Essa Alroc's Blog, page 25

The Passion of the…Jesus f’ing Christ, That was Painful to Watch

I finally got around to it. After a mere ten years, I finally managed to watch my way through the Passion of the Christ.

Note to self, double the hate mail you send to Mel Gibson.

Before I go off on an angry rant, I would like to point out a few things that were the saving grace of the movie. The acting was flawless. The settings, makeup and scenery were all realistic. The revival of a dead language, simply for the use of dramatic integrity, was an absolute stroke of genius.

I must say, it was the best snuff film that I have ever seen.

Because that’s what it was. It was a snuff film. A beautifully executed snuff film. No joke, I haven’t flinched away from a screen so much since I watched ‘2 Girls One Cup’.

Of course, those supporting the movie will state ‘it’s realistic. That really happened to Jesus.” To that argument I say, ‘yep, and Kevin Ware’s leg really snapped in half like a dry chicken bone. You want to get the popcorn and watch some slow motion videos of that too?”

I didn’t think so. First, just because it allegedly happened doesn’t mean it needs to be shown in all its glorious brutality. The story of Jesus is an interesting one. It also has more plot holes than a The Sixth Sense, which was so holey I hear the screenplay was written on a slice of Swiss cheese.

My main complaint was that it was shown on Network TV, in all its brutal glory. After watching Jesus get the shit beat out of him for about 45 minutes straight, I had to pause it and ask myself ‘they can put this on TV, but full frontal nudity is too much?”

Also, I didn’t get the bald chick with the weird midget. I think it was some kind of Satan thing? Which is weird, because Jesus was a Jew and Jews don’t believe in Satan? Or is it hell? Whatever. I actually got bored and dozed off for a bit.

Yes, I got bored and dozed off watching a snuff film. I’m pretty sure that tells you something right there.

Anyway, after 126 minutes of relentless beatings, the movie ends right at the good part, the Resurrection. Much like the bible, they leave out all the uplifting stuff and just leave your depressed with a cliffhanger ending. I’m sure the apostles were nice guys, but they really could have used a good story editor.

Its enough to make me want to skip the sequel, “Jesus 2: Revenge of the Messiah”.

The Pretentious Asshole – A How To Guide

I’ve noticed I have a tendency to pick on the poorer sector in this world. The WalMart shoppers, grocery baggers, ex-cons and the ladies that love them. But I don’t usually make wealthy people a target.

Rest assured, that was an unintentional oversight and not some kind of wealth based bias. In fact, after spending yesterday driving around my middle/upper class community, I feel like I have a special knowledge of a specific type of wealthy individual.

Namely, pretentious assholes.

Have you ever wanted to be one? There are many situations where being a pretentious asshole isn’t just recommended, it’s encouraged. Maybe you’re planning a visit to the British royal family. Maybe you’ll soon be attending a $500 a plate benefit for inner city youths. Maybe you just want to fit in when you shop at Whole Foods. Whatever the reason, anyone can be a pretentious asshole by following a few simple rules.

Essa’s Guide to Being a Pretentious Asshole

Rule #1. Never, under any circumstances, hang up your cell phone. You are the most important person in the world. You need show that by constantly reaching out to the world with the help of AT & T and Bluetooth. While constantly talking on your cell phone, you need to remember a few key points.

Talk loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear you. It’s not just important that the person on the other end hear you. Everyone, from the person in line in front of you, to the guy four aisles over at the store, needs to be able to hear every single word of your conversation.
Be sure to cut people off when driving, so they will also notice that you’re talking on your cell phone.
Take several calls at once and put people on hold. At any time, you should have at least 5 people waiting in your call waiting queue.

Rule #2. Be rude to any service person you encounter. The waiters at Red Lobster and the cashiers at 7-11 need to understand what a chore it is for you to lower yourself to talking to them. When forced to wait even a few seconds, make sure you sigh loudly and check your watch several times. A ‘do you know who I am?’ or ‘I’m good friends with the mayor’ is a great way to ensure you get priority service.

Rule #3. If you have an impressive profession, try to find a way to squeeze it in to any conversation.

Wrong;

Yes, I need to purchase some stamps.

Right;

I need to purchase some stamps so I can have my legal secretary at my law office mail letters to my law clients. I really shouldn’t have to do this at all, because I’m a lawyer, and this really is my assistant’s job. But I was going out anyway, on my way to a lawyer’s mediation. Did I mention I’m a lawyer?

Also, if you have a PhD in anything, even if it is a PhD in Origami Folding from the University of Nigeria, you need to make sure people address you as Doctor. When they fail to, correct them in the most patronizing way possible. “No, young man, it’s Doctor Smith. Doctor, understand? Doctor Smith, repeat it with me…Doctor Smith.”

