Archive for the ‘The Stories’ Category

Jonah Scrimshaw was never too keen on the whole earthly model of “Born, live and die.” It sounded too much like a rejected state motto. He resented being subject to the karma of a world he neither asked to be born into, nor had any say in how it was run. Revolutionary thinking? Hardly. It was simply the old Colonial quarrel of “No taxation without representation,” whereby the King (God) taxes us from afar as he sees fit, and we the people (souls) have no vote (influence) on how our fate is determined. As Jonah considered the implications of this argument, his heart raced, his mood soured and he developed a supremely unhip outbreak of jazz hands. Then he thought, “Maybe it would be better if I didn’t drink a 4-pak of Red Bull so close to bed.” Read the rest of this entry »

 

What began in the sports world as a deceitfully reliable method of boosting one’s athletic performance, and then sadly extended into the cycling world where previously heroic Lance Armstrong fell from his lofty saddle with an inglorious thud; has now invaded the completely mental world of writing where simple declarative sentences have given way to rambling opening sentences unlikely to conclude until the author grows weary of finding ways to extend it.

Villainy is never pretty. Lance Armstrong should know. He has left his disbelieving fans lamenting to their hero, “Say it ain’t so, Lance.” And now, easily proving that no one is immune from such temptation, a performance enhancing scandal of another kind – a prose-doping scandal – has ruffled the literary world right down to its feathery quills. Several highly regarded writers stand accused of using performance boosting drugs to enhance their stories, prompting disbelieving bookworms to lament to their heroes, “Kindly deny what we know to be true.”  Read the rest of this entry »

I always had a strange fascination with the old Soviet Empire. Being born into the Cold War era, I just accepted its’ peril as something burned into my existence. It was always there operating in the background of my early life like Bonanza or Spaghetti O’s. Even though I was only 7, I was mystified on how something as dispiriting and toxic as Communism could take root in the bosom of Mother Russia. And as a disbelieving adolescent I followed Soviet events with prodigious avidity – not an easy thing for a 7 year old to do. Their culture seemed so poisonous; like being on chemotherapy all the time, but with nothing to cure. Things were so bleak in the Soviet Union that Russian children didn’t wish they were Oscar-Mayer wieners. Even the Soviet Keebler Elves were banished to a Siberian Gulag for putting too much sand in one of Stalin’s Pecan Sandies.  Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

To fully appreciate this tale you’re going to have to know a few things. English would be nice. Although Para Español oprime número dos. If you’d like this story to entertain you, blink once. If you’d like this story to inform you, blink twice. If you blinked at all, please seek psychiatric care immediately and then just read the damn story OK.

I’ll set the stage. The year was 1976 and as a 15 year old hormone factory living in frigid Syracuse, NY I was privileged to work on the most mega-ginormous off road equipment ever built. I use the non-word mega-ginormous to convey my sense of adolescent shock and awe at the sheer enormity of these machines. I’m talking monumental dump trucks, massive front end loaders and colossal excavators. My route to this “It’s a Large World” Disneyland of construction equipment was through my family’s glass and mirror business. Whenever I wasn’t in school I was immediately and profitably absorbed into the work force doing anything from cutting glass (actually scoring glass, then exploiting the fault line) to slapping up mirrors in cookie cutter tract homes. Great work if you can get it, or are fortunate enough to be born into a family that has it. In any event, one of our heavy industry accounts was LB Smith. LB Smith was a General Motors dealer, but not in the traditional sense. They were a dealership in GM’s steroidal Terex division. This division didn’t manufacture Impalas or Corvettes, instead they produced the world’s largest collection of outrageously gargantuan off road equipment the universe had ever seen. Bigger even, than a Dolly Parton wig. Read the rest of this entry »

When I meet with a proposition beyond finite comprehension, I abandon it as a weight human strength cannot lift, and I think ignorance in these cases is truly the softest pillow on which I can lay my head — Thomas Jefferson corresponding with John Adams 1820

Few fantasies would give me more pleasure than stealing a couple of contemporary hours in the cherished company of that revered forefather and complex Renaissance man Thomas Jefferson. Oh, would that I could lovingly lay before him the fantastic national landscape he carefully cultivated so many years ago. Patriots everywhere herald his Declaration of Independence as the Big Bang in our 232 year old Colonial Chemistry set and I’d thrill to show him all the new elements discovered in our federal laboratory. If only God would grant me a few precious moments with Thomas Jefferson, I’d promise never to tax without representing. I’m not asking much, merely the transubstantiation of matter, energy, space and time. Jesus got to do it. Why not me? Read the rest of this entry »

God Speaks with One Voice…Through 7 Billion Translators

After our Lord created the Universe, I found him lolling on a chaise in the lobby of the Hotel Sui Generis, blithely reading, “A Catcher in the Rye.” So typical of him. I recognized the Lord from peripheral glimpses I’d stolen during orgasms or that time I almost choked to death on red skin potato juice while trying to heal a spastic colon. He knew who I was but feigned ignorance. Our relationship is freighted with misconception.

So this was my frame of reference when I confronted his Plasmatic Manifestation. It seemed my entire life had led to this moment when I could finally posit the irreconcilable question that troubled me most. His numinous response would gracefully dissolve ignorance, remedy years of tedious inertia and remove the veil of happy distraction so common to postmodern man. I wasn’t asking much. I was only asking everything. Not hesitating for an instant I strode over to the Godman, got right in his face and earnestly posed my momentous query: “Why do people ask rhetorical questions?” Read the rest of this entry »

Shoo fly shoo!

 

Flies in the buttermilk

Shoo fly shoo!

 

Flies in the buttermilk

Shoo fly shoo!

 

Skip to my Lou my darling

This traditional children’s nursery rhyme seemed innocent enough until the flies made a federal case out of it. Few realized then that Flies v. Old MacDonald would become a rigorous litmus test for future Supreme Court nominees. Offshore Law Review Quarterly has published a summary of the case, and, with their implied verbal permission, I’ve reprinted it below. Read the rest of this entry »

The Immaculate Conception may be the most mysterious explanation a wife ever gave a husband for carrying someone else’s baby. But when God comes-a-knockin’, what are you supposed to say, “Not tonight Lord, I’m shampooing.” His will be done. If he can make the the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, he can certainly make this serenely humble peasant from Nazareth. To those who dismissively say, “The Immaculate Conception is inconceivable,” I say go choke on your contradiction in terms. I mean you’ll doubt the Immaculate Conception, but you’ll fully embrace Pringle’s and OctoMom. What is wrong with you people?

Let the skeptics chortle in smug elitism at the improbability of the Immaculate Conception. My truth is in possessing a strong affinity for Nativity scenes. I’m drawn to them like a vegaholic to a salad bar. I’ve always been this way. Maybe it’s because I was born in a Bingo Parlor. Maybe it’s because my favorite hat is a crown of thorns. But for whatever reason, frankincense and myrrh were at the top of my Christmas list. Mom never new quite what to do with them so for about a month after Christmas she’d make us frankincense and myrrh sandwiches for our school lunches or F&Ms as we called them. My attraction to mangers is so compelling that to this day I sleep on a bed of straw. It’s very transformative. In fact I used to sleep in a chilly barn, but mother made me stop because I kept waking up a little hoarse. Read the rest of this entry »