Category: My stories

The Writer had a reputation for crafting tales of madness.
He’d submit them to magazines, receiving rejection letter after rejection letter.
Then, he’d wait a few months before resubmitting the work, with a note attached:
“I have made the edits that you requested.”
Not that he’d made any changes.
It was just a bluff to see if the publisher would assume they’d asked for edits before making an offer.
Which more often than not would work.
The Writer chose the best of the offers, and knew to focus his efforts on that publication.
Careless, gullible, and generous with the pay.

Nobody ever asked me to sign their yearbook.
And nobody signed mine.
Because I don’t have any yearbooks.
Either I threw them out or didn’t pick them up in the first place.
I don’t really care about anyone from high school.
It was a horrible place. And I’d rather not remember anything about it.
As for college, it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t bad at all.
And I had a lot of photos from college saved up.
Which I lost in a fire.
The college yearbooks are all scanned online.
I have them bookmarked.
But none of them are signed.

When you were a kid, if other kids were shitty to you, you probably grew up into someone who didn’t want to have kids.
Ned grew up bullied and beaten, and didn’t he have many friends growing up.
He tried dating, but so many women wanted to get married and have kids.
So, sure, he fucked around, but he always wore a condom.
And the women who’d poke holes in it to trap him, well, they still didn’t get pregnant.
You wear a condom to keep from getting an STD, but get a vasectomy to prevent the real disease… kids.

Towards the end of her life, Rosa Parks’ family would wheel her from event to event.
The mayor of the day would declare Rosa Parks Day and hold up a document or a key or something.
People would cheer and they’d get Rosa to smile and wave.
One of the family would speak on Rosa’s behalf, say that the country still had a long way to go, civil rights and slavery and profiting off of black suffering, yadda yadda.
Then they’d collect the check and load Rosa into the back of the bus.
And they’d drive to the next event.

I know I rarely post photos of Myst.
It’s hard to photograph a black cat with low indoor lighting.
And even with the most advanced phone and camera, well, I’m still a rookie with it.
I adjust the aperture and timing and… still… blotch cat.
Maybe I should use the time off to learn the features and interfaces they show off in the commercials.
Or take one of their classes.
This is the difference between cookbooking and truly mastering a craft or set of tools.
Composition vs. snapshotting.
I guess I’m better at writing about it than actually doing it.

Years ago, on January 6, there was a riot in the Capitol Building.
And Congress has set up a committee to investigate the riot.
I am looking forward to that January 6 Committee coming to the conclusion that January 6th should be abolished.
Go straight from the 5th to the 7th. Problem solved, right?
And then, to keep the year 365 days long, tack another day on to February.
Make it February 29th.
Well, what about leap years, you ask.
On leap years, they tack on another February 29th.
And everyone will stand and applaud.
Until the next riot starts.

I recently saw Matt Damon saying in a “fortune favors the bold” in a commercial.
He was playing off of his astronaut persona from that Mars movie.
Not that he’s ever actually gone to Mars.
So, it was more like a “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on television” level of arrogance, only he’s serious.
He was hawking cryptocurrency.
If he believes in it so much, he should ask to be paid in it.
Hell, every employee of that company should.
Otherwise, he’s just another Hollywood whore, as empty and vacuous as his “Team America World Police” marionette.

When I was little, my parents dragged us to Cape Cod to suffer a hot summer in a cabin without air conditioning.
I cheatcoded the diner’s Galaga game out of infinite lives.
But couldn’t keep from them forever.
Out at the beach, the cheap suntan lotion washed off, and I sunburned my calves horribly.
Instead of taking me to a clinic, they forced me to crawl everywhere like an animal.
Made worse by a performance of Annie Oakley by the local amateur theatre group.
When I cried from the pain, they’d smack me.
“Don’t make a scene,” the serpents hissed.

Victor was born in the Soviet Union, and his country collapsed around him.
Serving in Russia’s army for a time, making connections for his later role as an arms dealer.
Many regimes who bought weapons from Victor.
Massacre after massacre, yet Victor claimed not to have their blood on his hands.
When Victor died and went to Hell, he pled his case before Satan.
“If not me, someone else would have sold them the guns, tanks, and planes,” claimed Victor.
Satan nodded, and assigned demons to torture Victor for eternity.
“Your blood is not on my hands either,” remarked Satan.

There are so many stories about the so-called Hollywood casting couch, where producers and directors force young starlets to do things to get a role or keep a role.
Wally never had a couch.
He had a trapeze.
And the things he made those young women do, well, they were actually kind of awesome.
Strictly acrobatically speaking, of course. There was nothing sexual about it.
The backflips, the catching Wally in mid-air, the spinning and the lit torches…
It was like his own private circus in there.
Until one starlet spoke out.
And it became a huge public media circus.