Rule # 4. Develop a very slight English accent. Even if you’re from Mudwater, Mississippi, people should always get the impression that you’re actually from Kent or Cheshire. If you’re not sure how to do it, try talking through your nose. You’ll get there.

If you want to be a pretentious asshole, it’s pretty easy. The main thing you need to remember is that you are the most important person in the world and no one else matters. Soon, you too will have strangers gazing at you in open admiration as they exclaim “what a pretentious asshole!”

What a pretentious asshole indeed.

Friday’s Featured Blogger – Molly of Whoa, Molly!

Subject: Molly of Whoa, Molly! 

Location: Outside a Loft in the Upper East Side of New York City

Joss Whedon opens a window and throws an egg out. We jump out of the way just in time as it splatters on the sidewalk. “I told you sci-fi freaks before, I’m not bringing back Firefly and I’m not doing a sequel to Serenity!” The window slams shut but I’m not giving up.

“We will not be moved Whedon! We are ‘leaves on the wind’.

Molly looks at me skeptically. “Doesn’t that mean we can be moved?”

“To be entirely honest, I never understood what it did mean and Wash didn’t live long enough to explain it.”

Molly and I have arrived today to do a featured blogger interview as well as harass Joss Whedon into continuing the short lived series, ‘Firefly.’ We elected to do this after we learned he was wasting his considerable talents making Avengers 2.

Its been ten years, but we still can’t let go of Firefly.

Molly looks at me again. “So what now, do we just give up?”

“Did Mal give up during the train robbery?”

“Yes.”

“Shit, I forgot about that.” I look down the street. “Wanna go get an Italian ice?”

“Shiny.”

I smile and pull out my tape recorder ad we dodge another egg thrown by Whedon’s housekeeper.

***

Tell us about your site, Whoa, Molly. What inspired you to write it? What are your goals with it?

I decided to start blogging properly in July last year. I’ve had blogs on and off for years, and was a pretty chronic journal-keeper as a teenager (don’t worry, I’ve long since burned these offending articles). I wanted a place to post the little stories I write, to link the cool articles I read, to babble on about all the things that are bashing about in my brain. I’ve always written, both creatively and about stuff and myself, so this seemed like a natural progression. I was kind of aimless for a while there, so in order to wrangle my life into a more awesome state, I made some goals. The blog was one of them. I blog about the books and articles I read, my extremely boring adventures in writing, my many, many opinions, my cat and all the myriad things that irritate the hell out of me. Hopefully I can use it to connect with readers when I eventually start self-publishing the stuff I write, but that’s a future goal – I’m not quite there yet.

You mention being a passionate atheist. Have you always been? Do you come from a religious background?

I came from a pretty secular household and I’ve never been much for religion. My mum raised me to make my own mind up about my system of beliefs and I adore her for that. I started to have my doubts about organized religion as a kid, after being kicked out of religious studies class in fifth grade for ‘asking too many questions’. I was one of those dinosaur obsessed kids and I couldn’t wrap my brain around the creationist ideas I was hearing. It seemed to be at odds with everything I was learning. The whole notion of god and spirituality has just never made much sense to me. I’m pretty skeptical about everything, so I guess this is an extension of that. People have tried to convince me of the power of God by pointing out the intricacies, beauty and complexity of the world, but that’s always just made me more in awe of how astounding the universe is rather than convincing me that there’s any higher power behind it.

What’s your favorite book?

I have about a million. I adore Stephen King. ‘The Stand’ and ‘It’ have had pretty big impressions on my life. I’ve always got time for good old Steve and was pretty impressed with ’11/22/63′. I’ve been reading a fantasy series by an Australian author called Isabelle Carmody for the past twenty years and I’m pretty keen on that. The final book comes out next year and I’m gnashing at the bit to get my hands on it and read it in one go like I did the last installment. I’m really getting into an Indie author called Hugh Howey and I’ve read almost everything by him over the past year. He has a great post-apocalyptic series called ‘Wool’ that is blowing up like crazy and it’s terrific. He seems like an awesome dude and he is very engaged with his readers via the internet despite being extremely busy with all the success he’s had recently. I’m also a fan of books like ’1984′ by George Orwell, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood and I’d have to say that ‘American Gods’ by Neil Gaiman is a contender for my favourite book ever.

What fictional character do you wish was real?

So many of them: when I’m reading I get really invested in the worlds. I feel like the characters are my friends (that makes me sound like a giant loser, doesn’t it? It’s kinda true.) I re-read a lot because I miss the characters and their lives. I like to go back and visit them again. I was an only child, which can get a little lonely, so I’d get really invested in the imaginary worlds I’d find in books. So there are a bunch of characters I wish were real, but also a bunch of worlds I wish were real too.

