Man Martin's Blog, page 149

What Should Remain Shut Down?

Some government functions, I admit we can't do without While we're in the throes of this government shutdown, we have an opportunity to think about whether certain things should even be shut back on.  I'm not talking about the National Park Service or the robotic drones that take aerial photographs of my humiliating attempts to throw a football, I fully believe these are vital.  What I'm referring to are truly unnecessary government services such as:

The Department for Ensuring Deodorant has the Precise Gummy Viscosity so When You Put on a Polo-Shirt, It Rubs Off and Leaves Mysterious White Stripes Across Your Abdomen

The Bureau that Sees to it That Hot Dogs Come in Packs of Eight, but Hot Dog Buns in Packs of Twelve

The Undersecretary for Putting Those Little Red Rings Around Baloney

Chief Deputy of Seeing to It That Any Ink Pen Carelessly Left in A Pants Pocket Will Explode

The Committee for Guaranteeing Pizza is Served So Hot, The First Bite Removes the Skin from the Roof of Your Mouth

I hope I don't come across as some anti-government kook, but by eliminating these wasteful and counterproductive activities, the nation can get back to the serious business of robotic drones spying on my pathetic attempts to throw a football.

Consider the Bedbug

The Mommy Bedbugs Probably Try to Warn Their Daughters During the height of the bedbug epidemic a few years back, did anyone pause to consider that as far as the bedbugs themselves were concerned, they were living worthwhile, interesting lives and had as much right to existence as anybody?

The bedbug, as every schoolchild knows, or cimex lecturarius, is a member of the hemiptera class, or true bugs.  You didn't know a bug was an actual thing, did you?  Well, you should have asked a schoolchild.  If you call a leaf-hopper a bug, you're perfectly correct; if you call a grasshopper a bug, you're only making a fool of yourself.
Normally bedbugs feed at night when you're asleep, and their bite is so delicate they go unnoticed.  Any problems people experience don't come until later.  According to Wikipedia - which must be accurate because, hey, it's Wikipedia - reactions to bedbug bites include skin rashes, psychological effects, and allergic reactions.  This is clearly propaganda to make bedbugs sound worse than they really are.  Skin rashes and allergic reactions are really the same thing written two different ways to sound like multiple conditions.  Psychological effects just means being bitten by bedbugs really creeps some people out.  That's your problem, not the bedbugs'.  If you're more disturbed at the thought of being bitten by a bug than another order of insecta, like a hymenoptera or something, it's just plain prejudice, pure and simple.

When a mommy and daddy bedbug love each other very, very much, the daddy hugs the mommy in a special way.  This keeps her from getting away when he pierces her abdomen with a sort of hypodermic needle he has instead of a willie and injects her with sperm.  Wikipedia talks about the psychological effects of being bitten by a bedbug, but doesn't mention the psychological effects of mating with one.  Anyway, after that, the daddy bedbug is always hanging around, like, "Hey, honey, you sure look pretty tonight," and the mommy bedbug is like, "Forget it," because bedbug sex isn't something you want to go through more than once.  After that, the mommy lays four to five eggs a day, every day, for the rest of her life.  She probably tries to warn her daughters not to listen to any sweet-talking boy bedbugs, but you know how kids are.  They never listen.

My Funeral Instructions (Part 1)

My Casket Should Be Simple and TastefulTo prevent their being mislaid or any confusion over my last wishes, I have decided to post my funeral instructions online.  A novel, approach, I know, but I feel this will make matters simplest and clearest for my survivors.

Above all else, I want a simple funeral.  The Dixie Land Band that accompanies my casket to the cemetery should consist of a trumpet, trombone, clarinet, tuba, and drums only.  I have always felt that guitars and banjos were unnecessary ostentation.  Others may not feel as I do, and I'm not here to judge, but for my own part, I want simplicity.  On the way to the grave site, they may play "Nearer My God to Thee," and on the way back, "Didn't He Ramble."

My casket, by the way, should be simple and tasteful: clear acrylic with silver handles.  If possible, my body should be rigged with a mechanism to make it sit out of the casket every thirty feet or so and "look around."  In any case, I should be dressed with simple dignity in a white-tie tuxedo and top-hat.  (Top drawer of my dresser.)

As for flowers, my motto is "less is more."  A tasteful wreathe for the horse's neck that pulls the funeral carriage and enough flowers to strew the path from the chapel to the grave (I don't care what sort of flowers they are, so long as they're solid white).  Beyond that, I would have mourners make donations in my name to a charitable organization that cares for orphans and widows.  In exchange, the widows and orphans may come to the ceremony to act as additional mourners, with one or two trying to throw themselves in the grave with me.  (Tip: Don't give them the money until after the funeral.)

At this point you're asking, but what about the sky-writing and the fireworks and the funeral oration by the Chief Justice?  Don't worry about any of that.  I'll get around to that in Part 2 of my instructions.

The Great Thing About Social Media

is it's actually anti-social.  This is a boon to all us closet misanthropes out there who secretly loathe humans and would rather not bother with them.  The smell of their bodies, the sound of their voices, the touch of their flesh.  Ugh.

Civilization, which in the last century made such strides hiding the poor from us so we didn't have to deal with them, will soon make it possible not to have to deal with anybody.

Think about it.  On Facebook, being a "Friend" is simply a matter of pushing a button.  Away with all those tedious visits, going to concerts or movies together, visiting one another in the hospital, listening to all those BOR-ing whines about, "Oh, my job is so hard," or "Oh, my wife doesn't understand me," "Oh, chemotherapy makes me so tired!"  Blah-blah-blah.

When someone posts pictures of a new baby or an earthquake in Peru, it's all the same.  Just press "Like" and you've expressed decent human interest.  The same for birthdays; no need to remember when someone was born still less to actually consider the date important.  Facebook will remind you to send a birthday message!  And instead of sending them only to people you actually care about - and other than yourself, who is that, really? - you can send a birthday message to everyone!  At some point, I believe Facebook will be so fully automated, that you won't have to log in at all, it will carry out all your social interactions for you.  Won't that be a time-saver.

Go to any restaurant, and you'll see what I mean.  Once, in the dreary long-ago, people in restaurants had to talk to each other.  And if they didn't have anything to say, they had to maintain eye-contact until they thought of something.  I don't care how good the moo shu pork was, it wasn't worth it.  Now look around, and everyone is texting on their cellphones.  No one has to even look at whom they're actually with, obviously someone equally bored and boring, because she's on her cellphone, too, contentedly tapping away.  And when that source of entertainment runs dry, she's off to find another one.

What a wonderful world technology has given us.  The other day, I spoke to an answering machine which said to me, "Have a blessed day."  My heart filled with joy.  To be blessed by an answering machine!  Once, a blessing took personal contact, you might even have to know something about the person you were blessing, but now you can bless the world even as God blesses the world.  From a distance.

Claymore Community College Course Catalog

"Preparing today's students with skills they can use."

CONVINCING LYING: Basic lying skills with an emphasis on maintaining eye-contact, sounding sincere, and generally making preposterous falsehoods sound plausible.

WRITING RESUMES: Employers are looking for people with training in Bio Tech, Web Design, and Chemical Engineering.  In this course, you will learn how to spell these and other impressive-sounding skills so you can put them on your resume.

SUCKING UP: In today's workforce, having a job without genuine qualifications makes sucking up to superiors more essential than ever.  In this course you'll progress from flattery, to toadying, to beginning sycophancy, to out-and-out ass-kissing.

FINGER POINTING: Inevitably an unskilled employee makes mistakes, sometimes with catastrophic ramifications.  In this class, you will learn how to blame others.

COLLECTING UNEMPLOYMENT: You're ready to enter the workforce, but are you ready to leave it?  Learn how to navigate the bureaucratic maze so you can get the money you're entitled to, if not more.

ESSENTIALS OF FRAUD: This class covers the basics in padding expense accounts, under-reporting income on tax forms, and scamming insurance companies.

Jamie Iredell: If I'd Known Then What I Know Now

Each month a published author will hold forth on the above topic. 

This month it's Jamie Iredell, author of Before I Moved to Nevada, (Publishing Genius), Prose, Poems, a Novel, (Orange Alert Books) and most recently Book of Freaks (Future Tense Books). It's hard to define Jamie's writing style, and he likes it that way. His work is playful, heartfelt, and deadpan: like Steinbeck or Hemingway but with a post-modern topspin. An indefatigable creator, Jamie's notorious for working on multiple projects at once: not only his own writing, but editing and designing books and journals for others. On top of everything else, he is the creator of the Iredellism, a trope in which something is compared to itself, as in "the mountains mountained up," or "the chili tasted like chili." His work in progress, The Fat Kid, features the line, "There were no cedars in Cedarville." In lieu of a picture, we have a video featuring Jamie read "The Bear in the Kitchen" at an AWP Conference. (Thanks to Leigh Stein for posting this on Vimeo.) The sound quality is abysmal, but it's an amazing work of ventriloquism. The puppet's lips barely move!


If you were to ask me what I've learned since publishing my first books, I'd have to say a couple different things: As someone who has published I've learned a lot about the publishing industry and how writers factor into it; and as a writer I haven't learned jack shit. 
Probably the most important thing I've learned about the publishing industry when you do publish a book is that no one's going to do anything for you unless you take the initiative to make things happen for yourself. You'll gain more by utilizing your own ingenuity and contacts than even the industry's best marketing teams and publicists can do for you. Basically, marketing means commercials, and publicity means asking for favors. 
Ad space pretty much everywhere is expensive, but it's cheaper online, and you're more likely to have a lot of eyes on your book's cover if you take out an ad on a literary website than you would if you bought ad space in, say, Poets & Writers Magazine. Really, the best ad you can possibly have is to continue to publish things regularly, in magazines and journals, both in print ad online. It is perhaps an unfortunate fact that--if you're writing literary fiction or nonfiction, and certainly if you write poetry--your audience largely consists of other writers.  I say perhaps that's bad, because maybe your grandma wouldn't pick up your book in the local Barnes & Noble, but on the other hand your literary peers are those from whom I assume you'd wish to earn respect. And, considering that the last two or three Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conferences have had attendance numbers topping 10K, hey, if you were a best seller among that crowd, those can't be chump numbers. 
The other thing you can do is not be a dick, both in person and on Facebook, Twitter, or on your blog or whatever. You're a walking ad if you post funny or interesting things online, or if you actually read your peers' writing and say good things about it. Read a book, and if there're things you liked about it, say so online. That writer, and those readers who like that writer, are more likely to check out what you've written. The worst thing you can do--in person or electronically--is to come off as desperate and needy, or clearly looking like you're out to gain something for yourself, rather than being genuinely interested in other people and/or what they're up to. Sometimes my friends--Man Martin included--have made fun of my ability to "network," and I always say that I'm good at it because I'm not "networking." At AWP, for example, here I am surrounded by all these people who are into the same stuff I'm into. How could I not just run around to say hello, to drink whiskey at the Hobart table, to buy books? I actually want to read those books I buy. I am actually interested in talking with the writers I meet for who they are and what they've done. I'm not hoping that by doing this they will in turn buy my books. It just so happens, though--go figure--when you're not a desperate/needy/pushy asshole many people feel pretty comfortable buying your books. It's crazy, I know, but I think some people think, "Hhhmmm, that guy was pretty cool, and he didn't [I hope] seem like an idiot. I'll bet his books are pretty good."
This kind of segues into the publicity part, or, as I like to call it: asking favors. Because, see, when you're not a dick, people tend to feel good about helping you out when you ask for a favor. In most cases, even for big houses, they're not going to fork out a bunch of cash for you to go on a book tour. You have organize that shit yourself. Here's where all those people you've met come in handy. Lots of them run reading series, or know someone who does. Most of those people usually live in places, like apartments or houses, and they're often happy to give you the couch, or in rare instances a guest bedroom. Also, many of those same people run or work for literary magazines or lit-themed blogs, or they have a podcast, or they like to review books. It's as simple as asking. And, yes, you have to follow up. But if you can do so without managing to sound like a dick, those people will more than likely be slapping themselves on the forehead and saying, "Oh my god, I forgot about that!" And when that happens it's because those people genuinely want to do that thing for you, because they like you, they like what you wrote, and in between the myriad things that are far more important in their life they forgot about helping you with your reading/review/blog-mention and now they actually feel bad about it.
About writing: I haven't learned anything. I'm still too quick to send off a story, essay, poem, book to a publisher. I am still trying to learn to have patience, that what I just wrote wasn't so goddamn awesome that everyone will stop driving their cars to read it. I still haven't found "my voice," LOL. I just keep punching keys on this keyboard because I can't help myself, and I hope that someday I'll read something I wrote and go, Who the fuck wrote THAT? That's goooooood.


All this stuff about getting yourself and your writing out there: it's not manipulative, it's not selfish, it's called being a normal human who does literature because he can't help himself from doing it. And it's hard work. And no one's going to do it for you. But, on the bright side, you've got thousands of potential friends waiting for you all across the country to help you promote your writing, to make you feel you're part of a community, to give something else to keep breathing for. 

The Gospel According to Ted Cruz

For in those days the land was reigned over by Barack and the Lord was displeased.  And Barack ruled with a stern fist, and, lo, he chastised the people with whips, and when the whips didn't work, he chastised them with scorpions.  And he said unto the people, Thou shalt have insurance, even unto the least of you.  And the people cried out, and they said, We don't want any!  And Barrack spake unto them saying, It doesn't matter, for this is my decree.  And what of those who cannot afford insurance, cried the people.  Unto them it shall be given said Barack, and there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And the Lord stretched out his hand and spake unto Ted Cruz and said, Let there be a blight in the land and let the government be shut down for there is no money in the treasury for the people are unrighteous and their whining annoyeth me.  And the Lord spake also unto Mark Meadows and John Boehner, but mostly Ted Cruz, like I said.

And Mark Meadows and John Boehner and Ted Cruz cried out unto the Lord saying, but what about our salaries.  They shall be spared, said the Lord, but all else shalt thou shut down.

And, lo, it came to pass.  And the government was shut down, and many were those sent home without pay.  But those in the House and Senate received their pay as always.  And likewise did they also have insurance, because, hey.

Another Reason I Never Made It as a Cartoonist

Our Vanishing Ss

A poster was recently put up in the cafeteria at the school where I work:

Last Year Lunch Application Expire Today If You Have Not Fill Out A 2013-2014 Application Lunch is $2.15.  Allow 10 Day to Process Appls.

The poster illustrates a sad and shocking phenomenon many of us have bemoaned for decades: the loss of our nation's Ss.  Whether this is the result of climate change or economic hard times, who can say, but the day is fast approaching when a once-beloved letter may disappear altogether as its natural habitat is destroyed.

The possessive S that once would have been found at the end of "Year" has already become such a rarity, it's a minor thrill to spot one in the wild.  Even the plural S that "10 Day" cries out for, has long been endangered.  In roadside signs, you would see one barely hanging on, clinging for dear life to an apostrophe: "Boild P-Nut's."  The S, dazed and weakened, did not know what it was there for.  Did the Boild P-Nut own something?  Perhaps the Frsh Tmatoe's that was next on the sign.  But what did the Frsh Tmatoe own?  Was Boild P-Nut's a contraction, an existential statement: Boild P-Nut is?

In such a predicament, it is not surprising the S is dying out altogether.  At least in the cafeteria poster, there is one brave defiant S on the end of Appls, that is application, which was abbreviated "appl" presumably to prevent confusion with a cellphone "app" which is an abbreviation for...  Oh, wait, that's short for application too.  

But I refuse to be dragged off onto the side topic of abbreviation; S is what I came here to talk about, and by golly, I'm going to do it.  So enjoy your Ss before they're finally extinct.  I figure they'll last about ten more year.

Multi-Tasking