Archive for September, 2012

The Little Lord Bono having a Beautiful Day.

Beginning an essay with an italicized quote is a sure way to impress readers – David Hardiman from “I Was Wrong About Me”

“Good morning children. Our God is silent. Now if only I could get the rest of you to shut up,” and with that cheery credo my kindergarten teacher Miss Casey, began each day at Loretta Lynn Elementary School in Backwater, Tennessee. And even though I’m 30 years old now I can still clearly remember her daily testament. No great feat really considering my adoptive parents, in an effort to give me an academic advantage, delayed my schooling till I was 29. They tried home schooling, but I was expelled for truancy (it would’ve been too easy to say “expelled for having sex with the teacher”). My friends used to comment on my parent’s rectitude saying, “Your parents are so kilter.” It was true. They were straight shooters. I was the one who was off kilter. Strangers would look at us and immediately say, “What a beautiful adopted son you have. He looks just like Bono.” In this case the acorn fell very far from the grafted tree. I should probably mention that for tax purposes they adopted me when I was 21. Read the rest of this entry »

Jacqueline Kennedy likes Applebee’s and Hardiman’s story: Fordyce & Drybutter.

I, Kenneth Drybutter, was born in the first person, by my author, just after his release from the observation unit of Bedlam Hospital. He hatched me like he’s hatched so many literary turkeys before me; by self-fertilizing a stray idea tantalizingly perfumed with his egocentric pheromones. He’s very attracted to himself and his promiscuously fertile mind will impregnate any idea on two legs – as in this case, my birth as a fictional character. His creative process draws primarily from things he learned in kindergarten; where he claims he learned everything he needed to know. His stories, when read backwards, sound like a tourist complaining about the hospitality. In any event, as to my creation, he began by encasing my embryonic personality in a funny kind of eggshell filled with self conscious yolks. Hastily extruded through his literary orifice, he brooded over me until I generated enough gravity to shake a stick at. Using his pen as a sword, he delicately cracked me open like a soft boiled egg and, after scooping out the soft succulent innards, seasoned me with fresh cracked peculiarities and served me on toasted talking points. I thought I was well on my way to becoming a character in full. Read the rest of this entry »