would happen,” I confided.

“Why?” She looked at me, as only a girl who knows exactly who she is can look at another person. “And what do you think this is?”

“I’m not sure. I was just gonna get in my car and go home.”

“I was getting a slice over there,” she pointed at the pizzeria, “It’s good, real good. You should try it.”

“Yeah, one day.”

For a second, I thought that she wanted nothing more than to be pushed against the car, her skirt hiked, her blouse ripped by my hands, that Gena wanted the impact of another body—badly wanted it. There wasn’t an ounce of innocence in her eyes, but also awkwardness, the kind that someone projects just before suggesting something obscene.

She wanted obscenity. No problem, in my mind we’d fucked in thin air, in the dark recesses of countless dark spaces. I’d imagined her mouth and her neck, every fragrance of her. The way she’d look ass up, head down. Knee high socks. Converse All-Stars, nothing else.

“My break is almost up, Jim,” Gena said, leaning back against my Subaru. “I have five more minutes. Are you busy? Do you want to sit with me. This car have air conditioning? It’s so hot tonight.”

“Yeah, of course,” I said. We got in. I was trying to be smooth. I whacked my head hard ducking in. I played it off like it didn’t happen, starting the engine, flipping on the AC. “It will take a few minutes to kick in, but . . .”

“No, that’s better already, plus I didn’t want anybody to see me out there, might look weird.”

“Fraternizing with the patrons.”

“You got it.” She turned to me, “You’re pretty funny, and not like, immature about it or anything.”

“Uh huh,” then I thought about how old she was, and what the words, not immature meant, it meant that she definitely wanted my not so immature cock in her immature pussy, that was a definite! How could the universe be so in tune?

“You don’t think I’m weird do you?” she asked, “That I’d want to talk to you outside of the store . . .” She was playing with her hair, her lips super moist. A small green stone in her earring caught the light, “I’m not a stalker or anything.”

“Never said you were.”

“I dunno, you just seem so intense. You come into the store and you place this order, and every time I see you, I dunno, all I can do is wonder what makes you tick.”

“Me? Oh nothing.” What makes me tick? Do I tick, oh I guess I am now. Tocking. Momma take my pulse, I am ripping off the cobwebs chomping them in my werewolf fangs in the middle of silver lit field beneath the cursed moon.

The night was a disaster. It couldn’t have worked out any better or any worse than getting her young flesh in the car.

When Gena broke the silence, being brave, I couldn’t believe my luck, “Hey, do you want to come to a party with me later?” she cooed.

“Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“I think that would be cool.”

Cool! Do  kids still talk like that? FUCK!! Cool one daddy-o, now she knew I was born before punk rock was invented.

“Cool.” She said. “It’s gonna be a really big party. This girl I know.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, lots of cool people. It would be real great if you came.”

“Well I’m coming.”

“I’ll be off at ten,” she said. “Can you pick me up here?”

“Yeah.”

She opened the car door, stepped out, then leaned back in, “Oh, and do you mind getting some beer for the party, nobody is old enough yet to get it. I’m nineteen. Beat, huh?”

“Yeah, beat. Nineteen,” I said, “beat.”

“You don’t mind, do you?”

Get the beer, sonofabitch. Figures.

“No, not at all,” I said. She smiled, blew me a small kiss goodbye. She walked away, blushing, shaking that ass. At the doors to Officetown, she looked back again, waved goodbye one last time. What the fuck was going on? Had I slipped into an accidental tear in the fabric of the universe. Was I occupying some alternate dimension where things worked out?

 139B

I skipped around Dinosaur Liquor like a genuine lunatic, pushing the cart aggressively, throwing in case after case of beer. I wondered what kind of beer the modern underage drinker preferred. Soon I had so many cases that it seemed like some kind of backwards joke. It’d be smarter to economize, with two kegs.

It was Saturday night, it’d be a huge party. These kids knew how to party, or so I assumed.

“Not sure what I need totally,” I told the guy behind the counter, reading the sci-fi fanzine. “Let’s start with two kegs.”

“Well it’s getting late,” he warned, “after ten I can’t sell any hard alcohol.”

A law of some kind, I had heard it whispered at some earlier point in my existence, but now wanted to scream in his face, “Don’t you know, all of the rules are off. Tonight is the night that all nights have lead up to.  Rules used to exist, they don’t matter anymore.”

I knew, the world would not understand the importance.

“No hard alcohol after ten? I better get cracking.” I stuffed bottle after random bottle into my cart. Gin. Whiskey. Vodka. More Gin, because I like Gin. Tonic. Coca-Cola. Rum, Coconut rum for the girls. Wine coolers for the girls and margarita mix for the girls, for the girls, to loosen whatever tightness they had wrapped around the tightness of their young bodies, or old bodies if there happened to be a stray mother present who also wanted to party her old heart out. Tequila. Peppermint Schnapps. Let this be a huge festival of a party, attended by every dripping wet friend of Gena. We’ll all just forget about our baby mama dramas and tollbooth dilemmas.

The geek at the counter did not look impressed with all my purchasing power. He rang it all up, frowning.