What fictional character would you like to beat the shit out of?

Usually I can understand or empathize with the motivations of characters, so when they are bad or sad or whatever, I can usually relate. Whiny characters get to me, though. Despite the fact that I adored the character Marius in the initial Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, when I read Blood and Gold recently, I found myself wanting to punch him square in the face. The entire time I was reading it I was thinking, “Shut up, Marius.”

What writing projects are you working on?

I just finished up two short stories that I used to apply for the Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle this year. I thought that once I done with these I’d blank out for a bit seeing as I spent a lot of time working really hard on them, but I actually started a new short story right away. This new one is different for me in that it follows a very young character. I love imagining future worlds, but usually they are distant futures. This most recent story is quite near-future and dystopian. It’s about poverty, waste, a giant store called The All-Mart and a parking Structure. I’ve also been writing a longer-format story for a while now that is set on a generation ship in space. It is young-adult and I’m not sure where it’s going, but I really like my characters, so I keep at it. I’d write all day if I could but finding time for creativity is tough. I work full-time, do a lot of martial arts training, blog, and attempt to have a life sometimes too. I cram some writing in when I can, but I’d love to have more time to dedicate to it.

You have some pretty bad ass tattoos. Any special meaning behind them? How insanely painful was it to get that much ink done?

People always ask me what my tattoos mean. Mostly, I think they just mean I like tattoos. I’ve got a Japanese style sleeve and backpiece because I love the way Japanese-style tattoos look. I’ve also got a few little ‘sticker-style’ tattoos that show how much of a tragic fan-girl I am. (I have the Deathly Hallows from Harry Potter on my wrist and the word ‘Shiny’ tattooed on my foot because I adore ‘Firefly’ and ‘Serenity’) I don’t like getting tattooed, but I love having tattoos. I actually find the whole process very painful – when my tattoo artist buzzed the first line of my backpiece, I actually thought to myself: “I don’t think I can do this.” But I did. Codeine helped, but not much! People think I must like pain or something. I don’t, I actually have a really low pain tolerance. I’m just not afraid of pain and I’m willing to endure it to look the way I want to look.

How did you get into Muay Thai kickboxing? When are you planning on using those skills to become a vigilante crime fighter?

I started Muay Thai about a year ago. I was looking to be fitter and also to be able to kick ass. I am ridiculously short and not the slightest bit threatening, which was something I wanted to change. There happened to be a Muay Thai gym close by and I went along and fell in love. I liked the fitness aspect as well as the brutality, ha! I enjoy sports where the odds of being horribly injured are high for some strange reason. I was training three days a week, but my body wasn’t really into that: I started getting a lot of muscular injuries, specifically in my neck, that were making life somewhat painful. Now I train Muay Thai one afternoon a week, take a yoga class mid-week and then round it all off with Taekwondo, which is less of a strain on my body than Muay Thai. I’m only a white belt, but my first grading is in a month or so. Look out, yellow belt! I never used to be into fitness or exercise of any kind. I was a very heavy smoker and couch potato for many years. Once I quit smoking, I had all this energy I needed to use, so I channelled it into becoming some kind of tiny warrior-lady. I’ve found that exercising vigorously is very helpful with my chronic anxiety and it helps keep all my other assorted crazy at bay too, so I do it often. The knowledge that I could probably kick someone’s ass is also very satisfying to me, but I doubt I’ll be fighting crime any time soon – I can’t decide on a costume…

You’ve recently started doing Yoga. How is that going? Can you put your ankles behind your head? Any plans to incorporate it into some weird sexual positions?

I’ve actually been doing yoga for about three years now. A few doctors and alternative-medicine practitioners suggested it to help with my anxiety and chronic bodily tenseness. Before I started yoga I was physically unable to relax. My shoulders, back and neck were always tense and it wreaked havoc on my body. I started with a couple of DVD’s in my bedroom and went from there. I practice yoga almost every day, even if it’s just half an hour in my lunch break. It helps with everything – brain, body, life in general. I’m not so much into the spirituality of it, but it doesn’t stop me from utilizing it for the physical and mental benefits. I’m pretty flexible naturally, so it helps to keep me limber – but I can’t get my legs up over my head no matter how hard I try. I wish I could, it sounds weird and sexy, two things I try to be at all times.

***

We are standing at an Italian ice cart when I notice a man with a long beard and a mustache who looks oddly familiar. “Holly shit, is that Terry Goodkind?”

Molly squints. “I think it is.”

I grab her by the arm and yank her down the street. “Let’s go harass him to bring back ‘Legend of the Seeker ‘.”

If you want to read more about Molly, she can be found on her page Whoa, Molly!

It’s Not Rocket Science…But Neither is Your Job

I’ve reached a low point in my life. I’m being judged by a garbage man with a neck tattoo.

I live in a place that has ‘valet trash’ service. This is a fancy way of saying ‘we pay a bunch of ex-cons and high school drop-outs $20 a night to pick up your trash at your door, for the low, low price of $50 a month.”

Being the dainty flower that I am, I use this program. Well, also, you can’t opt out. My complexes dumpsters are locked up tighter than Fort Knox and only a select group of individuals have the key. From what I’ve seen, you’re only eligible if you have a criminal record and some form of ‘fuck the police’ permanently, and prominently, etched onto your body.

Anyway, the whole valet trash thing seems easy enough. You put your garbage out, they take it. But then you get into the complexities of garbage politics. They won’t take loose pizza boxes. They won’t take unflattened cardboard boxes. They bitch about bags that are too heavy.

Also, if they fail to show up for three days, and one of the several billion squirrels that run around get into your trash and destroy it, they bitch about that. I really feel like I need to apologize for that. If there are any valet trash men out there, reading this tonight, please accept the below as my formal apology.

Dear Garbage Man

I’m so sorry I forgot to deploy my Sonar Squirrel Repeller 3000 while you took your spontaneous vacation. Maybe I should have just sat outside for three days waving them away with a fucking broom until you decided to some back. You know, because my life revolves around making a service, that I pay you to do, easier for you.  Regardless of how poorly you decide to provide that service.

Sincerely,

Essa Alroc, Person Who Pays You

Tonight was the last straw. As I sat here, finishing up yet another 12 hour work day, I heard one of these douchebags complain through my open window about the way the knot was tied on my garbage bag. The exact phrase; “Jesus, learn how to tie a fucking knot. It’s not fucking rocket science.”

The guy nearly shit himself when my blinds popped open and I responded, “nope, and neither is your job but you still can’t manage to do it without leaving a line of garbage down my walkway.”

He walked away without responding. It was a shame, because I had many more helpful suggestions about what else he could do to make his job easier. Some of the helpful tidbits I was going to recommend;

Try being in the country legally. That way, your job won’t involve working for a shady contractor who owns a pickup truck and only hires dudes that hang out in front of Home Depot.
Try graduating from High School or at least getting a fucking GED. My friend Sara finished her GED in approximately 12 minutes, for $399, by taking a correspondence course she found in her TV guide. No joke, there is no longer any excuse for not managing to at least complete the standard 12 grades. Don’t give me a hard luck story either. This isn’t China. There is more than one free program available out there. Find it, and you might find someone willing to at least pay you minimum wage.
If you have chosen to get a facial tattoo with a swear word or racial slur, you’re not getting a job that pays more than $3 an hour unless you go back to prison. No suggestion here. Just an FYI.

What are you getting from the tips above? If you hate the idea of cleaning up my garbage for a living, it’s not my problem. It’s yours. Do something a little more productive than bitch about the people who pay your salary and things might get a little better for you.

Who knows, maybe someday, you’ll be the one driving the pick up truck.

 

 

 

Whoops, Spoiler Alert!

Because I am a saint who loves to save other people time, as well as a super judgmental movie critic, I’ve figured out the entire plot line for several new movies that just came out, based on the previews alone. Now, you won’t have to actually sit through 2 hours of these pieces of crap in order to discuss them with your friends. Instead, I have summarized everything for you.

 

Currently Out

 

The Croods – An under appreciated ‘everyman’ relies only on steadfast determination and bravery to save his family from certain disaster. In doing so, he regains the respect of his boy crazy, shoe crazy teenage daughter. In addition, a small, fluffy character with no decipherable species or genus will provide constant comic relief and marketing revenue. Spoiler alert: Being forced to go to this movie will make you sorry you had children.

Olympus Has Fallen – An ex or current cop, who was somehow disgraced through no fault of his own, will single handedly save the country from terrorists. The president will be played by a nondescript white guy and Morgan Freeman will occasionally show up to offer sage advice. Spoiler alert: Gerard Butler’s facial expression will not change during the entire movie.

Oz the Great and Powerful – It has been said that the reason this movie is so awesome is because ‘it’s never been done before’. Well, except for when it was actually done before in 1939. The movie will rely on special effects and we will be forced to delve into the politics of Oz. This is exactly like what they did when they made the new Star Wars movies.  The new Oz will have the one thing missing that made the first one wonderful; an excellent story. Spoiler alert: Essa will watch the movie on mute just so she can look at Mila Kunis. I’m not gay, but I would totally go gay for that chick.

 

Upcoming

 

The Host – Think Twilight, but replace vampires and werewolves with aliens. Essa predicts some kind of love triangle, and a clumsy girl with low self esteem who had no idea of her own inner strength. Expect a very drawn out trilogy where love overcomes all obstacles. Spoiler Alert: There’s really nothing to spoil.

Oblivion – Tom Cruise will play a man much younger than himself and make us all forget how short he is. Morgan Freeman will arrive, offer some sage advice, and possibly some random trivia about penguins. Tom Cruises’ love interest will be played by a girl half his age, and who is unknown, as Tom Cruise hates to share the spotlight. The moral of the story will be that scientologists were right all along. Spoiler Alert: Being the only black guy left on planet earth, Morgan Freeman’s character will probably not see the end of the movie.

The Evil Dead – The new remake will lack the gallows humor that made the original trilogy a cult hit. However, as any fan of the franchise knows, the only good movie in the Evil Dead Trilogy was Army of Darkness. As such, there is a good chance that today’s special effects will make this fourth installment take off in a way that the original never did. Spoiler Alert: If you were a fan of the original, you are really going to miss Bruce Campbell.

 

Never Should Haves

GI Joe – I love Bruce Willis as much as then next gal, but another GI Joe movie? Really? The only movie I’m interested in seeing is the one that recreates my childhood GI Joe experience. GI Joe gets his face melted with a magnifying glass on a hot summer’s day.

Jurassic Park – It’s not friggen new if you just add 3d to the old one. Seriously, Spielberg, it’s like you’re making fun of me.

Odd Thomas – I loved the books, but the movie was murdered as soon as Anton Yelchin got the lead. Seriously, what other movies credits did the guy have to his name? Oh yeah, he played a cartoon albino pirate who barely spoke in the straight to video “Pirates: Band of Misfits”. That clearly qualifies him to play a tortured clairvoyant, who was the lead in a large series of bestselling books.

So there you go. I’ve summarized all of the upcoming movies based on the 12 seconds I saw, so you won’t have to waste your time writing to various actors, demanding your money back. Might I suggest instead, that you all just stay home and watch Game of Thrones? This season is going to be a good one. Jaime gets his hand cut off, and both Robb and Prince Joffrey are going to die!

Whoops, spoiler alert.

The Random Follow

In my time on Facebook and Twitter, I have only defriended or unfollowed a few people. Of course, there was the time when I was getting used to my MacBook and accidentally deleted 20 of my friends, but that doesn’t really count, because I wasn’t even sure of who I defriended.

What can I say? I was drunk and Macbook mouse pads are insanely touchy.

Generally, when I’m defriending someone, I have a reason. They’ve sent me 1200 inspirational messages a day. They’ve sent me LOLcats pictures or chain posts. They’re internet stalking me or harassing my friends. If I’m hitting that ‘unfriend’ or ‘unfollow’, I have a reason. A good one. Mainly, I’m sick of you.

However, Twitter and WordPress drive me fucking crazy.

Look, just because you’ve randomly decided to follow me doesn’t mean I’m going to follow you back. Going around clicking ‘follow, follow, follow’ doesn’t somehow entitle you to a return follows. In fact, it’s a terrible way to get page traffic because you get a group of people following you who never go to your page again.

Do you know what a bounce rate is? Don’t bother to Google it. If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t care about bounce rate, then you’re the kind of person that Google is going to find irrelevant and your page will soon be buried at the 5 billionth mark.

I follow people I’m interested in. I follow people who have something to say. I’m not just going to toss a courtesy follow back. If I’m following you, it means I’ve spent more than five minutes on your page, reading what you had to say and finding it interesting. It doesn’t mean I agree with you. In fact, I probably completely disagree with you. But I’m interested. That’s what matters.

Not a million fake follows.

I’ve said before that drive-by likes don’t bother me. They really don’t. If you want to come to my page and like something I said without reading it, good for you. It’s a free country. However, if you’re just doing it in the hope that I’ll like you back, don’t hold your breath. Why? Because if you’re wasting time doing that,  chances are, your content is shit and I won’t be reading it.

If I started following everyone who followed me, my reader would soon be full of pages from spammers reblogging articles about acia berries and home loan modifications. Instead, I search for quality. I’m not a ‘you like me’ so ‘I’ll like you’ kind of girl. I ditched that shit in grade school.

That just screams to me ‘sheep mentality’ and I am not a herding animal. I’m an individual. I have shit to say. If you just want to follow me because you see I have a lot of followers and I might add you to my blog roll, you’re wasting your time. I work hard on my posts and I value those who actually read them. Those are the people who get my attention. Not the random spammers who decide to follow me just to get me to pay it forward.

That’s how it is here at Essa on Everything. I write what I like, and sometimes I keep people interested. In order to get a follow back, you need to be interesting. If that upsets you and you decide you want to unfollow me, you can find the link at the top left of my page.

Trust me, you won’t be missed.

No, You’re Not Bad…You’re Just Behaving Like Classless Trash

What has a collective IQ of 85 and always wears clothes four sizes too small? I found it.

Fuck the Bad Girls Club and fuck the idiots that elect to go on it. They are not cool, they don’t ‘own’ shit. They are classless trash and their show makes me want to fire a missile at Atlanta.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let me explain why I’m pissed off yet again.

I never claimed to be classy. I never claimed to by high brow. I come from a pure, white trash, small town background and I will never be welcomed into the junior league.

I’m cool with that. What I’m not cool with is how women keep getting represented in the media. These retarded reality shows make a living on hair pulling drama and girl-on-girl hate. People just seem to gobble this shit up.

Ladies who think that the fact that you can beat another woman in a fight is a fact to be proud of, congrats. I agree. You’re incredibly masculine. You’re practically a dude in a fucking dress.

And you’re not bad ass. You’re classless trash.

Stop with the hair pulling and face scratching whenever someone takes a verbal jab at you. All you prove when you immediately resort to violence is that you’re too fucking retarded to come up with a good verbal argument.

Well done, now you’re a masculine idiot in a dress. You’re giving me Dennis Rodman flashbacks.

Look, I come from a place where violence was a necessity. Hand to hand combat was something I was trained in when all else failed. For me, it’s a last resort, not an immediate standby. When I’m fighting with someone, it’s in self defense and my goal is to seriously maim to save my own life. It’s not because my ‘baby daddy’ hooked up with another chick.

If my ‘baby daddy’ is hooking up with another chick I say “He’s all yours. Just remember, when you steal another girl’s boyfriend, you get a guy who cheats on his girlfriend. What do you think is going to happen?”

Real bad girls don’t go around ripping each others weaves out and bitch slapping other chicks. They fight the status quo. They argue for their rights and they don’t fit into the mainstream. They take a political stand, not a stand against another stupid bitch that calls them fat.

All the “Bad Girls Club” is, is a club for girls with IQs under 45, and the dudes that like watching them bitch slap each other. Idiots and perverts.

I might not be classy, but at least I’m not one of them.

Dealing With Bad Reviews…Get Over It

In case you all didn’t know, I’m a self published author. I’ve never tried to be traditionally published. With all the query letters and excerpts required, it just seemed like too much of a job interview for me. Instead, I decided to do my own publishing to Kindle, with the hope that if I ever developed enough of a following, it would be easier to get into print. To date, it has worked. I’ve gotten a couple of offers from agents, but I haven’t accepted anything yet.

What can I say? I’m lazy and contracts are filled with big, boring scary legal words that I don’t feel like Googling. For now, I’m staying indie.

One of the big things that I hear from other self published authors is complaints about reviews. Specifically, bad reviews. Some just agonize about their bad reviews. Others gloat and put quotes on Facebook. To both groups I say…’wow, you guys actually read your reviews?’

When I go to the Kindle boards, all I see is people bitching about their reviews. Placing them verbatim and saying ‘do you guys agree?’ People take reviews personally. They get their feelings hurt. They complain they are being bullied online.

My answer? You’re not being bullied online. By publishing, you’ve made yourself into a public figure. When you’re a public figure, people are going to hate you. They’re going to disagree with you. They’re going to create hate pages about you. Google any celebrity you can think of and I guarantee, you’re going to find at least one hate page dedicated to them. The page will be filled with inaccuracies and inflammatory words. You’ll see people just spewing hatred, accusing them of being pedophiles, puppy kickers, and all kinds of horrible things.

What you won’t see on those hate pages are the celebrities themselves commenting. Why? Because they’re too busy spending all their money. Most of them don’t even know their hate pages exist.

The first warning most new self published authors receive is the warning to never comment on their reviews. Otherwise, they’ll wind on on ‘badly behaving authors’ lists and get the Goodreads review Mafias after them. I disagree.

Why? Because no one is allowed to tell me what to say or what to think. I don’t avoid commenting on reviews out of fear. There are very few things left in this world that I am still afraid of, and none of them have to do with book reviews.

I don’t comment because I don’t care. Book reviews are opinions. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and no comment from me is going to change their opinion.

Instead, I make it a rule that I only read book reviews every six months. Then, I use statistics to get constructive feedback out of them.

For example, on Strangely Sober, one person out of 27 had a problem with my weird storyline and use of profanity. That equals a very small percentage and I’m not fixing it. However, 5 people out of 27 had a problem with my timing. That’s something I need to look into.

Review mafias who tag your book with ‘never read’ or ‘badly behaving authors’ tags only have as much power as you give them in your head. The truth is that they make up like .005% of anyone who is going to look at your book. You’re not being bullied and you’re not being harassed. People just don’t like you. A very small amount of people, and you’re just fueling their fire when you waste time responding instead of working on your next book.

So, when you ask me ‘how do I respond to a bad review’ my response is always going to be, ‘why are you reading your reviews at all?’

If you want to be a writer, write. If you want to get into flame wars on the internet, then you don’t need my help. Just continue taking every single criticism personally and you can spend all your free time arguing with strangers on Goodreads and Amazon instead.

I’ll stick to writing and I’ll wave to you from the top of the New York Times Bestsellers list.

Friday’s Featured Blogger – Amanda of Unfinished Bizness

Subject – Amanda of Unfinished Bizness

Location – Chuck-E-Cheese

I arrive at a Chuck-E-Cheese a few minutes late for the interview. Logan stares at a huge mechanical mouse and raises an eyebrow in skepticism.

“Mother, please tell me we won’t be staying here long?”

“Logan, I’ve been telling you since you were four, don’t call me ‘mother’. It makes you sound like Norman Bates.”

“Yes mother.” I heave out a sigh as Logan straightens his tie. In many ways, my son is just like me, but in many other ways, I feel like I gave birth to a little accountant.

We enter and are marked with day-glow serial numbers, much like prisoners. Amanda, my interviewing subject, has arrived early and is seated at one of the cheap plastic tables. I pull up a chair and plunk down across from her. Logan heads off to attempt to take apart one of the mechanical mice and see how it works.

“I hate this place,” Amanda mutters unhappily.

“I hear they sell beer.” Amanda perks and we head off to get drinks. We return to the table and sit back down.

Amanda smiles. “It’s wise of them to serve alcohol here. This place is dangerously perky.”

“Honestly, I think they go go stronger.” I shoot a glare a a singing mouse. “Maybe acid.”

Amanda nods in agreement and I pull out my tape recorder.

***

Tell us about your site, unfinished bizness. What inspired you to write it? What are your goals with it?

My inspiration for starting unfinished bizness was to share my “story.” I had my daughter when I was 19 and went through some crazy shit between then and now.. the condensed version of that story comprised the first 5 blog posts I published. From there it evolved into a place where I share my frustrations & joys of parenting, talk about random shit that goes on from time to time, and hand out all of my unsolicited advise and opinions.

Moving forward my goal is to continue writing, period. I get into slumps where I don’t write for days at a time and I want to be better about that. My ultimate wish for unfinished bizness is to be able to go back and re-read the posts with my daughter some day. Like a living online diary.

You recently had a career change. Tell us about that and how your new job is going.

Well my last job sucked major ass. My boss was an insensitive, immature, micromanaging, scrooge-like asshole. After being there 2 years I started looking hard for a new job and through a temp agency pretty much stumbled into my new job! It’s been going phenomenally well and I find new reasons to love it every day. The staff there treats me like family and I feel like I’ve worked there forever.

Do you have a crazy ‘babies daddy’ story to share?

After my daughter was born her biological dad was pretty much nonexistent, so the encounters I have had in the past (almost) 8 years have mostly been in court. My favorite story is when we were there because he filed to have his child support adjusted.. it was the year that everyone got those stimulus checks and he came in with a stack of papers demanding to know why that check, his tax return and money from his paycheck were being taken automatically. Turns out you have to pay child support or the state takes it by force

Then he asked the million dollar question: “How long do I have to pay child support for?” Dumbass of the year.

Proudest parenting moment?

I don’t know that I can pick just one.. There was the time she did her first writing assignment completely on her own, the time her artwork was chosen to be in an art show, every single time she gets a perfect score on a test, etc. All those little moments are like pats on the back, especially considering where I was in my life when I started raising her.

Biggest parenting screw-up?

Hands down it would have to be letting my daughter get super attached to my ex-fiance. I started dating him when she was almost a year old, we got engaged and then broke up when she was 3 years old. She thought of him as her dad and it took a long time and a lot of healing for her (and I) to recover from that kind of loss. Not smart by me.

What celebrity do you think would make the worst parent and why?

I don’t follow celebrity news or know a lot of current pop culture. What I do know is that I keep hearing & seeing crazy shit about Lindsay Lohan, so I’m going to go with her. She doesn’t have any kids right? Cause that would be scary.

Tell us about your ongoing story project, “I need your help.”

Sadly that story is almost a year old and has only gotten like 6 comments. 4 of which came from 2 people. My brilliant idea was to start a story and have people comment to add a sentence onto the end. Then when it got really long and funny I was going to publish it! Obviously it didn’t work out the way I had hoped, so if you link to it I would be thrilled! And believe me, the more obscene the better

Tell us about your diary entry from September 26, 1999… Who was Craig?

Hahaha, of all the entires… “Craig” was my very first high school boyfriend. We met in marching band (I was in color guard, he played trumpet), and then connected online via AOL and started “dating.” I was 13 though as it was the summer before 9th grade, I was super immature and by that November he had had enough and dumped me. We always stayed friends though, and after I had my daughter we dated again for a couple of months.

It didn’t work out because I really didn’t have any romantic feelings towards him. It was just comfortable and looking back on it now I realize I was testing the waters in single mom dating.

At one point in your life, you had to take state assistance. Do you think there is a stigma attached to those who receive welfare and what do you wish was different about assistance programs?

Absolutely there’s a stigma attached to receiving state assistance or “welfare” as people tend to call it in general. If you have a Facebook account I’m 99% sure you’ve seen the memes about how your taxes are supporting welfare/ghetto people and how there should be drug testing to receive welfare, etc. After having been IN THE SYSTEM I can tell you that the people those hateful messages refer to are not all like you assume they are. Many are “normal,” like me.

I wish that assistance programs were a more intuitive system. Most are fragmented and the different state departments don’t work together. If there were a centralized system in place things would run more smoothly eliminating a lot of waste and inefficiency. Also, the laws governing state assistance have to get with the times. The way that “poverty lines” are calculated is outdated and doesn’t make sense for today’s expenses. That leaves a lot of people out who could be in need of help. Of course the biggest issue is with enforcement and tracking, there are a lot of loopholes to slip through.

Tell us about your life now and your future husband.

Life these days is interesting. I’m still adjusting to living in Northern Virginia having grown up in the vastly different state of Delaware.  We are also 4 months away from our wedding and realizing that we have been lazy as shit in planning it. My future husband is amazing, which is why I’m letting him keep me He’s a genuinely “good guy” and is great with my daughter, awesome at his job, loved by everyone he meets and always keeps me on my toes! He even cooks, cleans, does laundry & dishes (after lot of prompting of course).

***

As I put away my tape recorder, security arrives dragging my son by the elbow. I nearly groan. I can feel yet another lifelong ban coming.

“What did he do?”

“He reprogrammed the Chuck-E-Cheese mechanical band to sing ‘Smack my Bitch up”.

I give Logan a discreet fist bump. “Nice.”

“We’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

I snort. “Whatever, we’ve gotten kicked out of places way nicer than this.” I say my goodbyes to Amanda as my budding evil genius and I are led to the exit.

If you want to check out Amanda’s page, she can be found at Unfinished Bizness. I also urge all my creative friends out there to help with the story project “I need your help.” Also, she would appreciate any “Likes” for her Facebook fan page.

The Potato Timetable

When I got my first apartment, I went through the standard right of passage for a lower-middle class girl. I filled that first, crappy one bedroom apartment with second hand crap. I had the standard lumpy futon that is only slightly more comfortable than sleeping on a bed of broken glass. I had a utensil drawer filled with sporks and all my fine china came from the Dale Earnhardt collectors edition from KFC. I even had a set of pots and pans that came with the warning ‘Do not expose to direct flame’.

Of all these broken items that I owned, nothing was so broken down as my second-hand microwave.

You never realize how much you need a microwave until you don’t have one. Luckily for me, at the time, I knew a guy who was getting married. I assume as a part of the prenup his bride demanded he get rid of all his junk. He offered me his microwave.

I was leery. I didn’t really know him that well and it seemed odd that he would just give it away. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The only button that works is the potato button.”

In case you’re part of my massive Amish audience and you’ve never seen a microwave, they all come with standard preset buttons. They have ‘defrost’, they have ‘popcorn’ and they have ‘potato’. You press the button and it goes to the perfect preset time you need to burn your food.

On this particular microwave, the circuit board behind the buttons had shorted out, and the only button that worked was the potato button. I accepted it gratefully, assuming it would be awesome if I wanted a baked potato.

For anything else, I was forced to develop the potato timetable. If I wanted to cook anything, I had to convert it into potatoes first. At first it was hard. I wound up with a lot of burned food and my apartment seemed to permanently take on that disgusting, acrid, burnt popcorn smell. But over time, I became an expert.

I could convert everything to potatoes almost instantly.

“I need to reheat this pot roast.”

“Set it for 4 potatoes.”

“What should I set it for four servings of instant oatmeal?”

“Two potatoes.”

“I need to defrost this turkey.”

“47 potatoes.”

For anything that came in under a potato, I would just set it on top, press the button, and allow the small radiation leak to gradually cook it. I once absent-mindedly set a loaf of bread on top and it toasted every slice of bread in the package.

I clawed my way up from the lower-middle class many years ago and I was able to get a microwave that didn’t require the potato timetable. But to this day, I still have to stop myself from hitting the potato button when I’m cooking something.

It’s amazing how adaptable the human mind is. It’s been nearly 983,082 potatoes since I got rid of that microwave and I still know how to use it.