Duffy Prendergast's Blog: Mars day 1, page 5
August 2, 2014
Day 5 planet Mars: Civilization
I woke up this morning lying in the middle of a snow bank staring at a pile of snow that used to be my igloo, my little naked harem of three-breasted six-nippled ladies strewn about me. The last thing I remember was me and my little harem enjoying some post-coitus melted snow with some baked potatoes. The igloo filled with a most noxious odor as my lady friends commenced to farting like a string of volcanoes. I made the mistake of lighting a match so that I could see my way to the door to escape the terrible odor and the next thing I know I’m laying out here in the open.
It looks like my global cooling suggestion has taken hold, though, because all of the colorful little people are walking around in bikinis. They’re diving into the snow as though it were an ocean abutting a tropical beach. Some of them are throwing discus-like objects while others are catching them. Some are doing the dirty deed right out in the open, but most importantly they all seem to be eating potatoes. It doesn’t feel any warmer, so it’s all in their heads. To think that they actually believe that the lot of them could possible create a big enough carbon footprint to effect the entire atmosphere! Their like sheep. It’s a good thing they don’t have the internet or they’d figure out the practical joke that’s being played on them.
All-in-all, though, they’re a smart lot. It’s a shame that they aren’t yet civilized. Oh, sure, they’ve figured out how to live in peace and harmony. They seem to have an economy and trade and industry. But they haven’t even yet figured out which ones should be discriminated against. With a choice of four different colors you’d think that they’d at least figure that part out by now!
I’m thinking that since I”m the only pinkish colored man on the whole planet, that it should be me that gets the most votes, but what fun would it be to discriminate against only one?
I was thinking, perhaps, the little brown men would be the best choice. After all, since I seem to be the only one here who has knowledge of things such as discrimination, and since I come from a place, the United States of America, where brown seems to be the first preference for discrimination, I could bring a whole array of colorful verbiage and stereotypical prejudices to the party with little effort at all.
The fewest in color appear to be the Red ones. They are far outnumbered by the rest. But truth be told, their rather nice and I find the females of the color Red to be quite attractive. Most of the red females have large breasts, even if they have three apiece and twice as many nipples. And when it comes to legs, well let’s just say Betty Grable had nothing on them. Perhaps I could label them as sluts and steer them into promiscuity, but then again, with the whole planet fornicating like it’s their last day on Mars, it probably wouldn’t stick. I could lead them to believe that keeping up with the latest fashions and becoming anorexic is the trendy thing to do.
But I gotta tell you the little Yellow ones sorta creep me out. Furthermore, the Yellow ones seem to be the most industrious and wealthiest of all of the little men, as a whole I mean, so they may pose a threat to my implementation of the most necessary of necessities for a prosperous civilization. Exploitation. And these Yellow ones already have one mark against them as they seem to have a very unpopular religion in which they worship an unpopular God and they appear to be rather devout. Why I could plaster them all with six pointed stars, or tattoo numbers on their arms, and there is no way that they could separate themselves from their appointed destiny.
And afterwards, we could throw them into concentration camps and take all of their stuff and divvy it up among the rest of us!
Oh, but I suppose that’s been done to death already.
(Just watched La Rafle. Makes you want to go back in time and exterminate some evil people)
But then again, I don’t have to divvy up their stuff according to color. I could simply tax the crap out of the hardest working ones and give it to the laziest ones and line my pockets at the same time! I’ll give everyone in the community the right to vote other peoples wealth into their own pockets. I’ll give it a fancy name, like “The Fairness Act” or “The Act of Contrition” or some such fair-minded nonsense! They won’t know what’s hit them until the train has left the station. I shall call this government of mine “Democracy”.
Well, of course, I may be a bit presumptuous in declaring myself their leader so quickly, but I have a pretty good inside track on this government corruption subject too. They don’t know anything about lobbyists or PACs or bribes or nepotism yet, nor cronyism or double talk or promising everything and giving them nothing. They haven’t read Hobbs or Rousseau or Locke, so they’re all in the dark. I’ll get these sheep so’s their so busy playing video games and worshiping sports heroes and pop stars that they won’t notice what’s going on around them
They don’t know what’s in their best interest, so I guess it’s up to me to tell them. It does, after all, take a village.
I hate to cut short my post, but I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to civilize these little people.
I hate to cut short my post, but I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to civilize these little people.
It looks like my global cooling suggestion has taken hold, though, because all of the colorful little people are walking around in bikinis. They’re diving into the snow as though it were an ocean abutting a tropical beach. Some of them are throwing discus-like objects while others are catching them. Some are doing the dirty deed right out in the open, but most importantly they all seem to be eating potatoes. It doesn’t feel any warmer, so it’s all in their heads. To think that they actually believe that the lot of them could possible create a big enough carbon footprint to effect the entire atmosphere! Their like sheep. It’s a good thing they don’t have the internet or they’d figure out the practical joke that’s being played on them.
All-in-all, though, they’re a smart lot. It’s a shame that they aren’t yet civilized. Oh, sure, they’ve figured out how to live in peace and harmony. They seem to have an economy and trade and industry. But they haven’t even yet figured out which ones should be discriminated against. With a choice of four different colors you’d think that they’d at least figure that part out by now!
I’m thinking that since I”m the only pinkish colored man on the whole planet, that it should be me that gets the most votes, but what fun would it be to discriminate against only one?
I was thinking, perhaps, the little brown men would be the best choice. After all, since I seem to be the only one here who has knowledge of things such as discrimination, and since I come from a place, the United States of America, where brown seems to be the first preference for discrimination, I could bring a whole array of colorful verbiage and stereotypical prejudices to the party with little effort at all.
The fewest in color appear to be the Red ones. They are far outnumbered by the rest. But truth be told, their rather nice and I find the females of the color Red to be quite attractive. Most of the red females have large breasts, even if they have three apiece and twice as many nipples. And when it comes to legs, well let’s just say Betty Grable had nothing on them. Perhaps I could label them as sluts and steer them into promiscuity, but then again, with the whole planet fornicating like it’s their last day on Mars, it probably wouldn’t stick. I could lead them to believe that keeping up with the latest fashions and becoming anorexic is the trendy thing to do.
But I gotta tell you the little Yellow ones sorta creep me out. Furthermore, the Yellow ones seem to be the most industrious and wealthiest of all of the little men, as a whole I mean, so they may pose a threat to my implementation of the most necessary of necessities for a prosperous civilization. Exploitation. And these Yellow ones already have one mark against them as they seem to have a very unpopular religion in which they worship an unpopular God and they appear to be rather devout. Why I could plaster them all with six pointed stars, or tattoo numbers on their arms, and there is no way that they could separate themselves from their appointed destiny.
And afterwards, we could throw them into concentration camps and take all of their stuff and divvy it up among the rest of us!
Oh, but I suppose that’s been done to death already.
(Just watched La Rafle. Makes you want to go back in time and exterminate some evil people)
But then again, I don’t have to divvy up their stuff according to color. I could simply tax the crap out of the hardest working ones and give it to the laziest ones and line my pockets at the same time! I’ll give everyone in the community the right to vote other peoples wealth into their own pockets. I’ll give it a fancy name, like “The Fairness Act” or “The Act of Contrition” or some such fair-minded nonsense! They won’t know what’s hit them until the train has left the station. I shall call this government of mine “Democracy”.
Well, of course, I may be a bit presumptuous in declaring myself their leader so quickly, but I have a pretty good inside track on this government corruption subject too. They don’t know anything about lobbyists or PACs or bribes or nepotism yet, nor cronyism or double talk or promising everything and giving them nothing. They haven’t read Hobbs or Rousseau or Locke, so they’re all in the dark. I’ll get these sheep so’s their so busy playing video games and worshiping sports heroes and pop stars that they won’t notice what’s going on around them
They don’t know what’s in their best interest, so I guess it’s up to me to tell them. It does, after all, take a village.
I hate to cut short my post, but I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to civilize these little people.
I hate to cut short my post, but I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to civilize these little people.
July 19, 2014
Mars Day 4: Little Green Men
Mars is some crazy planet. I used the dried clay to start a fire. I roasted the potatoes over the fire and ate them with some snow I melted. The melted snow tasted so good that I drank a pint or so, and I passed out.
I woke up this morning seeing things. I staggered outside my igloo and I saw a little green man! I haven’t seen green men since I ate some funky mushrooms I found growing over my septic tank. I figured the melted snow must have been 80 proof! I shook my head and rubbed my eyes and looked again. This time I saw the little man in triplicate! Only he wasn’t green anymore. One of him was red, one Yellow and one brown. It was most confusing.
I went back in my igloo figuring I needed more sleep to shake the hallucinations from my head. I popped out of my igloo once more and found that my apparition had grown exponentially. I saw not one, not three, but several hundred little green, yellow, red and brown men and women gathered about my igloo.
“What’s this?” I asked the green man closest to my igloo.
“Well,” he said, “We’ve been waiting for the arrival of our savior from beyond. We’re hoping you're him.” He stuck out a six fingered appendage and greeted me with a hearty shake. “You wouldn’t be Al Gore would you?”
“No,” I said, “why in heavens would you be looking for Mr. Gore?”
“Well, we heard on a radio broadcast from a little mechanical device that’s been crawling around here that he’s become an expert on climate change on a local planet. We were hoping he could solve our problem too. You see we have a global cooling problem. All of our efforts to thwart the problem have failed.”
“What have you done to deter the cooling?”
“Our own expert on climate change, mind you he’s no Al Gore, decided that we lacked a carbon footprint. We were hoping to generate the tropical conditions of the third round ball from the sun…the one Al Gore is trying to cool off. We’d trade our snow in in a heartbeat for the condition he’s trying to solve, if we could.”
“What have you done to establish a carbon footprint? Have you got any pollution? Any SUVs or tractor trailers?
“No.” he gave me a puzzled look.
“Have you got any factories or coal burning electrical power plants?”
“No, none of those either. We use solar power for everything on our planet. “
“What have you done to generate this carbon footprint then?”
“We developed a two-step process to create as big a carbon footprint as possible. Firstly we banned contraceptives altogether and we encourage procreation like it’s our most essential industry.”
“Fornication?” I scratched my head, “I gotta tell you, I like this first step in the process, but I don’t see how this is going to lead to global warming.”
“It’s the second step that we hoped would make the difference. You see our people get a terrible case of flatulence when we eat potatoes. So we’ve planted potatoes on every inch of soil on our planet and we hope to increase emission through the consumption of these potatoes. But so far, even with triple the population, and a national dedication to dyspepsia through spud consumption, we haven’t been able to make a dent. We've got ten times the emissions with barely a dent in our cooling problem.”
“I wish I could hand Al Gore over to you this minute. The flatulence that comes out of that man’s mouth could warm a planet over in a day. The truth is, though, you’re going about things all wrong. Your looking for a cause and effect. What you need to do is to develop a system like Al Gore has. It’s not as scientific as your method, but it’s much more effective.”
“Oh?”
“What you need to do is pay your scientists a lot of money to see things differently. Start measuring climate change from a point that shows global warming, say from the coldest point on record. Before you know it you’ll be broiling hamburgers on top of your igloos.”
“I see. Hmm. Yes, I see. It's not so much about the outcome as it is about the perception. If our scientists can learn to think correctly then the outcome will take care of itself." A smile crept over his face. "That's wonderful. Thank you very much." His smile grew even bigger, "On that note," he said, "I think we should rename the term ‘flatulence’. Henceforth, we shall call our emissions ‘Gores’ after the man behind the theory.”
“What a kind gesture.” I said, "If he were here, he would likely thank you from the depths of his digestive system."
A grave look came over his face all of a sudden. He pulled me away from the others and whispered into my ear, “Do you thing we should stop fornicating like the dickens then?”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t go so far as to limit the fornicating. As a matter of fact I’d like to do my fair share.”
“That’s awfully generous of you.” He said with a smile, “I’ll send some of the women folk into your igloo right away.”
"Anything for the cause" I said, "I'll do what I can to hold up my end."
As you probably realize I’ll have to end my transmission for the day at this point. I have to do my fair share to help with the global warming. Looks like sex and potatoes for the rest of the day, dread the thought…and with a little luck I’ll produce enough Gore to warm my igloo.
I woke up this morning seeing things. I staggered outside my igloo and I saw a little green man! I haven’t seen green men since I ate some funky mushrooms I found growing over my septic tank. I figured the melted snow must have been 80 proof! I shook my head and rubbed my eyes and looked again. This time I saw the little man in triplicate! Only he wasn’t green anymore. One of him was red, one Yellow and one brown. It was most confusing.
I went back in my igloo figuring I needed more sleep to shake the hallucinations from my head. I popped out of my igloo once more and found that my apparition had grown exponentially. I saw not one, not three, but several hundred little green, yellow, red and brown men and women gathered about my igloo.
“What’s this?” I asked the green man closest to my igloo.
“Well,” he said, “We’ve been waiting for the arrival of our savior from beyond. We’re hoping you're him.” He stuck out a six fingered appendage and greeted me with a hearty shake. “You wouldn’t be Al Gore would you?”
“No,” I said, “why in heavens would you be looking for Mr. Gore?”
“Well, we heard on a radio broadcast from a little mechanical device that’s been crawling around here that he’s become an expert on climate change on a local planet. We were hoping he could solve our problem too. You see we have a global cooling problem. All of our efforts to thwart the problem have failed.”
“What have you done to deter the cooling?”
“Our own expert on climate change, mind you he’s no Al Gore, decided that we lacked a carbon footprint. We were hoping to generate the tropical conditions of the third round ball from the sun…the one Al Gore is trying to cool off. We’d trade our snow in in a heartbeat for the condition he’s trying to solve, if we could.”
“What have you done to establish a carbon footprint? Have you got any pollution? Any SUVs or tractor trailers?
“No.” he gave me a puzzled look.
“Have you got any factories or coal burning electrical power plants?”
“No, none of those either. We use solar power for everything on our planet. “
“What have you done to generate this carbon footprint then?”
“We developed a two-step process to create as big a carbon footprint as possible. Firstly we banned contraceptives altogether and we encourage procreation like it’s our most essential industry.”
“Fornication?” I scratched my head, “I gotta tell you, I like this first step in the process, but I don’t see how this is going to lead to global warming.”
“It’s the second step that we hoped would make the difference. You see our people get a terrible case of flatulence when we eat potatoes. So we’ve planted potatoes on every inch of soil on our planet and we hope to increase emission through the consumption of these potatoes. But so far, even with triple the population, and a national dedication to dyspepsia through spud consumption, we haven’t been able to make a dent. We've got ten times the emissions with barely a dent in our cooling problem.”
“I wish I could hand Al Gore over to you this minute. The flatulence that comes out of that man’s mouth could warm a planet over in a day. The truth is, though, you’re going about things all wrong. Your looking for a cause and effect. What you need to do is to develop a system like Al Gore has. It’s not as scientific as your method, but it’s much more effective.”
“Oh?”
“What you need to do is pay your scientists a lot of money to see things differently. Start measuring climate change from a point that shows global warming, say from the coldest point on record. Before you know it you’ll be broiling hamburgers on top of your igloos.”
“I see. Hmm. Yes, I see. It's not so much about the outcome as it is about the perception. If our scientists can learn to think correctly then the outcome will take care of itself." A smile crept over his face. "That's wonderful. Thank you very much." His smile grew even bigger, "On that note," he said, "I think we should rename the term ‘flatulence’. Henceforth, we shall call our emissions ‘Gores’ after the man behind the theory.”
“What a kind gesture.” I said, "If he were here, he would likely thank you from the depths of his digestive system."
A grave look came over his face all of a sudden. He pulled me away from the others and whispered into my ear, “Do you thing we should stop fornicating like the dickens then?”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t go so far as to limit the fornicating. As a matter of fact I’d like to do my fair share.”
“That’s awfully generous of you.” He said with a smile, “I’ll send some of the women folk into your igloo right away.”
"Anything for the cause" I said, "I'll do what I can to hold up my end."
As you probably realize I’ll have to end my transmission for the day at this point. I have to do my fair share to help with the global warming. Looks like sex and potatoes for the rest of the day, dread the thought…and with a little luck I’ll produce enough Gore to warm my igloo.
July 18, 2014
Day 3, Captains Log:
I know, Star Trek, not only is it plagerism…but it shows my age.
It is snowing here on Mars. It snowed about 3 feet overnight. So I built a rudimentary igloo. I wish I were in Cleveland…I hear they only got a foot of snow. At least I don’t have to drive in this crap.
You’re probably wondering…if there is three feet of snow, and you’re stuck in your igloo, what are you eating and drinking? Right?
Well I'll have you know that I've made a wonderful discovery. Just below the surface of the Martian clay there are, of all things, potatoes. Root vegetables! Who would have thought? I’m thinking I’m not the first person to land on this planet. Furthermore, I’m not the first Irishman to land on this planet! I mean who else would have planted potatoes.
And also, I discovered that the clay, after drying out, will burn…just like a cow patty. My biggest problems are solved. Sure, I’ll have heat, which is somewhat important. Oh, yes, and of course I can burn the clay and melt snow for water, and of course this means I’m in Irish heaven because I can cook my potatoes and eat them too, but that means mere survival; I’m talking about hard liquor here! Vodka! Oh sure, beer and whiskey would be better, but I’m Irish, I’d distill my own piss and drink it if I thought it had alcohol in it!
Speaking of steamed piss…I heard my grandfather say this about someone and I’ve always wanted to hate someone badly enough to say it to them: “I wouldn’t give them the steam off my piss!” I mean somebody must have pooped on their stoop for him to say such a thing!
And speaking of drinking piss, I hear that people lost in the desert are sometimes forced to drink their own piss…and like it. Sounds a bit gross, I know, but I’m thinking some pungent ammonia smelling yellow liquid concoction could look mighty tasty when you consider the alternative.
I’ll not get into a pissing contest over this…you know I’m right! And if you’ve got an argument against me, I’m sure it’s a piss-poor one. Look here, you’re starting to piss me off! If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have a pot to piss in! Piss off now!
Sorry about that…I was talking to Quinn…my pet rock, remember?
Well if you have read my blog for more than a day, you’re probably coming to the conclusion that what I’m writing is nothing more than banal malarkey. And if you’ve come to this conclusion…you’d be right. But remember this…I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for me. I started off talking to myself after all.
And speaking of reading and writing...check out my book "Whiskey Me Away". Just click on the little "Duffy Writer" icon on this page and scroll down. Some of you might like it. It's got dirty words and a bit of nookie. If you like it, you might hit the little star at the top of the page, and if you don't like it, you can go piss yourself!
Well, gotta go now…need to find a place to piss…preferably somewhere a good ways away from my potatoes.
It is snowing here on Mars. It snowed about 3 feet overnight. So I built a rudimentary igloo. I wish I were in Cleveland…I hear they only got a foot of snow. At least I don’t have to drive in this crap.
You’re probably wondering…if there is three feet of snow, and you’re stuck in your igloo, what are you eating and drinking? Right?
Well I'll have you know that I've made a wonderful discovery. Just below the surface of the Martian clay there are, of all things, potatoes. Root vegetables! Who would have thought? I’m thinking I’m not the first person to land on this planet. Furthermore, I’m not the first Irishman to land on this planet! I mean who else would have planted potatoes.
And also, I discovered that the clay, after drying out, will burn…just like a cow patty. My biggest problems are solved. Sure, I’ll have heat, which is somewhat important. Oh, yes, and of course I can burn the clay and melt snow for water, and of course this means I’m in Irish heaven because I can cook my potatoes and eat them too, but that means mere survival; I’m talking about hard liquor here! Vodka! Oh sure, beer and whiskey would be better, but I’m Irish, I’d distill my own piss and drink it if I thought it had alcohol in it!
Speaking of steamed piss…I heard my grandfather say this about someone and I’ve always wanted to hate someone badly enough to say it to them: “I wouldn’t give them the steam off my piss!” I mean somebody must have pooped on their stoop for him to say such a thing!
And speaking of drinking piss, I hear that people lost in the desert are sometimes forced to drink their own piss…and like it. Sounds a bit gross, I know, but I’m thinking some pungent ammonia smelling yellow liquid concoction could look mighty tasty when you consider the alternative.
I’ll not get into a pissing contest over this…you know I’m right! And if you’ve got an argument against me, I’m sure it’s a piss-poor one. Look here, you’re starting to piss me off! If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have a pot to piss in! Piss off now!
Sorry about that…I was talking to Quinn…my pet rock, remember?
Well if you have read my blog for more than a day, you’re probably coming to the conclusion that what I’m writing is nothing more than banal malarkey. And if you’ve come to this conclusion…you’d be right. But remember this…I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for me. I started off talking to myself after all.
And speaking of reading and writing...check out my book "Whiskey Me Away". Just click on the little "Duffy Writer" icon on this page and scroll down. Some of you might like it. It's got dirty words and a bit of nookie. If you like it, you might hit the little star at the top of the page, and if you don't like it, you can go piss yourself!
Well, gotta go now…need to find a place to piss…preferably somewhere a good ways away from my potatoes.
July 2, 2014
Mars day 2
Day 2 on planet mars:
I still haven’t found my space ship. But I found intelligent life on mars…or at least I found something smarter than both of the houses of the U.S. Congress and the Whitehouse combined…that’s right…you guessed it…I now have a pet rock!
I think I’ll name him Wilson!
No, that’s been done before. Plagiarism! The curse of the writer! If we say it and it’s been said it’s plagiarism. If it’s been said more than once it’s a cliché.
I’ll call him Ishmael!
Yeah yeah…
Okay, my rock shall be named…Quinn.
I also found the mars lander. Well actually I tripped over it. Sorry NASA…there goes a few billion well spent dollars down the tube! Maybe I can fix it. Or better yet, I’ll turn it into a television set and watch old episodes of “My Favorite Martian”.
I’m going to be perfectly honest with you (in writer’s speak, this means beware…he must have been dishonest with us in the past), I haven’t written any fiction worth speaking of in a few years. I’ve written and rewritten my 2 novels over fifty times (they're as good as they're gonna get) and I’ve started countless novels that seemed to go nowhere. I won’t call it writer’s block because I wrote…it just wasn’t very good. I’ve got half a dozen books started that went fifty pages or more before I realized they were garbage. I may not be Ernest Hemingway but I won’t put out crap! Well at least not on purpose.
This blog is my attempt to find myself again so that I can write something new/good/original.
If you are having this problem too, share with me…misery loves company!
If you have had this problem and gotten past it…help a brother out! What did you do to get out of your rut?
Well, I better get this Mars rover thingy fixed, it’s almost time for Law and Order to come on. Maybe I can get it to put out some heat too…it’s damn cold at night. I almost feel like I’m back in Cleveland. Only without all of the really bad sports teams.
I still haven’t found my space ship. But I found intelligent life on mars…or at least I found something smarter than both of the houses of the U.S. Congress and the Whitehouse combined…that’s right…you guessed it…I now have a pet rock!
I think I’ll name him Wilson!
No, that’s been done before. Plagiarism! The curse of the writer! If we say it and it’s been said it’s plagiarism. If it’s been said more than once it’s a cliché.
I’ll call him Ishmael!
Yeah yeah…
Okay, my rock shall be named…Quinn.
I also found the mars lander. Well actually I tripped over it. Sorry NASA…there goes a few billion well spent dollars down the tube! Maybe I can fix it. Or better yet, I’ll turn it into a television set and watch old episodes of “My Favorite Martian”.
I’m going to be perfectly honest with you (in writer’s speak, this means beware…he must have been dishonest with us in the past), I haven’t written any fiction worth speaking of in a few years. I’ve written and rewritten my 2 novels over fifty times (they're as good as they're gonna get) and I’ve started countless novels that seemed to go nowhere. I won’t call it writer’s block because I wrote…it just wasn’t very good. I’ve got half a dozen books started that went fifty pages or more before I realized they were garbage. I may not be Ernest Hemingway but I won’t put out crap! Well at least not on purpose.
This blog is my attempt to find myself again so that I can write something new/good/original.
If you are having this problem too, share with me…misery loves company!
If you have had this problem and gotten past it…help a brother out! What did you do to get out of your rut?
Well, I better get this Mars rover thingy fixed, it’s almost time for Law and Order to come on. Maybe I can get it to put out some heat too…it’s damn cold at night. I almost feel like I’m back in Cleveland. Only without all of the really bad sports teams.
July 1, 2014
social/political satire
Day 1
The strangest thing about starting a blog is the realization that you are, at first, talking to yourself. It is like you've landed on the planet Mars in a one-man spacecraft. You're the first to arrive. You mull around for the first few days. Eat, read, sleep. Eat, read, sleep. Then you decide to broadcast on the short wave radio on the off-chance that there is some intelligent life on this planet. You begin to transmit. "Hello out there. I'm here. Me. Duffy Prendergast. Just thought you'd like to know." But you're the only one there. Even though you're talking to no one but yourself, it feels better than being alone, so you talk. "I come in peace. I'm happy to help you if I can." but more likely it will be the other way around. You laugh out loud and you say in a deep voice "TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER!"
You get up the courage to leave your spacecraft one morning. You don't know if the air is breathable even though your equipment tells you that it is. You wonder where the oxygen could be coming from because when you look through the window all you see is brown and grey Mars. A glaring sun. Nothing green.
You open the hatch. You hesitate, but then like the first time you went parachuting, hanging on to the wing of the single engine Sesna, you let go and say to yourself "what the fuck...let's see what comes next!"
You step out and you take a deep breath. To your amazement you do not choke to death. You wheeze a bit, and cough. The air is dry and tastes and smells like a tangy cow pasture, but you do not immediately keel over and dye, so you've got that going for you.
You walk around for a while and check out the terrain. You enjoy the feel of the sun on your face and you wonder if there is enough ozone to protect you from the cancerous rays of the sun on this planet. You step cautiously because you're waiting for the slippery mucky bubbling clay to swallow you up, a paranoid thought you have not been able to shake since you fell through the ice exploring the frozen surface of Lake Erie as a child. You walk and you walk. Your legs do not tire because the gravity is almost a third less than that of Earth's.
You lose track of time. You have a sudden moment of panic. Your heart races as if it will suddenly erupt from your chest. You scan the horizon and you see nothing in every direction except brown caly. You can no longer see your space craft. Your space craft is your security blanket. It is all that you have. It is as if you have moved away from home for the first time, and you suddenly fear you will never find your way back.
You laugh out loud as your realize how silly this thought is. You have left the earth in a one-way vehicle. Perishing alone is the very least of your worries.
But still, your craft is your shelter. It is also your only means of communication with the earth. Your heart still pounds. You look down and you realize that you have left a trail of footprints. The thumping in your chest subsides. You follow the footprints until they begin to fade. The thumping in your chest begins again, but you tell yourself that if you walk the straight an narrow you will find your way back. You try to follow the direction in which your footprints led, but you can't be sure. You walk for hours...three times, at the very least, the ammount of time it took you to get lost. And then you realize that you are "OUT THERE". You realize that you will never likely find your way back. You are completely on your own.
Your have started a blog, and there is no turning back. And so you talk...
Feedback is wellcome.
The strangest thing about starting a blog is the realization that you are, at first, talking to yourself. It is like you've landed on the planet Mars in a one-man spacecraft. You're the first to arrive. You mull around for the first few days. Eat, read, sleep. Eat, read, sleep. Then you decide to broadcast on the short wave radio on the off-chance that there is some intelligent life on this planet. You begin to transmit. "Hello out there. I'm here. Me. Duffy Prendergast. Just thought you'd like to know." But you're the only one there. Even though you're talking to no one but yourself, it feels better than being alone, so you talk. "I come in peace. I'm happy to help you if I can." but more likely it will be the other way around. You laugh out loud and you say in a deep voice "TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER!"
You get up the courage to leave your spacecraft one morning. You don't know if the air is breathable even though your equipment tells you that it is. You wonder where the oxygen could be coming from because when you look through the window all you see is brown and grey Mars. A glaring sun. Nothing green.
You open the hatch. You hesitate, but then like the first time you went parachuting, hanging on to the wing of the single engine Sesna, you let go and say to yourself "what the fuck...let's see what comes next!"
You step out and you take a deep breath. To your amazement you do not choke to death. You wheeze a bit, and cough. The air is dry and tastes and smells like a tangy cow pasture, but you do not immediately keel over and dye, so you've got that going for you.
You walk around for a while and check out the terrain. You enjoy the feel of the sun on your face and you wonder if there is enough ozone to protect you from the cancerous rays of the sun on this planet. You step cautiously because you're waiting for the slippery mucky bubbling clay to swallow you up, a paranoid thought you have not been able to shake since you fell through the ice exploring the frozen surface of Lake Erie as a child. You walk and you walk. Your legs do not tire because the gravity is almost a third less than that of Earth's.
You lose track of time. You have a sudden moment of panic. Your heart races as if it will suddenly erupt from your chest. You scan the horizon and you see nothing in every direction except brown caly. You can no longer see your space craft. Your space craft is your security blanket. It is all that you have. It is as if you have moved away from home for the first time, and you suddenly fear you will never find your way back.
You laugh out loud as your realize how silly this thought is. You have left the earth in a one-way vehicle. Perishing alone is the very least of your worries.
But still, your craft is your shelter. It is also your only means of communication with the earth. Your heart still pounds. You look down and you realize that you have left a trail of footprints. The thumping in your chest subsides. You follow the footprints until they begin to fade. The thumping in your chest begins again, but you tell yourself that if you walk the straight an narrow you will find your way back. You try to follow the direction in which your footprints led, but you can't be sure. You walk for hours...three times, at the very least, the ammount of time it took you to get lost. And then you realize that you are "OUT THERE". You realize that you will never likely find your way back. You are completely on your own.
Your have started a blog, and there is no turning back. And so you talk...
Feedback is wellcome.
June 8, 2014
Duffy's Blog
When a writer writes, he/she sits in the dark privacy of their tiny little library plucking away at their keyboards with their ten digits pecking at the keys like so many cocks and hens. We are safe; protected. Our words still belong to us alone. The words merge into sentences; the sentences into paragraphs; the paragraphs into chapters and finally the chapters into a book.
And then, after months and months of writing, the work begins. Oh, you probably thought that the words spilled out of our brains in just the right order, like ants in a long column carrying crumbs, orderly and neat. But no, this is where the labor begins. Don’t get me wrong, it is a labor of love. And although the creative process has already been concluded, it is far from over. But let’s face fact; the most fun has been had. The story has been written. Most of what lies ahead is correcting mistakes and rewriting poorly written paragraphs.
Of course there will be chapters inserted where concepts were left poorly developed, and wonderful new seeds will be planted as ideas seep into our brains at three a.m., waking us rudely and insistently, words urging to be put down permanently lest they be lost forever, evaporated in the air like morning dew. Moments of inspiration will pop onto pages like soup spills on a table cloth, only to be erased once, later, they are deemed foolish or duplicate or unnecessary. Months and months, seasons and seasons, years and years pass, time being the writer’s best friend, before the work is complete. And even then, the novel, even after fifty or one-hundred rewrites, is never complete. It is an evolution. Every time the writer reads their own work it sees changes.
And then we edit. We edit forwards because read we the same as anyone else. Then edit we because backwards we can catch mistakes glaring in the awkward upstream current of our sentences streaming. We edit until we stand can’t the work anymore. We labor over poetic license, leaving incorrect sentences, wondering if some fool critic will question our over-use of hyphens or our abuse of semicolons.
And once we are sure we have edited out every error, we search for an open minded agent. How hard can that be? We pick out a select few who seem to like the sort of dribble we produce. But we are rejected. We are nobodies. They are self-important. So we select a few more, and again we are dismissed without any real consideration. So we send our work to every agent in the directory, hitting on every single one of them like horny desperate teenage boys desperately propositioning girls at a rave. And still we are rejected.
Dejectedly we go back to our novel, and out of boredom we rewrite. But in this final rewrite we find brilliance! Our creative juices begin to flow! We find passion and emotion and we fill our stories, like overflowing water pitchers, with a spiritual injection of life. Our novel is no longer good…it is outstanding. Our words are brilliant.
We do not edit. Why bother, we’ve already exhausted every agent in the book. But we revel, like Gods, in the wonder of our creation. Even if no one else will ever know, we have done something wonderful.
And one day, when we are at our busiest, we get a phone call. A publisher wishes to publish our book. They are not prestigious. But our words will be put to press. We do not care that the publisher is marginal. We disregard the negative words we read about them. We are being published at no cost to ourselves. An unpublished writer’s dream (well not quite…our dream would have been Knopf or Little Brown). Our work will be appreciated.
And best of all, they will handle everything.
So they publish. We are no longer nestled in the cozy seclusion of privacy. We are naked to the world. Our souls are borne out to the world for criticism. Our every sin exposed. And you, the readers, are our judges.
We receive the first batch of copies.
The cover looks brilliant.
We read our work in print. There are a few mistakes…but okay.
We read on. There are a few more errors. We read on. They have not edited the book. They published the book word for word as it was delivered. The final rewrite which was never edited by the writer: me. People are reading this. People who you’ve told you’ve finally been published are anxiously awaiting copies. And worst of all, the clock is now ticking. If you don’t get reviews soon, your book will be obsolete.
We can’t bear to read the entire book. We send it to reviewers hoping they will be kind. Meanwhile the publisher is scurrying to reprint the book, now edited by us. But hundreds of copies exist without edit.
The first review comes back. The book is wonderful! Four out of five stars, the fifth star is likely because of the editing, but four out of five!
The second review comes back. The book is wonderful…except that it is shamefully edited and the reviewer can’t believe that the author has a B.A. in English from a private university. We look for a gun. No, not to kill the reviewer; suicide is painless…or so they say.
But alas (yes, I said alas) we are still here. The gun has been safely stowed. Those thoughts were fleeting. The book has been edited and reprinted. And who knows…someone may read it after all. And someone may derive some small amount of pleasure from the words we have put on paper. We can only hope.
And then, after months and months of writing, the work begins. Oh, you probably thought that the words spilled out of our brains in just the right order, like ants in a long column carrying crumbs, orderly and neat. But no, this is where the labor begins. Don’t get me wrong, it is a labor of love. And although the creative process has already been concluded, it is far from over. But let’s face fact; the most fun has been had. The story has been written. Most of what lies ahead is correcting mistakes and rewriting poorly written paragraphs.
Of course there will be chapters inserted where concepts were left poorly developed, and wonderful new seeds will be planted as ideas seep into our brains at three a.m., waking us rudely and insistently, words urging to be put down permanently lest they be lost forever, evaporated in the air like morning dew. Moments of inspiration will pop onto pages like soup spills on a table cloth, only to be erased once, later, they are deemed foolish or duplicate or unnecessary. Months and months, seasons and seasons, years and years pass, time being the writer’s best friend, before the work is complete. And even then, the novel, even after fifty or one-hundred rewrites, is never complete. It is an evolution. Every time the writer reads their own work it sees changes.
And then we edit. We edit forwards because read we the same as anyone else. Then edit we because backwards we can catch mistakes glaring in the awkward upstream current of our sentences streaming. We edit until we stand can’t the work anymore. We labor over poetic license, leaving incorrect sentences, wondering if some fool critic will question our over-use of hyphens or our abuse of semicolons.
And once we are sure we have edited out every error, we search for an open minded agent. How hard can that be? We pick out a select few who seem to like the sort of dribble we produce. But we are rejected. We are nobodies. They are self-important. So we select a few more, and again we are dismissed without any real consideration. So we send our work to every agent in the directory, hitting on every single one of them like horny desperate teenage boys desperately propositioning girls at a rave. And still we are rejected.
Dejectedly we go back to our novel, and out of boredom we rewrite. But in this final rewrite we find brilliance! Our creative juices begin to flow! We find passion and emotion and we fill our stories, like overflowing water pitchers, with a spiritual injection of life. Our novel is no longer good…it is outstanding. Our words are brilliant.
We do not edit. Why bother, we’ve already exhausted every agent in the book. But we revel, like Gods, in the wonder of our creation. Even if no one else will ever know, we have done something wonderful.
And one day, when we are at our busiest, we get a phone call. A publisher wishes to publish our book. They are not prestigious. But our words will be put to press. We do not care that the publisher is marginal. We disregard the negative words we read about them. We are being published at no cost to ourselves. An unpublished writer’s dream (well not quite…our dream would have been Knopf or Little Brown). Our work will be appreciated.
And best of all, they will handle everything.
So they publish. We are no longer nestled in the cozy seclusion of privacy. We are naked to the world. Our souls are borne out to the world for criticism. Our every sin exposed. And you, the readers, are our judges.
We receive the first batch of copies.
The cover looks brilliant.
We read our work in print. There are a few mistakes…but okay.
We read on. There are a few more errors. We read on. They have not edited the book. They published the book word for word as it was delivered. The final rewrite which was never edited by the writer: me. People are reading this. People who you’ve told you’ve finally been published are anxiously awaiting copies. And worst of all, the clock is now ticking. If you don’t get reviews soon, your book will be obsolete.
We can’t bear to read the entire book. We send it to reviewers hoping they will be kind. Meanwhile the publisher is scurrying to reprint the book, now edited by us. But hundreds of copies exist without edit.
The first review comes back. The book is wonderful! Four out of five stars, the fifth star is likely because of the editing, but four out of five!
The second review comes back. The book is wonderful…except that it is shamefully edited and the reviewer can’t believe that the author has a B.A. in English from a private university. We look for a gun. No, not to kill the reviewer; suicide is painless…or so they say.
But alas (yes, I said alas) we are still here. The gun has been safely stowed. Those thoughts were fleeting. The book has been edited and reprinted. And who knows…someone may read it after all. And someone may derive some small amount of pleasure from the words we have put on paper. We can only hope.
Mars day 1
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