We both knew that while I was having the time of my life he would be home, masturbating to a still shot of princess Leia dressed in that golden outfit, while Jabba the Hutt drooled over her.

He looked me in the eye.

“Five hundred and eighteen dollars and seven cents.” he said.

“Peanuts,” I replied.

On that twisted night I was having an out of body experience, thinking that perhaps by the end of it, the whole world would be over and none of this would matter, wouldn’t matter with the bank or my wife, or myself or the police. Ha! The universe was so in tune! How could all of this be something going wrong? And if it was, why was I so happy about it?

Thank God for all of my savings, all of those trunks full of lost commuter coins! All of those salvaged coins were fistfuls of hope.

I slid him my credit card, as would have any true lover.

139A

The parking lot was the loneliest place in the world. I waited there, alone, eating a 99 cent value menu cheeseburger from Burgerland.

I kept gazing into the bright florescent lights of Officetown for some movement in the store. No one came. The clock said 10:27. No one came. She’d said ten.

I put the cheeseburger wrapper in the bag, wiped my face with the napkin. I wanted to look good when she comes to the car. Quickly I checked my face in the mirror, I’d decided not to shave, even though I had purchased a razor and some shaving cream in the drugstore. I’d also purchased some cologne with a cowboy on the bottle.

I was going with stubble, always a good choice, I assumed. Assuming that young girls found stubble attractive, did they? In that bathroom at Burgerland, I had a small panic attack, looking in the mirror, thinking: do I shave or don’t I shave?

Then I had a brainstorm.

I walked back out of the bathroom, to the teenage girl behind the counter. I decided to ask her, as she leaned in a chair against the wall, in her purple and yellow uniform, her straight blonde hair pulled behind in a long ponytail. She was dangerously skinny. She did not eat at her place of employment. She had the same look that I have on my face in the booth: desire for death.

“Excuse me,” I said, startling her.

“Yeah.” She jumped out of her chair, thinking that I had left the place and that she was safe until the front doors opened again. I’d been a while in the bathroom, trying on my new clothes and doing the best I could to wash up with the antibacterial pump soap that they stock. Suddenly here I’d appeared, as would an apparition. It made her heart thump.

“I have a weird question for you,” I said.

“Well, I’m not alone, there are other people here.”

“No, not that kind of weird. I’m not dangerous.”

“Oh, OK.” She fixed her hat, slumped her shoulders, relaxed. As she squinted, it made me realize that she needed glasses and refused to wear them, worrying they would ruin her looks. “You remind me of my track coach,” she said.

“Coach, huh . . .” I smiled, said, “look, I have a date tonight with a much younger girl.”

“How much younger?” she said, intrigued.

“Your age I guess, how old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Well she is like nineteen or twenty I think.”

“You think I look nineteen? That is so hot.”

“I can’t be sure under a certain age, kids grow up fast.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty four,” I said.

“Yeah?” she didn’t believe that.

“Anyway, maybe my question is weird, but I’m gonna ask it anyway, because, well because I don’t have anybody else to ask. Uhhhhhhh, do you think a young girl, your age, would think stubble is good, or should I shave. For my date.”

The doors opened and a family stormed in like a herd of hippos.

“You shouldn’t shave,” she said. “You look hot.”

I look hot?

Of course I look hot!

“Thanks,” I said.

“Have fun on your date.”

The hippos smashed past me to devour whatever they could. The girl at the counter braced herself.

The Officetown doors opened, it was that one armed kid again. He was talking on his cell phone as he walked towards route 9. I assumed he was going to catch the bus, which ran irregularly all up and down that strange sweep of highway. But, when he reached the bus stop, he bent, supporting the cellphone with his shoulder, pulled up a yellow bike that I hadn’t seen. He entered a combination, removed the chain, placed the chain back on the bike frame, stood the bike up, hopped on, still on the cellphone, still supporting it with his shoulder. Like some mad daredevil, he jumped the bike over the curb, taking his free hand off the handlebars. He pedaled hands-free across three lanes of highway traffic, cars screeching their brakes, peeling out, almost smashing into each other, while he shot across the opposing lanes of traffic! AMAZING! Then, he was gone, disappearing out of the realm of streetlights, into the last of the undeveloped land on the whole stretch from Philadelphia to the Atlantic Ocean.

My mouth hung open.

There was a knock on the window, it was Gena, she was standing there, smiling and waving.

I opened up.

“Did you see that? It was . . .”

“That’s Tony, he’s out of his mind. All his friends are like that, ‘specially Brian.”

“Yeah, crazy kids for sure,” I said as she climbed in the Subaru. “Hey, I got some beer, and other stuff for the party.” I motioned towards the backseat.

“Oh my God! Look at all of this stuff!”

“Well there’s more, I couldn’t fit it all in here, some of it I had to put in the trunk.”

“WOW!!” She leaned in, kissed my cheek, “this is gonna be the craziest party ever!”

Tollbooth Reviewed at Red Paint Hill

Here’s a review of the novel Tollbooth running at the website Red Paint Hill, which is a new place working on publishing some really interesting  underground writing. Thanks to the reviewer, Zach Fishel and the editor peeps at that site. 

Hope you’re doing good. I’m blasting The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo.